Talk:Mini Aodla Freeman

Potential Sources

Here are some potential resources which might be useful for editors interested in improving this article:

• Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher
• From Qallunaat to James Bay: An Interview with Mini Aodla Freeman, Keavy Martin, Julie Rak, and Norma Dunning
• Culture shock: Mini Aodla Freeman recalls moving from James Bay to Ottawa in the 1950s
• Electa Quinney Award for Published Stories
• Annual Bibliography Of Commonwealth Literature 2017

Aquilessa (talk) 15:48, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Honouring Indigenous Writers Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

This author appears on the Honouring Indigenous Writers author list. This Wikipedia event seeks to improve the coverage and raise the profile of Indigenous writers on Wikipedia. Our planning group has had a number of discussions to figure out a way to ensure this project is working in good faith with Indigenous writers. At the core of our discussions was the desire to ensure the project respected cultural integrity and to ensure Indigenous perspectives and experiences guided the decision-making processes. As a part of our event, we asked authors what kind of information they would like to see represented in their article. This is what Mini sent:

Mini Aodla Freeman (Inuit) was born in 1936 on Cape Hope Island in James Bay (Nunavut). At the age of sixteen, she commenced nurse’s training at Ste. Thérèse School in Fort George, and in 1957, she went to Ottawa to accept a position as a translator with the then-Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources. Although she has multiple publications, she is best known for her memoir Life Among the Qallunaat (Hurtig Publishers 1978, University of Manitoba Press 2015), which has been translated into French and German. A prominent elder in the urban Inuit community, she currently lives in Edmonton, where she continues to write.

Publications

• Life Among the Qallunaat (revised edition), edited by Keavy Martin and Julie Rak, University of Manitoba Press, 2015. (Original publication by Hurtig Publishers, 1978). Excerpts published in The Canadian (“Life Among the Savages”), Sep 30, 1978, in Local Colour: Writers Discovering Canada (“Life Among the Ottawa qallunaat” pp. 108-114), edited by Carol Martin, Douglas & McIntyre, 1994, and in GUSH: menstrual manifestos for our times, edited by Tanis MacDonald, Rosanna Deerchild, and Ariel Gordon, Frontenac, 2018. Translated into German (Tochter der Innuit, Albert Müller Verlag, 1980) and French (Ma vie chez les qallunaat, Éditions hurtubise, 1990). An audiobook by ECW Press is soon to be released.
• Inuit Women Artists: Voices from Cape Dorset, edited by Odette Leroux, Marion Jackson, and Minnie Aodla Freeman (authored “Introduction” and “Traditional and Contemporary Roles of Inuit Women” pp. 248-50), Douglas & McIntyre, 1994.
• “Angry Spirits in the Landscape.” Biological Implications of Global Change: Northern Perspectives. Edited by Rick Riewe and Jill Oakes, Canadian Circumpolar Institute, 1994, pp. 3-4.
• “Dear Leaders of the World.” Sharing Our Experience, edited by Arun Mukherjee, Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1993, p. 186.
• Review of Inuit: The North in Transition by Ulli Steltzer, Canadian Geographic 103 (1): 79, 1983.
• “Living in Two Hells” (pp. 32-35) in Inuit Today 8 (October 1980). Reprinted as “ikumaaluminik—Living in Two Hells” in A Century of Canada’s Arctic Islands, 1880-1980 (pp. 267-274), edited by Morris Zaslow, Proceedings to the Royal Society of Canada, 1981; as “Epilogue: Living in Two Worlds” (pp. 195-201) in Arctic Life: Challenge to Survive, edited by Martina M. Jacobs and James B. Richardson, Carnegie Institute, 1983; and as “Living in Two Hells” (pp. 235-243) in Northern Voices: Inuit Writing in English, edited by Penny Petrone, University of Toronto Press, 1988.
• “Survival in the South” (pp. 101-112), in Paper Stays Put: A Collection of Inuit Writing, edited by Robin Gedalof, Hurtig Publishers, 1980. Reprinted in Responding to Reading. Addison-Wesley Publishers, 1982. Stage adaptation performed at Dominion Drama Festival, St. John’s; Waterdown Little Theatre; at National Arts Centre, Ottawa; and as a CBC radio play.
• “The Ceremony” (pp. 161-164) in Canadian Children’s Annual 1975, edited by R. Neilsen, Potlatch Publications, 1975.

Other articles and poems have appeared in Canadian Encyclopedia (1985, 1988, 2000), in Wee Giant (Hamilton), Rikka (Toronto), and ITC Land Claims Newsletter (Ottawa).

Awards and Recognitions

• Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher (for Life Among the Qallunaat), Manitoba Book Awards, 2016
• Electa Quinney Award, (for Life Among the Qallunaat), Native American Literature Symposium, 2016.

Mini Aodla Freeman is invited regularly to give readings and to speak about her work at the University of Alberta and at other Edmonton institutions. Following the 1978 publication of Life Among the Qallunaat, she toured and gave readings all over Canada (including the North).

Committee and Board Memberships

• 1989-90 Member, Baffin Region Writers’ Group, Iqaluit, Igloolik, Cape Dorset
• 1990 Facilitator, International Writers Association (PEN), Eastern Arctic Tour
• 1988 National Steering Committee, En’owkin International School of Writing
• 1984-85 Program Advisory Committee, Old Sun College Health/Medical Education Program
• 1981-83 Consultant, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh
• 1982-83 Consultant, National Film Board of Canada
• 1981 Founding Board Member, Inuit Broadcasting Corporation
• 1979 Adviser, Inukshuk TV Project
• 1976-78 Vice-President, Canadian Authors Association, Hamilton Chapter
• 1974 Producer, Waterdown Little Theatre, Ontario
• 1971 Technical Advisor/Narrator, Newfoundland Arts and Culture Centre
• 1970-71 Vice-President, Canadian Authors Association, Newfoundland Chapter

Film Work

• Producer, The Islands (16mm film shot in Sanikiluaq), Inuit Broadcasting Corporation/Scope Films of England
• Producer, The Arctic Pilot Programme (three 30-minute tapes), Inuit Broadcasting Corporation
• Producer, Canadian Constitution/Native Issues (three 30 minute tapes), Inuit Broadcasting Corporation
• Producer, Polaris Mine (30 minutes), Inuit Broadcasting Corporation
• Spirits in the Landscape (script, narration, soundtrack), CBC-TV
• Bird in a Cage (narration, acting), CBC-TV

Aquilessa (talk) 16:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)