Historic Nunavut flag rescued from trash can
Published: May 10, 2006
The flag that flew over the first sitting of the Nunavut legislative assembly has turned up at an Inuit art shop in Saint John.
The territorial flag made its way to New Brunswick after a teacher rescued it from a garbage can at the Iqaluit school where it was raised.
Construction of Nunavut’s legislature wasn’t finished in time for the first sitting on April 1, 1999, so legislators gathered at the local high school instead.
In all of the excitement of the day, no one thought to save the flag – featuring blocks of white and yellow with a red Inukshuk in the middle – that was flying in front of the school.
Teacher reclaims flag from staff room trash
Several months after the event, Brian Carey said he found it, ripped and crumpled up, in a garbage pail.
“When I walked into the staff room, this was literally in a ball in the garbage,” Carey said. “I said, ‘My God, this is a piece of history. I don’t want it in the trash heap.’”
Carey says he pulled the flag out of the garbage, and took it with him when he moved to Saint John in 2001.
He says he even brought the flag to Halifax for the World Junior Hockey tournament in 2002, and waved it whenever Nunavut native Jordin Tootoo skated onto the ice.
It now hangs in his King Street art store, Arctic Echoes, which sells Inuit-made carvings, jewelry and prints.
Spotted by federal government worker
Department of Canadian Heritage employee Wendy Thomas spotted the flag last weekend while attending a national museum conference in Saint John.
Thomas was surprised to see it, and is now working with Carey to return it to Nunavut.
“I think this is an extremely important record of Inuit culture and history,” she said. “I hope it finds a home in an archive to be restored.”
Carey said he’s now considering donating the flag to the legislature building in Iqaluit.
“The legislature building is spectacular there,” he said. “I think it would be an appropriate place for [the flag] to be.”
The clerk of the Nunavut legislature says he’d love to have the flag in the territory. John Quirk has promised to exchange it for a newer flag or a map of Nunavut that Carey can hang in his store.
For his part, Carey says he’ll gladly send the flag home.
“I don’t know if people believe this, but I never felt I owned it – I felt I rescued it,” he said.
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