“If you just stop learning, that would be so boring. I just have to learn and expand my knowledge and have a voice,” explains Aaju Peter.

She was born in Greenland and lived along its west coast until she went to school in Denmark when she was 11. She lost her language being away but came back a few times before returning at 18. She attended an Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1979 bringing together Inuit from all over the world and she had no idea there were Inuit outside of Greenland.

Peter met a Canadian Inuit from Iqaluit and moved to Canada in 1981. She had five children, went to law school and was called to the bar in 2007. While she doesn’t practice, she advocates for the Inuit language and the right to hunt seals.

In the process of learning Inuktitut, she relearned Greenlandic. She teaches Inuktitut language to give back to her community. Peter teaches in person in Iqaluit and one of the big challenges they face is a lack of housing which limits the number of students who can participate, something she considers an injustice. During the pandemic, lessons were delivered virtually.

The hurt Peter felt in forgetting her own language, connection to her country and people when she was going to school in Denmark and the loss of her sense of belonging inspired her to learn the language and culture. “During the filming of Twice Colonized I realized that I was totally colonized, my way of thinking, the way I was being, everything was so conditioned from the outside world that I'm slowly learning to let go and just be myself,” she muses.

A continuous learner, Peter is going back to school to take a higher level of Inuit language instruction. “I look forward to expanding my knowledge from an Inuit way of thinking and from an Inuit way of being,” she exclaims. She doesn’t get as much exposure to elders and higher levels of Inuit so it is a tremendous opportunity for her.

Learning Inuit worldview after coming from Denmark, Peter had to transition from an individualist perspective to a collectivist perspective. “We hold ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, all together at the same level. We are so happy to be with each other, we give a lot of room for learning hands on where we try our best to not offend people and be so loud… We are very careful with being together and how people are feeling, not to hurt somebody else's feelings, but to be there joyfully, and it turns out that we learn much better in that kind of setting. It's safe. We can laugh, we can cry, we can be honest. We don't have to hide our true self. It's a much safer environment,” she explains. Comparatively, Peter talks about not feeling recognized, or felt to be equal in a more Western perspective that can feel unkind. She doesn’t consider it a good way to work or learn together.  

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Her advice to youth considering leaving their home community to pursue their education is, “if you want to go to school and if you want to further your education, don't forget who you are, just maintain your pride and your connection to your community.” Peter didn’t have that opportunity but feels Indigenous students do best with faculty who are aware of the needs of Indigenous students and who have Indigenous staff. The trauma she endured being cut off from her language, culture and community left her with no memory of her school experiences and someone who screened Angry Inuk and went to school in Denmark with her had similar memory loss.

If Peter could give a message to her younger self, it would be,

“It will all work out and yes, you can do it. When people say you're not Greenlandic because you cannot speak your own language, that's not true.” She remembers how people put her down and how painful it was. “I wish that could have changed, but it is what it is. I think I got more drive and more energy. I got an ‘I'll show you’ kind of attitude, and that just pushed me to learn more and to be more,” she recalls.

When it comes to her wellness now as an adult, Peter started running daily and practicing yoga when she went back to Greenland for college. She also enjoys a hot bath with Epsom salts. She spends an hour a day doing yoga and her family has learned it is best not to interrupt her. She tried Tai Chi and karate as well, but yoga is what stuck for her.

As far as inspiration, Peter loves that even though she has lived here since 1981 people still stop and ask to take a selfie with her. She is welcomed by Inuit and she has good friends with whom she gets together to eat, sing, dance and cry. She is motivated by community and appreciates greatly that she is left to be herself with nobody pulling her down.

Always learning (and teaching), life is never boring for Aaju Peter. Far from where she was born in Greenland, she’s made a home among the Inuit in Canada. A member of the Order of Canada, lawyer, activist, teacher and sealskin designer, she’s always making something and always making something better.

Thank you to Alison Tedford for writing this article!