Harald Gaski

Harald Gaski is a Professor in Sámi Culture and Literature at Sámi allaskuvla / Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Guovdageaidnu and at UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø. Gaski was born and lives in Deatnu (Tana) in Sápmi. He is the author and editor of several books on Sámi literature and culture. He has also translated Sámi prose and poetry into Norwegian and English. Gaski has been a visiting scholar at several universities internationally. He served on the International Research Advisory Panel of New Zealand’s Māori Centre of Research Excellence for 10 years (2006-2015). Gaski’s research specializes in Indigenous methodologies and Sámi aesthetics, traditions, culture and literature. He has been instrumental in establishing Sámi literature as an academic field. Gaski’s research has been recognized, among others with the Nordic Sámi Language Prize Gollegiella in 2006, and the Vaartoe /Cesam’s research award at the University of Umeå in Sweden in 2015. Gaski’s most recent book is an anthology of Sámi literature, published in 2020, titled Myths, Tales and Poetry from Four Centuries of Sámi Literature.

Goretti Kakuktinniq

Goretti Kakuktinniq was born and raised in Whale Cove, one of the smallest communities in Nunavut. Maria (her first name) later moved to Rankin Inlet when she was in her teens, and later married into the community and since then has lovingly raised her 5 children with her husband of close to 40 years now. Catching the era of when Inuit were still issued name tags, Eskimo # E-1869 was raised by her Inuktitut speaking parents and practiced a very traditional Inuit way of living, including when she started to go to school.  Alongside her many brothers and sisters, 14 in total, Goretti being a middle child in this respect had always took part in helping out her parents in their traditional way of life, and significantly within a tightly knit family unit who harvested and holistically carried on this traditional Inuit way of life style. 

Benefiting from this fruitful existence, Goretti now enjoys teaching family and youth the traditional ways of skinning, sewing and crafting traditional clothing.  Similarly, sharing an equally productive working career, Goretti is employed by the Nunavut Development Corporation as a Business Advisor for Cultural Industries for the past 10 years. In this role, the creative and traditional sense of values and knowledge provided by her upbringing is now extended to supporting five (5) Arts and Crafts companies owned and operated by NDC, and in this work supports all manners of artist across Nunavut and other jurisdictions in Canada.  Similarly impressive is that this knowledge base has been more recently extended to points beyond our shores and is also establishing important connections to other indigenous cultures.

Tatiana Ticknor

Tatiana Ticknor is Dena’ina, Lingit and Deg Xing, and is the Unguwat Resilience and Connection Program Coordinator for the Alaska Native Heritage Center. She coordinates the events that the program puts on and conducts the surveys.

Ticknor’s demonstrated advocacy for improved education, fighting systematic racism and working on environmental issues and resulted in numerous honors.

In 2015, Ticknor was one of four youth selected nationwide to participate in a panel with former President Barack Obama at the 5th Annual White House’s Tribal Nations Conference in Washington.