Initiated in 2002, Project Naming is a community engagement and photo identification project that aims to reconnect Inuit with their past by identifying the people and events portrayed in photographs held at Library and Archives Canada (LAC). We have added the names of individuals and descriptions of activities to our database, which you can search online.

Over the last ten years, we have digitized more than 8,000 of those photographs and have received identifications for approximately 1,900 individuals. New information about these pictures is gathered through a variety of methods, including an online form, community slide shows and other social gatherings, weekly features in local newspapers, social media and on-site research visits.

Quite often, identifications come as a result of intergenerational conversations that take place in person or virtually—or both. Such was the case when Nunavut News/North published a photograph of Rhoda Qaqsauq, and her daughters, Lucy Evo and Janet Tagoona, on February 11, 2013; upon discovering this picture, Deborah Kigjugalik Webster shared it on Facebook, thus sparking a lively conversation between her and other family members.

An example of a successful on-site visit occurred in June 2012 when a group of Elders and youth from Arviat, Nunavut, located on the southwest coast of Hudson Bay, made a trip to Ottawa. They looked through hundreds of photographs and negatives taken between the 1920s and the 1970s.

This enabled them to identify 31 family members in 17 images. Louisa Gibbons discovered her mother, Catherine Kopak, and her grandmother, Yarat, in a picture taken in Kingayualik, near Padlei.

Elder Eva Muyunaganiak (left), Louisa Gibbons (centre) and Elder Mary Nowtalik (right).

Elder Eva Muyunaganiak also discovered a photograph of her mother, Uyaupiak, dating from the late 1960s. Today, the remaining 22 Elders in the community of Arviat are the only ones able to recognize people and describe what life was like in photographs taken more than 50 years ago. Elder Muyunaganiak passed away in September 2012; her death reminds us of how time-sensitive an initiative Project Naming is.

Project Naming has now evolved into a broader community engagement initiative that has expanded beyond the territory of Nunavut to other Aboriginal communities in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavik (northern Quebec) and Labrador. We hope to build upon this dialogue with members of Northern communities using new technologies and social media.

To learn more, listen to our Project Naming and Canada’s North podcast.