About Inuktitut

Inuktitut

Inuktitut is the cultural magazine of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national organization representing Inuit in Canada, published from Ottawa, Ontario. First printed in 1959, it is the longest-running Indigenous-language periodical in Canada, carrying content in Inuktitut (in syllabics), Inuinnaqtun, English, and French. The magazine showcases Inuit life and culture across Inuit Nunangat — the Inuit homeland spanning Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region — and is delivered to all 51 communities in the region. In 2025, to mark its 65th anniversary, the magazine was renamed Inuktut, reflecting contemporary terminology for the Inuit language in all its dialects.

Overview

Inuktitut magazine has been Inuit-led for most of its history, with its first editors including Mary Panigusiq Cousins, Elijah Menarik, and Robert (Bobby) Williamson. Created through the federal government in 1959, it has been published by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami since 1989. Published twice a year, it shares Inuit voices, fosters Inuit unity, and documents the advancements made by Inuit and by ITK itself. It encourages and advances Inuit literary arts in both non-fiction and fiction and serves as a platform for Inuit illustrators and photographers.

The magazine describes its mission as providing Inuit with a record of who they are and where they are going. As one of the only media outlets that exclusively features Inuit voices through an Inuit lens, it focuses primarily on current events, culture, and lifestyle trends across Inuit Nunangat. Its circulation has been reported at about 15,000, and it carries the ISSN 0705-8527 in Government of Canada publications records, which describe it as "a cultural magazine serving Canadian Inuit" with text in English, French, and Inuktitut.

History

The first issue of Inuktitut was printed in 1959, created through the federal government as a publication for Inuit readers. In its early decades it went through a name change of its own: between 1972 and 1977 it was published as Inuttituut/Inuktitun before reverting to Inuktitut, the name it carried for more than forty years. In 1989, publication passed to the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada — the organization now known as Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami — making the magazine fully Inuit-controlled.

Under ITK, the magazine grew into a flagship cultural institution. Issue 125, for example, marked the magazine's 60th year with features including Robert Kautuk's drone photography around Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River), an essay from Nunavut Commissioner Nellie Kusugak celebrating Nunavut's 20th anniversary, an Inuktitut Interviews segment in which David Serkoak told the story of the Ahiarmiut relocations and Canada's apology to the Ahiarmiut, and fiction by Mosha Folger with illustrations by Megan Kyak-Monteith — a mix typical of the magazine's blend of documentary record, culture, and literary art.

The transfer of the magazine to Inuit control in 1989 paralleled the broader political maturation of the Inuit movement: the same organization that publishes the magazine also negotiates with the Government of Canada on behalf of Inuit and advocates publicly for Inuit rights, language, and self-determination. The magazine thus operates not as a standalone commercial title but as the cultural arm of a national Indigenous representative body — a structure that gives it unusual institutional stability for a small-circulation periodical and a mandate that goes beyond journalism to language preservation itself.

The most significant recent milestone came in December 2024, when ITK announced that the magazine would begin publishing under a new name in 2025: Inuktut. The announcement, issued December 13, 2024, from Ottawa, accompanied the release of the new online platform. The change, unanimously endorsed by delegates to ITK's Annual General Meeting in September 2024, reflects the current use of the term Inuktut to include all dialects of the Inuit language spoken within Inuit Nunangat and better aligns the title with contemporary terminology. The 65th-anniversary transition was accompanied by the release of a new online platform for the magazine. ITK President Natan Obed said the new name was a simple change that reflected Inuit ability to grow, change, and adapt, and the importance placed on reflecting contemporary Inuit society.

Content

Each issue of the magazine brings together stories, essays, illustrations, photographs, interviews, and fiction, all centred on the Inuit experience. Recurring elements include the Inuktitut Interviews section — long-form conversations with Inuit leaders, artists, and knowledge holders — photo essays showcasing the Arctic landscape and community life, and fiction and literary writing by Inuit authors. The magazine documents political and social developments affecting Inuit, from land-claims milestones to cultural celebrations, always from an Inuit perspective.

Language is central to the magazine's identity and purpose. Content appears in Inuktitut using syllabics, in Inuinnaqtun using the Latin alphabet, and in English and French — a multilingual format that serves both to preserve and promote the Inuit languages and to make the magazine's record accessible to non-Inuktitut-speaking readers, including policymakers and the broader Canadian public. The magazine's archives, documented by projects such as the Inuit Literatures initiative at the Université du Québec à Montréal, preserve this multilingual record going back to the 1959 founding.

Coverage & Audience

The magazine is published twice a year and delivered to all 51 communities in Inuit Nunangat — the four Inuit regions of Nunatsiavut in Labrador, Nunavik in northern Quebec, Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories. Its primary audience is Inuit readers across the North, for whom it serves as a shared cultural record and a forum for Inuit voices. Its secondary audience includes government officials, researchers, educators, and general readers interested in Inuit culture and Arctic affairs.

With a circulation of about 15,000, the magazine reaches deep into communities where few other publications circulate. Its role as a unifying medium across four regions — each with its own dialects, histories, and land-claims organizations — makes it one of the few truly pan-Inuit media institutions. The new online platform released for the 65th anniversary extends that reach to Inuit living outside the land-claims regions, including the growing urban Inuit population in cities like Ottawa, Montreal, and Edmonton. For southern Canadian readers, educators, and policymakers, the magazine offers a rare sustained window into Inuit Nunangat narrated entirely by Inuit themselves.

Ownership

The magazine is published by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national representational organization for the more than 65,000 Inuit in Canada. ITK was founded in 1971 as the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (Tapirisat meaning "brotherhood") and renamed Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in 2001. It is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, where its offices have been located since 1972. ITK is governed by a board of directors composed of the presidents of the four regional land-claims organizations — Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, Makivik Corporation, the Nunatsiavut Government, and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation — along with non-voting representation from the National Inuit Youth Council and Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada; the ITK president, currently Natan Obed (elected in 2015), is chosen by the board.

Digital Presence

The magazine's content is available through ITK's website at itk.ca, where issues — including the 60th-anniversary Issue 125 — have been published as downloadable PDFs, and through the new online platform launched to mark the 65th anniversary and the transition to the Inuktut name. The inventory listing for this profile gives the magazine's web location as the ITK site's Inuktitut-magazine category page. Its history is documented in Government of Canada publications records, the UQAM Inuit Literatures archive, and press coverage of the 2025 renaming, including NationTalk's report on the 65th anniversary.