Arctic Representation: A Conversation with Joshua Qaumariaq

A conversation with musician and artist Joshua Qaumariaq of The Trade Offs. Find and support their music here: https://tradeoffsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/let-go-give-in-fall-down-2

This is Episode 2 of the mini-series "Arctic Representation: Conversations with Inuit Artists," produced by Clara Wilch, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University and LENS scholar who earned a PhD in Theater and Performance Studies at UCLA. 

Episode cover image: photograph by Clara Wilch. 

Sound credits: wanderermalletloop.aif by plagasul -- https://freesound.org/s/253383/-- License: Attribution 4.0

BCO - tram ride on a sunny day - 2022-08-12 by brylie -- https://freesound.org/s/646626/-- License: Attribution 4.0

Brylie Christopher Oxley - Ardour and Helm - 2018-05-16 by brylie -- https://freesound.org/s/428616/-- License: Creative Commons 0

Parallel Universe by Andrewkn -- https://freesound.org/s/404458/-- License: Creative Commons 0

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Hi, my name is Clara Wilch, and this is the second in a series of three conversations with artists from the far north reimagining Arctic and subarctic places, histories, and futures through the work of Inuit and multiracial artists and the communities they're building and the efforts they're undertaking. I talk more about histories of Arctic representation and motivations for this podcast series in the first conversation. So if you haven't heard the first episode, I encourage you to go back and check that out. But briefly, these episodes are building on the observation that the Arctic looms very large in environmental and specifically climate change discourse. It is persistently misunderstood as an unpeopled wilderness. And so these episodes are presenting cultural and social snapshots of the far north, specifically the territory of Nunavut, Canada. The interviews were conducted in the capital city of Ohio and feature artists who have lived or worked there. It is my hope that these podcast episodes will firstly introduce listeners to vital, exciting artists and their work, and also begin to unsettle and correct some long-lived powerful myths about an inhuman or otherworldly far north, an imaginary that vacates the north of its people and histories, societies, cultures, economies, that has supported the ambitions of colonial and racial capitalist corporations and nations who continue to seek to overtake the resources of the far north through a variety of measures. But these mythical, uninhabited wilderness imaginaries are also supported and upheld by some dominant environmentalist narratives that tend to care about the Arctic without engaging or acknowledging the people who live there. So these podcast episodes are dedicated to the voices of people who know the far north very well and whose artwork attends to the land of Nunavut as part of a larger socio-ecological story. I seek to do as little editorializing as possible and let these artists guide us to understand what is important. So without further ado, this is a conversation with Joshua Kamok. He is sometimes known professionally as Josh Q. He's the singer for the band The Trade-Offs, whose music speaks for itself, and I strongly encourage you to seek it out wherever you find music. He is also a gifted visual artist. He has been involved in film and television, and he's an excellent philosopher. I hope you enjoy the conversation as well and do seek out his art and music.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah, I'm Joshua Khalmora from Michalit Nunavut. I'm a musician. Yeah, I'm a musician.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

I do other things, yeah. So can you describe what you do in the music scene?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, I'm a singer. I play with a band called the Trade Offs, and we're rock and roll band pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Who who does the band consist of today?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, it's Jeff Maurice on the bass and Galen Pelle on the drums, Michael Eckert on the pedal steel guitar and and guitar, and a few others.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Uh yeah, for like specialty instruments and stuff like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

We have an EP and an LP, and then we have some things coming out in the next few months.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah. I'm very excited for your new album. Are you trying a different direction in some way from your first LP?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I think it's more the actual direction I've always been wanting to go and haven't been able to find my sound until like I see these last couple years as a lot of growth for me too, which is good. And I think that's helped in finding what I want to actually do with music.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yeah. Was the isolation of COVID somehow pushing you in that?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

A lot more time to write and stuff?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

R lots of writing and just comfort in writing and just comfort as being the person you want to be, and that's kind of where I am at right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

You're a visual artist also?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Can you tell me a little bit about like what what mediums you use and what subjects you like?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, I'm a mixed media artist, mostly abstract. I was into art before music, so that was a thing I also got back into COVID through COVID. So that was cool.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

And I'm doing it more often now than ever, so it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

You have like a painting of a polar bear on your t-shirts and stuff. How would you describe that polar bear?

SPEAKER_01 5:21

I don't know. It's just something that it's there's I feel like there's things that artists get addicted to, and polar bears are one thing that I really got addicted to. And we I don't know. Yeah, art I feel you can just like my music.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

It's like a cord you really like or something. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

So you have a lot of different polar bears?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

I have many.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Have you had many encounters with actual polar bears?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Different kinds, different ways. I've seen big, massive polar bears that peek up over a hill and look at you and then walk away and then don't bother you. And then there's one that was I was sleeping in a tent and my grandparents and parents had to shoot it because it was a trying to attack us. But they were yelling at me to try to so I can shoot it, but I wouldn't wake up. So what like the way I see it is like I'm not really meant to catch. Like in any culture, like there's things you I think are meant to catch and what you're not meant to catch. Sometimes I think. That's how I see it. I like that, yeah. I wasn't meant to catch. You know, I talked to my friend Terry too, and he's like, Oh, you're meant to not catch one.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

That's how we told us like this.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

The southern perspective, of course, is a lot of concern about polar bears. Do you have any concern about like wildlife here at all? Or they seem to be doing well with population growth and ice.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Uh I think it's mostly caribou in this region.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

That is small, but yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of whales still, a lot of seals. Polar bears, I think there's lots still. Because they're pretty elusive to you.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

You use inuktitude and English lyrics.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Did you you grew up speaking both languages? And how do you decide what language to use?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

I think it does sound. I struggle with trying to find meaning in inuctitude words because they're so phonetic. Like the they they end in A, U, and I a lot. So I mentally I'm like, oh that's too much rhyming for me. Like I don't want it to be overly like that. I think I always just wanted to be just like a rig known as a regular musician and not like as indigenous or whatever. So that made me want to write English. And I I feel like I can put out more in English because there's so many different words and yeah, it's I think the words more than anything for me. I only have two songs out with in a kid in it right now. The commodity is basically it is my last name, but it also means brighten up or lighten up, or you know, like it's it also like a meeting for when the sun comes back. The way I love it is how people take it rather than like I'm not gonna always tell people what it's about and be like, oh that's cool, I like what you take from what I wrote. And it's a new sometimes it's new to me too, it's just I like that. And uh the new single is um Kanwirunni Long Mew. It's it's just like things will eventually become okay again. Or good. Like it's it's it's a it's like a word that I grew up hearing. This is I think you gotta know that things will be okay again. It's knowing that like even in the winter when it's super dark, it's gonna be nice in summer again, you know, like Hanugum Nilong, I think. Or like you can't hunt food and you can't find food, like you'll find it, or just uplifting words that are there when you need them.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Mindless times for getting night.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

So what motivates you to write music?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I think it's just something I love to do now, and I feel like I'm the most comfortable at it. Just become that, and that's through time, obviously. Motivation is yeah, my people and seeing them get better. I mostly self-taught, but like through high school like some there's like a summer music program here and I kinda learned the guitar through that and kind of through my friends, but like YouTube and whatever.

unknown 10:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Just listening to music too. I I try to practice that that way.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah. Do you have any major like vocal inspirations?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Ray Charles is a big one. Just a lot of blues guys, BB King, Buddy Guy. Yeah. So many.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Are there other musicians and artists in your family?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

My brother can play guitar. My dad played drums growing up, and yeah, through that, he's carver too. So he's artsy guy. Yeah, my mom sews and stuff, so it yeah, it just came from my parents, pretty much, I think. My dad listened to Bob Seeger, and my mom listened to what did she like uh Landslide? Fleawood Mac. My aunt, she's like ten years older than me. So I she was a big influence on the kind of music I listened to as well.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Did a lot of bands tour here?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Oh no, not really. Like once in a while, the spring festival or whatever would bring people up, but not very much. And then there's some local bands that would play here and there, which was cool.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Do you like the white stripes?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Big time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

They finished like their last tour here, I think, right? In 2007. Were you there?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

I was there. Oh really? That was super cool. That was around the time when I was just starting to play music too. I started pretty late in that area. I didn't even know what I wanted to do before then, so I think that's kind of cool too. Music has taken me so far already.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

What musical styles are most important to you?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I think style is such a different thing these days. You can kind of jump genres pretty easily and not be in a genre these days, I think it's which is super cool, and like I want to work with different art. Like I work with a hip hop artist and we play live music together, and I I I want to be in all kind of groups, and I have a close friend that electro pop and I that sounds really fun.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

You're like the main songwriter, or do you work with your bandmates?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, I I'm I'm the main songwriter, but I do work with Jeff quite often, and we and I want to work with my bandmates more, and it's gonna become a like a team thing in the future, I think. These people, like my drummer and pedal steel, they went to music school and they're amazing people, so I want them to get in on the action as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah, yeah. Where was he living or where does he live in?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Toronto, both the drummer and pedal steel.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

And then when you go on tour, you all get together?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah, so it usually go to Toronto, rehearse for a night or something, and then yeah. That's what we did last time.

unknown 13:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

I feel like we're pretty connected now that we don't really need to do that sometimes, which is crazy. Yeah. It's like great. I love it. Especially living up here and them being down there, it's it's hard. It's so expensive.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Yeah. Yeah. And ideally the internet is not.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

That's another issue.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

But it must be like really hard when you have like audio and video and yeah, it didn't seem so bad before COVID.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Like I think they're trying to get fiber up here, so.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Oh, cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

But that's another thing we're waiting for. Uh we'll just go through every little thing that's happening in the north, and I was like, oh, we're just waiting for that. Copshop, uh, we need another one, I'll just wait for that.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yeah. So, and I know you said at the beginning that this is like a pretty cliched southerner question, but you you do sing beautifully in some of your songs about like the land and the cold and the sun and the sky, and have like a strong sense of place. Are you concerned about climate change, or what would you say to southerners who think about the n about the Arctic in terms of climate change?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Well, like in terms of climate change, like we're basically just up here. We can't do much about it. We're one of the smallest populations. Like, we can't get around very much at all without plans, so it's kind of hard to say living up here. And we're I feel like we're expected to do shit because we are closer to the ice. Uh I don't know, like, it's not our job to teach people about climate change.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

No.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

But it's it's a big issue.

unknown 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Even now, like I think it would have been a bit colder before in the past. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah, it really isn't pretty hot. Been a warm summer here. Is there good radio in a call you?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Uh not really good radio. CDs were a big thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

And that's I think uh through that is how I learned a lot of music. And obviously, yeah, internet got crazy around 2003-4. Or even a little bit earlier than that, so.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Your label is Akulook?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Akulook music, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

And how long have you been working with them?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

I went to elementary school with the guys. So I don't forever. Forever. And they're the guys that got me into music.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Pretty much. And Brendan is one of the guys. He also manages me and Andrew, uh obviously. He's super good friends. Andrew Morrison and Brendan Doherty. I just want to say their names. Yeah. Yeah, they've been helping me lots, and yeah, Ockluk brings, I feel, what artists I I think artists want to do. But they're they're great. They're doing great. Just hanging out with other artists from the label is like being good friends with the people in the label is awesome too, like and just encourage, like, yeah, let's if you need band memory around here, you know, like if you know, like it's it's it's a community, yeah. And that's what you need, especially in the music industry. I think it can be or in any industry can be so, you know. The like film industry and TV and music, there's all such big powers and big people that can come down and swoop in and try to be like big big and coming from a small place, I I feel I can feel that, and it's it's nice to be in a group that's not really trying to do that and trying to be ourselves and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

And then making stuff that hasn't been heard before, yeah. I mean like those big music industry buffs, like it kind of feels like they only had to know how to do what's been done before.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Oh, totally, totally. There's always a process and like a thing that people are trying to do or take. And I don't know. If if you do stuff that makes you happy and you're comfortable with it out there, then do it. But if you can't and you want other people to help you, that that's there too. Like I'm I I'm trying to be a better mentor and help the younger artists. And I'm I always tell them say like I'm I'm here whenever, like, look, I'm I can help you write or anything. I didn't get that growing up in like the music that I had to do or I had to figure it all out on my own, so it's I I thought it would be nice if I was young to have someone like me to totally do that. So I did a writing session a while back. Everybody has their own voice, I think. And if people don't think they have their own voice, it's it's more the like the shyness holding you back.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

In terms of venues and performance opportunities in Icawi, is there sort of a stage shortage, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

There's like four places to play and like a hotel. You know, it's it's not we've been struggling with venues for a long time and Hugge, which obviously been trying to build something for a long time, and I think other people are trying to do it, and which I don't know, there's nothing yet, so how do what do I say?

SPEAKER_02 19:20

You tend to repurpose like other but they're like the bar, the legion space.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

We don't have a nice theater like anywhere else in Canada. Like Northern Quebec, they have a nice theater. It's just I don't know, yeah. Yeah, but people can donate to coffee food if they obviously like the government can obviously build one easily and it like wouldn't be a big thing into their budget.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Like well, there's so many other things going up. Like it wouldn't like it's obviously possible.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

This this massive expensive cop shop.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Like, why does it have to look so nice? Even like when you come in from the airport, there's a there's a prison right there that looks beautiful. Like, I'm what I think is when people come in and like, wow, what the hell is that? Like, oh that's our prison.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

When they're trying to make the prison bigger and like the housing is still messed, it's kind of weird to deal for sure. Yeah, and you see it in like the reservations and stuff too, right? Yeah. In the States and Canada. So RCMP is it's it's a weird thing for me.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Just knowing the history about it and what they did, you know. It's it's like how do you make that good?

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Yeah. You mean especially with the dogs, or yeah, the dogs and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Well, I like I wrote a new song about that, so Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

For the new album? Yeah. Oh, that's great. An editorial note that Josh is referring to the mass slaughter of sled dogs by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police throughout the 20th century, which was a key part of efforts to force Inuit into government-run settlements and residential schools. Sled dogs had been central to subsistence hunting and ways of living off the land. And those events are the subject of the Kikitani Truth Commission, which is available online and was published in 2013. But even after the intense political and emotional labor of participants in the Truth Commission to recover the details of these atrocities and seek acknowledgement for what had happened, which was the violent severing of people from multi-generational, multi-species kinships that were core to their livelihoods and identities. Even now, there is some secrecy, denial, and ignorance around these histories. Josh's music is playing an important role in keeping these stories alive and sharing them with more people and in communicating the incredible. Emotional impact and severity of this kind of socio-ecological destruction and the systematic manipulations of people that are enacted through environmental policies or animal control policies in this case. It's a history that should also encourage environmentalists to understand the importance of allowing people to thrive in their specific more than human communities on their own terms as a crucial part of what environmental and climate justice ought to mean. We'll listen now to a short sample of the song that Josh described that he wrote about these events. It's called Put Em Down, and it's on the trade-offs album Let Go, Give In, Fall Down.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

I want people to know about all those things.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

That's one of the first things I learned about when I came up here, and I was just like, that's incredible. Like I've never heard anything so.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Like quieted down, nobody it's it's crazy, yeah. You know, like CBC is owned by the government and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

That's like they don't say anything about the water protests and stuff, which is that's weird.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Yeah. And that's the water protests in like BC, okay. The mining protests here are those like ongoing Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

There's not there needs to be so much that needs to happen in the north for it to be better.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

And for us to try to thrive. Because I feel like you can't thrive here.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Like as an artist, I struggle the hardest, I feel like.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

You know?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

It's just nothing to do, nothing, nowhere to play, and you gotta wait. And like if I do want to play, I don't want to play like every weekend.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

The same spot or crowd or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

But like even then I would totally do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, even getting around Nunuwood that's crazy expensive. And just to play in like for your people would be cool without it having to be like ten thousand dollars to get to two places.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Seriously, yeah. Are there like emotions that are especially important for you to share?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

I write in a lot of darkness. Yeah. I think I don't know. I I I don't think so. I think emotion comes from like any part of like anger or happiness or you know. I think you need emotion in music to for me, especially like if there's no emotion and it's gonna kinda hard to play.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

I saw on your website that your your music uh has been called Arctic Soul, or you call it that?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

How would you describe Arctic Soul?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

I don't know yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah. I think it's more like just any have not a soul.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Are there other Arctic soul bands in Nunaboo?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

No. It's it's like yeah, a thing that we made up.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

So Okay Not yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

No, but I it's like Southern Soul, so like that's how I see it. Like I hear some artists coming up that have that. Because Soul Music it is very more personal, I find, than anything else. And you see it from the musicians that sing it back in the day, like Nita Simone and like Harry Charles and all those yeah. Expression is a big thing in soul music, I find.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Do you see racial oppression as like a common undercurrent for the blues and and souls?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

I think I would.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Yeah. Because there's so much of the import of the workforce here that can be easily be done by locals. And that's the kind of an oppression I feel like. If you're not gonna let allow the local people to try to do it themselves, like then how are we gonna thrive as uh our own people?

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Any advice that you would share with people, especially who want to make music?

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yeah, just go for it if you really want to do it. And I don't know. It's all about all about what you want to do, and now I see so many types of kids that are getting into so many fields of work, so and like the openness to kids that wanna do what they want to do is is I think opening up slowly here, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

That is cool.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

But that's only here. I don't I think in small towns it's still much harder for figuring out what you want to do with your life. And I think even those places you have to fight extra hard. Like I feel fortunate just living in the Chluit.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I want to share one other thing that Josh told me, but that we didn't get on tape. I told Josh that part of what I was interested in were narratives around climate change, and he told me that a lot of people come to Nunavut seeking to understand climate change and expecting certain answers, that they especially hope to somehow solve climate change by visiting the far north. In the context of this, I felt I have a hard time with change, and he replied he thought that change was something we would just keep living with, and that the world will continue to change until we are all equal. And I found it to be a really stunning and insightful statement. I know there are a lot of disparate ways we might envision and embody that eventual equalization if he is indeed right, but to me it seemed like a beautiful and primarily hopeful way of seeing how social and environmental injustice are co-constituted. And it's an incisive sort of reminder that any lasting efforts to deal with rapid environmental shifts have to be interwoven with efforts to cultivate other forms of justice like racial and gender and interspecies justice, if they are to matter and to last. Or anyway, that was the lesson that I took from it. I want to thank Josh for sharing his insights, his time, and we'll see you all next episode.