The lived experience of Qallunaat teachers in Nunavut: a heuristic enquiry study

This research arises from the researcher’s own experience in the Canadian Arctic and the life changing effects of living there. While several qualitative studies have been done on the people living in the Arctic, none have documented the lived experience both in and out of the classroom of the Qallunaat (meaning white people from the south) who live there. The purpose of the current study was to study the lived experience of teachers in the Arctic. To explore lived experience using the researcher’s reflexivity, the researcher selected the Heuristic Enquiry phenomenological research approach. In addition, van Deurzen’s model which includes the physical, social, personal and spiritual dimensions is used as a framework for generating questions to get a broad overview of the participants’ being-in-the-world in the Arctic. The emotions of the participants were given special attention as they were impacted by their cultural experiences in the Arctic. An overarching theme is that the participants were looking to establish connection after having moved to Nunavut amongst different social, cultural and geographical surroundings.