On a windy Sunday afternoon pecked with freezing rain, residents of Iqaluit, Nunavut, northern Canada, head by foot, car and snow machine to a small plywood stage erected in icy Frobisher Bay. Two tents provide shelter from the merciless Arctic wind. Behind the stage, the flat, bleak expanse of the snow-covered bay extends as far as the eye can see. Where snow has been cleared, the ice beneath is a brilliant, pure turquoise. The crowd swells to about 50. Locals and organisers have brought extra outerwear for the uninitiated: parkas trimmed with wolverine fur, sealskin mittens, polar-bear-fur pants. Inuit musicians, including drummer and singer Kelly Fraser, rapper Mister, electropop vocalist Riit, and throat singers Cynthia Pitsiulak and Charlotte Qamaniq perform sets to appreciative cheers and the muffled clap of thick-mitted hands. Perhaps at the ultimate point on the “I was there before it was cool” credibility spectrum, the show has earned a nickname from locals: Floe-chella.

The event, hosted in Canada’s youngest and largest Arctic territory, is part of the second Nunavut music week. It aims to stimulate the music industry in the territory, but it is also a rallying call for the Inuit artists to come together and face down the fallout from colonialism that threatens not just their music scene, but their whole existence.

Nunavut’s music scene is the result of generations of knowledge, and helps the Inuit arts industry generate more than C$87m (£50m) a year for the Canadian economy. But their traditions – from throat singing to face tattoos to oral histories – have long been threatened by Canadian colonisation, which, along with Christianity, outlawed critical parts of Inuit culture throughout the 20th century. Inuit families were forcibly relocated to unfamiliar, desolate parts of the high Arctic in government bids for northern sovereignty. They were given identification tags and forced into permanent settlements formed around military outposts. English was installed and Inuit languages were suppressed.

The Inuit in Nunavut are still dealing with the intergenerational trauma of these acts. Fraser, a pop singer from the community of Sanikiluaq, is preparing to release a record called Decolonize, which focuses on these harms. Decolonisation, she says, “is to accept the fact that you are on stolen land, that you benefit from the suffering of another people, and that I am those people that suffer”.

She emphasises that Inuit artists are nonetheless thriving – “We’re making history right now. These amazing artists are rising in real time” – but against the odds. Nunavut is the only province or territory in Canada without a designated performing-arts venue, so shows in Iqaluit are held at the Royal Canadian Legion veterans’ centre, the high school or indeed the house of Steve Rigby, drummer for local band the Jerry Cans. There is no arts council in Nunavut, nor a music school, nor a shop selling instruments, which have to be shipped from the south at huge cost.

Many Inuit move south to attain post-secondary education, receive more comprehensive healthcare or record an album. “It’s like everything else: why do I need to leave my territory to become a well-known artist?” asks the musician Colleen Nakashuk, who performs as Aasiva. “Why do I have to leave my territory to get an education? Why don’t we just bring everything up to the north?” Susan Aglukark, a singer from Arviat, Nunavut, who has won numerous Juno awards (the Canadian equivalent of Grammys), agrees. “We need to stop approaching problem-solving in the north by saying: ‘Well, it’s isolated, so it’s going to cost more,’” she says. “I don’t think that’s an excuse.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Silla + Rise. Photograph: Vincent Ret

Moving south showed Qamaniq, who is part of electro-throat-singing group Silla + Rise, just how underserved her community was. Qamaniq lived in Igloolik and Iqaluit before moving to Ottawa aged 16 with her friend and bandmate, Pitsiulak. “When I moved to the city, when I was with southern peers, I thought they were not normal,” she says. “Things like never having been abused, never having been molested, never having done drugs, never having been beat up … I was like: ‘That’s weird that never happened to you.’ Then I started realising they’re not weird; I am.

“I thought, why? Why do they get to grow up without this pain? Without the abuse, without food insecurity, without a housing crisis, without trauma? The reason is because they live in Ottawa, because they are not Inuk. That was heartbreaking for me.”

For Qamaniq, the way forward was embracing her Inukness. She and Pitsiulak began learning throat singing, teaching each other new parts and eventually performing together before forming Silla + Rise with the producer and DJ Rise Ashen. Still, Qamaniq misses her home. “I wish I could stay [in Nunavut] and give my kids all of the opportunity they have by living in the south,” she says. “It’s sad that we have to be disconnected from our home and our land and our people to be successful.” She hopes that change is coming. “I feel racism, I feel suppression, but when I pay attention to the positive, I hear: ‘You are valuable. You are Inuk,’” she says. “I have some pretty dark realities that come with being Inuk, but the beauty far outweighs all of that. I got to be born Inuk, and it’s a beautiful fuckin’ thing.”

Like Qamaniq, Iqaluit rapper Mister turns those dark realities into communal healing. “I bring up suicide whenever I can,” he says. “Even just in the last month here, there were a couple local people [who killed themselves]. It happens all the time. If I could speak up about it, and get other people to speak about it instead of just feeling so alone, I think that’s the best thing I can do.”

Mister’s goal, like many of his peers, isn’t individual fame, but success and prosperity for all in the north. “No one’s out for the top spot,” he says. “We just want each other to be good and succeed. I definitely want to put Nunavut on the map. We’re not just living in igloos. We stick with our traditional values, but we’re still a part of this world.”

While informal music programmes do exist in communities across the territory, they are usually led by non-Inuit people. “There’s a lot of language barriers,” says Nakashuk, who is from the hamlet of Panniqtuuq, where most of the 1,500 residents speak Inuktitut. She says that when she was being taught fiddle by a non-Inuit teacher, she had difficulty expressing questions or grasping concepts in English. Now, she delivers ukulele lessons in Inuktitut. “Being able to break down the concepts of ukulele and chord progressions in Inuktitut was so empowering.”

There is now funding for Inuktitut-language music projects – but this too has its problems, as Josh Qaumariaq, who fronts the Iqaluit blues-rock outfit Josh Q and the Tradeoffs, explains. “I’m an artist from this region and they won’t give me money because I don’t write a lot of music in Inuktitut. I’m still Inuk. Why don’t you support me? Don’t tell me how to write my music.” He and his band were approved for funding from the government of Nunavut for his last record, but after a personnel turnover, the funding was withdrawn. “It’s an ongoing struggle trying to connect with a new person all the time that doesn’t know who we are.”

R iit points out that crucial health services are also adversely affected by such problems. She says she has had three different counsellors in just seven months, none of them Inuit. “Every time you’re re-explaining what is causing your mental illness,” she says. “It re-traumatises you in a way, because you have to keep explaining and telling and reliving that.” On her upcoming debut record, Riit addresses these and other topics with grit and positivity, such as on lead single Qaumajuapik, which translates as “You are shining”. “I want other young Inuit to feel that it’s OK to let these feelings out,” she says.

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Back in Iqaluit, Qaggiavuut, a nonprofit committed to supporting Inuit performing arts, has been raising funds for the territory’s first dedicated performance space. It operates out of a small one-level home, where a poster reads: “Inuit performing artists need a space to learn, create and present!”

During Nunavut music week, Qaggiavuut played host to an evening performance of Arctic Song, a performance featuring ancient Inuit drum songs. The artists, gathered from across the Canadian Arctic, combined qilaut (an Inuit drum), singing, guitar and choreography into one narrative vehicle; it was loud, riotously fun and profoundly beautiful. Nearing the programme’s end, the performers invited the knowledge keeper and mentor Susan Avingaq to the stage, flanking and honouring her as they performed. Qaggiavuut’s executive director, Ellen Hamilton, prefaced the show on the need for an arts venue as “a human right”.

Aglukark agrees. “My career has also become my healer,” she says. They are creating musical resources that can be used “in universities, in our schools, in our language, by us. As we build these culture bridges, we’re also watching the next generation of young leaders. We have an opportunity to get that all right.”