Samuel Wat

Samuel Wat is a reporter with CBC Nunavut based in Iqaluit. He was previously in Ottawa, and in New Zealand before that. You can reach him at samuel.wat@cbc.ca

Latest from Samuel Wat

Nunavik advocates push for more Inuit-led suicide prevention efforts

Two youths in Umiujaq, Que., took their own lives within the span of several weeks in late 2024. Now, advocates are calling for mental health services oriented toward the Inuit way of doing things.

First Inuk RCMP cadet out of Nunavut in decades on being more than a uniform

RCMP Const. Inuuki Burke says he's admired the RCMP’s Red Serge for years. Now he gets to wear one, as the first Inuk cadet recruited out of Nunavut to graduate from the RCMP Academy since 2003.

Northerners, experts question Conservatives' pledge to build military base in Iqaluit

Some northerners and Arctic security experts say the federal Conservatives' pledge to build a permanent military base in Iqaluit is a move in the right direction, but they also have questions about how it'll be done. 

'You can do it,' says this Sanirajak, Nunavut, man to others who live with a disability

Tyrone Epak is proud to call himself a deaf person – but it’s taken him many years to come to terms with his disability. Fortunately, he had support from a teacher at school who also shares his struggles.

Nunavut elder builds traditional sod house, as researchers uncover others from the past

The Kitikmeot Heritage Society is working with archaeologists to excavate sod houses near Cambridge Bay – and collect elders' testimonies. Inuit lived in those dwellings, even in the harshest of winters, for thousands of years.

3 decades later, survivor of Nunavut boating tragedy reflects on healing power of dialogue

Abraham Oolalaaq said he sought guidance from an elder to help him process the grief of losing seven of his family in a boating tragedy in 1991. Now, he himself has become an elder who helps others with their struggles.

No criminal charges in 2023 death of woman in Nunavik police custody

Quebec's Crown prosecutors are not pressing charges against the Nunavik Police Service (NPS) in relation to the death of a woman in a holding cell in Inukjuak in 2023.

Number of justices of the peace declining in Nunavut

The number of justices of the peace (JPs) in Nunavut has gone down by 40 per cent since 2016, according to numbers from the territory's justice department.

Lack of housing for builders delays construction of new daycare in Sanirajak, Nunavut

Roger Beaudry, chief economic development officer for Sanirajak, Nunavut, calls it the "biggest infrastructure project since the 1990s" in his community — but construction on the new daycare facility has been hampered by a local housing shortage.

Cumulative effects of fuel spills in Nunavut and N.W.T. not being well tracked, experts say

Environmental experts are worried the cumulative effects of gas, oil and fuel spills aren't being adequately tracked in parts of the North. Last year, Nunavut and N.W.T. together recorded hundreds of contaminant spills, some of them small and others in the thousands of litres.