Mini Aodla Freeman
Mini Aodla Freeman is an Inuit writer, editor, educator, playwright, translator and poet. She is best known for writing Life Among the Qallunaat, a book about her life growing up in Inuit communities and then being forced to live amongst those who live south of the Arctic. Half the copies of the initial print run were purchased by the government and hidden in a basement to prevent the public from learning of the trauma caused by the residential schools. Aodla Freeman was sent to two different residential schools during her youth. Because she was fluent in English, Inuktitut and Cree, she found work as a translator working for the federal government. She also worked for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation when it was newly established. Further, she worked for Corrections Canada as a cultural counselor for Indigenous inmates at the Bowden Institution in Alberta.
