Inuktitut singer depicted on Canadian Post stamp

Inuktitut singer Elisapie, whose face adorns a new Canada Post stamp unveiled in Montreal last week, said she was “excited” about the honour.

In fact, the award-winning singer, songwriter, activist, actress and director said she was thrilled to be on the stamp as the post office played a central role in her early life.

“I’m very excited,” she said. “I’m very happy for the children and the elderly at home who can go to the post office and see this. It’s the center of our lives in this small community, so this is a big deal.”

The singer was born Elisapie Isaac in 1977 in the remote community of Salluit in Nunavik. There she sang in church and performed with her uncle’s band as a teenager. After moving to Montreal to study, she quickly gained momentum as a filmmaker, singer and activist.

After arriving in the city, she wrote and directed the award-winning short documentary film “Sila piqujippat” (If the Weather Permits) in English in 2003.

She also won a Juno Award in 2005 as part of the musical duo Taima and another in 2019 for her solo work. But that’s not all: she recorded four solo albums – There Will Be Stars (2009), Travelling Love (2012), The Ballad of the Runaway Girl (2018) and Inuktitut (2023).

In 2021, she created and produced “Le Grand Solstice” for Radio-Canada, a French-language musical and cultural celebration televised each year to mark National Indigenous Peoples Day, Canada Post reported.

In 2024, she won her third Juno Award, this time as Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year.

Other honors Elisapie has received include the Ambassador Prize at the 2011 Teweikan Awards for her work as an artist and activist, a Félix Award as Indigenous Artist of the Year in 2020, induction into the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec in 2021, and an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in 2023.

The stamp is the first of three commemorative stamps honouring Indigenous leaders to be unveiled in the coming days. It is the third consecutive year that Canada Post has issued special stamps honouring Indigenous trailblazers.

The three stamps will be issued tomorrow to mark National Indigenous Peoples Day. A stamp commemorating Josephine Mandamin was unveiled in Thunder Bay, Ontario on Tuesday, and the stamp honouring Christi Belcourt will be unveiled next Tuesday.

Marc Lalonde, reporter for the local journalism initiative, Iori:wase