Rosemarie Kuptana (1954 - )

Rosemarie Kuptana is an Inuit woman from Sachs Harbour, North West Territories. She focuses most of her energy on promoting Inuit life and culture, environmental protection in the Arctic, and the right for Inuit people to have self-determination.

• In 1975, at the age of twenty-one, Kuptana became involved in talks about Inuit land rights within her territory.
• She hosted a radio show on the CBC Western Arctic Radio Station. Her program focused on cultural, social and political issues of the day that affected Inuit people of the Beaufort Sea area. Later she joined the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation that produced both radio and television in Inuktitut, one of the northern Inuit languages.
• From 1986 to 1989, Kuptana was Vice President of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, involving the interests of the Inuit people living in Russia, Alaska, Canada, USA, and Greenland.
• In the early 1990s, Kuptana was President of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada. This is an organization that voices concerns for the Inuit people in Canada.
• In 1992, she was awarded the Order of Canada and the Governor General's Confederation Medal and was named as one of Maclean's Honour Role. She was also selected as the Up Here Magazine's Northerner of the Year.
• Kuptana grew up speaking Inuvialukton and learned the traditional Inuit ways of hunting and survival.
• She lives in Ottawa and is the President of the Circumpolar Conference.