Kiviaq

Kiviaq (also known as David Charles Ward; January 23, 1936 – April 24, 2016) was a Canadian Inuk lawyer, politician, and former sportsman. He was raised in Edmonton, Alberta.

In 1968, he became involved in politics, being elected to Edmonton City Council. He had won the Vanier Award as one of Canada's "Five Most Outstanding Young Men," for his work as a public relations officer and recreational director for the city. He served two terms on the council as an alderman, and ran for mayor in the 1970s with an unsuccessful outcome. As a personable politician, he successfully lobbied for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Edmonton. He ran his own open-line radio show at CJCA and CJOI-FM, with interview subjects such as Muhammad Ali. After attending law school, Kiviaq was the first Inuk to become a lawyer, and was responsible for several important advances in establishing the legal rights of Inuit. He was called to the bar in 1983, a moment recognized in a letter from then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as a "solid and progressive achievement in the history of your people." In September 2000, Mr. Ward made the initial application to change his name back to Kiviaq, the single-word Inuktituk name that his mother and Caucasian step-father gave him at birth. In 2001, he won that right.

Athletic career Growing up in Edmonton, Kiviaq took to boxing to defend himself against racially motivated abuse from other children. In 1955, aged 19, he became the first Inuk to play on the Edmonton Eskimos football team. However, Kiviaq never played a regular-season game: before the season started, he had an accidental slip on the wet field which was followed by concurrent hits from three opposing players. He battled cancer for many years until he died on April 24, 2016, in an Edmonton hospice.

Documentary He is the subject of the documentary film Kiviaq vs. Canada, by award-winning producer Zacharias Kunuk.