Each booklet includes six Permanent™ stamps featuring drum dance teacher and leader, Julia Haogak Ogina. The Inuit leader helped retrieve forgotten drum dance songs and contributed to the creation of a regional language framework and programs promoting oral learning and knowledge transfer.

The stamp is one of three in the 2025 Indigenous Leaders issue, the fourth set of stamps in the Indigenous Leaders series.

Good to know

The Indigenous Leaders series recognizes the outstanding achievements and contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders. The 2025 issue pays tribute to three remarkable knowledge/language keepers:

• Sophie McDougall – Métis

• Haogak Ogina – Inuit

• Bruce Starlight – First Nations

About the Indigenous Leaders series

The Indigenous Leaders series, launched in 2022, highlights the contributions of modern-day First Nations, Inuit and Métis leaders who dedicated their lives to preserving their culture and improving the quality of life of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

About Julia Haogak Ogina

Witnessing the erosion of her Inuit heritage spurred Julia Haogak Ogina (b. 1962, Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories) to devote her life to revitalizing the culture and languages of her ancestors. As colonization fragmented families and undermined traditions, she noticed that lessons once learned through singing, dancing and storytelling were gradually being lost.

Ogina worked with anthropologist Richard G. Condon on The Northern Copper Inuit: A History (1996) to document the rapid pace of socio-economic change experienced by her community. In 2017, the accomplished drum dance teacher and leader helped publish Huqqullaarutit Unipkaangit (Stories Told through Drum Dance Songs). The project involved a decade-long consultation with Elders to retrieve forgotten drum dance songs – which she sees as a conduit for ancestral knowledge and “a window into all the strengths of our people.”

In nearly two decades with the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, Ogina has contributed to the creation of a regional language framework and programs promoting oral learning and knowledge transfer. In 2020, she was awarded a Meritorious Service Medal for her efforts to protect and promote Inuit culture and traditions.

About the design

The booklet cover features a photograph of Ogina in her drum-dancing attire (credit: Dustin Patar |The Canadian Press). The inside of the booklet features a photograph of the Huqqullaaqatigiit drum dance group in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in 2018. The drummer in the foreground is Ogina’s husband, Jerry Puglik (credit: Kate Kyle | CBC Licensing). It also includes a sentence about the cultural significance of drum dances (in English, French and Inuinnaqtun).

The back features a short text on Ogina, a bar code and credits.

Product # 414296111

2025 Indigenous Leaders – Julia Haogak Ogina booklet of 6 Permanent™ stamps