Blogger, throat singer and cultural activist born in Aupaluk (Nunavik) in 1989.

Janice Grey, also referred to as Janice Grey Scott, was born in 1989 in Aupaluk, a village on the western shore of Ungava Bay. Her father is Haitian and her mother is Inuit and she was raised by her grandparents, growing up in childhood with a love for reading and books.

Janice Grey’s defense in Inuit culture and rights, developed in the beginning of 2010. After high school, she attended Nunavut Sivuniksavut, a program providing positive cultural and academic learning experiences for Inuit youth from Nunavut. She spent the academic year 2009-2010 in Ottawa and Montréal, studying liberal arts. During this time she attended, with the support of the Makivik Corporation, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhague (2009) representing Inuit youth. She also attended the 4th International Polar Year Conference in Geneva, performing a throat singing demonstration and making important links between climate vigilance and human rights.

Janice Grey then shared her life between Montréal and Nunavik, becoming involved in a number of Inuit associations. In 2010, she was vice president of Saputiit Youth Association and working on a number of community issues, such as education, substance dependency and mining exploitation. At the end of 2011, she became the treasurer of Saturviit Inuit Women’s Association of Nunavik, after being its secretary for several months. Janice Grey has also worked at the Avataq Cultural Institute. She was regular referred to in the regional newspaper Nunatsiaq News to which she was an occasional contributor in order to fight for her community. One of her popular articles was her commentary « The people of Nunavik will be just fine » on the occasion of the 2011 referendum when the majority of the population rejected Nunavik’s self-government proposal.

Janice Grey is the creator and author of the Shades of Grey blog which contains over forty posts between 2010 and 2012. In her blog, she discusses issues related to mixed race, as well as challenges faced by Inuit youth, such as the inequalities created by post-colonial society and the necessity of preserving Inuit culture and language for Nunavik’s youth. See for example her inaugural post, « A language in peril » (2010). She admires the work of Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk and Sheila Watt-Cloutier. Combining activism and writing, she began to write a novel until now remained unpublished,  and she collaborated on this compilation of essays defending the Inuktitut language, Uqausivut sivummuagutivut: our language, our leadership. A collection of texts (2014).

At the end of the 2010’s, Janice Grey works as a member of the Cultural Committee of Aupaluk (Nunavik) and performs municipal functions.