Taamusi Qumaq, was an Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

 elder from Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 who contributed to the preservation of Inuit language

Inuit language

The Inuit language is traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador. The related Yupik languages are spoken in western and southern Alaska and Russian Far East, particularly the Diomede Islands, but is severely endangered in Russia today and...

 and traditional culture

Inuit culture

Inuit describes the various groups of indigenous peoples who live in the central and northeastern Canadian Arctic, as well as in Greenland. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.The traditional...

. Despite lacking any formal schooling, Qumaq published two seminal works to the Inuit culture: a 30,000-word comprehensive Inuktitut dictionary and an encyclopedia on Inuit traditional customs and knowledge

Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit

Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is an Inuktitut phrase that is often translated as Inuit traditional knowledge, Inuit traditional institutions or even Inuit traditional technology...

. He was fluent in Inuktitut

Inuktitut

Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...

 only.

He understood Canadian and Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 institutions and worked for their integration into Inuit lifestyle for the betterment of his community. He was a founding member of the first non-governmental coop in the Canadian Arctic

Northern Canada

Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut...

, in 1956 in Puvirnituq

Puvirnituq, Quebec

Puvirnituq is an Inuit settlement in Nunavik on the Povungnituk River near its mouth on the Hudson Bay in northern Quebec, Canada. Its population is 1457 .The name means "Place where there is a smell of rotten meat"...

. After spending some time to the establishment of Rankin Inlet in the Northwest Territories

Northwest Territories

The Northwest Territories is a federal territory of Canada.Located in northern Canada, the territory borders Canada's two other territories, Yukon to the west and Nunavut to the east, and three provinces: British Columbia to the southwest, and Alberta and Saskatchewan to the south...

, he returned to Puvirnituq in 1960 and founded its first village council and acted as its chair from 1962 to 1968.

From 1972 to 1977, he was a vocal opponent of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement

James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement

The James Bay And Northern Quebec Agreement was an Aboriginal land claim settlement, approved in 1975 by the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, and later slightly modified in 1978 by the Northeastern Quebec Agreement, through which Quebec's Naskapi First Nations joined the treaty...

 and the leader of Inuit Tungavingat Nunamini, a movement opposing the signature of the land claims settlement by the Northern Quebec Inuit Association

Makivik Corporation

The Makivik Corporation is the legal representative of Quebec's Inuit people, established in 1978 under the terms of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the agreement that established the institutions of Nunavik...

. In 1983 he took part to the Quebec commissions on Aboriginal rights and on Nouveau-Québec

Nord-du-Québec

Nord-du-Québec is the largest of the seventeen administrative regions of Quebec, Canada. With , of which are lakes and rivers, it covers much of the Labrador Peninsula and about 55% of the total land surface area of Quebec....

’s self-government.

In 2010, Presses de l'Université du Québec published his autobiography, Je veux que les Inuit soient libres de nouveau (I want Inuit to be free again).