The Official First Day Cover features a stamp honouring 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. It is cancelled in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, where Ogina was born.

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

About the design

The front of the OFDC features a photograph of the Huqqullaaqatigiit drum dance group in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in 2018. Group host Julia Ogina sits at bottom right (credit: Kate Kyle |CBC Licensing).

The front also includes the text “Julia Haogak Ogina” and her stamp, cancelled in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, where she was born.

The stamp was cancelled on June 20, in connection with National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21). The cancel features an illustration of a traditional drum.

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

Product # 414296131

Julia Haogak Ogina OFDC (2025)