COUNTERWEIGHTS EDITORS, GANATSEKWYAGON, ON. DECEMBER 26, 2022. Before rushing into the Top 4 counterweights stories in the third quarter of 2022, we just want to note an intriguing piece posted today on the Nunatsiaq News site, called “Reflection: Mary Simon tour a rewarding reporting experience … Jeff Pelletier looks back on covering Governor General’s Nunavik homecoming.”

Canadian Governor General Simon’s Nunavik homecoming took place back in the first half of May 2022. And Jeff Pelletier (aka “Local Journalism Initiative Reporter”) ends his interesting late December 2022 memoir of the event in a way that suggests the particular intrigue of his memories :

“I can’t wait to make it back to Nunavik again in the new year. I really hope to visit other communities and to continue telling stories about people from across the region … The hospitality we experienced in every community was heartwarming, and I hope to experience it again sooner than later. Nakurmiik!”

More ancient stories about Inuit hospitality are legendary. (And this may have something to do with the rigours of life in a land of ice and snow, and how it breeds empathy for everyone who struggles with these rigours.) It seems a good year-end thought that this hospitality survives even today, in a somewhat (if far from completely) more “modern” reality in the far Canadian north.

Now, here are the Top 4 cw stories from 3Q 2022, as determined by the editors in a few hasty moments taken from the office Boxing Day Party :

JULY 19 : “Catching up with Pierre Poilievre — how a guy born and raised in Calgary became an Ottawa region MP and likely next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada” ;

JULY 28 : “Pope’s visit should also remind us that Indigenous peoples ‘were fundamental to the growth of Canadian institutions’” ;

AUGUST 4 : “The American people of Kansas show a little light at the end of the tunnel” ;

SEPTEMBER 18 : “The long journey to ending the British monarchy in Canada actually began just after the Second World War.”