Up Here magazine announced this month that the 2020 Sally Manning Award for Indigenous Creative Non-Fiction will go to Peter Igupttaq Autut for his story Winter in Chesterfield Inlet. Second place and third place honours go to Shelly Wiart for My Northern Healing and Carol Rose GoldenEagle’s The Ugly Little Christmas Tree, respectively.

The story of a childhood hunting trip with his father, Autut’s Winter in Chesterfield Inlet will be published in the next issue of Up Here, while the second and third-place winners will appear on Up Here’s website. 

This year’s award was judged by authors Michael Kuguksuk and Richard Van Camp, Up Here publisher Marion LaVigne and past winner Cullen Crozier. “His descriptions are so real I can feel the cold right down to the ting in my ear!” said Kuguksuk of Autut’s piece. Van Camp concurred, saying “Peter Igupttaq Autut, I hope you are working on more chapters.” 

Autut is a writer and comedian from Igluligaarjuk (Chesterfield Inlet), NU, now based in Iqaluit, NU. He has been writing for Up Here magazine since 2016, and was the inaugural winner of the Crackup Iqaluit Comedy Competition, going on to perform in Ottawa, ON, at the National Crackup Comedy Festival in 2018.

The Sally Manning Award was created by writer and educator Sally Manning upon her death in 2014 to recognize Indigenous literature in the North, with monetary prizes for first, second and third place. The winner receives $1000, while second- and third-place winners receive $500 and $250 respectively. 

Autut is the fifth winner of the annual award, which has previously been awarded to Tarralik Durry, Tanya Roach, Dennis Allen and Cullen Crozier.