Cultural promoter and librarian-archivist born in Akulivik (Nunavik) in 1974.
Andy Pirti was born in 1974 in Akulivik, a village on the southwest coast of Hudson’s Bay in Nunavik. He family originates from Cape Smith in actual Nunavut. After graduating from the Arsaniq high school in Kangiqsujuaq in 1993, he moved to Montréal, studying social sciences at the Marie-Victorin Cégep. In 2013 he graduated in business management after a 4-year program in Vanier Cégep, still in Montréal.
After working as an investment accountant for Makivik Corporation from 2007 to 2011, he became an assistant treasurer for Anthony Ittoshat (2011-2013) and then treasurer for six years (2014-2020), still in Makivik Corporation. In 2001, Andy Pirti was briefly a librarian-archivist for the Avataq Cultural Institute and during this time wrote a trilingual article (Inuktitut, English and French) entitled: « Our culture. Inuktitut, Our Mother Tongue : Ours to Preserve = L’inuttitut, notre langue maternelle. À nous de la conserver » which was published in Makivik Magazine (2002). In this article, he presents Avataq Cultural Institute’s project since the end of the 1990s : to compile an Inuit lexicon. An other article « L’inuktitut, notre belle langue maternelle », published in 2009 in Nunavik. Guide touristique officiel 2009-2010 also discusses the importance of language preservation.
Since 2005, Andy Pirti has been actively involved with the Inuit Association of Montréal, an organization working to preserve Inuit cultural traditions in an urban environment far from Nunavik, and spends time himself engaged in traditional activities, especially ice fishing.