Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley win indigenous literature award

Husband and wife team Sean and Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley were awarded the 2015 Burt Award for First Nations, Mtis and Inuit Literature for their young adult novel Skraelings: Clashes in the Old Arctic.

The book follows a young Inuit hunter who is drawn into a battle between a village known as Tuniit, inhabited by a race of ancient Inuit ancestors, and a group of Viking warriors. The book was also a finalist for the 2014 Governor General's Literary Awards.

The Nunavut-based Qitsualik-Tinsleys take home a $12,000 prize. Second place, with a prize of $8,000, was awarded to Frank Christopher Busch for Grey Eyes, while Aaron Paquette took home third place and $5,000 for Lightfinder.

The announcement was made in Vancouver on Thursday at an event co-hosted by The Next Chapter's Shelagh Rogers and the 2014 Burt Award winner, Monique Gray Smith.

The Burt Award is administered by CODE, an Ottawa-based registered charity, and was hosted in partnership with the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Education and the Indigenous Education Institute of Canada.