Arctic Talent: Rosalie DeMaio beads

Wherever Rosie DeMaio goes, her beads are there with her.

DeMaio creates and sells handmade earrings designed with round seed beads, cylindrical delica beads, sealskin, tuktu antler, and sometimes fish-skin backing. Under the brand name Rosalie Beads, she sells her work at Iqaluit craft sales and takes orders through Facebook.

“I really like colourful tones,” she said, adding that sometimes her clients suggest she use more earth tones but she continues to do what makes her happy.

“I am more of a colourful kind of person.”

A berry-picker in summer and musher in winter, DeMaio draws inspiration from the vibrancy of the land, where she spends a lot of time with her dad Mike DeMaio. The pair are champion dogsledders, having won the 2015 Toonik Tyme dogsled race with a time of two hours and 39 minutes.

Last summer, during her family’s annual visit with loved ones in Pond Inlet, DeMaio hunted walrus for the first time.

“I got the kill shot,” she said. “My dad lets me keep the tusk in his freezer.”

DeMaio’s hunting feeds her beading, as she uses these materials for her art.

She also channels her love and knowledge of the land and its animals into advocacy.

During the Nunavut Shipping Symposium in January, she spoke on the “Safeguarding Our Future and Way of Life” panel, which Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Canadian Coast Guard hosted.

“The land takes care of us,” she said. “Seeing it treated badly really breaks my heart.”

Now the 22-year-old is venturing out on the land without her father’s guidance. Last month, she led 13 dogs on a three-hour trip around the sea ice without her dad for the first time.

Her friends Emma Carpenter and Chloë Nevin rode with her, though.

“They calmed me down,” DeMaio said. “I feel like I can do anything with those girls around me. Those are my people.”

Nevin designed DeMaio’s brand label: tundra flowers stylized as hearts.

DeMaio sat down recently with Nunatsiaq News to describe her journey in beading.

May 2012: Ears freshly pierced, eight-year-old DeMaio becomes “obsessed” with earrings — the kind marketed by the popular Justice retail brand of preteen girl-ware — colourful, chunky, funky and plastic.

June 2012: DeMaio attends summer camp in southern Ontario. Between games of capture-the-flag and pottery lessons, DeMaio makes her first two pairs of earrings — one pink, one blue — shaped from paper, wire and beads. She still has them today.

“It made me realize that I’m able to make earrings,” she said.

Fall 2012-Spring 2020: DeMaio doesn’t have time for beads because sports and other extracurriculars occupy her instead. She travels to Germany in Grade 8 with Judo Nunavut. She makes Team Nunavut as a speed skater in 2020. She plays saxophone in the Inuksuk High School band. Then there’s soccer, piano, dance …

Dec. 2016: Santa delivers a .22 rifle, which allows her to harvest animals that provide materials for her art.

Sept. 2022-April 2023: DeMaio studies beading in Cultural Class at Nunavut Sivuniksavut in Ottawa.

June 2022-present DeMaio sells Rosalie Beads earrings at almost every craft sale in Iqaluit.

“If there’s a craft sale, I’ll be there,” she said.

January 2026: She masters knot-tying while studying in the Environmental Tech program at Nunavut Arctic College.

And yes, she beads during classes.

“Teachers understand that beading helps me focus,” she said.

Talent Tip: DeMaio makes one pair of earrings every day.

“I’ll see my earrings around town. It makes it feel like it’s a small world and very interconnected,” she said. “I love that feeling.”