CamBay women learn to cut, stitch and share

You’re never too old to learn how to sew, says Annie Neglak of Cambridge Bay, who helped organize a Nunavut Arctic College workshop on sealskin sewing. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Cambridge Bay elder and expert sewer Louisa Aitaok finished a pair of child’s kamiks and helped women learn how to cut and sew sealskin during a one-week Nunavut Arctic College workshop held Feb. 13 to 17 in Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

Evelyn Kitigon concentrates on her stitches during the recent Nunavut Arctic College workshop in Cambridge which saw elders working with women eager to improve their sealskin sewing skills. (PHOTO BYJANE GEORGE)

Elder and sewer Bessie Emingak helps Becka Raper finish a pair of sealskin mitts during the Nunavut Arctic College sealskin sewing workshop which took place Feb. 13 to 17 in Cambridge Bay. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — When Annie Neglak of Cambridge was a young girl growing up in Bathurst Inlet, her mother sewed parkas, boots, mitts and other essential items of clothing for the family.

But, in 1959, at the age when Neglak would have started practicing and perfecting her sewing skills, she was whisked off to the residential school in Inuvik.

Neglak, now 65, says it’s never too late for Inuit women like her to regain the skills they lost.

But she had to relearn sewing as an adult.

For years, Neglak just made duffle liners for boots.

Today Neglak wears a pair of kamiks she sewed from black and white duffle cloth and then embroidered with white and yellow flowers.

But many women in Cambridge Bay still don’t know how to sew, Neglak said.

“If we can’t keep that, it’s going to go,” she said. “We don’t have so many elders.”

That’s why Neglak, working with Nunavut Arctic College in Cambridge Bay, wanted to organize a sealskin sewing workshop.

There elders, who are skilled sewers, would help younger women.

Every afternoon last week, from Feb. 13 to 17, you could find a dozen women in a NAC classroom where they learned how to make their own patterns and then how to cut and sew kamiks, mitts — and, in one case, a pair of gloves — with elders Louisa Aitaok and Bessie Emingak.

On the final day of the workshop, Korinna Harvey worked with Aitaok on a pair of child’s kamiks — part of which she had to redo under the patient eye of Aitaok.

Aitaok, who makes many kamiks every year for her children and their children, said she’s too busy to make a pair for herself.

And, sometimes, after sewing all day, she said she gets tried of sewing, but then wakes up and starts over again.

During this workshop, Aitaok took the time to pass on some of her sewing skills.

A workshop participant, sewing on a pair of mittens, said she never thought she would ever learn to sew anything. She went to residential school, she said, and when she returned home, she quickly became discouraged.

During the workshop, Becka Raper, a newcomer to Cambridge Bay, who brought her infant daughter along, learned how to make a pair of sealskin mittens.

The baby snoozed on the floor as Emingak helped Raper finish her mitts.

“I couldn’t have done it without Bessie,” Raper said.

Evelyn Kitigon sat on the floor, where she worked steadily on a pair of men’s sealskin gloves featuring several colours of fur and a black trim.

Workshop organizers say Kitigon has a gift for sewing, that she should go on to the NAC fur production course in Iqaluit.

But while this interests Kitigon, she said she’s worried about how she would cover the costs of lodging and childcare in the faraway capital of Nunavut: student assistance isn’t enough to pay for everything, she said.

The week’s worth of sewing sessions turns out to be too short a time for most to finish their projects, so the participants plan to return this week for an evening of instruction and sewing.

Then, as a souvenir of the course, they’ll receive a book of the patterns — cut out of old Nunatsiaq News newspapers — which they designed, so that they can continue sewing.

Neglak would like to see a two-week workshop offered next time — if the NAC can find the money to cover the costs of the materials as well as hiring the elders and co-ordinators.

And Neglak said she’s also like to see more younger women 18 to 30 pick up skills while their elders are still willing and able to teach them.