Canada Goose, KRG deliver sewing materials to Nunavik communities

Kangiqsualujjuaq seasmstress Maggie Sandy Annanack got a surprise delivery last month when local hunter support coordinator Tooma Etok dropped off a bag of fabric and other sewing supplies. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KRG)

Kangiqsualujjuaq elder Martha Unatweenuk opens her package from Canada Goose. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KRG)

Christmas came early this year for seamstresses in Nunavik’s 14 communities.

In November, Nunavik communities got a special delivery: rolls and rolls of good quality fabric, zippers, eyelets and cuffs

The source? Southern parka-maker Canada Goose, which has, for the last couple of years, shipped excess materials to Nunavut and Nunavik through First Air.

Until now, the program was limited to Kuujjuaq. But when Canada Goose had a shipment it wanted to distribute throughout the region, the company reached out to the Kativik Regional Government’s hunter support program for help.

In November, more than a thousand rolls of fabric and other materials arrived in Kuujjuaq, where hunter support staff arranged to have these shipped out to communities through Air Inuit.

“It was a lot of material — enough material sent to each hunter support program to make about 100 parkas,” said Jennifer Matchett-Tassé, an administrative co-ordinator with hunter support.

In each community, packages were handed out to elders first; then the unemployed. The excess material went to local sewing centres.

“You could just tell by the smiles on some people’s faces what this meant to them,” she said. “Nunavimmiut very much appreciated this, especially in time for Christmas.”

Canada Goose’s donations to the North first began in 2010, when the company invited two Pond Inlet seamstresses to its Toronto production facility to share parka-making ideas.

As the women were leaving, they noticed scraps of unused fabric, zippers and Velcro that were destined for the garbage.

The women asked if they could take the materials home,

“We came up with the idea that we could solve the waste problem and support the sewers of the north,” recalled Kevin Spreekmeester, the senior vice president of marketing at Canada Goose.

The company teamed up with First Air and began sending pallets of unused material to Pond Inlet and Iqaluit four times a year, eventually expanding that program to Kuujjuaq.