Kuujjuaq students do a squeaky clean business

IPL student Harriet Sequaluk measures out a slab of lavender soap before cutting it into bars. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Harriet Sequaluk, 15 and her instructor Suzanne Chénard show off the bars of lavender soap they’ll wrap up and deliver to new customers. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Uvaautik soap makers, from left, Harriet Sequaluk, Vinnie Suppa, instructor Suzanne Chénard, Betsy Cooper and Sherry-Ann Makiuk. (PHOTO BY MARY RUSTON)

Harriet Sequaluk stands over a large pale purple slab of soap.

The soap, which smells like lavender, matches the colour of mid-afternoon sky outside the classroom window, as the sun sets in Kuujjuaq.

The bar is 13 inches long and four inches wide. So if you want to cut it into four equal bars, how big should each piece be? asks Sequaluk’s teacher, Suzanna Chénard, who oversees one of Jaanimmarik high school’s Independent Learning Path classes, designed for students who are at risk of dropping out of school.

Sequaluk, 15, puts down the knife she’s holding, while she and Chénard do some quick math equations on the chalkboard.

Once the pieces of soap are cut into equal bars, Sequaluk wraps each of them in clear plastic wrapping and ties them with twine and a sprig of dried lavender.

This is Kuujjuaq’s newest business and community-based venture: the Uvvautik soap factory.

For the last few months, Chénard has lead a group of about seven students, all girls, through the process of finding the right ingredients and scents to make a natural soap.

Recently, the group began producing the soap, made with coconut and palm oils, cocoa butter, beeswax and essential oils.

And that’s just in time to fill orders for the holiday season.

While Nunatsiaq News visited the Uvvautik group at the end of November, Sequaluk was packing up the company’s first delivery. The group had also starting selling their soaps through the Makivik Corp.-owned business, Nunavik Creations.

However, at the soap-making project’s core: education.

“This is a project that aims to keep our girls from dropping out,” Chénard said. “It’s to help get them involved in the community.”

On a recent Friday afternoon, the almost-empty classroom remains a reminder of the challenges that Chénard and her students face. Sequaluk is the only student to show up.

The shy 15-year-old doesn’t talk much, but she opens her binder to show off her weekly schedule. Sequaluk takes a number of classes during the week, most of them project-based, from math and Inuktitut to art, photography and cooking — the group is currently working on producing cookbook.

Chénard encourages her students’ math skills — in running a business, they’ll need it.

She’s working to train at least one of her students to help open a bank account for Uvvautik and to manage the business’s finances.

Although the soap is completely natural, Chénard would like to eventually rely on more local ingredients. She pulls out a piece of soap someone from Salluit made, mostly of fish and whale oils.

“It stinks,” Sequaluk laughs.

But the tundra offers a number of natural fragrances, Chénard points out, suggesting that Uvvautik could make its own essential oils from mamaittuqtik (Labrador tea) and other plants.

“We’d like to find students and families who could take this on,” Chénard said. “We’re just starting out now, but as soon as parents know about this, I think it will be popular.”

If you’re in Kuujjuaq, you can purchase some of Uvvautik’s natural soap at the local Nunavik Creations boutique, or by calling Chénard directly at (819) 964-0851.