Months of hard work pay off at Nunavut kamik-making workshop

Elders Annie Ikkidluak, left, and Jeannie Padluq, acted as instructors for a five-month kamik-making workshop in Kimmirut. (PHOTO BY MONICA GARDNER)

Ooleepeka Padluq’s son Josephie shows off the kamiks she made for him. (PHOTO BY MONICA GARDNER)

Kayla Nutarasungnik had never made a pair of kamiks before and that kind of bothered her.

As a young Inuk mother of three from Kimmirut, she had always wanted to learn, but was nervous that she wouldn’t have the skills.

Which is funny because once she started making a pair in Kimmirut late in 2015, her instructors, and fellow students, all kept laughing and saying she was a natural at sewing.

“They kept saying, ‘Kayla, I think you’ve done this before. You’re very professional, you’re very good at it.’ I said, ‘No, no, I’m just trying my best.’ They were very surprised,” said Nutarasungnik, who was the first to complete her kamiks.

Nutarasungnik, 24, was one of six fortunate young women drawn from a hat filled with 26 names of women who wanted to take the course.

Organizer Monica Gardner, the community justice outreach worker in Kimmirut, said she was surprised and pleased when so many women came forward last October to take the five-month kamik-making workshop.

But with only two elder instructors — Annie Ikiddluak and Jeannie Padluq — and limited supplies, there was no way to accommodate everyone. So they drew names.

“They were all young women who got picked so that was good,” said Gardner. “And they all completed their kamiks, which is not an easy job.”

Not easy is an understatement. Nutarasungnik said it was sometimes frustrating and tedious, requiring many tiny stitches to ensure the sealskin boots would be durable as well as wind- and water-proof.

Gardner said some participants got so discouraged and overwhelmed that they were occasionally in tears.

Nutarasungnik said she did get discouraged, but group members and friends supported her and that really helped.

“This woman she kept encouraging me not to quit,” she said.

“When you try harder, you can learn it, so don’t quit. Keep working on it. And I had a lot of questions to ask and I was scared. I just kept asking questions and that’s how I learned.”

Unfortunately, the kamiks she made turned out to be a bit too small, so she sold them to a woman in Kugluktuk.

But after the leftover supplies were divvied up at the end of the workshop, Nutarasungnik now has another sealskin and is thinking about making another pair for herself, even though, “I’m scared, a little, to make a pair on my own.”

Her seven-year-old daughter also wants a pair, so she might have to find time and supplies to do that too, she said.

Gardner, whose day job as a CJOW involves helping people obtain legal protection through the Family Abuse Intervention Act, said she came up with the idea for the workshop because she was worried many women in her community were losing their traditional skills.

She said people’s lives are so fast now, and there’s so much influence from the English language and mainstream culture that young women especially are losing touch with their Inuit culture.

So she applied for funding through the Government of Nunavut’s culture and heritage department and was granted roughly $15,000 to run the kamik-making program from October 2015 to March 2016.

She also got help to pay for the supplies through the Ilisaqsivik Society in Clyde River.

The Department of Culture and Heritage has just confirmed they’ll give her another round of funding to run the program again this fall, she said.

Five of six Kimmirut women who participated in a five-month kamik-making workshop, which just ended March 31, show off the fruits of their hard labour. From left: Ningeorapik Kolola, Padluk Judea, Lysee Itulu, Levena Utye and Kayla Nutarasungnik. (PHOTO BY MONICA GARDNER)