Inspiring Iqaluit women honoured by national Inuit group

Teena Kakee from Iqaluit was named Woman of the Year by Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada. She studied and worked to receive her heavy equipment operation certificate, welding certificate, and is currently working on obtaining her pilot’s license. (Photo courtesy of Teena Kakee)

Two Iqaluit women are being celebrated by a national organization that champions the rights of Inuit women, children and the gender-diverse.

Ottawa-based Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada named Teena Kakee as its Inuk Woman of the Year and Jennifer Kilabuk its Young Inuk Woman of the Year for women age 35 and younger.

The honours were announced this week during the Ottawa-based organization’s annual general meeting in Winnipeg.

Both women credit Inuktitut-speaking elders for guiding them into leadership roles.

“My proudest moments have been when I’m out hunting and the men say, ‘You’re doing a good job,’ or the seamstresses say, ‘You’re doing a good job,’” Kakee said.

“I know that might sound cheesy.”

Kakee, an industrial welder, heavy equipment operator, skydiver and pilot, said she was raised to be independent and resilient by her father and “hero,” Jetaloo Kakee.

Teena Kakee piloted her first solo flight in a single-engine Cessna 172 in Ontario in July. She also tried skydiving for the third straight summer.

In the past, Kakee has performed abroad as a throat singer, gathered Inuit stories as a researcher with Inuit Broadcasting Corp., and has harpooned a bowhead whale.

“I’m very comfortable not knowing what I’m going to do next,” she said. “It’s a super power.”

Bagging a polar bear remains high on her bucket list. Attaining her scuba diving certification is in her near future as well.

“It’s not too late to do what you want to do,” she said.

Kilabuk, 32, embraces a similarly dynamic approach to her work.

A senior climate change adviser at Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the longest-serving member of the Nunavut Youth Climate Change Advisory Committee, Kilabuk, 32, may be better known to television viewers as the character Lucy, from five episodes of the first season of the Nunavut-based sitcom North of North.

Kilabuk praises the directors for amplifying young Inuit voices and increasing Inuit visibility.

“I really do hope that I am in season two, in one way or another,” she said. “I haven’t gotten the phone call just yet.”

Kilabuk co-directed her own film, a short documentary titled Lessons From Our Grandfather, with her sister, Ashley Qilavaq-Savard. Kilabuk attended the première at the Skábmagovat Film Festival in Inari, Finland, in January.

The documentary explores the teachings of the sisters’ late grandfather, longtime Iqaluit wildlife officer and hunter Pauloosie Kilabuk, and how Jennifer Kilabuk passes that wisdom down to her own daughter, Aurora Kilabuk-Little, who is six.

Here, Teena Kakee is pictured piloting a single engine Cessna 172 during her first solo flight in Ontario. (Photo courtesy of Teena Kakee)

“We’re using these lessons that [our grandparents] embedded in me and my sister to teach our daughters in the knowledge that strengthening their cultural resilience will strengthen their climate resilience in the face of climate change,” Kilabuk said.

She is developing an idea for a new climate change documentary and plans to re-apply to the Arctic Indigenous Film Fund Witness Series Mentorship Program for training, through which she developed her previous film.

“I know that there’s so many Inuit women who are doing powerful work across Inuit Nunangat, and I’m very humbled to be among them,” Kilabuk said.

“We want everybody to be strong and self-determined.”