Published in Up Here June 2012
Tiffany Ayalik (Performer, Outdoor Guide)
Depending on who you ask, Tiffany Ayalik is an Arctic butterfl y, or an underwater goddess, or a child of a residential school survivor, or a paddling instructor who rides serious rapids. That’s because this 24-year-old Yellowknifer is all of those: an actor, model, playwright and co-owner of an adventure company. “We don’t like being inside too much,” she says of Narwal Northern Adventures, the company she co-owns with her mom, which offers canoe and kayak training, wilderness-survival courses and cultural camps. Ayalik, who went to acting school in Alberta, is performing in a play in Calgary in June, as part of the Magnetic North Festival. She also recently wrote her fi rst play, a story about the residual effects of residential schools. “It’s loosely based on what I went through. We have our own social problems that we have to deal with that are getting ignored, as the children of those people who went,” she says. “Next year, it’s my hope that we put the show on and do a full production.” She’ll be coming to a stage near you.
What’s your ultimate goal? It’s two-fold. With my paddling business I want anybody who trains with us to come away being safety-conscious. We’re so connected to the water, I think there’s a false sense of security because you’ve been around something your whole life. I want people to always treat the water and the outdoors with respect. For the performance side, it’s a bit of a pipe dream at this point, but I’d love to live in the North full time and do what I do. The reality is, I have to split my time between the south and here. But who knows what the future of performance is in the North?
Photo by Dave Brosha
Beatrice Deer (Singer-Songwriter)
She’s sorry to rush, but her schedule is crazy. Just a few days ago, Beatrice Deer performed with her guitarist-husband, Charles Keelan, at the International Polar Year conference in Montreal, where she now lives. Then she modelled in the Nunavik Creations fashion show. Tomorrow, she’ll ride to the Ottawa airport in a limo (“It’s the cheapest way,” she insists with a laugh) and fly to Nuuk, Greenland, to sing in a multimedia show called Tulugak – for which, by the way, she made all the costumes. “I’m all over the place!” she says. But she’s OK with that. Born in tiny Quaqtaq, in northern Nunavik, she grew up crooning along to Disney movies and dreaming of being on stage. Now, five years after moving south and just shy of her 30th birthday, she has three albums and a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. A fourth album is planned for this autumn – one with “happy songs, dancey songs, poppy songs. I’m just in that part of my life right now,” she says. “Things are looking up.”
What inspires you? I don’t know – I’ve always been very creative. It just wants to come out. I’m always sewing, I’m always drawing, I paint sometimes. It just feels good. I still get nervous before a show. But once I get on stage I get really excited and I have a lot of fun.
Photo by Dominique Lafond
Chad Dickson (Skateboarder)
Go to YouTube.com and type in “Chad Dickson.” The first video that comes up has more than 300,000 views: It shows Dickson in action, landing the tricks that have made him a skateboarding sensation. Now 26, he got started skating at 10, picking the sport up from his cousins in Teslin, Yukon. He got his fi rst sponsor at 16, and by 19 he was pulling in paycheques and major sponsors from across the industry. He’s starred in skateboard movies and clips, been featured in editorial spreads in skateboarding magazines, and toured North America for top competitions; he’s also broken ankles, wrists and ribs along the way. This past spring DC Shoes sent him to Barcelona for a series of video and photo shoots, and he’s also fresh off a tour of California. Dickson’s based in Vancouver these days, but he grew up splitting time between Ontario and the Yukon, where his mother still lives. Wherever he travels, you’ll fi nd him working on his next trick. “If it’s not raining, or snowing, I’m skating,” he says.
What’s your biggest goal? To be a pro with my name on my board and stuff.
Photo: Joel Dufresne
Johnny Issaluk (Athlete, Counsellor)
Johnny Issaluk isn’t just an Arctic sports powerhouse. He’s an athlete with a mission: to help Nunavummiut stay active. He’s been a champion at the Arctic Winter Games too many times to count, starred in the award-winning fi lm Inuit High Kick, and just received the Governor General’s Diamond Jubilee medal for his efforts to promote fitness in the Arctic. “Being at Rideau Hall was like being on a movie set,” he says. “You’re sitting with Terry Fox’s brother, these amazing people all around you. You’re wondering, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’” But the prize was well-deserved: The 38-year-old coaches Arctic sports once a week in Iqaluit, is an instructor with the educational program Students on Ice, and works as a mental-health counsellor. “I try and promote good health and talk to as many people as I can about healthy living,” he says.
What inspires you? Inuit sports are part of my culture. It’s great exercise. And in competition, I get to hang out with a bunch of my friends from all over the world.
Photo by Chris Windeyer
Candice Lys (Scholar, Health Worker)
Where Candice Lys goes, her big red suitcase named Ruby follows. Ruby is filled with books, costumes, and props like wooden penises – a tickle trunk designed to get teenage girls talking about sex, safely. It’s an integral part of the workshops she’s running across the north under the name FOXY: Fostering Open Expression among Youth. “Girls want to know about sex and they want to talk about sex,” she says. Lys, a 29-year old Métis from Fort Smith, NWT, came up with the idea as part of her ongoing PhD in public health at the University of Toronto. Now, she’s designing programs that can be used throughout schools North of Sixty. “It’s meant to use drama and the arts to create a safe space for young Northern women to talk openly about making safe choices about their sexuality and relationships,” she says. “It’s awesome to be part of a project that feels like it’s actually doing something.”
What inspires you? My mom does amazing, wicked things for aboriginal health in the North and across Canada. She’s a nurse practitioner in Fort Smith. A couple of weeks ago, she was at the Governor General’s house running a workshop. My mom swears the reason I got into health was that she read me her textbooks when she was breastfeeding.
Photo by Pat Kane
Reneltta Arluk (Actor, Playwright)
Reneltta Arluk is a drama queen. No, not like that. The Fort Smith native is a performer, playwright, poet, storyteller – the first aboriginal woman to graduate from the University of Alberta’s top-flight theatre school. She’s sweet and giggly and yet her presence fills the room, even when you talk to her by phone – which is how you’ll probably have to talk to her, because she’s crazy busy, travelling all over Canada to tell indigenous stories. Right now she’s on the line from Quebec City, where she’s performing in her biggest film role, in Maïna, a $9 million “Inuit-Innu Romeo and Juliet.” (She’s pictured on set at left.) Though theatre is still her true love, she’s discovered that movies have perks. “Holy cats, they throw money at you!” she says, giggling. “I’m like, whoa, I should have done this sooner.” Next, it’s off to Toronto to help design her first book of poems, Thoughts and Other Human Tendencies, being published this fall. She’s cool with her frantic schedule – it’s in her blood. Arluk was raised by her grandparents in the bush, trapping, prospecting, always in motion. “I’m a nomad,” she says. “I’m accepting that about myself. I love travelling. I love what I’m doing.”
What inspires you? The North. Sometimes when I travel, I get beaten down by the world around me. I’m in an industry where rejection is a key part of my life. So I’ll crawl back to the North, and that’s like my battery. The moment I smell fire-smoke or feel a cold wind, I’m pretty much filled.
Photo by Isabella Dubois
Sho Sho Esquiro (Fashion Designer)
Sho Sho Esquiro grew up surrounded by art. As her family bounced around the Yukon, from Ross River to Teslin to Whitehorse, she watched her aunties create traditional Kaska Dena regalia; her mother, an artist, encouraged her to draw. But, says Esquiro, “I only wanted to draw women and clothes.” Today, at 31, she’s becoming a force in the fashion world. Based in Vancouver, Esquiro has had shows across North America, including one, put on by the National Congress of American Indians, where she shared the stage with monster brands like Nike and Pendleton. Last year, more than 8,000 people viewed her designs at a show in the Hamptons, in New York State. Her clothes fuse her own native culture and hip-hop culture – “urban, with a native twist,” she says. She aims to push boundaries and puncture stereotypes. “I don’t like it when people put First Nations art in a box. We’re in two worlds, and I want to honour both.”
What’s your biggest goal? I want my clothes to be viewed as art.
Photo by Joel Dufresne
