About the Author

After moving to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut in 2003, I began what has now become a 16-year journey toward learning Inuktut. As a journalist and writer, understanding the language of the people who trust me to tell their stories is especially important. I am still a long way from achieving that goal, but thanks to great teachers, I have learned the syllabics writing system and can translate roman orthography into syllabics. After graduating from Humber College’s journalism program in Toronto in 2009, I returned to Nunavut and worked for Northern News Services in Iqaluit, where I began writing stories about how Inuktut was losing ground. When I returned south, I continued to freelance for NNSL and my coverage area expanded to include the Northwest Territories. I later began contributing to Arctic Deeply, Up Here magazine and the Ottawa Citizen. Since 2012, my writing has earned eight Saskatchewan Weekly Newspaper Awards. My Master’s Research Project proposal on Inuktut won the 2018 Diane King Stuemer Award, jointly administered by the Ottawa Citizen and the Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication which funded my research trip to Greenland in July 2018.

I began working as a communications coordinator at Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in May, 2019.