Tuktoyaktuk youth to receive new winter jackets

Two hundred and fifty youth in Tuktoyaktuk will receive new winter jackets this fall, thanks to an initiative local leaders say will help children stay warm at school and get out on the land. 

The Inuvialuit Winter Shield Initiative was developed between the Tuktoyaktuk Inuvialuit Community Corporation (TCC), the Tuktoyaktuk Hunters and Trappers Committee and Wild Wolves of Canada Motorcycle Charity.

“It’s going to improve basically warmth for them just to attend school,” Darrel Nasogaluak, chair of the TCC and a spokesperson for the hunters and trappers committee, said.

“But it’ll give them a good piece of clothing to go out hunting or harvesting in the winter.”

‘Every child deserves a warm, brand-new winter jacket’

Nasogaluak said the idea grew out of conversations with Grainger Thompson, co-founder and director of Wild Wolves of Canada, about ways to support local youth. Thompson travelled by motorcycle from Edmonton to Tuktoyaktuk to support the initiative and meet with community partners.

“They talked about harvesting and how he could assist young people in getting out on land because it’s something we do,” Nasogaluak told Cabin Radio. 

Clothing quickly became part of that conversation. Thompson, through Wild Wolves of Canada and its funders, worked with the community to determine the number of school-aged children in the community and estimated jacket sizes based on their ages.

The result is a winter jacket for every school-aged youth in Tuktoyaktuk. 

“Our goal is simple: every child deserves a warm, brand-new winter jacket,” Thompson said. 

Some of the jackets have already begun arriving in Tuktoyaktuk, with the remaining jackets expected to follow.

Nasogaluak said a community gathering is planned at the Mangilaluk School later in September, where the jackets will be distributed. 

The jackets, which are being supplied by Blackhawk Apparel, were funded through True North Aid’s Community Seed Funding Grant and from the Tuktoyaktuk District Education Authority.

‘It reinforces our culture’

Wild Wolves of Canada is also bringing 50 handmade quilts, 30 handmade scarves and bags of stuffed animals for youth and families in Tuktoyaktuk.

Thompson said the charity sees its role as supporting an initiative led by people in Tuktoyaktuk, rather than directing it. 

“We’re bringing resources together while ensuring local leadership remains at the centre of the project,” he told Cabin Radio. 

Nasogaluak said the partnership with Wild Wolves of Canada has been particularly useful because of their connections in the south, where clothing can be manufactured and then transported north.

For Nasogaluak, the value of the initiative extends beyond having new coats.

Inuvialuit communities have a strong culture of sharing harvested food with Elders and families who cannot get out on the land, he said. Seeing people outside the North willing to contribute to that same spirit of sharing can make a difference. 

“To know that there are other organizations or people around the world that are like-minded, it really gives kind of like hope, the humanity hope kind of thing,” Nasogaluak said. 

He said the jackets also reinforce that lesson for the next generation.

“These young people will learn that sharing and giving is important too,” he said. “It reinforces our culture.”