Jane Flaherty-Lambe has had several incarnations in several communities throughout her life as a Nunavummiuq.
Born and raised in Grise Fiord as the child of "human flagpoles" relocated from northern Quebec in 1955, she remembers the struggles inherent in her family's situation.
"A lot of people were struggling from being homesick, and I felt that with my parents," she recalls.
With 10 siblings, Flaherty-Lambe was adopted out to her grandmother because her mother, a residential school survivor, was too young to take care of so many young children.
Flaherty-Lambe completed her own residential schooling in Iqaluit.
"It was, a lot of times, lonely SA国际影视传媒� wanting to be with our mother. Just being able to be home was too short. Just every Christmas was the only time we went up to see our parents SA国际影视传媒� that was too short. A lot of suicides back then too, so it [resulted] in depression and just wanting to be with your parents."
She does, however, point out that her time at residential school had some upside.
"Having good friends, best friends, meeting new friends from other communities that became lifelong [friends] SA国际影视传媒� that was the best part, going back to high school, seeing your friends again, that was the best part of being a teenager."
After high school, Flaherty-Lambe settled immediately into a job as a bank cashier. Then an opportunity at the CBC opened up in 1994.
"So it was a television broadcaster that they were looking for, so I applied for it, and I was successful. So I was with CBC reporting television for two years... It was great. I got to travel in the small communities and collect stories, translating them and editing them with the cameraman. It was more like documentary work, which was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed travelling," she says.
She tells of two experiences in particular that stood out to her during that period.
"They're all true stories. One I did in Pang with an Elder, Aksaajuk Etuangat. I recorded the experiences with him back when he was younger, in Pang... where he would have to travel in a dog team, and go to these small communities and camps, and pick up sick people or deliver medication. So his life story was one of the first I did that stood out.
"The next big project I had was the development of Raglan mine before it opened, so I travelled all throughout northern Quebec's small communities, and interviewed all the local people about the mine... I had to travel outside Kuujjuaq to all these little spots.
"One of the things I learned outside of that job was meeting my family members there that I had never, ever met, and then the concerns of elderly people in those communities. What their thoughts were about the mines... they were afraid that the animals were going to be impacted... the environment, animals, the usual questions about a community being impacted by a mine, the development."
Family life
It was in this period that Flaherty-Lambe met her husband. The couple eventually married in December 1995, and travelled to Grise Fiord to visit family on vacation, "and we just ended up staying. We just found our home in Grise Fiord."
The couple spent the next five years in Nunavut's northernmost community. They purchased their first house, and then Flaherty-Lambe became an Inuktitut teacher from kindergarten to Grade 4 and gave birth to two children, Thomas and Anna.
Flaherty-Lambe's husband applied to the , and she attended the College of North Atlantic in Newfoundland, living with her husband's parents while she trained as an esthetician and hairstylist.
The family later followed her husband in his various postings around Nunavut, including Pond Inlet.
"By then, I was being a mom. I had four kids," said Flaherty-Lambe, who also worked part-time during this period in Pond Inlet as a health assistant and translator.
Then they moved to Iqaluit and have been there ever since. It was there that both Flaherty-Lambe and her daughter Anna decided to pursue career dreams.
"Anna at first applied for acting at her high school, I guess it was in Grade 10. They would do concerts and stuff, and she adapted well into it. I was surprised because she was so quiet, but she ended up doing really, really well, and got chosen for [the movie] The Grizzlies. As for me, I decided to change my career into flight attending in 2012.
"At first, I decided to start out as a ticket counter agent, and then once the opportunity opened for a flight attendant, I decided to apply for it in early 2013."
She recalls how throughout her life in Nunavut and her various careers, she has always managed to pursue her career goals SA国际影视传媒� not forsaking her culture and language.
"My thought was to always help my fellow Inuit to speak our language... My [grandmother] always told me to pursue whatever I wanted to be, and to always help people, and that was always my goal. So being a flight attendant was one of the things I could provide."
With International Inuit Day being celebrated on Nov. 7, marking its 19th year, Flaherty-Lambe comments that "We're getting there, we're coming along. There are new milestones all the time."
"One of our first pilots, first officers, is an Inuk from Pang. That's one of the first people who came out of Pang to be a pilot, that I know of. There are so many new things, like my daughter, being Inuk, then being filmed in these HBO, CBC [shows], that's a big milestone, and she's not the only one.
"It's sometimes a little hard to believe. A little girl from Grise Fiord, a mother from Grise Fiord, and to have all these opportunities, and become successful. Sometimes I got to pinch myself, 'Is this for real?' Yeah, it can be done. Everything can be done. Just because we're Inuit doesn't mean we're held back. I always told my kids to do whatever it is they wanted to do, and help people, and be good people. It feels good."
