FCC-2008 Nunavut Arctic College

Trendbook

Student Contest

Ryerson University 2008

ESMM

Cégep Marie-Victorin 2008

Nunavut Arctic College

Buying Fur

Media Lounge

Naffem

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Nunavut Arctic College

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The Fur Production & Design Program of Nunavut Arctic College offers students the opportunity to develop knowledge, skills and confidence to be successful in the fur garment industry. This ten-month program focuses on traditional Inuit methods to prepare seal skins, design and produce sealskin garments, as well as on fashion design and contemporary production methods for the creation of sealskin and fur garments for the Northern market.

Sealskins continue to provide clothing to our families and are an important resource for Nunavut’s arts and crafts industry …An emerging fashion industry, based on the use of sealskin, gives cause for optimism about the future of this sector.

(Government of Nunavut, Nunavut Economic Development Strategy).

The pilot of this new college program is supported by the Government of Nunavut, the Government of Canada, and the Kakivak Association. In the Nunavut Economic Development Strategy, the Government of Nunavut (GN) identifies the value of seal harvesting and production as a means to support the cultural and economic goals of the Inuit.

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Nunavut Arctic College
2008 Winners

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Grand Prize winner
Meeka Kilabuk
Biography

As a child I always wanted to find a medium of expression to create on paper, material, or with wool, an image I would visualize; and that I had seen being done by my father. His determination and imagination inspired me to try artwork and certainly it was my mother who inspired me to sew. The only store in Pangnirtung did not carry any clothing, therefore my mother hand-sewed all my siblings clothing out of store-bought material as well as using sealskin and caribou for outdoor clothing.

Fur or kittutugait, as we call it in Inuktitut (the Inuit language), is the reason my people and I exist today. We live in an environment which has the harshest, coldest temperatures and shortest summers in the world. It is due to the amazing survival skills and the know-how of our ancestors that our race has survived for thousands and thousands of years hunting for food and clothing without the involvement of the outside world.

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There is no comparison to FUR with synthetic materials. We hear about parkas and boots being made for 70 below and yet none of them prove to be safe in blizzards and the ever-changing weather on our lands and waters. Someone once asked me why the Inuit smile so much and my answer would be “because we are warm” no matter how cold it is outside. It is not looks that makes us human beings happy up here, it is the warmth from the fur that gives us comfort, a sense of being safe and of well being.

I am presently a full time student in the Fur Production and Design Program at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit, Nunavut, which I enjoy immensely. With my children all grown up, once I have finished school then I will be “ free as a bird” to get into the world of fashion design and the fur industry!

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Design Prize winner
Rosalind Machmer Biography

I was born in Panngnirqtuuq in 1971 and was raised by my grand parents until my parents were permitted to see each other; this was because m father was one of the Hudson’s Bay “Boys”.

I met my father for the first time in Arctic Bay where he was located when I was 3 years old. The price of seal skin was very good then and my father became a great seal hunter. In truth, I was raised by shamans. I was babysat by a shaman and his wife in Arctic Bay and then by another shaman woman in Pond Inlet. I lost my grandparents and my father when I was young. I then raised myself and my siblings. I took off to join the military right after high school just to prove to myself that I could do it.

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I have always had an interest in anything to do with the arts. I did a lot of traveling with the theatre group from Pond Inlet. I allowed myself to fall in love with my high school sweetheart and began my own family at 25. I worked for television and wrote TV drama.

Now I am in my late 30’s, my children have grown already and I am once again free to discover the world! I have learned to sew within that time from my mother in-law and I have gained so many new “hands on skills” from the Fur Production & Design Program run by Nunavut Arctic College that the Milky Way is the only thing limiting me. Anything is possible. And, I am off to the races already, to the North American Fur & Fashion Exposition NAFFEM Tradeshow in Montreal where the fair will showcase my winning design.

I have dreams to sail around the world in a beautiful boat with my family, extended family, friends and all my fury friends alike. All of this, only at the age of 88 after years of sewing! I would also like to learn to carve jewelry, do photography and carpentry and have my own dog team someday….after, building my own studio down by the sea.