Marty Brown
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Nov 30/98) - Lavinia Brown says she's made a million tapestries over the years. Governor generals, prime ministers, foreign dignitaries and Wayne Gretzky all have Brown's richly-coloured wall-hangings. But she hasn't always sewed the whimsical art works.

She started decorating parkas back in the days when parkas were decorated with

manufactured trimmings. The first one she made in the 1960s, was for a single school teacher, Marilyn Meyers, who was getting married and living in Churchill. Brown was living there at the time.

The front of the unique parka had polar bears, the back had dog teams on the bottom and an igloo and a sun

on the top. The sleeves had a man in a kayak.

"Soon I had a booming business going. A lady would make the parkas and I decorated them for nurses, doctors, teachers and RCMP," Brown said.

Brown moved to southern Manitoba and Alberta where no one wore parkas. Soon she was decorating vests. She worked at the hospitals as an RNA and sold her wares at work.

Brown says that when she moved back to Rankin, everybody was making their own parkas so she moved on the wall-hangings.

People are now commissioning her work. Her current tapestry, Inuit Hunting -- showing people at work as well as textured dog teams and igloos -- was commissioned for $2,000.

Brown figures if she's busy now, by April 1, 1999, there'll be a stampede for anything Inuit. She's getting ready. In the time she has left after working at Nunavut College, parenting, grandparenting and who knows what else, Brown, who is also president of the local co-op and councillor at the hamlet, she sews.