Cape Dorset (Mar 29/04) - Aksatungua Pitseolak Ashoona remembers the day she lied to her grandmother for the first time. She was seven-years-old and living in Cape Dorset. Her grandfather, Peter Pitseolak, was telling a story.

Aksatungua Ashoona sits at her desk in the RCMP office in Cape Dorset. - photo courtesy of Const. Joe Baines

It was after meal time, and normally the children would run off and play while the elders told stories.

"Sometimes I would wait, hoping they wouldn't ask me to leave because they were going to tell stories," Ashoona recalled.

"I always wanted to hear stories, but we were always asked to leave because we were too young to hear adult stuff."

This time, Ashoona could not hold back. She crept back in.

"I lied to my grandma for the first time," she said, a hint of mischief still in her voice, "because I really wanted to listen."

She told her grandmother she needed to use the washroom.

"It was honey buckets then," she said, laughing, "and the house was really small. There was a vent on the bathroom door. So I was sitting there, and nothing was coming out, but I sat there for nothing, just pretending. I froze for a while."

Frozen, pressing her ear to the crack in the door, Ashoona could barely make out the flow of her grandfather's words.

"When I left, I started in slow motion to go down to the floor," she continued, laughing at the memory. "Hoping I won't be noticed, so I won't be asked to leave."

There were two couples in the room, friends who visited her grandparents every day.

As her grandfather spoke, he suddenly began to cough. This scared her.

"He was coughing. He was telling old stories when he died," she said. "I watched him pass away."

Today, Ashoona works as a clerk at the RCMP detachment in Cape Dorset.

She has never forgotten how much she loved stories. When asked to tell her story, many come flooding out. "My son was a hockey player. Because of Jordin Tootoo, I am happier. He is an inspiration to me."

Ashoona, who can laugh at so many things, has also known heartbreak beyond anyone's imagination.

As a girl, her English teacher was the notorious sex offender, Ed Horne.

"He was so mysterious," she said. "He never looked at me. Never."

But Horne did abuse young members of her family, a horrifying event that far too many Northerners can relate to.

And then there is her beloved son, Matt, the hockey player. He died on Nov. 6, 1999.

"I thought I could never feel again," she said.

But Ashoona has battled back to the land of the living, the place where fond memories exist, and where old stories of her young self, crouched on the bathroom floor listening to elders, still make her laugh.