INUVIK - After 12 years and six elections won, Nellie Cournoyea has been acclaimed for her seventh term as leader of the Inuvialuit.

The election for chair of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) was announced last month, but Cournoyea was the only candidate to step into the ring.

Nellie Cournoyea recently started her seventh term as chair of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. Cournoyea has held the position for 12 years. She said the corporation is eagerly awaiting the regulatory decision about the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. - Dez Loreen/NNSL photo

She also serves as chief executive officer for the IRC.

"I really believe that since I've been chair we've stabilized the organization," she said.

"We had some very serious financial situations when I first came in."

In her seventh term, she wants to see conclusions to a few issues on the table.

"We want to see the resolution of this pipeline issue," she said, speaking of the impending decision by the regulatory bodies.

Negotiating the social impact fund is another of the boxes to check on her list.

"That is taking time because of the delays with the pipeline," she said.

"The government seems reluctant to get moving until the decision about the pipeline is announced."

Cournoyea served as MLA for Nunakput from 1979 to 1995, and also as premier of the NWT from 1991 to 1995.

Her involvement with the Inuvialuit land claim spurred her career in politics.

"When we were negotiating our claim, the territorial government threw all kinds of obstacles at us," she said.

"There were many barriers in the way before the claim could be settled.

"We talked about it and agreed that we needed someone there who knew about our land claim and would be able to speak for us. We had many good members in the assembly, but none with that perspective."

She ran for MLA because her family was grown up.

"My family had already moved on, so I was able to move around," she said.

"We talked about it and some of the other capable people had families and didn't want to move too much."

After deciding not to run again for the legislative assembly in 1995, Cournoyea was first elected as chair of the IRC in 1996.