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IKPIARJUK/ARCTIC BAY - Some people put in their eight-hour days at work or school and then leave the day's work behind.

Audrey Qamanirq is not such a person.

Martha Qaunaq, right, shows students the ropes in Artic Bay during a workshop led by renaissance woman Audrey Qamanirq. - photo courtesy of Jacqueline Arnauyumayuq

Teacher, volunteer, businesswoman, civil servant, craftswoman and mother, Qamanirq has taken multiple paths in pursuing her goal: supporting her community and the preservation of her ancestral Inuit traditions.

"I had a very dedicated traditional father," Qamanirq said. "My late father was very dedicated to our culture and that's where I've got my passion from, for keeping our culture alive."

By day Qamanirq is a teacher at Inuujaq school. She instructs Grade 3-4 students in health and social sciences in the morning and teaches Inuit cultural studies and Inuktitut language at the high-school level in the afternoon.

She has her female students sewing traditional Inuit clothing out of sealskin, caribou and leather. Her students have produced amautit parkas, kamiik boots and mitts for themselves and their families.

Qamanirq's male students are make hunting tools such as harpoons, uluit and niksik sealing hooks. The boys also make their own parkas. Qamanirq anticipates as the days get longer and warmer the boys will take their tools and their lessons out on the land and bring some country food into town.

Qamanirq's cultural teaching overlaps with another of her roles as Arctic Bay's youth co-ordinator for Qikiqtani Inuit Association. She organizes further sewing activities for teen girls and arranges trips on the land for the boys to fish, seal and hunt.

"Our culture is pretty strong here and our language is very strong," Qamanirq said. "There's a lot of interest from the youth in learning about our culture and traditions."

As a member of Arctic Bay's community justice committee, Qamanirq is involved with that group's crime prevention program. The committee is running workshops of parka-making for females and iglu-building for males. These traditional skills help build pride and self-esteem, Qamanirq said.

Qamanirq also runs the Kicking Caribou Theatre Group of six youth, who are mastering traditional Inuit ajaaja and throatsinging and drum dancing. The group has performed for cruise ships as they visit Arctic Bay and has travelled to other communities to share their culture.

On top of all that, when Nunavut's court circuit reaches Arctic Bay, Qamanirq is a court worker, helping people arrange interviews with their lawyers while court is in town. She also has her own translating and interpreting business and volunteers to help raise money for families' emergency travel expenses when it's necessary.