Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Tuktoyaktuk (Feb 25/00) - Thanks to Shepherd and Mona Felix, Inuvik residents will soon be dancing to the beat of some different drums.

The Tuktoyaktuk couple travelled to Inuvik last week to hold a four-day drum-making workshop at Samuel Hearne high school.

The event was sponsored by the Inuvik Community Corporation's Brighter Futures program. Hearne alternative program teacher Michael Drescher Sr. said students received credit for their participation in the workshop, which also attracted members of the Inuvik Drummers and Dancers group.

"Shepherd's been teaching the Inuvik Drummers and Dancers dances and songs and how to make drums," said Drescher. "We really respect him as an elder and a leader and as someone who's been keeping the culture alive."

The air in the school garage was thick with the pungent smell of soaking caribou skins and freshly cut lumber Thursday evening.

Teachers and students were busy shaping oak-wood drum frames, fixing the caribou- and moose-antler handles and then watching as Shepherd and Mona stretched and scraped the skins over the newly-fashioned drums.

The Felixes say work is evenly divided, with Shepherd looking after the wood-work and Mona supervising the skins.

"We use the belly of the caribou for the skin and soak it two times a day," said Mona. "I've been showing the girls how to get it ready, how to pick the hair off."

"I never go near that stuff," conceded Shepherd, happy to wander around the shop and lend advice and a hand where needed.

Shepherd said he learned the trade from his own father and has been making drums since 1980, a craft that's taken him as far as Greenland and attracted orders from Germany and Russia. Mona said they held their first workshop in Holman two years ago but that this is the first time Shepherd's been hired to teach students.

Inuvik Drummers and Dancers lead singer Nungkey Rogers is Mona's nephew and said he hopes the group would end up with 10 drums by the end of the week.

Dancer Debbie Gordon-Ruben said that would come as a welcome relief since they've been managing with Alaskan-style "parachute" covered drums since their skin-covered ones wore out a couple years back.

"It was hard getting used to the parachute drums because you get used to the other sound," she said. "Now we'll be able to have that back again."

Other workshop participants said they got involved for a variety of reasons. Albert Elias has drummed in Holman, Tuk and in Inuvik, where he's now taking computer training.

Bernie MacLean, principal at Sir Alexander Mackenzie school, said he's always been interested in crafts and carpentry and thought the workshop was an ideal way to study Inuvialuit culture and perhaps bring a drum or two back to his pupils.

Hearne Grade 11 student Meeka Kisoun said she was attracted both by the prospect of an academic credit and the chance to make a drum for her two-year-old brother, Jaedon, who's already an avid drum dancer.

Hearne students Katy Smith, 15, and Martha Day, 12, are already members of the Dancers and Drummers, but added they're way more interested in dancing than drumming. But what about picking the hair off of a caribou skin?

"Gross!" they agreed.