John Thompson
Northern News Services

Clyde River (June 20/05) - Raygelie Piungituq was born in May 1953 as her parents returned from a fishing trip to their outpost camp. Short on blankets to wrap her in, they draped their newborn baby with cloth used to line a crate holding their camping supplies.

Today, she's happy as long as she has enough money to buy gas and supplies to head back out on the land, the world she was born into, and hunt seals.

"I can wait and wait, without moving," she said, translated by Peter Iqalukjuaq.

That same patience becomes useful during lengthy meetings she attends as a hamlet councillor, and a volunteer for other Clyde groups. The only organization she's managed to avoid joining is the Northern Rangers, she says with a laugh.

As a child, her father used to look for stones to carve into toys for her. Eventually, she learned this craft herself, and today residents line up to commission carvings, like a set of hunters and polar bears she recently made.

She remembers well the first carving she sold back in 1972 for $8: it was a woman wearing an amutiq, a design that remains her favourite today.

Piungituq spent much of her childhood helping her elders, carefully watching them as they sewed traditional clothing. "That's how I learned," she said.

Between carving and sewing seal-skin kamiiks, she managed to support her four children as they grew up. "Now they help support me," she said.

Although she dropped out of school in Grade 2, her traditional knowledge gave her enough credibility to join the CBC as an Inuktitut broadcaster in 1986, a role she continues today.

"It was a different world."

Piungituq also helps with her church.

"I believe when the body dies, there's a spirit. That's very important for me."