Jillian Dickens
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Oct 24/05) - People view the man in charge of communication at one Inuit organization as funny, witty, forward, and a bit of a smart-ass.

At least that's how Vinnie Karetak, communications director at the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, thinks people view him.

"It works well with my job," said Karetak from his paper-strewn Iqaluit office. "People don't mind me horsing around once in a while."

He's pretty good at keeping professional at work, but when he's off, he doesn't hesitate one bit to speak his mind.

And he admits, this attitude does send him to the proverbial dog house sometimes.

"My humour has no boundaries, nothing, so I have to sometimes keep it in check or sometimes people get mad," said Karetak.

He's been plugging away at his current job for almost a year. For the last couple of months, his tallest order has been planning QIA's 30th anniversary and annual general meeting.

"My role is to make sure all documents are in order and I've also been working on scheduling, RSVPs, etc."

The association has been thinking about all this since June, but Karetak says they really "kicked it into high gear" in September, after everyone in the office came back from holidays.

Since then he's been running around like a chicken with no head, asking "where's my head, where's my head?"

Karetak left his home town of Arviat when he was 18, to begin his cross-Canada crawl.

"I've been around the country a few times."

He spent a year in the Canada World Youth exchange program, volunteering for an Ontario secondary school for the mentally challenged for six months, and building a community garden and digging ditches in Indonesia for another six months.

After that he went to school in Calgary, did a work-placement in Winnipeg and helped out with the Kivalliq info booth at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in 1995. He then studied in Ottawa for two years before returning back home to the North.