Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 12/05) - Carver Goota Ashoona, originally of Cape Dorset, and her husband Bob Kussy are working full-time to create wintertime ornaments for the holiday season in their Yellowknife studio.

The intricate decorations, carved from whale bone feature images of Arctic wildlife, drummers, singers, hunters, inukshuks and other Northern themes. Many are carved on two sides.

Ashoona is known for her exceptional figurative carvings. Many of her ornaments depict laughing children with bright smiling eyes and the tattooed faces of throat singers lost in a song.

Ashoona just arrived back from a trip to Arviat where she collected 600 more bones to carve over the winter. The two carvers sell about 500-700 carved ornaments every year since they started making them a decade ago.

Ashoona and Kussy are building a small gallery of their own work alongside their studio.