YELLOWKNIFE - Only a few days after winning a Juno for Aboriginal Recording of the Year for her new CD, Sedze, Yellowknife's Leela Gilday has a bigger fish to fry: her overflowing inbox.

Leela Gilday with Juno award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year. - photo courtesy of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS)

"I have billions of e-mails to answer and phone calls to return," she says with a chuckle of her "future plans."

It's a standard response from Yellowknife's favourite export, who's been a practical-minded road warrior since leaving the capital to pursue her music career full-time.

Gilday is focused on the here and now: catching a plane back to Vancouver, a show coming up in Toronto, things like that. She says she can't make grand, flowing statements about what a Juno will do for her or her career, for one simple reason:

"I've never won a Juno before, so I don't know."

Seems fair. But don't think she isn't excited. After all, she is the first Northerner to take home a Juno in some time who isn't named "Susan" or "Aglukark" - who Gilday was nominated with and performed with during the aboriginal tribute performance at the top of the show.

"It was really awesome, my folks were here, my whole crew from Toronto was here," she says from Saskatoon. "I was super surprised and happy; I was thrilled, it was like everyone won it."

One of those co-winners was her guitarist, Jason Burnstick, who was also nominated as a solo artist. Fortunately, Gilday said having two nominees in one band didn't cause any friction.

"Are you kidding me? It was totally awesome, because he was honoured too," she said. "I was really happy that he got nominated."

"I believe in my musicians. For him to get nominated as well just shows the strength of our music."

"Apparently, they were going to arm-wrestle over it," said Leela's father, Bill Gilday, with a laugh.

Both Bill and Leela's mother, Cindy Gilday, were able to make it to the gala affair in Saskatoon, where they watched their daughter reap the rewards of a lifetime of hard work.

"It was just absolutely fabulous," Cindy said. "She certainly deserves it because she works so hard.

"It's been a long road, and it's not an easy profession to follow."

Both parents remember the struggles Leela dealt with during her early years as a musician after earning her music degree from University of Alberta: waiting tables in Toronto by day and playing by night, missing opportunities with the operas in Toronto due to cost and trying to make a go of things while based in the North.

"It's a really big impediment," Cindy said of Yellowknife's isolation from other music markets. "There are a lot of barriers from doing it up here."

"I was really happy to have them there," Leela said. "It's been a lot of years, and they have never been anything but supportive to me in my career."

"In all the struggles and everything, they have always believed in me."

In a later interview with CBC, Leela toyed with the idea of the "next step" of her career, perhaps moving toward a more "mainstream" sound.

"I'm not sure what she's going to do," Bill said of his daughter's ambitions. "I believe she's go the talent to sing music in a lot of different genres."

"It will be really fun to watch what she does over the next coupe of years."