IKALUKTUTIAK/CAMBRIDGE BAY - Gwen Angulalik said she has one big piece of advice for young people: "Get your passport."

The Cambridge Bay resident caught the travelling bug herself as a teenager, when she won an essay contest with a trip to Calgary as its prize.

Gwen Angulalik meets with Ussarqaq Qujaukitsoq, a hunter in Qaanaaq, Greenland. The Cambridge Bay resident recently worked as a cultural specialist aboard the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, travelling to Greenland twice as well as through the Northwest Passage. - photo courtesy of Peter Wick

"Since then I've told myself there's a whole lot of world out there. A whole world out there waiting to be learned and discovered," she said. "You never know what opportunity might come up, to be an ambassador for your culture."

In the years that followed that first journey south, Angulalik has spent time in Mexico and Tokyo, and driven from Edmonton all the way to California and Arizona.

Most recently, she found herself aboard the Kapitan Khlebnikov, a Russian icebreaker bound for points as far flung as Qaanaaq, Greenland, and Ellesmere Island.

As a cultural specialist for Quark Expeditions, she spent a month travelling the Arctic and Northwest Passage with tourists from all over the world.

"I did a few lectures on Inuit culture and I did a little bit on the language as well. The people on the expedition were quite fascinated about how people can live up in the North where it is cold all the time," she said. "There were a few other people who lectured on things like Franklin's expedition and geologists who spoke about the rocks and the ice. I learned quite a bit myself."

Travel like this also helps Angulalik to explore her other passion: language. Throughout the year she works as an interpreter-translator both from her own home business and for the legislative assembly when in session.

"I always wanted to go to Greenland and see the Inuit there as well and that was the real highlight of this trip for me, seeing the Inuit people and trying to communicate," said Angulalik, who usually works in Innuinaqtun. "I would say about 75 per cent of the time people understood me, but when I was in Qaanaaq, people understood me more."

Angulalik said she hopes her next destination will be even farther abroad in the circumpolar world.

"I might have a chance to go to Russia, perhaps Siberia next summer. That would be amazing," she said.