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IQALUIT - Being a teenager is never easy, particularly when caught between a world of ancestral tradition and one of pop culture and urban influences.

A part of a new generation of Inuit, Becky Kilabuk has grown up in a Nunavut quite unlike the one her grandparents or even her parents remember.

The QIA’s Becky Kilabuk is inspiring youth by living her dreams and opening their eyes to the beauty and richness of Inuit culture. - photo courtesy of Becky Kilabuk

“Through my teens, there was a lot of confusion, a lot of conflict,” she said. “It really hit me that I was living between the two worlds and I was trying to balance all that.”

Now a young professional working in Iqaluit, Kilabuk is helping today’s Inuk youth connect with their rich heritage and take pride in who they are.

As a youth programs co-ordinator for the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, she organizes grassroots programming for youth that encourages personal development and respect for Inuit culture.

It’s about young people finding where they belong in the “scheme of things,” said Kilabuk.

“What fuels me is wanting youth to see the potential in themselves,” she said. “I feel like we (as Inuit) don’t know how awesome we are.”

Kilabuk began working for the QIA as a volunteer, offering to help organize a youth camp in Iqaluit.

“Before I knew it, I was leading the whole program,” she said. “I loved it so much.”

Since its beginnings, the camp has grown by leaps and bounds. It is run and organized entirely by a group of youth who create the program themselves.

“They build the program from scratch each year,” said Kilabuk. “That’s the whole point of it.”

As part of a recent project, the co-ordinator photographed local youth modelling traditional clothing for the first-ever QIA Inuit Traditional Clothing Calendar.

“It’s youth showing how proud they are of their culture,” said Kilabuk. “It’s also art and beauty and it shows the richness of our culture.”

The richness of Inuit culture comes from its people -- their skills and talents. Along these lines, Kilabuk is working to identify resource people in communities, such as artists, elders and Inuit leaders, and connect them with youth interested in traditional skills building.

“We really hope to see much more funding flowing into the communities,” she said. “We’re calling it the “Rejuvenation Strategy”…where we take what’s already existing and bring it back to life.”

A self-taught throatsinger, Kilabuk found her appreciation for her own culture developed through travelling around the world as a performer. She’s been as far as Japan and South Korea, and was surprised by the reception she received.

“We are absolutely famous over there!” said Kilabuk. “When we went to Japan, we were treated like royalty just because we were Inuk.

“Sometimes we have to step out of home, our stomping grounds, and realize how the world sees us.”

Winner of a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee medal, a two-time recipient of the Commissioner’s Award, and an accomplished photographer and performer, Kilabuk lives her dreams as an example of what is possible.

“I realized pretty early on that I can’t gather youth together and say ‘Follow your dreams,’ unless I’m doing it,” she said.