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PANIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG - Ambition often eclipses a person's physical stature. Just ask Pangnirtung-born Sarah Tautuajuk.

"I'm short. I know I'm short. I've always been short. With my size, a lot of people - well, men - think that just I'm a woman and I'm small and I'm short and whatnot, that I can't do anything physically demanding.

Sarah Tautuajuk is working full-time at De Beers as a handy person after completing the Building Trades Helper Program offered by the NWT Status of Women Council. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

But I've proven them wrong," she said, grinning widely.

Tautuajuk is a graduate of the Building Trades Helper Program, a course that prepares students for entry-level construction jobs assisting tradespeople like carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

She graduated from the course, offered by the Status of Women Council through its Northern Women in Mining, Oil and Gas initiative, last year.

The initiative aims to put more women in trades positions in the NWT.

Now Tautuajuk is working as a handy person at De Beers' Snap Lake Mine, fixing everything from doorknobs to cabinets at the mine's camp accommodations.

More importantly, Tautuajuk is supporting herself and her 14-year-old son, Tommy, who stays behind in Pangnirtung with her mother while Tautuajuk works in the mine, staying in Yellowknife on her days off.

It's far cry from her days of babysitting for small cash.

"I'm glad I'm working," she said. "There are people who don't enjoy it, but I've been there. I was unemployed for a while. I don't take work for granted because it's tough being a single parent."

Being away from Tommy is sometimes hard, she said. She last saw him at Christmas and won't see him again until June.

But it's worth it because "I have to look at the big picture. I'm planning for my future - for his future."

She said she wants to buy a home, either in Yellowknife or Pangnirtung. She hasn't decided yet.

"Hopefully in five years' time I'll save enough ... to put a down payment on a house. That's my big-picture plan," she said.

In the meantime, while working for De Beers, Tautuajuk is expanding her skills, grabbing every opportunity for new training in areas such as how to work in confined spaces and how to use fire extinguishers. Soon, she will learn how to operate a Bobcat in order to plow snow on the mine site.

"Where there's training opportunities available with work, I'll take it," she said.

She's already begun showing off, she said. When she visited her family at Christmas, she checked her mother's furnace and did some plumbing. Her mom was floored.

"She said, 'You can do that?' She was surprised at how much knowledge I have gained since I've been working," said Tautuajuk. "I can fix anything."

Lorraine Phaneuf, acting executive director of the Northern Women initiative, said Tautuajuk is the very embodiment of a Northern Women success story.

After Tautuajuk completed the course last year, the council arranged for her to work at De Beers over the summer for four weeks. There, she helped construct a large, wooden stage for the opening ceremonies to mark Snap Lake's official opening in July, among other things. The stint also helped her get used to working on a two-weeks-in, two-weeks-out rotational basis.

"It was kind of like a work placement," said Phaneuf. "Our partner, in this case De Beers, came to us and said, 'We have two positions that we will only open up to your graduates.' But the students still had to apply, still had to do the interview, still earned that position.

"How it came about with Sarah is an ideal situation of the project.