INUVIK - A smiling Jessie Colton sits on her couch next to Governor General Michaelle Jean, who's wearing a brand new, fur-trimmed burgundy parka. The photo is almost two years old, displayed pristinely on Colton's sitting room table not far from a bin of 25 furless infant-sized parkas.

Jessie Colton, 71, is one of the most famous seamstresses in the Inuvik region. - Katie May/NNSL photo

Those are the easiest to sell, Colton says; the only size it makes sense to sew in bulk, because people are always looking for baby gifts. The Inuvik resident is waiting on a shipment of white fox fur to finish them, but finding a quality, inexpensive southern supplier has been tough. Fur costs more than twice what it did just a couple of years ago, and without the fur she can't take too many orders.

"These are not even orders, these parkas," she said, gesturing to the bin. "But you could have umpteen hundred of them and you'll get rid of them. There's a big, big demand for little parkas. The difficulty on parkas is obtaining the fur. And it's very expensive."

But with winter coming fast, the orders keep pouring in.

"I went out on a Friday, came back on a Tuesday and I had 16 calls waiting," the 71-year-old great-grandmother said. "I get a lot of calls. It's Grand Central station at times."

Colton's skills as a seamstress are well known throughout the Mackenzie Delta, where she grew up on the land since moving from Cambridge Bay at the age of four. Colton comes from a long line of seamstresses but after spending five years in residential school doing her own mending as a young girl, she had no interest in sewing.

"I wanted to trap and I wanted to hunt and I wanted to haul wood," she said. "(My mother) would say, 'that poor girl. We're going to be stuck with her for the rest of our lives because no man is ever going to want somebody that can out-trap them, that doesn't know how to clean house or cook or sew,'" Colton laughed.

Eventually she did begin to hone her natural talent with a needle, thread and crank-style sewing machine. She sewed her first parka at 14 and later took orders for parkas at Semlers' store in Inuvik, where Northern Images is today, and has never used a pattern.

"I had my own way. I mean, maybe I was just gifted," she said. "People just heard about me, just by word of mouth and they'd phone me and I'd take their measurements and make them parkas. So now I'm running this."

Many of her early parkas were made of duffle, a heavy and expensive pure wool fabric. Now she uses a lighter quilted material for the inner lining, followed by a layer of wind and waterproof fabric topped with a bright colour or print shell, trimmed with fur. Her fanciest parkas are decorated with Delta braids and beads. If she has to, she can make a parka in about five hours. Her record time, working with another sewer, is two hours and 12 minutes, from gathering supplies to the final stitches. She stocks up on supplies down south to save money, but Colton says getting the right material up North is always a challenge.

"Even people in the North go by the trends," she explains. "Last year it was straight purple; this year it's going to be straight red. If it's straight red this year, next year it's going to be another colour. So what do you do? You get stuck with a closet full of material."

So despite high shipping costs, she doesn't stock up on material.

"This year I said I'm going to try something different. I'm going to ask people to pick up their material," she said. "If a customer wants a parka, then it's worthwhile making it, you don't mind; everything is always worthwhile making – if they're willing to pay it. But a lot of times they don't want to pay that much."

Colton has unsuccessfully tried to take a yearlong break from making parkas, but for now – to her family's relief – has decided to stop working on Sundays.

"I can't keep up (with the demand)," she said. "I have to really limit myself."

A lot of her customers come from the south, Colton says. Yet she sees many Northerners wearing store-bought jackets because they're less expensive, so she tries pass on her skills to willing young people and gives back when she can.

Colton said, adding that every year she makes one very special parka. "Because I believe that sewing is a gift to me from the creator, I try to use it wisely," she said. "If I see somebody that's needy, I'll make one parka for that person for free."