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INUVIK
When Robert Kuptana started learning English, he started small.

First came the labels on things like butter and jam, which he read while working the trapline on Banks Island.

Then came the names of cities and towns, such as Toronto, Ottawa and Edmonton, which he could imagine but had never seen.

Then came the stacks of Archie Comics, followed by the Webster's dictionary, the bible and AM radio.

"I started looking at Jughead, Betty and Archie and thinking, 'What are they saying?'" he said. "Little did I know that I was going to be an interpreter."

Since then, the now 68-year-old Kuptana has completed two years of language training in Yellowknife, earned his interpreters certificate and travelled the continent to help other Inuvialuktun and Inuinnaqtun speakers gain a better understanding of what is going on around them.

With his wife Agnes, who is also an interpreter, often at his side, he has translated documents, meetings, news clips, legislative assembly debates, court proceedings and numerous Inuit Circumpolar Conferences.

In the past year alone, work has taken him from his home of Ulukhaktok to Yellowknife, Iqaluit, Inuvik and Ottawa. In June he worked as a translator at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in September at the National Energy Board's roundtable on offshore drilling.

The differences between the two, he said, were examples of the different places his job can take him.

While the roundtable was informative, technical and filled with "cool words" that don't translate directly to Inuvialuktun, the commission was something completely different.

"You had to be strong and bite your lip. You have to do your work in a professional manner, you know. We don't let the emotion get in the way because if we do that then we're not going to be able to do our work properly," he said.

"There was so much emotion and a lot of courage. Sometimes it was a little bit difficult but we had to make sure we lifted each other up as well."

Kuptana never attended residential school himself, as he had to stay home to take care of his sick and disabled parents, but his younger brother and sister did.

"What I did was I decided to try and learn English, because my parents couldn't do anything," he said.

He learned how to trap from friends, shot his first caribou with a single-shot .22 calibre at the age of nine and, when the time was right, moved away to further his education.

"I've retired a number of times," Kuptana said, "but I'm still going, anyway."

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