DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
Ronald McKay of Fort Resolution is carving out a niche for himself as an artist.

Ronald McKay is a carver in Fort Resolution. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Appropriately, he is a carver.

The 60-year-old's artwork has its origins many years ago.

"I'll say I started when I was about nine years old," he recalled. "When I carved my first slingshot crutch, I think."

From then on, McKay's carving skills developed naturally.

"I learned everything on my own," he said, explaining that involved trial and error, and watching any other craftsperson.

"Our way when we learn is we sit and we watch," he said. "If you're good at scrutiny, you can pick up everything, even the little things that are required to do some of the micro stuff. I just managed to pick that up. I'm just a natural, I guess."

For instance, he remembers when he was a child watching an elder make bows, and also observing others make handles for knives.

McKay believes his ability to carve is akin to traditional knowledge.

"It's a knowing when to do a thing," he said.

McKay does a variety of carvings from moose and caribou antler, plus he also creates using soapstone.

Over the last four years, he has also been turning old cross-cut saw blades into knives, and using birch to carve the handles.

"Each knife by itself will take me maybe up to four or five days to make," he said.

Then he creates a leather case for each knife, he added. "The case in itself is also a piece of artwork and it takes me another four or five days to make."

In warmer weather, McKay creates his art in an outdoor workspace, but works in the porch of his house in winter.

His art also includes oil paintings.

McKay was born in the bush in the Rocher River area, and his family lived in the bush - where he spoke only Chipewyan - until moving to Fort Resolution when he four or five.

After 10 years in Fort Resolution, the family moved to Pine Point when he was about 14, and later he also lived in Yellowknife before returning to Fort Resolution in 1989.

His family didn't have a lot when first moving to Fort Resolution, he recalled. "A lot of the stuff, we had to make ourselves. I learned to make my own toys, carve the boats and that kind of thing."

Up to about three years ago, McKay had to stop carving and painting because of cataracts.

"I couldn't see very well," he said. "So I think I left everything for four to five years. Then I got one eye repaired and I'm using a contact in the other, so with reading glasses I managed to get by on this."

For McKay, carving is now mainly a hobby, although he occasionally sells some work depending on demand.

"When I need to pay some bills, that's when it becomes a job for me," he said.

McKay loves making his artwork, and the fact there are people who enjoy that work.

"But as a salesperson, I am the worst person at that," he said with a laugh.

McKay said, while his artwork is known in the NWT, he sells mainly in Fort Resolution to friends, and by word of mouth.

"I try to keep my stuff local," he said, adding that he will sell in Fort Resolution if he can get a certain price. "If I go out somewhere, then my prices go up because of my costs."

Occasionally pieces of his artwork are available at retailers in Hay River or Yellowknife.

McKay, who completed a public and business administration program at Aurora College, also occasionally works on various projects as a researcher, consultant and administrator, and also repairs fibreglass boats.

His art is secondary to his other work, but he said he really enjoys it.

"What I really enjoy about my art is, once you get started, you get focused in it and everything else that's happening around you is non-existent anymore," he said. "It makes you focus, really focus."

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