For 17-year-old Ruqaiyah Noor-e-Zahra Naqvi, living in the small N.W.T. hamlet of Ulukhaktok means muskox hunts, snowfalls like she's never seen before, drum dances and ravens.

Naqvi, a Muslim student at Helen Kalvak School who recently moved to the community of about 400 people, brought all those concepts together with the help of fellow student Alison Klengenberg-Kuneluk for a mural that now hangs on a wall at the school.

"It's definitely [an] interesting thing for me to try, because I never worked on a project that big," said Naqvi, who is in Grade 12.

"I think definitely because of the friends I've met here, I was able to try new things and kind of open myself up a bit."

Naqvi and her family moved to Ulukhaktok in 2020 when her mother took a job as a junior high teacher at the school. It was an unplanned move for the family, who had been living in Burlington, Ont.

"When we were going to move to Ulukhaktok … I almost felt like I get to see another view, another side of my brothers or sisters in humanity," said Ambreen Zahra Bokhari, Naqvi's mother. "We are all part of the same light."

Though out of her comfort zone at first, Naqvi soon settled in. She began to meet people, make friends, and started her own creative arts club. She joined a muskox hunt with other students, took part in a drum dance and learned from elders about what they experienced at residential schools.

"It broke my heart," she said of hearing those residential school experiences. "But I think the point of them sharing it was to remind people of how far they've come in what has happened in the past, so you don't forget."

She wove those emotional and special experiences all together with paint. She's thankful, she said, for the history, culture and knowledge people have shared with her.

"If you told me two or three years ago that I would go hunting for muskox for nine hours in deep snow … I would be like, 'Are you crazy? I would never do something like that!'" she said.

"That's an experience you don't forget."

The mural is one of 33 funded by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and commissioned by the Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization back in March as part of the Inuvialuit Mural Project. The project aimed to support artists across the Inuvialuit Settlement Region with a stipend for their work.

Though most of the artists for the other murals are Inuvialuit, school principal Nicholas Kopot recommended Naqvi and Klengenberg-Kuneluk for this one — an unusual opportunity for the new student.

Alexandrea Gordon, communications manager for the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, said in an email that individual community corporations selected the various artists.

She wrote that the decision to allow a non-Indigenous student to be one of the painters "demonstrates how inclusive our people are."

Gordon said the idea was to give artists freedom to express empowerment, culture and self-pride.

"This allowed the artists to create art without boundaries," she wrote.

Naqvi's finished product features a pink-cheeked girl with an ulu-shaped earring, breathing on her mitts to warm her hands. Three hills rise amidst clouds, and a baby raven takes flight over the silhouettes of a woman and a child holding hands. The silhouettes represent the important message of Orange Shirt Day.

"I thought, there's a lot of great things, but you shouldn't forget about the sad things that happened as well," she explained.

Copies of all the murals will be displayed down the streets of Inuvik early this winter.

It was an all-new experience for Jordan Archie.

"My brothers and them would go, but for me, this was my first time ever going caribou hunting," said Archie, a student at Moose Kerr School in Aklavik, N.W.T.

Archie was part of a group of students from the school that teamed up with some local hunters this month to harvest some caribou. It was organized as a one-on-one learning experience on the land, with six students and six experienced hunters.

"I think of it as a great opportunity and I was thankful of going," Archie said.

Megan Lennie, a regional youth coordinator with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC), helped organize the event along with another teacher at the school. It was organized through Project Jewel, an on-the-land wellness initiative run by the IRC.

Lennie said the original idea for the hunt came from a student.

"They wanted a community harvest but they had no knowledge on how to get up there, and what the terrain was going to be like," Lennie said.

"So it was a perfect way to encourage knowledge sharing, and to provide meat to the entire school."

She said it all came together quickly.

"The idea came on Wednesday and we ran it … we decided to run it the next Monday. So then the boys went out on Monday to harvest," she said.

It was a cold day — around –27 C with the wind chill, Lennie said. They packed up some sandwiches and snacks for the six students and off they went.

The Porcupine caribou herd was not far from the community, so it was possible to do the excursion as a day-trip.

Some of the students had been hunting before, but Lennie said it was still a good learning experience for them.

"We were explaining to them, you know, it's important to learn from different people so you could get a couple different tricks up your sleeve, and share that to your own family."

The group returned to town just as it was getting dark, Lennie recalled. She was waiting for them at her in-laws' house.

"It was kind of beautiful … we saw the lights of 10 skidoos coming down off the hill."

The next day, the harvested animals — six of them — were taken to the school to be skinned and butchered. Lots of people from the community, including parents and elders, came to watch and participate. Everyone went home with some meat.

Archie missed that part, though — he was still worn out from the hunt. There wasn't a lot of snow yet on the land so the travel had been rough and exhausting.

"I was still at home sleeping, stiff and sore. That's why I didn't have a chance to get any skinning or butchering of the caribou," he said.

Stephanie Parkes didn't previously play basketball.

But recently, she was named coach of the year by Sport North, in honour of her efforts coaching the boys' basketball team at a school in Inuvik, N.W.T.

"I was shocked," she said. "Honoured. It's nice to have the recognition."

Sport North aims to develop and promote amateur sport in the Northwest Territories. It's responsible for providing programs and services for organized sport throughout the territory.

Parkes teaches Grade 9 math and is the boys' basketball coach at East Three Secondary School.

She said her journey into coaching began around 2008 when a friend needed her help chaperoning. It was a chance for her to hang out with the kids outside of the classroom setting — and she loved the experience..

"I see the kids a lot in the building. But it was really nice to get out of the school, make connections with the kids. Some of the students that maybe struggle academically — you really get to see a different side of them," Parkes said.

"You get to see them shine. I just fell in love with it."

For the last six or seven years, she's stuck with the same group of kids, who are now in Grade 12.

"It's been a journey for sure," she said. "A lot goes into coaching."

That includes five days a week in the gym, a lot of effort fundraising and travelling with the kids to Yellowknife.

"There's a lot to juggle," Parkes said. "It's time away from your own family. And my family has always been super supportive of me working outside of the house and chaperoning."

The time commitment, she said, pays off.

"We've had a pretty consistent team through the years. The kids are super dedicated," Parkes said.

"When you hear from teenagers that they appreciate you, and the things that you've done for their life, it kind of makes it all worth it."

'The long game'

The big reason she sticks with it, on top of her passion the kids, is to help promote staying in school.

"For some of our students, it's a reason for them to be in school, it helps to motivate them," she said of sport. "The ultimate goal here is graduation, right? So whatever we can do to help keep kids engaged in school, wanting to be there... we'll do what it takes."

While Parkes said she's seen the kids "through all the ups and the downs," she said she's confident "they're gonna get there."

"It's always been about the long game," Parkes said. "Sport for me has always been about a way to motivate kids, you know, to show up and to do the best that they can do so that they can have these opportunities."

What was perhaps most touching about winning the award, to Parkes, was getting to read the written submissions sent in by the athletes she coaches.

"They were pretty special, pretty emotional," she said. "[I'm] very grateful."