Dream Comes to Life

April-May 2002

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Phil Hossack and Teresa Davey

Victoria's kayak, 'Windsong", attracted swarms of Inuit children.

Victoria Jason, a grandmother from Winnipeg, Manitoba, was the first woman to kayak the Northwest Passage starting in the summer of 1991, completing her odyssey alone in 1994.

Her award-winning first book Kabloona in the Yellow Kayak (Turnstone Press, 1995, ISBN 0 88801-201-2) chronicles the experience of her 7500-kilometre journey over the four summer seasons it took to complete the voyage. She began a second volume titled Kabloona Returns-Arctic Summers in Pelly Bay, which was to be published this year.

Victoria found the Arctic exhilarating and fell in love with the history and people of the north.

In 1996 she returned to the hamlet of Pelly Bay (now Kugaaruk) in Nunavut, welcomed by swarms of children asking questions about her kayak "Windsong", each wanting and then getting a turn at paddling the craft. When she questioned locals why the kids were playing basketball instead of paddling kayaks, a new partnership emerged.

In 1997 Victoria and Michael Hart, then manager of the Koomiut Co-op in the Hamlet, purchased and brought four new Current Designs kayaks to the community. Instead of learning about their heritage from books in the school library, each child in the hamlet had the opportunity to paddle a kayak on the waters of Pelly Bay. Young and old waited for their turn to try what was once their tradition.

The reintroduction blossomed. Local guides were trained, a fleet of kayaks obtained and the paddling season of 1998 saw the first ever tourists arrive in the hamlet. Victoria and three Inuit guided the group of Americans and Canadians on a week long kayak tour on Pelly Bay itself.

Victoria Jason's smile was infectious .

Early in 1999 Victoria was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Surgery and chemotherapy left her unable to participate in further northern sojourns. She passed away in May 2000 at the age of 55.

Last summer, Victoria's daughters Angie, Debbie and Teresa returned their mother's ashes to the north that had captured her soul.

The sisters kayaked part of the route that had brought Victoria to Pelly Bay. At one of Victoria's favorite camps, the Isuqtuk river drains into the Arctic Ocean. The stone fish weirs nearby speak of the Inuit history on the land. There they unveiled a plaque erected by the Inuit community in their mother's memory.

The daughters drank from a waterfall at Qutairrurjaq, another of their mother's campsites. They visited the summer camp of Indigo Kukkuvak and his wife Maria. There, in a tent ring Victoria had left, they built a stone 'inukshuk' facing into the north wind she loved to feel on her face.

In each of these special places they spread her ashes.

In her passing, the seed of Victoria's dream has germinated. Children now paddle on the waters of the bay and hamlet elders participate in a program of kayak building, stretching synthetic skins over traditional frame kayaks.

Victoria's youngest daughter, Teresa Davey, and partner Phil Hossack have now teamed up with the Koomiut Co-op in Kugaaruk. The embryo of an Arctic touring company with Inuit guides from Pelly Bay has begun to grow with their help and support from the community.

Both Teresa and Phil have strong paddling backgrounds and teach sea kayaking skills for the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Phil paddled with Victoria often and spent the 1998 season with her, paddling on Pelly Bay.

Their long term goal is to leave the Hamlet of Kugaaruk with its own locally operated and guided touring company.

Equipment and people in Kugaaruk are ready and willing, and they hope to continue teaching the children firsthand about kayaking.

Victoria's dream continues to grow.

© Story and photos by Phil Hossack and Teresa Davey, of Manitoba, Canada E:mail. hossack@mb.sympatico.ca

Kugararuk (Pelly Bay) is located at 68 32N, 89 49W on the southwest shore of the Simpson Peninsula where the Kugaardjuq River enters St. Peters Bay. It is 300 km north of the Arctic Circle and very close to the centre of Canada's newest and largest territory, Nunavut.