From Arctic Snow to Outer Space

Words by Tyee Fellows; Photo by Andrea Stenson

AT 29 YEARS OLD, I FINALLY MADE IT TO SPACE CAMP.

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and their affiliates like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) offers a four-week course—Principles of Aviation and Space Medicine—that brings together fellow space enthusiasts from around the world for hands-on experiences in the field of aerospace medicine. We received daily lectures from flight surgeons and astronauts, partook in their training (like entering their elevation/dive chambers), and gave a presentation on an aerospace medicine topic of our choosing. The most memorable moment for me was meeting our very own Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, a physician himself, who has devoted part of his medical career to the Arctic communities of Nunavut.

Being chosen for this course was personally momentous. Since I was very young, space has always gripped my imagination and is what fuels my curiosity. It is what led me to take astronomy courses at university, wake up at three o’clock in the morning to stargaze, and ultimately apply to UTMB’s aerospace medicine course in my final year of medical school.

After sharing this exciting news with our Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, I was grounded by their invitation to be one of the contributors to this Tusaayaksat issue celebrating the accomplishments of our Inuvialuit community. I want to congratulate the other contributors of this issue and emphasize that their achievements are notable and deserving.

I have chosen to answer the question, “What does it mean to be Inuvialuk”, because I believe the answer reflects our role as Inuvialuk people: teachers of resiliency. I want to share an experience with my nephew, Keaton Cockney, that exemplifies this clearly.

Some April ago, my aunt and uncle invited me out to their camp at Husky Lakes. As they were already at the camp, they asked Keaton to guide his urban uncle out to their cabin and back. Without hesitation, this 15-year-old Inuvialuk took on the challenge to navigate his 21-year-old uncle three hours outside of town, across the Arctic tundra.

Ski-dooing to Husky Lakes was exciting. From the moment we turned off Inuvik’s Industrial Road to rounding the final hill before Husky Lakes, my senses were overwhelmed. The Arctic snow blinded my eyes, numbed my face, froze my fingers, deafened my ears, cut my smell— and it was awesome. The return trip, however, was different. It was not the Arctic snow that overwhelmed me, but the Arctic people. Here I was, a ‘city-boy’ in the powdered wake of my 6-year-younger nephew, who was tenaciously searching for our path home. Each time I looked ahead, I was awed by the Inuvialuk bounding up and down atop of an oversized skidoo in the distance, pressing on into an ostensible void of the Arctic tundra. Just as concern started to arise as evening approached and the elements intensified, something special happened; as if it were magic, a clear path forward materialized from the white void. When I returned my gaze back to my nephew, I realized he could see what I couldn’t the entire time—a way forward.

Whether you look to our ancestors conquering the Arctic or to my ambitious nephew for taking on challenges bigger than himself, the Inuit people have and will continue to show the world what amount of resiliency we are capable of.

Last year, amid medical school, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. Translating directly to difficulty (‘dys-‘) with languages (‘-lexia’), dyslexia is what slows my reading, scrambles my spelling, frustrates my writing, and is what made learning in our current school system feel like climbing Mount Everest. Yet, this did not stop my drive to learn. By drawing strength from my heritage and seeking inspiration from remarkable individuals like Keaton, I was given the resiliency to overcome my learning disability and follow my curiosity to pursue Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Animal Biology and Zoology at the University of British Columbia, as well as a medical degree at the University of Toronto. Being diagnosed at this stage in my academic career, this matured perspective taught me that our potential is always greater than we can fully appreciate. Whether it’s to my communities—Indigenous, non-Indigenous, disability, and medical—or those around me, I want to emphasize that our potential is not determined just by what we see within, but also by what we see beyond.