Transcript
006: Karen Nutarak of Adventure Canada

Theresa Christine: Welcome to The Wild and Curious Podcast, a show that's part travel 

Suzanne Schmedding: Part feminism 

TC: And completely inspired by extraordinary women worldwide. I'm Theresa Christine, 

SS: And I'm Suzanne Schmedding.

TC: Something that's a really buzzword term in the travel industry is 'authentic'. And like, having an authentic travel experience, 

SS: Yes. 

TC: What is that to you?

SS: When, when I went to Spain and I met up with this girl who had lived there her whole life, you know, she was like, taking me around and we're walking all over town, you know, well past 11pm and it was really lovely and it was

TC: So late! 

SS: Shut up! It's late for me! I'm in bed by 9:30 kind of gal. 

TC: No, I get it, I get it. 

SS: But you know, it was, you know, And I understand that it was it's a, it's a very common experience that you can have in the US, but like, she was showing me spots that were not tourist places, you know, it wasn't like, Oh, yeah, the menus are in English as well. Like, it was like, this is a Spanish restaurant, you know, this is her, these are her people, these are her friends, you know, and, and I loved that.

TC: Yeah. And it's so hard because, like, I think that's what people a lot of people really want, if they are physically capable of, you know, being able to do and like, have an experience like that. They want that. But how do you seek that out in a real authentic way, if you will, you know, other than, you know, booking a tour or something like you have to go beyond that sometimes.

SS: Well, right. And I think I think what I love so much about travel is the idea of like, I'm not just going to observe another way of life or you know, take pictures I want, I want to put myself in other people's shoes and, and understand the world a little bit better and understand other cultures a little bit better.

TC: And that's why it's so cool when you, when you are able to find that happy balance between a tour that is, you know, run by local people and actually does show you the true side of what a culture is like, and the money that you pay for that goes towards those people as well. So, yes, it's still a tour and it is tourism in that sense. But I think people kind of crave that balance nowadays.

SS: Yeah, absolutely. And I think our guest today does such an amazing job of that. 

TC: Oh, yes. 

SS: Yeah. Karen Nutarak,she lives in Pond Inlet, Canada, which is a small community where the majority of people, including Karen, are indigenous. She is a community liaison for Adventure Canada and a new entrepreneur.

TC: She is also in the process of launching her own business, Atii-Let's Go Tourism, which facilitates the meaningful interactions between travelers and locals.

Karen Nutarak: Life up here is way different from Los Angeles. Actually. We, we've had so many, we've had quite a few extreme cold warnings this year. When we say extreme cold warning, it's always minus 50. And a lot of time. 

SS: Oh my gosh. What?

KN: Yeah, it's frost bite in minutes. That's what they say. And it's been pretty cold. It's normal weather up here. So in wintertime, from November, beginning of November until December, we don't see daylight. It's dark, 24 hours. And then beginning of January, the late daylight starts to come back a little. Well, in August, we start getting the dark season. And then by November it's 24 hour darkness, and then right now we're getting daylight now for about 12 hours, maybe 10 hours a day.

TC: Wow, that is insane. 

SS: Yeah,

KN: Yeah. So, in April, we're gonna get 24 hour darkness until August. And we're surrounded by mountain, the Lancaster Sound. The ocean is in, right in front of the community. There's houses, public housing and people. Some people own their houses, there's roads, a lot of people try to do snowmobiles, and quite a few people drive their trucks in the community. Pond Inlet is basically all uphill. There's about 1700 people about 85% are Inuit, and then the rest are southerners that come up to work or some people stay.

SS: Wow, that's I mean, that's, that's such an incredibly different way of life. And I mean, it's, it's a smaller community and, and you as, as a budding entrepreneur for Atii Tourism, what kind of support or community do you have there as a businesswoman?

KN: Yeah, I get, I get, I have support from, especially my family. And then there's the government has a department called Economic Development and Transportation. So they are very supportive and the company initially called Travel Muna, but very, very supportive on starting your own tourism business. 

TC: Oh, that's awesome. 

KN: Yeah.

TC: Now, I am really wondering how the cruise industry affects daily life and it affects your life and and people's lives in Pond Inlet?

SS: Yeah.

TC: When you have these cruise ships coming in, because I think a lot of people have a bit of a skewed and not positive attitude towards cruise ships right now with over-tourism being an issue. And, so how did the cruise ships affect you?

KN: Well, I've been a culture performer, performer since 1995, over 20 years. And for me, I had never really had any problems. I've never had problems with the cruise ship. But the community always has concerns about, because there's a lot of ships coming through now, through our community because we're on the Northwest Passage with cruise ships. More cruise ships coming up, and see less personal shipping or ships coming through. People are very concerned about the animals in the ocean, especially the seal and narwhal. The time, this time people say that there's not enough whales coming through or seals. And that's ,people get upset over that, because a lot of us just, I just want to add that a lot of our food is flown up by plane because we don't have roads connected to anywhere. So, it's a very isolated place. And either the food is flown up with which is very expensive, or we get through sealift once a year in September, sealift meaning the ship coming up with the supplies. So diet, the main diet for Inuit is the seal and the whales, narwhals.

TC: Now, with the cruise ships coming in, one of the reasons we were so excited to talk to you is because you took something that I think could have been potentially just really bad situation you had cruise ships coming, you saw people getting off the ship, taking some photos, getting back on the ship. And you went ahead and started organizing, the first thing that you organized was a baseball game with travelers and locals. Right?

KN: Yeah. So that about 1994 the ships started coming up here and 1994 and people would just walk around. When the visitor center here was built, there was a staff, the manager, who did a couple of organized couple of cruise ships, and then I started, became one of the performers in 1995. And then, five years later, I became the visitor center manager here in Pond Inlet. But one of the, yeah, like you said, one of the first cruise ships I organized was with Matthews One, Adventure Canada and we, we plan for a baseball game in the community

TC: And what kind of experiences now do you, does Adventure Canada do, and do you curate?

KN: We do. So when the cruise ships come, they do a walking tour, lookout sites, go to the the visitor center. There's a foghouse, an old ancient home, made out of soil. They do this tour and then they come to the the Seahawk, the community hall where we perform the culture performance. But Adventure Canada always includes the community. So if it's not baseball, they plan for soccer game, and they like, people playing, mingle with the tourists. A lot of times, besides students, Adventure Canada, most of the cruise ships just come to do the community tour, watch the culture performance and go back to the ship and we don't get a lot of feedback. And then people get upset because nobody buys, there's always a table for crafts, Inuit crafts, and a lot of, a lot of tourists don't buy the crafts or talk to, talk to anybody in the community.

TC: Yeah. And then it just feels like you're almost on display. Right? And you're not actually a human being.

KN: Yes. But they're all there's always somebody on the ships that's really nice and talks to people. But sometimes, a lot of times they just go up to the show and then go back to the shore to go back to the ship.

SS: Well, so when you started creating these immersive experiences, and, and having a little bit more interaction, I mean, hopefully that feels like you're taking a little bit more control over the interactions? Do you, do you have any kind of particular memory that is special to you that helped redefine your interactions with people who are coming up from the south?

KN: I remember one time with Adventure Canada again, because they've been so good, mingling, having their guests give respect to our community. I remember them bringing food, they did a barbecue in the community. I think it was before a game. And people came and had like sandwiches, sometimes we're very excited too, when somebody brings us a food, a wrapper, a food wrapper that we haven't seen, we've never seen.

TC: Ha! Like, what is this?

KN: Even like, the ship food, the cruise ship food is being brought up to the Seahawk, it's like, wow, like new food. 

TC: It's probably like the equivalent when when someone goes to Japan and brings back the Japanese Kit-Kats or something. And we're like, whoa.

KN: Yeah, so I, I remember that one time, food was brought up and we had a barbecue and people, it was open to anybody in the community and a baseball game was played and Matthews always brought up a trophy. Oh, and then the next year they came back they would try to win back the trophy or we would try to win back, so it was always, always fun.

TC: Oh, the ongoing sports rival, I love it. And there is something to be said about how just food brings people together. Something as simple as just sharing a meal with someone new and sitting down and talking to them it's really beautiful

KN: Yes, it is.

SS: Yeah, I love the idea that like people from the cruise ship are bringing their, their cruise food to this barbecue, you know. And like they're, they're far from home obviously, they're on this cruise, but they're, they're still, they're sharing, you guys are meeting, it's, it's a wonderful thing.

KN: Yeah, there's another cruise ship that comes once in a while. It's called Crystal Serenity. It's a cruise ship that people live on, it came twice. And before they organised big events in the community with people, Inuit sewing traditional outfits, cleaning seal skin, but they don't mingle a lot with the community, they just come up and look at these displays of what Inuit are doing.

TC: I think I would be remiss not to touch on, you know, this is probably a whole other podcast discussion about you know, Inuit culture and the way that Canada has dealt with and treated indigenous people. And so I'm wondering like, how can travelers balance exploring Inuit culture, while also being respectful, which is something that I think you do really well with Adventure Canada and with your own business.

KN: Yeah, if, if the managers of these companies would contact directly to the organizer of this community, I think more organized community visits would benefit both the tourists and the community that people

SS: No, I love that it makes sense, you know?

KN: Yeah. Because someone, like, I've worked at the visitor center for three years. I'm now the adult educator at the community college. When I worked for them at the visitor center, they would just email you of what they want, and you had to organize what they wanted to do. If there was more communication between the organizer for the cruise ship company and the organizer in the community, I think like, communication is the best key planning things, then I think, and if they have more time here, because sometimes it's like they're here two hours or four hours and everything's rushed.

TC: Yeah, I think that's a really tricky, tricky thing, just responsible tourism in general. And then also, you know, trying to remain as respectful as you can of a culture and sharing it without diluting it. It's really difficult.

SS: It's, it's a very big task you've taken on, but I mean, we are, we are so excited to see what Let's Go Tourism--Atii has in store.

KN: Yeah. So with my business, the business I just started, Atii means 'Let's go'. So Let's Go Tourism. I plan for winter activities, summer, fall, spring, and then any active cultural relevant activities like spring games, storytelling, visiting an elder, so I'm starting this business so that we could have Southern people understand where we're from, what, what our life is instead of always learning from the news or research, I would love people to get to know us better.

TC: What Karen is doing, I think, is what we were talking about. Kind of finding that balance between, you know, her culture comes first like that is what's most important to her and for her to be able to approach the tourism industry and have them mold and change their ways, to be sustainable, I think is really powerful. 

SS: Yeah, no, and I feel like it's, it's one of those things where it gives, it gives her own community a sense of power as well, like they're, they're embracing their culture more. They're, you know, they're defining it and showing it to other people and it gives them a stronger sense of community as well. 

TC: And they're showing it on their terms. 

SS: Yeah. 

TC: And, and showcasing it in the way that is comfortable and real for them. And that, yeah, there is just something to be said about, you know, you drop in to a place on a cruise ship, you drop in for a day, if even, maybe a few hours. And what are you going to really remember? Is it going to be the pictures of pretty houses? Or is it going to be the really intriguing and eye opening conversations that you have? 

SS: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I love that. If you would like to find out more about Karen's business Atii-- Let's Go Tourism, you can go to their Facebook page or you can go to atiitourism.com, which is a-t-i-i-t-o-u-r-i-s-m. 

TC: You can also learn more about Adventure Canada at adventurecanada.com or on their Instagram at @adventure.canada. You've been listening to The Wild and Curious Podcast hosted by me, Theresa Christine 

SS: And me, Suzanne Schmedding. If you've enjoyed this episode, there's more where this came from. Subscribe to The Wild and Curious Podcast wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. You can also follow along with our adventures on Instagram. Our handle is @_thewildandcurious_and we will also put that in the show notes for you. 

TC: We are always looking for extraordinary women to talk to you on our show. If you have someone in mind or you are that someone go to thewildandcurious.com to let us know