“I find that inspiration comes within and when you're at peace and when you're whole, you start inspiring yourself,” explains Archie Erigaktuk. He was born in Inuvik and was raised in Aklavik for nine years before his family moved to Vancouver Island. They stayed there for 12 years and then moved to Tulita in 2013. He’s been there ever since. He is an Inuvialuit and Dene person and when it comes to his work history, he started off helping his relatives on the winter road, working and driving around. He volunteered as a Canadian Ranger before being sworn in as a full-time Ranger. Eventually, he was promoted to Sergeant of Tulita and Norman Wells. He also worked as a surface blaster and heavy equipment operator in the diamond mines.

His advice for Indigenous students who have to leave their home communities would be to stick with it. Erigaktuk’s move south wasn’t really optional given he had been raised by his grandmother since he was born and then she passed away but he considers leaving the north a good decision. In moving south, he had the chance to learn about life outside his community. “The best advice I can give is you have to have two feet in both worlds, the traditional life and the European world of life,” he advises.

If he could give advice to his younger self it would be, “Everything is going to work out. Continue down your road with education or your profession. Things will work out for yourself.”  What Erigaktuk’s learned in spending time with elders is that in learning from others, you take those teachings and carry them with you and you will end up using them down the road eventually. Moving from the comfort and love of family in the North where he could hunt, live a simple life and find peace to the South where he found it chaotic and too busy, those words of reassurance would have come in handy.

To balance his mental health and wellbeing, Erigaktuk takes a number of approaches to find balance in his personal relationships with others, with the land and with himself. He knows he can be emotionally reactive and he would rather respond with respect and love so he takes time to respond instead of rushing as much as he can. Giving things time to settle can make a difference for him, too. He’s learning to find time for himself, getting up early in the morning to go to the gym before anyone else in the house is up and around is how he carves out the time he needs. He makes sure to contribute as best he can as a partner and father, too. When he goes out on the land, he listens, prays and practices gratitude. “Gratitude is the biggest thing for strategy for mental health. When you feel grateful, some of those feelings of worry or anxiety that come up subside and I start to feel a lot better,” he shares.

When it comes to inspiration, Erigaktuk says, “I'm inspired through what makes me who I am and who I am is a Dene, Inuk, Indigenous person, and what comes with that is language, being on the land, our laws, our Dene laws, our Inuit laws, storytelling and the way of our life. As an Indigenous person, when we go out in the land… you'll get recharged, you'll have gratitude, and then you start feeling inspired and motivated to do things.” Going out on the land is something encouraged by elders, grandparents and parents, too. He’s also inspired by drum music and traditional games. He finds he loses motivation outside of his traditional environment and thinks his motivation would fade if he were to move South. He used to be inspired by professional athletes but Erigaktuk later found them to be less meaningful as role models, deciding instead to look inwards.

When a family tragedy forced him to move from the peaceful Northern life he knew to the busy, chaos of the south, Archie Erigaktuk learned about life outside his community. Now back home in the North, he fills his cup with what makes him who he is, delighting in the lands, laws and traditions. Working on the roads, as a Ranger and in the mines, he’s been experiencing all life has to offer and growing as a person with one foot in both worlds.

“I find that inspiration comes within and when you're at peace and when you're whole, you start inspiring yourself.”

Thank you to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article!