“What really inspires me is the joy that I see every day, even from people who are struggling and being able to see how well community comes together. Almost all of my stories are about Inuit and Inuit communities and so that's what really inspires me, the unfailing ability for Inuit to be joyful and humorous,” shares writer Napatsi Folger.

Folger was born in Iqaluit, Nunavut and her family moved to North Vancouver when she was a child. They moved back to Iqaluit after she graduated from high school and she’s since moved back to North Vancouver. When it came time to pursue post-secondary, Folger went to University of Toronto for her undergraduate degree. She returned to Iqaluit and worked in policy with the government of Nunavut in the Department of Education and the Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs.

While the work was interesting, Folger longed to do creative work, having grown up in a family of creatives. Her father was a filmmaker, while she happened upon government work in her twenties. While in university, she published a book called Joy of Apex for elementary school students and she wanted to keep writing. She decided to go to UBC and complete a Masters in Creative Writing.

Before coming home to Iqaluit, Folger studied marine biology. She loved learning about the world but wasn’t scientifically minded, so she didn’t finish. What she enjoyed in other courses was seeing artists incorporating science into their work. Given her experience doing textile work in her youth, she made puppets and other things for the Vancouver Aquarium. She also made clothing.

When she went into policy back home and found herself with that creative longing building, she realized it was time to give in. “I had learned a few lessons in my 20s about what I should be doing and the expectations I had of myself in my youth, and that really the best thing to do was to do something that made me happy and I didn't realize that that was such an important thing until I was in my 30s,” she explains.

Her advice to aspiring creatives is not to give up, even if you drop out of a program or struggle in school. “People always think about failure as a sort of final thing, but the best lessons I've had in my life were after failures. Failure, it's not inherently a bad thing, necessarily. It's a great way to learn things about yourself and about the world,” Folger counsels.

“I think it's important to know that creativity and art is not just a talent. It's something that you have to hone and practice and always keep building on so you're always growing as an artist. What I have learned over the years of me going to school to be a professional writer, and then coming out of that being a sort of semi-professional comic artist, is that the more you work, the more regularly you practice, the better and better your work is going to get. You can see it happening really quickly if you keep at it and the other thing too is not everything you make or create is going to be good, but that's what practice is about. As long as you keep at it and are open to constructive criticism, you're going to have a lot easier time excelling at it,” Folger continues. She was sensitive to critique but got over it and found how helpful editors can be and how collaborative storytelling really is.  

Another lesson she learned was, “Sometimes a story just doesn't work out. You can work on a piece and really love the idea, but if it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world. Not every single story you write is going to be a winner. Being able to let go of your work and maybe even take parts of it and put it into another story in the future, being humble and honest with yourself about your work is really important.”

She also learned it’s never too late to get started, attending school with students in their fifties and sixties. Folger started writing her first stories as a child, sharing short stories with friends in high school. Discouraged from pursuing the arts in favour of hard sciences, she didn’t realize she could be a professional artist until much later in life.

If she could share a message with her younger self it would be to let herself know the feelings she was having were anxiety and she should talk to someone about it. She would say, “Take a deep breath and know that things are going to be better, you're going to feel happy, you're going to feel safe and the best thing to do is to love yourself. You get along with people a lot more easily when you are confident in yourself and happy with who you are 100%.”

Looking back, Folger realizes with regret how she didn’t love herself, wasn’t gentle enough with herself and that being hard on herself made things harder, worsening her anxiety. Something else that made her anxiety worse was her struggle with time management, something she was able to get accommodated in post-secondary. She recommends others do so as well.

To balance her mental health, Folger listens to meditation videos and audio when she can’t sleep. Having a network of people to talk to who are safe, especially who understand Indigenous perspectives, helps, too. Going to Friendship or Indigenous gathering places at the university can help alleviate loneliness and build local community when you’re far from home, she’s found. Social media can be another way to connect with local Indigenous people.

In closing, Folger says, “it's never too late to change, to do something that you enjoy. Some people will never go to university, and that's okay, too. It doesn't mean you can't be a great success. A lot of incredible Inuit artists didn't even finish high school, and I'm not promoting that, but don't look at your failures when you're feeling down. Don't look at the things that you haven't done. Look forward and see what makes you happy and how you can continue doing that. I think people don't think highly of themselves enough, and especially young people, and especially young Inuit. And some of the most incredible things I've seen being done are by young Inuit.”

Inspired by the unfailing ability for Inuit to be joyful and humorous, Napatsi Folger is writing new stories and a new chapter for herself. Raised in a family of creatives, she left behind a career that didn’t fulfil her and followed her heart towards something that would. Knowing it’s never too late to pursue her own happiness, she went back to school and chose her own joy.

“People always think about failure as a sort of final thing, but the best lessons I've had in my life were after failures.”

Thank you to Alison Tedford Seaweed for writing this article!