WORDS BY KAI OASIS CARDINAL
Karen McDonald
My name Kai Oasis Cardinal. I am 17 years old and I’m getting ready for graduation from East Three Secondary School in Inuvik. I chose to interview my grandma Karen Mcdonald because I was interested in what it was like for her to be young. She is 71 years old now and it was so cool to interview her. I never took the time to talk about her life before I was born and I learned something new about her—that she had a pilot’s license when she was younger! Karen’s younger brother was very interested in flying, he ended up getting his commercial license as soon as he could, around 16. In the summer of 1969, a flying school came up here and her dad bought her pilot lessons for her birthday. She did fly a plane across the country when her flight schooling was
over with her instructor to Edmonton, Alberta. It took two days to fly from Inuvik to Edmonton. In a Cessna 150, she went through Norman Wells, Rigley and overnighted in Hay River. To get a license, she had to learn a lot about weather, and about how the plane works, but she said it’s not that difficult if you have an interest in it. I always respected her as I grew up because of the person she is; she is always nice. Now that I have learned something new about her I have even more
My mom is Shauna Gully. When she was growing up she and all her sisters and brothers were raised on the land by my Nanuk and Daduk. At a very young age my Mom and all of her siblings were taken from the
land and had to attended Residential school, she attended Residential school for six years. She doesn’t like to talk about the horrific experiences she endured while attending Residential school. After she and her sisters and brothers got out of Residential school they went whaling and continued doing all of the things they loved to do on the land. When they returned back to town for the Spring Carnival my Mom met my dad when she was eighteen and they fell in love. My dad lived
WORDS BY SHALINA GULLY
Shauna Gully
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UKIUQ WINTER 2019
respect for her. She’s brave and has achieved a lot in her time such as starting her and my grandfather’s business McDonald Bros Electric. That’s why I look up to her as a role model and good parent. I’m glad I had this opportunity to share her story with the readers. Doing the interview made me inspired to try and interview more of my grandparents so I can share their stories. I hope that one day my grandkids think I’m cool enough to interview when I’m old.
in Fort Good Hope and she decided to do something life-changing. She moved to Fort Good Hope with my dad and they started a family together and got married. She lived in Fort Good Hope for 28 years before she decided she wanted a change. We now live in Tsiigehtchic just an hour away from her hometown of Inuvik.
