WORDS BY CYNTHIA TEDDY
Charmaine Teddy
INTERVIEW BY JACOB LENNIE
James Rogers
36
Charmaine Teddy was born and raised in Tuktoyaktuk. She loves to sew and teaches those important cultural skills and other activities to her children and other family members. She learned how to sew mukluks first and then taught herself how to sew parkas and mitts. As a young person, she enjoyed spending time with her family, going to Sun-
day school, and hanging out with her friends. More, Charmaine’s most favourite activity to do as a kid was to go fishing at her nanuk and daduk’s smokehouse, located right at the beach by their house. Along with that, Charmaine also travelled on the land to do yearly spring hunting and fishing. She would go to her Husky Lakes cabin with my parents and around
JL: My name is Jacob Lennie. I am interviewing James Rogers for my English 30-2 project. So James, what did you do for fun as a child? JR: What I used to do was…I used to ride my bike with the bros, used to play grounders at the park, hide and seek in the bushes by my house. I played a lot of videos games. I used to do a lot of things growing up. JL: Out of all the games you played as a child, which game was your favourite? JR: There was… I’ll give you my top 3. There was Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2, there was NHL 09 and NHL 10, bro. That’s how it was. An underrated one was probably Tony Hawk. JL: What was the most interesting thing you did so far? JR: Most interesting thing.
That’s a head-scratcher. I’ve done a lot of interesting things over the years… so far I was able to go and buy myself a skidoo. JL: So James, what is your full name? JR: Haha—James Darren Kobe John Allen Rogers. JL: Did any of those names come from further relatives? JR: Oh yes. James came from my Dad; Darren also came from my Dad. James Darren was liked my Dad’s best friend. Kobe came from my brother Edward. Allen came from…I think it came from my grandmother. And Rogers was just like a family name. JL: How many siblings did you have growing up? JR: I’d say three. JL: Are you able to name all of your siblings? JR: Yes. Danielle, Edward, and Dan.
UKIUQ WINTER 2019
that same time, they would also go to the coast where they hunt geese. Charmaine says she believes that being a young person means being young at heart and in your soul. I am the youngest of my ten siblings and Charmaine is the oldest, so learning about her life growing up when she was younger makes me think of how different we grew being from different generations. In this generation, we have newer technology like phones and computers, but they did not have those back when she was a kid.
What was your favourite traditional food to eat? JR: Caribou meat. Caribou meat is my all-time favourite. Still to this day. JL: Alright, thank you for taking time out of your day/project to sit here and talk with me, and help me with my project and interview you. Hope you have a nice day. JR: Yes sir. Thank you. JL:
