Ben Illauq

Ben Illauq grew up in Clyde River, hunting and travelling with his father, Jushua Illauq, and going camping with his family through the spring and summer months. He also worked from the time he was 13 with his father as a guide and an interpreter for Qullikkut Guides and Outfitters, his family’s guiding business. When he was growing up, Ben travelled on the land a good part of the time, at all seasons of the year. He became very skilled in all kinds of cultural skills, from hunting and trapping, to travelling, from storytelling to food preparation, from walking on the land to qimmusiq over the ice, from surviving on breaking ice to guiding Nat Geographic photographers into the fiords. In 2005 Ben moved south first to the Regina area and then to the Ottawa area, where he worked in the meat-cutting industry and then became fascinated with building construction and all the trades converging in that industry. Today Ben continues to practise his land skills in a southern forest context and is bringing up his family in an Inuit way. Ben also works as the Shop Programs Coordinator for Isaruit, and coordinates the Isaruit Inuit Elders Consultation program. He is Isaruit’s Health and Safety Committee coordinator.