Martha has worked in the area of cultural retention and with DIAND, as the President of the national Pauktutiit Inuit Women’s Association, Canadian representative to the international Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and still works as a tourism animatrice and interpreter on summer cruise ship tours to the Arctic through Adventure Canada. However, Martha’s primary life’s work is in translation. She is a highly sought after translator and interpreter at the provincial, territorial and federal levels as well as internationally. She has most recently translated into Inuktut the whole Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women Commission’s final report, a lengthy and very challenging document. Such trusted translation work has developed in Martha a broad and comprehensive view of Indigenous issues in Canada.
Martha is also a highly sought after Inuk artist, who, having learned to sew at her mother’s knee in iglus and tents on the land, now designs and sews outfits of many kinds, and fabricates accessories and other Inuit art items both for sale and for the joy of creating. Martha has also been involved in “A Taste of the Arctic” annual cultural celebrations in Ottawa, and has organized and participated in several fashion shows over the past 20 years. Martha has lived in the Ottawa area for 40 years, and is the wife, mother and grandmother of an Inuk/Cree/English family.
As Past Chair, Martha continues to bring to ISARUIT her wide network of contacts, many of whom are specific to the arts world; a multitude of both formal and informal, national and international cross-cultural and cross-gender, cross-generational experiences; many, many years as a member of a highly skilled family of sewing artists; and the knowledge and understanding required to supervise the development of an organization from an Inuit standpoint. Martha is highly committed to the welfare of Inuit women living in Ottawa, and actively promotes the speaking of Inuktitut throughout all generations.