“I’m happy where I am, “ Christine Meyok says.

She is concentrating on her sobriety these days, living in Yellowknife. These days, she likes to stay home and sew most of the time.  She doesn’t like to stay home all the time, though, she likes to even just get out to the store. She’s living in a women’s shelter and looking forward to getting her own place so she can have people over and sew with them.

She moved to Coppermine when she was young to go to school, though she didn’t want to. Going away to go to school was important for her to learn English but it was hard because she didn’t know anyone.  Her parents went to residential schools, a system that was just ending when Meyoak was going to school. At school, Meyok learned secretarial skills to find employment but she found the work very challenging. Everyone was calling at once and she got very overwhelmed. She ended up walking off the job.

When life gets challenging, Meyok prays and thinks of her family. She has siblings on both sides of her family and she’s the eldest. She has a great grandchild now. She’s had struggles with housing and she started working when she was very young. Meyok made breakfast for a lot of people as part of her work.

Something Meyok wishes the younger generation did more was read the Bible. The lessons she gained from doing so helped her wake up and make better choices for herself. She’s tried to convince her grandparents to embrace sobriety like she has, urging them that it would be helpful to them to stop drinking.

Having fish for breakfast is something Meyok loves, especially arctic char. While she’s struggled with allergies, her mom’s grandmother would encourage her to try seal’s oil to help her feel better. Her grandmother lived to be 105.

Growing up, her dad would hunt bears and they would go on adventures, almost running out of gas sometimes. On Sundays, Meyok and her family would pray. Her grandmother didn’t speak English, only her own language, but she understood English to know what they were praying for.

While she’s happy where she is, Meyok is looking forward to what is coming next. Working on her sobriety and finding herself housing, better days are coming. Thinking of the lessons she learned from her family and the adventures she’s had, she has a lot of memories to smile about and she’s thankful for a chance to make her life better.

Thank you to Alison Tedford for writing this article.