“It's absolutely beautiful underwater and what you see from above… it's totally different from below. There's no other feeling as good as it feels down there and seeing videos or images still doesn't encompass the whole thing,” Malaya Bishop muses. Originally from Iqaluit, Nunavut, she also grew up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Bishop now lives and works in Ottawa and has lived across Canada and on all three coasts. She’s been honoured as one of Pauktuutit’s 2023 Young Inuk Woman of the Year award recipients for her work as an underwater archaeology technician with Parks Canada. She worked as part of a team of scuba divers who dive at sites of British naval ships that went missing in 1845 in Nunavut. These days, Bishop works for Inuit Circumpolar Council of Canada as the Health Mobilization Specialist.

School was challenging for Bishop with the clash between Inuit and Western approaches to life and learning. As an energetic kid, many teachers didn’t know how to harness all her energy. Moving away to Yellowknife to pursue her education put a strain on her connection to language and culture and fuelled her desire to go home to Nunavut and reconnect.

After she graduated, she spent a semester at art school but dropped out. After a year off, she went to a more hands-on program in Toronto but dropped out again two months before the end with the strain of challenges her family was facing. She stayed in Toronto with family for a while before joining her parents in Alberta where she found work as a graphic designer with the provincial government. Five years later she went back to university through a transition year program for Indigenous students and completed a psychology degree.

Outside of psychology, she’s explored visual arts and performed as a throat singer. Her love of Inuit culture has been foundational to her life and she’s always wanted to do work that relates to her Northern homelands. She moved back to Nunavut after she graduated and worked for Parks Canada.

Bishop loved being outside but when the pandemic hit they had to move their work indoors. She decided to go back to school as part of a one-year virtual masters program instead but moved to Halifax because of the connectivity issues. Before moving, one of her colleagues told her scuba diving stories, inspiring her to give it a try.

Studying online and diving on the side, she fell in love with being underwater. She wanted to dive professionally and knew Parks Canada had divers in Nunavut. After inquiring about joining the underwater archaeology team, she learned she needed more experience and commercial diving certification. She gained the qualifications even though she had to go all the way to Vancouver Island to do it. When she returned to Nunavut, she joined the diving team for a year and a half until she transitioned into her current role.

Motivated by her passions for her homelands, for cultural practices like throat singing, the outdoors, the meticulous planning required for diving, Bishop throws herself wholeheartedly into what captivates her attention. “Something has to mean a lot to me for me to really go go for it,” she explains. Throat singing was something she learned from an elder at the age of five.

Her advice for aspiring scuba divers is to first pursue open water certification, a short program that also requires swim and treading tests. Without swim classes in Nunavut, swim testing can be a barrier. For commercial diving certification, Bishop recommends finding a group of interested people in your community and putting in a proposal through a local community organization for a trainer to provide the training locally. Alternatively, seeking funding to train in a southern community would be another path to certification.

With determination to find ways around barriers to her dreams, Bishop has made her dreams come true. She hopes there will be more novice divers in the North in the years to come and she encourages underwater career exploration. “If I could have my way I would have my current job and be able to dive regularly in Nunavut all year round,” she beams.

In her work with the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Bishop has the opportunity to be part of an organization that connects Inuit internationally. Just getting started working in the area of health, she’s meeting with her colleagues on important initiatives and getting to understand the similarities, differences and barriers Inuit face in different parts of the world.

Her advice for Indigenous youth who want to pursue education outside their home communities is that it’s possible, that they can do it, but at the same time, it’s hard to be away from home and to move from a small community to a large centre. She suggests focusing on what keeps you grounded, staying connected to a support system, taking your time, and accepting that failure happens.

After getting kicked out of university twice, she developed the discipline she needed to succeed. “I just kept trying. I didn't give up on me,” she recalls. When she faced those challenges, she did so with her support network. Between her parents, her extended family, professors, friends and other relationships, she had people in her corner to help her weather the storms. She had ups and downs academically and in her relationships but she got through it.

When it comes to inspiration, Bishop is a lifelong learner and someone who loves to connect with people. She enjoys getting to connect with other Inuit in her work and getting to do cool things in her home territory. Working in such an aligned way fuels her and she’s excited for her new role and all she will be able to achieve.

She fell in love with the world underwater and now she is connecting Inuit across the globe. Driven by a love of her homelands, Malaya Bishop has found ways to put her passions to work. Once honoured for her undersea contributions, she’s giving back on land and using her voice as a throat singer and as someone connecting to find ways for her community to be healthier.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.