Transcript
I love people, I love meeting people, talking to them, learning about their culture, their differences.
My name is Roch Anctil and I am a development officer with the Quebec Region Office of Boating Safety.
My job involves awareness-raising, training and education. We also provide training or awareness education to First Nations and Inuit communities regarding good boating safety practices.
We are currently in Kuujjuaq, in Nunavik, in northern Quebec, and we are meeting with people from municipalities and communities.
We are also meeting with Inuit people to learn and understand the reality of the North and what challenges they face when they go subsistence fishing or hunting by boat.
What equipment do they need that is difficult to access? Do they wear life jackets? I had to learn some things.
There is a lot to learn before coming here in order to be properly prepared, because you can’t assume you have a solution when you don’t live here, when you don’t know the reality.
So it’s really about working with the community, with the local people, so that they can take charge of all the education, that it doesn’t always come from us, and we really want it to come from the local people and for them to promote it among their peers.
When I was growing up, in my family, my father always took us fishing.
I developed a deep love for nature and people, and when the opportunity came in 2008, I was working in adventure tourism at the time, but there was an opportunity that came up, and I jumped on the opportunity right away.
And I’ve been coming up north for a number of years now and I love Nunavik. I love the culture and the people who live here, and if we can help in any way to protect or save lives, so much the better because I love these people dearly.
I really love the North.