Shelagh Rogers wins mental health award, honours memory of Labrador Inuk

A well-known CBC host has been recognized for championing mental health issues and is dedicating her award to a mental health advocate from Labrador who committed suicide earlier this year.

Shelagh Rogers, host of CBC Radio's The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, won the inaugural Margaret Trudeau Award for Mental Health Advocacy in October.

• Shelagh Rogers recognized for mental health advocacy

She used that platform to honour Dorothy Angnatok, a young Inuk woman from Nain who committed suicide in January, after struggling with her own mental health issues.

'She was courageous. She was fierce. She was very, very funny."- Shelagh Rogers on Dorothy Angnatok

"She will always be a hero of mine and I know for many people, for anybody whose life she touched," Rogers told CBC's Labrador Morning.

"She was courageous. She was fierce. She was very, very funny."

Rogers has suffered from depression for much of her adult life and been a vocal advocate for mental health for over a decade.

She met Angnatok during her first trip to Labrador to visit Torngat Mountains National Park in the summer of 2011. The young Inuk woman was in the park as part of her job as a counsellor with at-risk youth.

"I saw her really inspiring younger kids and getting them excited about going out on the land," Rogers said. "We talked privately about the connection between being outdoors, being physically active and that connection to mental well-being."

It was on that trip that Rogers and Angnatok forged a bond, one based in part on a shared experience with mental illness — a bond that grew stronger as they met in the intervening years.

"She also talked to me about the demons in her own life and her own mental health struggle and I would say, like me, we both appear to be very sunny people, very cheerful, energetic and sometimes under the surface there can be a completely different story going on."

• Creating a legacy in the sky: Air Labrador honours mental health advocate

Angnatok was well known in Labrador for her work with youth and the saying she coined, "Create a good day."

In April, Air Labrador honoured the young Inuk by painting the hashtag #createagoodday on its new Twin Otter aircraft.

It's a phrase that resonates with Rogers.

"I think about her all the time and I look at a little sign on my desk every morning that says, 'Create a good day,' and so I always think about her."

It's a silence that has to be broken.- Shelagh Rogers on mental illness

Rogers said she was honoured to pick up the Margaret Trudeau Award last month.

She said she and Angnatok knew the joys and challenges of mental health advocacy, but it is important that people fight the stigma around mental illness.

"It's a silence that has to be broken and when you hear people coming up and saying, 'Hey, I never talked about this before,' I just think something is uncorked and it's good."

"It's really good that we're talking about it."