An Inuk in Australia

Aviaq Johnston was 16-years-old when her parents sat her down and told her she'd been invited to spend a semester of high school in Australia. She was living in Iqaluit at the time - and it would be her first time out of the country.

"I remember having this one classmate who was like, 'You're from Canada, do you ever go to Whistler?'"

At the time, she figured everyone knew where Nunavut was, but that wasn't the case. It wasn't long before she was pointing to her home on a map, explaining who Inuit are to her Australian classmates.

"I had to tell them like, you know Greenland, I live right next to there. And when I would explain that I'm Inuk they wouldn't know what I meant. So I had to say: 'you know Eskimos? It's like that, except we don't like the term Eskimo'."

The curiosity from her classmates didn't stop there and eventually Aviaq found herself fielding questions that she didn't have the answer to.