Artist and teacher Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory was in the audience at our show in Iqaluit. She tells Checkup guest host Duncan McCue that it's the customs and traditions of the past that will prepare young people for the future.

I would like to rephrase the question and look at more at the positives because there are an awful lot of positives. And that's actually what is going to bring us forward. I always maintain that it is because we have our traditions, our customs and our language that we are sitting here today, all of us here in the Arctic. And it's because we are still using our language, our customs and our traditions that we're going to be able to forge ahead.

And I say this because we've faced an awful lot of assimilation and different things that have changed their lifestyle, as the three panelists mentioned, very drastically and quickly. But because we've used the creativity within our own culture, we've been able to maintain our place, our homeland here in the Arctic.

The arts are incredibly important. Our society, Qaggiavuut!, a few years ago had a conference about what the needs of artists were and one of our most esteemed elders here said that there is no institution that she has engaged in in her lifetime in her 84 years—the education system, the judicial system, the community infrastructure—that she has felt safe in passing down her culture and language, except through the performing arts.

And I think that is a very important and moving statement to hear. Especially for people who are striving for different ways of expressing themselves creatively. And that's the key: to be able to think creatively, to think analytically, critically. And be able to look at the everyday community life from an extraordinary level, to be able to take your imagination to what's happening from the big picture, so that when you go back down to the everyday life, you have an easier time making decisions.

The challenge is always within yourself to look for that creativity. But at the same time, no, there isn't enough structure or services or programming for the arts here and in Nunavut. We're all working really hard to make that happen.