Hi my name is Jaylene Ukatiku, I am 16 years old and I live in Baker Lake.

Last year I was an alternate and I am now a participant in NYA. I am enjoying my time here in St. John’s, although we get basically 1-2 days of sun and rain the rest of the week. The people here in St. John’s are very friendly and it is very beautiful out here. My buddy is Alaasua Audlaluk and she is from Grise Fiord, and we both work at St. John’s Native Friendship Centre. We are mostly down stairs at the Youth Center, the first 2 weeks of working there we painted and painted and painted, but I like painting so I had fun. We do other things too like help supervise the kids when there is a program happening at the Centre, help set up and take down for programs, garden work and many other things. Each day we have different things to do at work.

My host family includes Meghan, Joel and their cat Bartleby. The first weekend we were here we went to the powwow in Conne River with Meghan, it is about a 5 hour drive from St. John’s but there was traffic while we were driving there and back because there was construction happening. On July 25th Alaas and I got to have lunch with Sheila Watt-Cloutier, then we went to the pride parade and after that we went to Sheila’s speech.

So far we have been to Signal hill, Get Air, Bowering and Bannerman Park, Salmonier Nature Park, we’ve had beavertails which are very delicious. I have also spent a night in Clarks Beach with my teacher. In Bay Roberts my teacher and I saw a guy walking shirtless with a snake on his shoulder walking around, Bay Roberts is about a 5-10 minute drive away from Clarkes Beach.

I enjoyed seeing friends I’ve met before at orientation and I also enjoy meeting new people and trying new things.  I have two more weeks here in Newfoundland and I hope to visit other places, and tell more people about my home community and Territory.

Thank you for reading my blog