Kendyce Cockney

November 25, 2021

Kendyce has lived most of her life in Tuktoyaktuk, where her family is from, in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (Northwest Territories). Kendyce is a Project Manager with the Tuktoyaktuk Community Corporation where her role is to help build the capacity of Inuvialuit membership in many areas. She really enjoys working for her people and helping them be self-reliant, as individuals and as a community.

Through Kendyce’s current position, she has been involved in a number of climate change initiatives over the years. Living in Tuktoyaktuk, she witnesses the impacts of climate change every day. Some of the challenges faced by her community include coastal erosion, sea level rise, and permafrost thaw as well as changes to traditional hunting routes, animals, and plants. Kendyce is a firm believer in empowering her community to understand and adapt to these changes which are here to stay. 

Kendyce got involved in the Toolkit project because she sees it as an opportunity to share her experience and Inuvialuit perspective and to help other communities learn to do their own climate change research. She has seen first-hand the benefits of her community doing their own research which include building climate change awareness and working on practical solutions together. She is passionate about involving youth, the future leaders, in community projects as well as Elders, the traditional knowledge holders.   

In Kendyce’s limited spare time, she enjoys sewing traditional slippers and mukluks – a skill she is fortunate to be learning from her mother who is a traditional Inuvialuit seamstress.