Satin, tulle and sealskin? Inuk teen brings culture to Corner Brook prom

As Corner Brook Regional High School graduates promenaded through city streets in celebration of their diplomas this week, one outfit in particular turned heads.

Marissa McKenzie showed up in a custom-made gown featuring a sealskin bodice: a nod not only to her Inuk heritage, but to her biological family still grappling with the ripples ofNunavut'sstruggling sealing industry.

"There was a huge crowd," McKenzie recounted. "A lot of people were shocked by it. They loved it. They were in awe."

McKenzie's mother,Paulette Benoit, spotted the design on the website of St. John's designer Rodney Philpot. According to McKenzie, she immediately gushed over it and asked her daughter if she thought she'd like to wear something similar.

"She said, 'Oh my God, Marissa would be so happy to see this,'" McKenzie said.

"The end design was perfect."

She paired the dress, with a skirt of white tulle, with sealskin-adorned earrings, stenciling her graduation cap with a message of pride: Young, Inuk & Educated.

It's a mindset drilled into her since her adoption, Benoit said.

"We've always promoted the importance of her culture, and who she is, and to be proud of it," Benoit said, explaining that she was afforded the same privilege from her own Newfoundland-born parents.

"Growing up here in Newfoundland, my parents, through oral traditions, always passed down our backgrounds and our traditions and our meals ... it is Marissa's every right to know that as well."

Benoit said her daughter hadn't taken a keen interest in her heritage until last year, when she met her Inuk boyfriend and got in touch with her biological family, who live in Nunavut.

"My [adoptive] family always told me about my culture, and so Iwanted to show my culture at my prom," McKenzie said.

Benoit explained that a documentary on the struggling sealingindustry in the north, Angry Inuk, had recentlyhad an impact on McKenzie.

Learning about present challenges with food security in the north, she added, only stoked the fire.

It's why, when McKenzie walked through Corner Brook in her tradition-steeped dress,"She was beaming. She was so proud."

The dress not only promoted her culture in a symbolic way,Benoit added.

"It's promoting that seal industryand putting food back onto the tables for her family."

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