Meet Iqaluit's newest hairstylists

A coolic lighting and some food to start this week's training. For almost a month now, these apprentices have been learning everything about hair. Jennifer Lindell is running the course at her shop, Gen 87 Hairstyling. She argues it's important to build a beauty industry here in town. Here in Nunavut, we have no hair salons and we don't have many Inuit hairstylists. We don't have the course here in Nunavut at the college or anywhere else. So anyone that wants to take hairstyling has to leave the territory. Lindell saw high demand for the training. They got around 40 to 60 applications with seven people in the program, including Crystal Neningen, who was learning about hair for the first time. I would like to learn how to cut hair and properly maintain it and give everyone service that's high in demand. When the program ends, she says she can't wait to show everyone what she can do. Jessie Apok is also in the course and joined because she always takes her three boys to get their hair cut. So I thought learning how to cut hair would be cheaper for me and also do my boys' hair. Apok says she loved making friends in the program and says the hardest part has been learning how to hold the scissors and comb at the same time. After the program ends, she wants to continue cutting hair and practice more on real people. Are her boys looking forward to getting their hair cut? They don't want me to touch their head at all. The course was made possible through funding by Kakavik Association. And for Lindell, she wants to continue to expand the training in Iqaluit and maybe in other communities across Nunavut. We have a lot of students that are going to take this learning back into their work. Bianca McEwen, CBC News, Iqaluit.