10. Nunabox - Planting a Forest 🌱 Part II

Cancode meant I had a home base in Iqaluit — a place to rest my luggage between flights, a spot to catch my breath. But as a new initiative, it also meant one thing: prove the impact. Show the funders what community change looks like in real life. 

That’s when Nunabox started to grow roots.

Halfway through the game, we were pulled into the Smart Cities Challenge with Impact Canada. It felt like a saving grace moment — but also a test. I told the truth to the team and to the process: if we were going to do this, it couldn’t be just buzzwords for pay. It had to reflect the real capacity, needs, and dreams of Nunavut communities.

So I went community to community — mayors, SAOs, youth, elders — talking about safe spaces for connection, creativity, and STEAM. The letters poured in. What we built was a bottom-up structure, led by communities shaping their own futures. Ambitious? Absolutely. Impossible? Not a chance.

Enter dreamer Chelsea. 😅

The win was monumental. But life, as it does, didn’t stop to clap.

I’d moved to Ottawa — a struggling writer, running a boutique business that was getting too expensive to run from the North. A month or two later, I got the call. My aunt had taken her life. My world stopped cold.

When the Smart Cities announcement came, I declined the invitation. Jem was gone.

After some time off, friends told me to get back on the horse — so I did. And then, unbelievably, I won again.

The Indigenous Homes Innovation Initiative was my brain baby. It was everything I loved in one place — culture, intergenerational connection, mental wellness, and impact-driven design.

I wasn’t just proposing to build a house; I was designing a blueprint for Arctic wellness — integrating social capital, greywater systems, HRVs, and new thermodynamic models for northern homes.

But innovation isn’t for the faint of heart. Not everyone likes it when you move too fast or dream too big. I pushed the boulder up the mountain, only to be told it was “too political.” So, I did what any self-respecting Inuk dreamer would do — I donated the building to the Pairijit Elders Society and walked away.

If they wouldn’t let me build in real life, I’d build where they couldn’t stop me.

The Virtual Qaggiq was born.

And just as the win was announced — burnout hit like a freight train. I was done. Toast. Crispy filament and all.

Queue Mexico, babyyyyy. ☀️

It was fun, it was freeing, and it reminded me how to laugh again. But eventually, I came home to myself. I stepped away from mental health advocacy — not out of disinterest, but out of honesty. I couldn’t keep advocating for healing while I was still healing myself.

So I went North — to reconnect, to remember.

One phone call later, and my buddy pulled through with The Health and Nutrition Learning Experience for Nunavut Youth.

It was beautiful chaos — we had to create and deliver at the same time. But we did it. Even through a delayed signing — my sister’s suicide — and a total rewrite that took 12-hour days, seven days a week, we made it work.

The kits arrived. The boxes shipped. The kids smiled. It was a success.

But I didn’t feel successful. Not yet.

There was still conflict, still fallout, still heartbreak. But underneath it all, there was something steady — a vibe that said: you’ve planted the forest; now let it grow.

So I did.

What followed was the time, space, and looking back on it, the perfect conditions to grow.

And for the first time in years, I stopped running toward the next project and started tending to the roots I’d already grown.

The work didn’t disappear — it just transformed. The deadlines softened. The urgency lifted. What remained was clarity — and a deeper knowing that all of this, from the smart cities to the quiet art, was connected.

Nunabox was never just a company. It was a vessel. A way to build, to redesign, to rebuild — again and again — until it became something alive.

The mountains moved. 🌄

The forest grew. 🌳🌲🌱

And somewhere in between, I did too. 💗

At last! The Qujanaq Project 🫶 where all parts of my work come together.  Sheesh hey? lol yeah I feel you bruuuuuu 🤌 

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Chelsea Singoorie
ᓯᐅᓯ ᓯᖒᕆᖅ
Founder & Artist, The Qujanaq Project by Nunabox