Five years ago, Joshua Funk, now an Arctic Co-operatives Limited inventory file officer, was looking for absorbing work at a company whose values matched his own. “I ran into Arctic Co-ops, what it did and the communities it was involved in,” Funk recalls, “and I knew – based on what I value as a person and what it clearly values – that I really wanted to work there.”

The work at the Winnipeg-based company has proved as challenging as he expected, says Funk. He helps co-ordinate the sophisticated logistics of a network that distributes necessary supplies, primarily by air, to 33 member co-ops spread thousands of kilometres across Canada’s North.

“It just makes you feel good that you’re making a difference in those communities, that the members there are eating fresh food, heating their homes and getting clean drinking water, because you’ve all worked together for a common goal,” Funk says. “That’s probably the biggest value that aligns me with Arctic Co-ops.”

Mary Nirlungayuk, Arctic Co-ops’ vice president of corporate services, hails from one of those member communities, Kugaaruk (pop. 1,000), more than 2,000 kilometres due north of Winnipeg in Nunavut.

For Nirlungayuk, Arctic Co-ops provides more than vital services. “The democratic structure of co-ops also makes a difference because individual members are part of the decision-making, with a voice in the operations and governance,” she says. “We have to adapt to the needs of communities with very different approaches. And the biggest step is respecting the community. We don’t want to impose ourselves on it because it doesn’t work that way.”

Providing a voice can be literally true, adds Nirlungayuk. “One of our board of directors is unilingual in Inuktitut, and we provide interpretation at meetings. It’s not like other meetings I attend, where you have a choice of English or French – there are other languages in Canada, and sometimes just acknowledging that goes far.”

Consensus building and inclusion are enormous factors in Indigenous communities, Nirlungayuk continues, and they are influential at the Winnipeg support office too. “Our employees have a voice in how we operate,” she says. “We have a staff council, a women’s network group, diversity and inclusion groups, leadership programs and annual surveys on employee engagement.”

Funk is appreciative of the leadership training and Arctic Co-ops’ action-oriented reaction to the employee input taken from its surveys. It is all part of the company’s investment in education and professional development, he says. “Arctic Co-ops does a great job in allocating funds annually to each individual home office employee — over $1,500 last year — for tuition and other career advancement costs.”

The company’s rapid pandemic response was particularly revelatory, according to Funk. “It spent well over $1 million on the personal well-being of home office employees and people in the northern communities, and did it quickly,” he says. “I was blown away on what they were able to achieve in having everyone safe at home in two to three weeks. That was a huge realization for a lot of us: this company really, really cares.”

It cares too about the recognition it has received, says Nirlungayuk. “An Indigenousowned company making a real difference in the lives of isolated communities being recognized as a Top Employer – that is very important to all of us.”