Siqiniq
A keen vlogger and fashionista, Siqiniq flouts many of her family's cultural traditions. She longs for a modern, urban lifestyle, but is unable to leave Kanqisat. As such, she has to find a way to combine her mainlander aspirations with the limitations of her family's WiFi, and the demands of caring for her new tokota...
Siqiniq is the second child of a prominent Wolf Tribe family, though with Musk Ox tribe ancestry. Her mother Yuka is one of the tribe's leading weavers, and hopes her daughter will follow in her footsteps. However, it's clear from a young age that Siqiniq is determined to do her own thing.
Fascinated with the scraps of mainlander culture she learns from the tourists they host at their home in the Kanqisat Mountains, Siqiniq dreams of being a 'normal' girl. She resents her family's old-fashioned lifestyle, and their commitment to maintaining their tribe's traditions. She longs to break away and become a fashion designer or a makeup artist. The family agree to allow both of their children to spend a year studying in the south at Oxmont University, allowing them a taste of mainlander culture. However, soon after her older brother Kova's year is up, the family run into financial issues and are unable to fund Siqiniq's study year.
Devastated, Siqiniq becomes angry and rebellious, refusing to attend her tribe's monthly meet-ups and begin her crafting apprenticeship. She also stops helping her family take care of the tokotas, claiming she will never adopt one of her own. She bleaches her hair, obtains a second-hand laptop, and sets up a social media account, determined to reshape her image, and eventually escape her pine prison.
After one particularly fierce argument with her mother, Siqiniq runs into the forest, with no plan other than to get as far away from her family as possible. As she stops to rest next to a copse of birch trees, she hears a small yowl from nearby, and into the clearing stumbles a tiny tokota. It has big yellow eyes, and silky golden fur tangled with mud and weeds. Though she resents the icons of her cultural heritage, Siqiniq is not without compassion, and leads the pup back to her house, where she cleans it off and hands it to her mother, suggesting they drop it at the adoption centre. However, her mother feels that the pup has already chosen its home, and so Siqiniq finds herself saddled with the very last thing she wants.
However, it is hard to resist the pup's devotion and enthusiasm, and Siqiniq decides that she will make things work. As a compromise, she begins to share the trials and tribulations of raising a tokota pup through her social media accounts. She gains a keen following, becoming one of Kanqisat's first 'native influencers'.
When the Tokotna Council put out an invitation to join the Expedition to the Tartoks in the spring of 2020, Siqiniq is keen to join up and prove herself to her family. Her mother is concerned about the potential dangers of the journey, and agrees to her participation only in the event that her uncle Yura travels with her.
