Northern Journalism Training Initiative
Empowering Northern people to tell northern stories
Staff
Northern Journalism Training Initiative (a project of MakeWay Charitable Society) is staffed by individuals passionate about northern storytelling. Our Project Coordinator and Training Instructors will be delivering the 2025 NJTI training program in Hay River, NT.
Project Director
Kaila Jefferd-Moore
Kaila Jefferd-Moore is a Haida and Canadian, journalist, radio/podcast enthusiast, and media consultant living within Denendeh. Originally part of the Advisory Circle, she now works as the Project Director of NJTI. She grew up in Inuvik, and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism (Honours) from the University of King’s College. It was here she began freelance reporting, and worked as Editor-in-Chief for The Dalhousie Gazette. Stints and bylines include local and national outlets such as Inuvik Drum (NNSL), CBC North, Maisonneuve, The Coast, THIS Magazine, Up Here, IndigiNews, and more.
Training Instructor
Charlotte Morritt-Jacobs
Charlotte Morritt-Jacobs is a settler raised in Mississauga of the Credit First Nation and Haudenosaunee Territory. She has spent nearly a decade living in Somba K’e and working across Denendeh, Nunavut, and the Yukon as a video journalist for APTN National News. Before heading north, Charlotte interned at CTV Lethbridge, earned a BA in feminist research from Western University, and completed a post-graduate diploma in journalism at Humber College. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys an off-grid lifestyle, photography, and theatre.
Training Instructor
Katłįà (Catherine) Lafferty
Katłįà Lafferty is a northern Dene novelist specializing in intellectual property law with a focus on mitigating cultural appropriation and Indigenous victimization in storytelling narratives. Katłįà’s northern homeland and matrilineal lineage inform her storytelling. Much of her work is dedicated to informing readers on the importance of place-based teachings, caring for the land and water, and advocating on issues that impact Indigenous peoples most. Katłįà is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation from Somba K’e (Yellowknife), Northwest Territories. Having grown up in Somba K’e, she currently splits her time between her northern homeland and the occupied and unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples in lək̓ʷəŋən territory where she completed the Juris Doctor in Common Law and Indigenous Legal Orders with the University of Victoria in 2023.
Katłįà started her writing career at her hometown newspaper Northern News Services at fifteen years old during a time when reporters produced their own photography in a dark room and editors chain-smoked cigarettes at their desks. Her freelance work has since been published nationally and internationally in the Toronto Star, National Geographic, CBC North, Briar Patch, the National Theatre of Canada, Council New Chapter, Grain Magazine, Reasons to Be Cheerful, Indiginews, the National Observer, Columbia University and The Tyee. In 2021 Katłįà was appointed as the inaugural climate writer in residence at the West Vancouver Memorial Library where she facilitated Indigenous climate panels, books clubs, and gathered voices for a published anthology. Katłįà has served as a council member for her First Nation and on numerous boards throughout her career, including the University of Victoria Faculty of Law Board of Appeal Journal, Chairperson for National Indigenous Women’s Housing Initiative, and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).
Her memoir Northern Wildflower was nominated for a Northwords Award and was the top selling book in the Northwest Territories upon release. Her fictional novel Land-Water-Sky/Ndè-Tı-Yat'a was nominated for a 2021 Indigenous Voices Award. Katłįà’s third novel, This House Is Not A Home, 2023 won a Northwords Award. Katłįà’s latest novel Firekeeper debuted in 2024 and her forthcoming work Mother Earth is Our Elder examines the connection between ancient Dene knowledge systems and the current climate crisis. Katłįà’s body of work is used as a teaching tool in Indigenous literary studies across so-called Canada. She is currently breaking into the world of filmmaking and co-produced a non-scripted documentary with Jennifer Podemski. She is currently directing a documentary for the National Film Board on the NWT housing crisis.
Lately, Katłįà has been busy operating her own small business specializing in writing services and has since founded an Indigenous Healing Arts Network non-profit while working full-time managing West Coast Environmental Law’s RELAW program in British Columbia. She is excited to teach the next cohort of northern journalists with the Northern Journalism Training Initiative.
Project Coordinator
Mary Buckland
Mary Buckland is a born-and-raised Yellowknifer who has worked in northern arts and culture programming both at home and abroad. Her academic background is in art history, visual arts, and, most recently, international arts management.
Steering Committee
Northern Journalism Training Initiative is guided by a volunteer steering committee, which is made up of northern media professionals. The steering committee is responsible for the overall leadership of the project and provides advice on the development and delivery of curriculum and programming.
Member
Dana Bowen
Although born and raised in Vancouver, Dana Bowen has spent most of the last decade living in Yellowknife. She graduated from Langara College in 2014 with a degree in journalism and has since worked for several publications from Northern News Services to Tusaayaksat Magazine and Up Here Magazine, while occasionally taking on jobs in photography and communications. Outside of work, Dana enjoys painting, dancing and writing historical fiction.
Member
Jenna Dulewich
Jenna Dulewich is a reporter with CBC. Originally from northern Manitoba, Jenna is a Swampy Cree - Ukrainian who started working as a journalist in Canada in 2014. Her career has taken her across several provinces and a territory with bylines in CBC, the Winnipeg Free Press, Great West newspapers and Post Media.
Jenna is passionate about northern grown storytellers in the media. In 2023, she founded and launched a community engagement project with CBC North organizing several community lunches in Yellowknife and surrounding communities and hosting journalism workshops for youth in the NT.
Member
Garrett Hinchey
Garrett Hinchey is a journalist and communicator born and raised in Yellowknife, currently working as a senior advisor at the Diavik Diamond Mine. Much of his career was spent at CBC North, where he began as an intern before serving in a number of roles, most recently as Senior Managing Editor. In 2022, Garrett published Reclaiming our Narrative, a policy paper through the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship that outlines the importance, challenges, and proposed pathways to increasing the number of Northern journalists and communicators. Outside of CBC, his work has been published at the Globe and Mail, ESPN.com, The Tyee, Up Here, and Up Here Business.
Chair
Tate Juniper
Tate is Sahtu Dene and a member of the Délı̨nę First Nation's Band. He was born in Yellowknife NWT on Chief Drygeese Territory, traditional lands of Yellowknives Dene First Nation. He is the grandson of Doreen Cleary and the late George Cleary, a former chief of Délı̨nę. He is the son of the late Gary Juniper and the late Cheryl Cleary.
Tate has a diverse educational and professional background in finance, economics, the electrical trade, and video journalism. In 2021, Tate began a videography project that was grounded in authentic representations and portrayals of Indigenous people. He drove 40,000 kilometers to take portraits and record stories from Indigenous communities across America as part of his project, We Are The First.
He is guided by the belief that authentic representation comes through conversation and listening, and seeks to demystify what it means to be a contemporary Indigenous person.
Member
Dëneze Nakehk'o
Dëneze Nakehk'o is Dehcho and Denesuline Dene from Denendeh. He is a strong advocate for Indigenous knowledge systems, particularly Dene ways of knowing. As one of the founding members of Dene Nahjo, he works at encouraging and supporting connections/re-connections to land, language and culture. Dëneze is a public speaker that recognizes and actively confronts the impacts of colonization through Dene methods of decolonization. He has over a decade's worth of experience in northern media and communications as a journalist, broadcaster, podcaster and storyteller. Dëneze is originally from Liidlii Kue but now lives and works in Yellowknife.
Vice-Chair
Sara Minogue
Sara Minogue is a senior digital producer with CBC North based in Yellowknife. She moved to Iqaluit to work for Nunatsiaq News in 2004, and then west to Yellowknife in 2013. Originally from rural Saskatchewan, Sara holds a degree in English Literature from the University of British Columbia. She's worked as a reporter in print, television and radio for over 15 years, including freelance gigs with the Globe and Mail, the Walrus, the Canadian Press and Deutsche Welle radio.
Member
Kate Wedzin
Originally from Behchoko, Kate Wedzin, now lives in Yellowknife. She was raised in numerous foster homes in the NT and BC as a young girl and is now a strong and passionate advocate for Indigenous reconciliation through storytelling and sharing knowledge to overcome adversity. She believes storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for healing and personal growth, and that through NJTI there is a space for ourselves and participants to process emotions, deepen our connections with others and find a greater sense of community and belonging.
Kate has been employed with the Government of the Northwest Territories since 2020 and is a Human Resource Assistant in the Department of Finance. She loves to go for walks, read and write, try new recipes, and bake.
Elder Advisory Committee
Northern Journalism Training Initiative is guided by an elder advisory committee, which is made up of northern media professionals with a long history of supporting and delivering community stories. The elders advisory committee provides advice on the development and delivery of curriculum and programming.
Member
Paul Andrew
Paul Andrew was born in the Mackenzie Mountains and grew up in Fort Norman, now called Tulı́t'a. He is a resident of Yellowknife and is well known for his work in culture, and residential school education and healing. He was first taken to residential school at the age of eight and spent a total of seven years in residential school. He became chief of Tulita at the age of 22 and is now retired from a 30-year career with the CBC. He has received numerous awards, including the Order of the NWT and a National Aboriginal Achievement Award.
Member
Louie Goose
Louie Goose began his journalism career at 19 years old, working on-air for the CBC periodically, leading to a full-time job in which he was assigned to collect old-time legends and life stories from elders across all communities in the CBC North broadcast region. Louie went on to work for CBC Current Affairs in Halifax, N.S., and on the acclaimed CBC radio program As It Happens in Toronto, O.N. In 1980 Louie moved back to the delta as manager of operations in Inuvik for CBC North. When CKLB was preparing to open, Louie was involved in the preparation of equipment and local on-air talent. Louie has also worked as the executive director of the Inuvialuit Communications Society, where he oversaw the production of Tusaayaksat. He also served as deputy chief of the Aklavik Community Corporation for two years.
Since the age of 10, Louie has also been a musician, and starting in 1996 he pursued a full-time career in music for seven years. He has influenced and championed Beaufort Delta music and musicians, and speaks proudly of his strong connection to his Inuit heritage. Louie was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his lifelong contributions to Indigenous arts and culture at the 2012 Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Awards.
Member
Marie Wilson
Marie Wilson served for six and a half years as a Commissioner of the historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada following a 30-year career as an award-winning journalist, trainer, senior executive manager, independent contractor, and consultant in journalism, program evaluation, and project management. She has been a professor at two Canadian universities, and a high school teacher in Africa.
In journalism, Wilson worked in print, radio, and television as a regional and national reporter. She was the founding host of the North’s first weekly television information program, Focus North. As the first Regional Director based in the North for the CBC, she changed the name from CBC Northern Services to CBC North, and launched the North’s first daily TV news service against the backdrop of four time zones and 10 languages (English, French and eight Indigenous languages). She recruited and developed Indigenous staff, established the CBC North Awards to acknowledge staff excellence, and devoted programming to support and promote literacy, including Indigenous languages. Beyond the CBC, she served as an associate board member of what would become APTN.
For several years Wilson served as member and Chair of the CBC Training Advisory Committee, providing training both within the CBC and outside the country. Wilson holds post-graduate degrees in French and journalism, and certificates in project management and program evaluation.