Woman from Sachs Harbour, N.W.T., hopes journey from bartender to fish hauler will inspire others

A woman from Sachs Harbour, N.W.T., has had success working jobs away from home, and she hopes her story will empower young people from her community to follow their dreams and to travel — like she did. 

The journey started when Frances Esau, who wanted a change from the life she was living in Inuvik, messaged a friend living in northern B.C. She said she didn't expect that message to lead to such a big shift in her life. 

"I was like, 'Oh, I'm having a hard time over here and I want to smarten up and stop the party life,'" she said. At the time, Esau said she'd been working as a bartender and partying a lot. 

Esau said she and her friend managed to get jobs in Prince Rupert with a fishing crew. She worked as a cleaner and a cook at their camp. She said after proving she was a hard worker and team player, she was offered a job as a kitchen helper and housekeeper on the crew's ship out on the Pacific Ocean. 

But after one of the crew members got sick at sea, she took up the chance to work on the top deck as a hauler, handling halibut being caught in massive nets. That eventually led to a job fishing for crab.

"They said, 'You did great there on those twenty-hour days — why not come help us during the crab season? It's easier,' recalled Esau.

"It was not easier," she added with a laugh.

Esau spent four months working with the crew and fishing for crab off the coast of British Columbia. She returned to the North after that, but a few years later got a call from the captain of the fishing crew she'd worked with before, asking if she could help them close out another crab season on short notice. 

That made Esau feel like she'd made a good impression. 

There aren't many women in the industry, she said, and the call made her feel "really good about myself, that they would fly me down from up north just to close down the season."

Now, Esau works as a custodian at a camp on Baffin Island. She still goes home to the Beaufort Delta to help her brother hunt and to see family.

"I moved to Edmonton, now I am out here in Nunavut. It's like just random, you never know what — even if it's just a small opportunity, it could grow into a lot more," she said. 

She said she wants to encourage people from her region to travel, chase opportunities and work hard.