Gymnastics, Lilibet and baby Justin Trudeau: Kugluktuk volunteer takes Proust Questionnaire

Nadene McMenemy says she is a person who “does things.”

Whether it’s spending summers wrapping 450 curling irons, makeup kits and toy dinosaurs with glowing heads as Christmas gifts for Kugluktuk children or reviving annual all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile races — all while being a hamlet councillor and hotel manager — she is always busy.

As a 10-year-old in Nova Scotia, McMenemy spent six cents of her allowance to put a stamp on a letter to then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau asking for a Trudeau family photo with their newborn baby — future prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Seven months later, she got the 8×10 photo of Margaret Trudeau in a rocking chair holding the infant Justin. She still has the picture.

“You know, I just do those kinds of things,” she said.

McMenemy — recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers, a “huge royalist,” owner of a tiny brown dog named Lilibet (the childhood nickname for Queen Elizabeth) and a person who calls everyone “my dear” — recently took time to answer the Proust Questionnaire.

What’s your idea of perfect happiness?

Perfect happiness is family. And it doesn’t have to be blood family.

It’s your surroundings. The people.

What is your greatest fear?

Choking. It’s not anyone dying or being left alone. I have made it through all those things before.

But the feeling of losing breath …

Which living person do you most admire?

King Charles III.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Gymnastics.

I used to do it as a kid.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would change not being able to keep doing something.

Sometimes I catch on to stuff and then I abandon it. I would love to change that.

Where would you most like to live?

Australia.

What is your greatest regret?

I think I’ll always regret not taking the chance to go to more places in the Commonwealth to work when I was younger.

Once in front of God, what would you tell Him?

My God, look the other way, please.

Nunatsiaq News is borrowing the old Proust Questionnaire parlour game to get to know people who are in the news. If you know someone in your community who our readers should get to know by taking this questionnaire, let us know by email: editors@nunatsiaq.com.