[5][3] As a child she accompanied her brothers and father on caribou hunting trips, including to Ennadai Lake in the Ahiarmiut's territory.
[3] Helen was photographed in 1949, aged 17, by Richard Harrington as part of a series taken while he was travelling around the Arctic.
[3] In 1953, Helen started living as a couple with James Konek, the son of a storekeeper in Arviat.
[3] The 1950 Caribou Inuit famine caused Helen's mother Paalak to die in 1957, the rest of the family survived on fish, rabbit, and ptarmigan.
[3] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police forcibly displaced the Konek family in 1960 from Padlei to Arviat.