In 1958 after observing school children drawing in Baker Lake, Oonark casually remarked to the school teacher that she could draw better than that. The next summer in 1959, the teacher shared this comment with Canadian Wildlife Service biologist, Dr. Andrew Macpherson, who was in Baker Lake studying Arctic fox. Macpherson gave her coloured pencils and paper, purchased her drawings and brought some of them to Ottawa. Macpherson continued to send her coloured pencils and a drawing pad after his return to Ottawa in the late fall of 1959. In the spring of 1960 Oonark sent him twelve completed drawings in the sketchbook via the Northern Services Officer Tom Butlers.