Prior to her election as an MLA, Aariak was the first Languages Commissioner for Nunavut. Originally appointed to a four-year term beginning in 1999, her term was later extended for another year until December 2004. In her capacity as Languages Commissioner, she was asked to choose an Inuktitut language word for the Internet; she settled on ikiaqqivik, which literally means "travelling through layers" and refers to the traditional Inuit concept of a shaman travelling through time and space to find answers to spiritual and material questions. After stepping down as Languages Commissioner she then went on to teach Inuktitut at the Pirurvik Centre in Iqaluit, and later owned and operated Malikkaat, a retail store in Iqaluit which sold Inuit arts and crafts. She was later reappointed as acting commissioner in December 2007 after the resignation of then Languages Commissioner, Johnny Kusugak. She also served as coordinator of the Baffin Divisional Education Council's Inuktitut language book publishing program, as president of the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce and as chair of the Nunavut Film Development Corporation.
Political career
Aariak was the only woman elected to the Legislative Assembly in the 2008 election. She subsequently expressed her disappointment with that fact, suggesting that improved daycare services in Nunavut might be needed to help women participate more actively in the political process and that the territory should revisit the failed proposal to have a smaller number of electoral districts, each of which would choose one man and one woman as MLAs. Two other women, Jeannie Ugyuk and Monica Ell-Kanayuk, were subsequently elected to the legislature in by-elections. At the Nunavut Leadership Forum on November 14, 2008, Aariak was chosen as the new premier over incumbent Paul Okalik and MLA Tagak Curley. She was the fifth woman, after Rita Johnston, Nellie Cournoyea, Catherine Callbeck and Pat Duncan, to hold a premiership in Canada, and the sixth female First Minister in the country including former Prime Minister Kim Campbell. On September 5, 2013, Aariak announced that while she would seek re-election as an MLA for the new electoral district of Iqaluit-Tasiluk in the 2013 election, she was not interested in second term as premier when the new Legislative Assembly took office. On October 28, 2013 Aariak was not re-elected as an MLA, losing by 43 votes to George Hickes.
