People in Aklavik, N.W.T., are remembering Phillip Elanik, an Inuvialuit drummer and dancer who kept performing even as he fought cancer.

Elanik died on Aug. 10, after a long battle with the disease. He was 33 years old. A funeral service was held on Monday.

Elanik performed as a drummer and dancer even while he was undergoing chemotherapy treatments, according to those who knew him.

"He was always helpful to everybody, and he loved being out on the land and he loved drum dancing," Manny Arey, a member of the Aklavik Drummers and Dancers group, told CBC News.

"It [was] his culture. He taught a lot of youth to drum dance and he had his own way of dancing."

Saved children from fire

A father of six who had counted two more children as his own, Elanik helped rescue six of the children from a house fire on Jan. 13.

Elanik passed each child through an open window and out of the burning house, according to residents in the Arctic hamlet of about 600.

Elanik required extensive surgery for burns on his back and hands. That treatment was in addition to the chemotherapy he was undergoing for cancer.

But Elanik's mother, Sandra Elanik, said her son maintained a positive attitude despite the pain he experienced.

"He was very outgoing. He spoke to everybody and anybody," the elder Elanik said. "He never complained through all of his sickness. He was just lovable."

Elanik's death was noted this week by Manitoba Justice Murray Sinclair, chief commissioner of the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In a message posted on the commission's website, Sinclair said Elanik "is destined to become a legend among his people."

"When the story of his personal bravery in saving his family was told, all of us felt courageous," Sinclair wrote.

"We all wanted to be able to do what he did — to dance like him and to be brave like him."