Inuit Stories Research Articles

Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth: Gender, Shamanism, and the Third Sex, by Bernard Saladin D’Anglure

Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth: Gender, Shamanism, and the Third Sex, by Bernard Saladin D’Anglure

The Origin of Day and Night by P.I. Rumbolt

Rumbolt, Paula Ikuutaq. The Origin of Day and Night. Iqaluit, NV, Inhabit Media, 2018.
 This book is another in Inhabit Media’s collection of works that document traditional Inuit stories. Origin stories, which explain why things are the way they are, are common in Inuit storytelling. This one tells us how night and day came to be. In the time when animals and words had special powers, the Tiri, the Arctic fox, and Ukaliq, the Arctic hare, both want to hunt. The fox can see in the dark, so he uses his words to keep the world dark. The hare needs light to see, so she uses her words to bring light. They change night to day and day to night, frustrating each other, until they agree to give each other “enough time to find a meal or two” before changing the light. As a result, we have night and day. 
 Lenny Lishchenko’s illustrations are simple, but support the story effectively. They are mainly in blacks, blues and whites, appropriate to night and day. The animals are outlined in black on white or white on black, with a few details added. There are a few reds and yellows, for the animals’ eyes, the sun, meat and berries. 
 This rendition of the story will capture the interest of the young children, who are the intended audience. Highly recommended for public and elementary school libraries, as well as collections that specialize in polar children’s literature.
 Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy Campbell
 Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

“Let Me Breathe of It”: A Circumpolar Literary and Ecological Perspective

The commercial hunting of harp seal pups galvanized animal rights in the 1970s, culminating in the banning of sealskin products in Europe and the curtailment of trade in the United States. The seal in animal rights discourse is a type of object that needs saving in the form of protective measures to keep her safe from the rapacious greed of capitalism. However, in Indigenous discourse, the seal is another relative, a relation whose presence makes all certainties about hierarchy, use-value, moral exemption, and human exceptionalism impossible. This essay re-thinks the figural dimensions of seals in Yupiit and Inuit storytelling practices alongside debates around over-harvesting, competing global interests, and animal rights to develop current activism for environmental justice for both humans and seals in a time of rapid change. I suggest that focusing on practices of care rather than commodity circulation reframes the relationship of humans and seals beyond binary systems of interpretation that make humans subjects (with “culture”) and seals objects (in “nature”). Inuit stories, legal statutes, and environmental conservation rhetoric all appear to be different, if not contradictory, types of narratives. Nevertheless, when read together, they reveal a shared ethics of care for the wellbeing of the seal. This care, I suggest, momentarily frees seals from their entrapment in an economy of use and provides a basis for understanding the North as a lived environment.

Kiviuq and the Mermaids by N. McDermott

McDermott, Noel. Kiviuq and the Mermaids. Illus. Tom Feizo Gas. Inhabit Media, 2016.Following his previous works on Inuit culture including Akinirmut Unipkaaqtuat: Stories of Revenge (2006), and Unikkaaqtuat: Traditional Inuit Stories (2015), Noel McDermott, a retired professor of literature at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit, Nunavut, focuses on one of the greatest and most important characters appearing in traditional stories of Inuit culture, Kiviuq, in Kiviuq and the Mermaids, a book for young readers.The story begins with a Grandfather speaking directly to the reader, introducing Kiviuq and his wandering life to newcomers and then getting directly into the action, wherein Kiviuq narrowly survives a storm during a seal hunt and is left alone at sea. Here he meets a tuutalik (mermaid) but it doesn’t go well at all as it begins to taunt Kiviuq and what begins as a strange encounter quickly becomes a matter of life and death.The story is an excellent introduction to one of the key figures in traditional Inuit stories, and the action, brought to life by Illustrator Toma Feizo Gas is both entrancing and sometimes quite frightening. Themes of personal responsibility, self-reliance and man versus nature work to introduce the reader to the character and promises of further stories may even have readers doing their own research into other stories of Kiviuq. A glossary of Inuktitut terms at the end of the book include a pronunciation guide and the story itself would work well for young students interested in the traditional stories of Canada’s Inuit peoples.Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Kirk MacLeodKirk is the Open Data Team Lead for the Government of Alberta’s Open Government Portal. A Life-Long reader, he moderates two book clubs and is constantly on the lookout for new great books!

Felt Knowledge in Michael Kusugak’s Picture Books

The article considers the relationship between lived experience, emotion, and knowledge production embedded in Inuk author and storyteller Michael Kusugak’s picturebooks. Informed by the communities, cultures and landscape of Canada’s Arctic, Kusugak’s picturebooks are an interfusion of personal and collective memories, traditional Inuit stories, fiction, and contemporary narratives, rupturing the colonial tendency to appropriate and present aboriginality as static and removed from present time, whilst reinstating felt experience as foundational in an Indigenous-centred worldview. Drawing on the Indigenous feminist approach of Dian Million to knowledge as felt, we argue that Kusugak’s picturebooks perform political acts as they strategically engage with and challenge Canadian settler “truths,” reinscribing history in terms specific to the emotionality of lived experience, and reaffirming Inuit cultural identity as living and vital.

On the Shoulder of a Giant: an Inuit Folktale by N. Christopher

Christopher, Neil. On the Shoulder of a Giant: an Inuit Folktale. Iqualuit: Inhabit Media, 2015. Print.This is another in a series of works designed by Neil Christopher, one of the founders of Inhabit Media, to preserve traditional Inuit stories. In this book he retells a story, which is known in various forms all across the Arctic, of a giant who adopts a hunter as his son. This giant, named Inukpak, is one of the inukpasugjuit or “great giants” of Inuit stories. Inukpak is so big that he can walk across the Arctic in “just a few days” and when he stands in the sea the water "never come[s] up past his knees". He is so big that he thinks that the hunter is a lost child, so he adopts him and carries him on his shoulder.This is a simple retelling, designed to teach about the mythical giants and to explain why the story is found in many cultures across the Canadian Arctic. However, it also models a big person/small person relationship in which small people do not correct or talk back to big people. Children will relate to the hunter, who is treated as a child and because the story is told from the hunter's perspective. The giant sometimes doesn't recognize the impact of his own actions. For example when he runs back to shore, he creates waves that swamp the hunter, but the giant thinks the hunter has been playing in the water. "The hunter wanted to tell the giant that he had not been playing in the water. He also wanted to explain to Inukpak that he had caught a bowhead whale, not a sculpin. But, once again, the little hunter did not want to argue with a giant, so he just said, 'Okay.' "This is mainly a picture book. The illustrations run over two-page spreads with text over-printed on them. Jim Nelson does a good job of presenting the difference in size between the giant and the human. Inukpak is presented as a happy fellow, with black shaggy hair and a full beard. Children will be amused by the giant picking up a polar bear by the scruff of its neck, like a kitten. The images are realistic and the backgrounds are lovely representations of Arctic landscapes. Overall, this is an enjoyable and high-quality work that should be included in elementary school libraries, public libraries and libraries specializing in Arctic children’s books.Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

News, Awards & Announcements

News, Awards & Announcements

Grandmother Ptarmigan by Q. Mikkigak & J. Schwartz

Mikkigak, Qaunaq and Joanne Schwartz. Grandmother Ptarmigan. Illus. Qin Leng. Iqualuit: Inhabit Media, 2013. Print.Inhabit Media Inc. has as one of its goals: the collection and publication of Inuit traditional stories. This picture book is another of their unique products. Many Inuit stories have recurring themes, including kind and caring treatment of children and origin stories, which tell us why things are they way they are. This collaboration between Inuit elder, Qaunaq Mikkigak and writer, Joanne Schwartz, includes both. In this story a baby ptarmigan wants his grandmother to tell him a bedtime story. She insists, instead, that he go to sleep. When she finally relents and tells him a story, he is frightened by it and flies away. The book ends with his grandmother searching for him, uttering the familiar call, “nauk, nauk”. In the story, ptarmigan play the roles of people. They live in igloos, sleep under furs and have "armpits". Illustrator Qin Leng shows the birds with human-like expressions and emotions. Leng's illustrations match the story in their simplicity. Most of the pictures are drawings of the ptarmigan on white or blue-green backgrounds, with no ornamentation.There are several lessons about adult-child relationships that often appear in traditional Inuit stories. The two that appear in this story are that young people should respect their elders, listen to them and do as they are told and that adults should be kind and caring towards children. In this story, we expect the baby ptarmigan to get into trouble for not going to sleep, but because the grandmother frightens him with the story, it is the grandmother who is left is a worried state, searching for him.Grandmother Ptarmigan would be a good addition to school and public libraries and those libraries with Canadian Indigenous folktale collections.Highly Recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer: Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

The Legend of Lightning and Thunder P. I. Rumbolt

Rumbolt, Paula Ikuutaq. The Legend of Lightning and Thunder. Iqualuit, NV: Inhabit Media, 2013. Print.There are many Inuit stories that tell of the origins of things. There are also many stories about orphans. This book is a simple retelling of a legend that involves both and carries a gentle lesson. It concludes that the presence of thunder and lightning in our world is the result of people neglecting and not caring for orphan children. Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt is an Inuit writer from Baker Lake, Nunavut. She learned traditional Inuit stories and beliefs from her grandmother. The story is from “a time before stealing existed. No one knew what it was, as it had never happened to anyone.” When the orphan children are turned away from the camp, they must steal food to stay alive, which makes them permanent outcasts. They steal caribou meat, a small caribou skin and a flint. They discover that the skin will make noise and the flint will make sparks and have fun playing with them. They soon realize, though, that they will be hunted by the people in the camp so they hide in the sky, where you can hear them today, playing with the skin and the flint, making thunder and lightning. While the text is fairly easy to read, the presence of more difficult words such as “exhilarating” indicates that it is really intended to be shared by an adult and child.While the story is simple, it is brought to life by Jo Rioux’s artwork. For each pair of pages, one is a full page comic-book style image showing Inuit people in village settings and doing traditional activities. The facing page has a smaller image, with text usually printed over a light coloured sky. The images are in a palette of soft browns and oranges, which shade to reds, particularly where magical things are being depicted. Young children will enjoy this book, as will anyone who appreciates Inuit legends. This volume extends Inhabit Media's track record of consistently high quality publications and authentic voices and sources. Highly recommended for elementary school and public libraries.Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

Kaugjagjuk by M. Lewis

Lewis, Marion. Kaugjagjuk. Iqaluit: Inhabit Media, 2011. Print. Kaugjagjuk is a re-telling of a traditional story about an orphan who is ill-treated by a village and then grows up to save them. Variants of this story are told across the Arctic and are found in other cultures. In western cultures, this is the story that underpins the adage, “be kind to your office boy, he may come back as your supervisor”. Often in other Arctic versions the story ends with the grown-up boy taking revenge for his mistreatment, however Iqualuit-born Marion Lewis specifically chose a version that is “a brave story - an inspirational story”. The lesson that Lewis wants us to learn from the story is that “even the smallest and most downtrodden of us – may overcome neglect and great difficulties”. Illustrator Kim Smith has done an excellent job of capturing the moon-lit scenes of the Arctic winter nights. However, her renditions of Inuit people make them look Asian. The faces are very angular and the eyes have a pronounced upward slant. Everyone in the book looks a little scary, even Kaugjagjuk’s benevolent and loving father. Everyone else, including most images of the growing Kaugjagjuk look like “evil bad guys” from manga. This is perhaps not surprising, given that this is Smith’s first children’s book and that she usually illustrates comics. Apart from the orphan-who-survives theme which occurs in many different Inuit stories, this story also contains the legend of Taqqiq or “the Man in the Moon”, whose job it is to “watch over all who sleep” and to “reflect light onto all deeds and to record both the good and bad deeds of all those who sleep under the moon’s gaze”. Taqqiq takes human form and trains the young Kaugjagjuk as he becomes a man. While this is undoubtedly a traditional story, the associated commentary about how “the moon does not emit its own light” is probably a modern knowledge addition to the traditional knowledge of the legend. While presented as an illustrated children’s book, the text is at an upper senior high school reading level. The story is intended to be shared by an adult with children, mirroring the way that it would have been told to a child by an elder. This is a good first work that not only entertains, but also preserves the legend. Highly recommended for public and school libraries. Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

The Orphan and the Polar Bear by S. Qaunaq

Qaunaq, Sakiasi. The Orphan and the Polar Bear. Iqaluit: Inhabit Media, Inc., 2011. Print.One of the common themes in Inuit stories is that of the orphan child alone on the land. In this version, told by Arctic Bay elder Sakiasi Qalinaq, who learned his stories from his grandmother, the orphan is abandoned by hunters from his village and adopted by a village of polar bears. The bears teach him to hunt and survive on the land and, when he is grown, return him to his people. The image on the cover of the book showing the child riding the polar bear is an iconic one. This mythological relationship between child and polar bear is also found in non-Inuit literature, most notably in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. In the bears’ village the orphan is trained to hunt and survive on the land. The bears also teach him their traditional wisdom. For example, when one of the bears wants to go “push down” some humans because they “look so silly standing on their skinny legs”, a wiser elder bear says, “Never talk that way…don’t make humans our enemy. Stay clear of them and their camps.” The book is primarily a picture-book. Unlike many of the other books of Inuit legends published by Inhabit Media, the pictures are not scary. Rather they are quite beautiful. The extra width of the landscape format gives artist, Eva Widermann, the opportunity to spread her illustrations across two pages reflecting the wide expanses of the Arctic. Text usually takes up one corner or a few lines of a page. Widermann’s images are realistic. However, because this story is from a time when animals could shape-shift into human form, she sometimes gives the bears human postures and gestures. For example, in the image on page 15, the polar bear is standing with a harpoon grasped in its front paws, handing it to the orphan. Bears are also shown in their human form in three images. In the image on page 20, depicting the inside of an igloo in the bears’ village, a woman with human form is tending the fire.Overall this is a lovely rendition of the story. While designed for an elementary school audience, anyone with an interest in traditional Arctic tales will enjoy it. Recommended for elementary schools and public libraries. Recommendation: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

Tales from the Tundra: A Collection of Inuit Stories by I. Kaslik

Kaslik, Ibi. Tales from the Tundra: A Collection of Inuit Stories. Illus. Anthony Brennan. Iqaluit: Inhabit Media, 2010. Print. Inhabit Media is an Inuit-owned, independent publishing company that “aims to promote and preserve the stories, knowledge, and talent of northern Canada.” This collection of five traditional Inuit stories from different regions in Nunavut is one of their most recent offerings. Three of the stories tell of how specific animals came into being. One tells how the raven and loon came to look the way they do and the fifth, The Owl and the Siksik, is a typical story of outwitting the enemy. Anthony Brennan’s illustrations have a two-dimensional fantasy quality to them that is more reminiscent of cartoons or Japanese anime than of traditional Inuit art. Many of the creatures are outlined in black and then filled with solid colour. While the backgrounds are usually ice-blue, and there are pastel colours in the images, many of the main parts of the drawings are black, giving the book an overall ominous look. While these stories are described in the forward as “contemporary retellings”, Kaslik’s voice is similar to that of an elder telling stories and her style is traditional. The language is simple and direct, occasionally incorporating Inuit words. Animals are anthropomorphized. They do the same sorts of things that humans do and have human emotions and foibles. For example, in “The Raven and The Loon”, the two birds sew clothes for each other. When Raven thinks that Loon is sewing too slowly, she reacts impatiently: “Please, sew faster!” impatient Raven pleaded.” Kaslik also uses internal dialogue, another traditional technique, to allow the reader to listen to the characters reasoning out their actions. For example, “Siksiks often go in and out of their dens,” thought the owl, believing himself to be very clever. “Today I will find a siksik den and wait there until I see one.” There are few children’s books of Inuit mythology available, and fewer that have the authenticity of being published by an Inuit publishing house. Overall, this volume is a small, but welcome addition to the field, through which many children will be able to learn about the mythology of the Inuit. For public and school libraries everywhere. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines. Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.

The Harry Winrob Collection of Inuit Sculpture: Essays by Zebedee Nungak, Lorne Balshine, Harry Winrob, and Darlene Coward Wight (review)

Reviewed by: The Harry Winrob Collection of Inuit Sculpture: Essays by Zebedee Nungak, Lorne Balshine, Harry Winrob, and Darlene Coward Wight Bernadette Driscoll Engelstad (bio) Darlene Coward Wight , curator. The Harry Winrob Collection of Inuit Sculpture: Essays by Zebedee Nungak, Lorne Balshine, Harry Winrob, and Darlene Coward Wight. Winnipeg Art Gallery. 136. $39.50 The Harry Winrob Collection of Inuit Sculpture, an exhibit catalogue published by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, chronicles the donation of 246 sculptures from Vancouver physician/collector, the late Harry Winrob. Designed by Frank Reimer with art photography by Ernest Mayer, the catalogue received this year's Manitoba Book Award for best illustrated publication. Curated by Darlene Coward Wight, the exhibit includes 130 sculptures by 110 artists from twenty-five settlements across the Canadian Arctic. The art work is presented in six thematic categories: Angakkuit / Inuit Shamans; Unikkaatuat / Inuit Stories; Isumaminitait / Inspired Imaginings; Niaquit / Heads; Inuusirminitait / Life Experiences; and Uumajuit / Animals. Although the broad representation of artists and communities provides the viewer with an expansive survey of Inuit sculpture, few artists are represented by more than a single sculpture. Given the exceptional quality of solo works by Lukie Airut (Igloolik), Napachie Ashoona (Cape Dorset), Agnes Nulluq Iqqugaqtuq (Kugaaruk), Simeonie Elijassiapik (Inukjuak), and Looty Pijamini (Grise Fiord), among others, this is unfortunate. Cultural historian Zebedee Nungak (Puvirnituq) provides the historical framework for the exhibit. Describing the introduction of carving in [End Page 464] Nunavik (Northern Quebec) in the 1950s, Nungak writes, 'Having never known anything else, Inuit artists tapped into what they were wholly knowledgeable about: their unikkaatuat (legends), their unikkaat (historical accounts), their inuusirminitait (life experiences), and their isumaminitait (inspired imaginations).' Nungak's essay is a thoughtful reflection on the transition from the first to second generation of artists, and the effect of historical change on the collective experience of Inuit. As indicated by Wight, the Winrob collection fills a temporal gap in the Gallery's own Inuit collection with its exceptional strength in the sculpture of the 1950s and 1960s. Acquired mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, the Winrob collection was produced during a time of radical change in northern life. Families had settled into established communities and household expenses were mounting. Settlements, often located on the coast for ease of shipping supplies, were distant from hunting areas, and cash was required to purchase imported food, clothing, and modern hunting equipment. With few employment options, many Inuit turned to carving as a means of supporting their families. This contemporary period was one of increasing self-awareness of artists. The commercial success of certain artists was not lost on fellow residents, and the local influence of individual artists or artistic styles often motivated others in the region. As Inuit art became more widely recognized in Canada and internationally, opportunities for commercial sales, gallery exhibitions, and travel increased. The economic dependence on carving demanded a persistent search for subject matter. As Wight notes, 'Winrob was fascinated by sculpture with shamanic content, and particularly the animal/human transformations undertaken by the Inuit shaman.' Judging from the numerous sculptures in this category, artists, too, were intrigued by the qablunaat interest in this genre. Bird Shaman (2002) by Napachie Ashoona (Cape Dorset), for example, masterfully renders the moment of transition as the shaman transcends his human form. Other sculptures, however, seem somewhat ill-fitted to this category. As Wight describes, 'It was not the "classic" but the atypical, even the bizarre that held a strong attraction for [Dr. Winrob].' Such a keen observation may indicate the need for an additional subject category - that of caricature. Various works in the exhibit suggest the artist's playful use of material, technique, and expression. Indeed, some sculptors seem quite determined not to take their art (or themselves) too seriously. How else to explain the Dancing Muskox by Pitsiula Qimirpik, a Jim Henson-type character (Ms Piggy comes to mind) balanced on one cloven foot, prancing in a shaggy qiviut robe with 'arms' outstretched? Humour has been, and remains, a vital and highly valued element of Inuit social life. As a physician dedicated to the most serious of professions, Harry Winrob enriched his own life, and that of others, with [End Page 465] an unrestrained...

Encounters on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers (review)

Reviewed by: Encounters on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers Lyle Dick (bio) Dorothy Harley Eber . Encounters on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers. University of Toronto Press. xxiv. 168. $45.00 This book is a continuation of the author's notable explorations of Arctic history through reliance on Inuit oral testimony. While the book's objectives are not concisely articulated in the introduction or preface, it appears that the principal justification for this compilation is to demonstrate the value of Inuit storytelling to Arctic historical research, above and beyond its importance to Inuit society and culture. In this objective the author largely succeeds, although the book raises more questions about the historical events it references than it is able to answer. Eber's publication of newly recorded stories adds many details to the existing knowledge of major events of Arctic history. Some of the most interesting stories relate to less well-known encounters, such as the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's expedition in search of the Northwest Passage in 1903-05. She brings out aspects of these events that are often omitted in the literature, such as the material culture of women, including the trading of beads and reliance on tattoos. The author usefully connects Inuit stories of events with European versions, such as Charles Francis Hall's account of a woman's version of the flogging of an Inuit shaman ordered by William Edward Parry in 1823. When recounted in oral tradition, the story modulated from the supposed approbation of this man's punishment into a heroic account of his defiance of the British explorers. Eber has also compiled new accounts of the perennially fascinating missing expedition of Sir John Franklin. While these passages do not constitute a major revision of the literature on this event, they do provide access to observations of Inuit on the sad, protracted fate of the expedition's members, periodically observed by their ancestors throughout the course of their 'death marches.' Eber does not comprehensively reference the existing literature to show systematically how oral history with descendants of Inuit witnesses complements, supports, or negates other current interpretations. For example, her account might usefully have more fully drawn upon David Woodman's compilations of [End Page 562] nineteenth-century Inuit testimony on the Franklin saga as revealed in written sources. Nevertheless, Eber offers alternative possibilities regarding the route and ultimate fate of members of Franklin's party that are not prominent in the current literature. The oral accounts of these encounters, as passed down through the generations, afford insights into the ways in which Inuit regarded these interlopers. The interviewees' discussion of cross-cultural impediments such as language barriers also helps answer the question of why Inuit were aware of the presence of Franklin's men over an extended period but unable to help them survive their ordeal. In other cases, the evidence is too fragmentary to permit more than speculative inferences regarding the movements of Franklin's party while stranded in the Arctic archipelago. Encounters on the Passage is most compelling in its author's documentation and discussion of the persistence of Inuit oral tradition bearing on these early encounters. She effectively demonstrates that Inuit oral history today can illuminate the contact experience in ways that text-bound approaches are unwilling or unable to do. Whether or not this book brings us closer to unravelling the mysteries of the Franklin expedition or the search for the Northwest Passage, it does reveal the continuing importance of storytelling to the Inuit, and the vitality of direct, experiential engagements with Arctic history. Eber herself is an excellent storyteller and she manages to craft these disparate fragments into an interesting and useful series of reflections on these early exchanges. Her quotation of the words and perspectives of Inuit regarding the explorers is a welcome alternative to the prevalence of univocal narration by Arctic historians based largely on written sources. The book is well illustrated with a mix of European and Inuit art from the nineteenth century, as well as more recent Inuit works. Also included are maps of the Search for the Northwest Passage in the early nineteenth century and the Franklin Search in the late 1840s...

Tracing the Connected Narrative: Arctic Exploration in British Print Culture, 1818–1860 (review)

Reviewed by: Tracing the Connected Narrative: Arctic Exploration in British Print Culture, 1818–1860 May Caroline Chan (bio) Janice Cavell, Tracing the Connected Narrative: Arctic Exploration in British Print Culture, 1818–1860 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), pp. viii + 329, $60 cloth. "Joining together the known areas of the Arctic by ship involved traversing a relatively small blank space on the map," says Janice Cavell when describing the British Navy's efforts to discover the Northwest Passage in the post-Napoleonic era. Her study, Tracing the Connected Narrative, performs a similar suturing of book reviews, letters, and articles published in response to narratives about returned Arctic expeditions, by men such as John Barrow, John Franklin, Leopold McClintock, and Sherard Osborn. Public interest in Arctic exploration was fueled by alternating naval interest, press coverage, and individual ambitions. The debate over rescuing John Franklin's 1845 expedition becomes a clear illustration of this symbiosis. The book begins with McClintock's expedition (privately funded by Lady Franklin) returning to England in 1859 after seeking to verify reported sightings of Franklin's party and Inuit stories of cannibalism at King William Island. This beginning signals Cavell's structure: "The book begins with the end of the story because at no other time was public attention so intensely focused on Arctic exploration" (12). The doomed Franklin expedition of 1845 becomes the "connected narrative" threatening to overshadow other expeditions discussed in this study because of its iconic status. We read about the public interest created by other explorers in the periodical press but eventually shift to Franklin's mysterious disappearance, whereupon McClintock returns with his confirmation that Franklin's camp died from starvation, not cannibalism. McClintock may provide the [End Page 416] "final chapter in the Arctic story" (230) for Cavell, but it might be more accurate to say he amicably resolved the Admiralty's reluctance to invest further in Franklin with Lady Franklin's private search for her husband. Other controversies lived on: in 1997 a team of anthropologists substantiated the Inuit claims about Franklin's cannibalistic sailors. Some naval explorers, like Franklin, became celebrities, while others became infamous because their pursuit of individual fame and glory did not suit the developing ideal of the noble, modest hero boosting national glory. Journalists and publishers played a significant part in shaping the ideal, especially as coverage of Arctic exploration boosted sales. Cavell's examination of various periodicals and their articles on Arctic exploration offers fascinating examples of nineteenth-century "spin" and its importance to the numerous explorers who endeavored to fill in the empty spots on the map. A broad range of periodicals reveal how Arctic exploration could signify a wide variation in social and political positions while posting healthy sales. Starting with popular periodicals such as the Quarterly Review, the Edinburgh Review, the Examiner, the Illustrated London News, the Times, and News of the World, Cavell explores how debates over the political value of Arctic exploration magnified in 1859 with the burst of new publications. Readers will find this study a useful and compelling narrative about how the periodical press helped create the heroes who found the Northwest Passage. Some may want to round out their reading with more about those men who finally worked out the Northwest Passage but receive less attention in the denouement of Franklin's expedition. Cavell's study is a compelling introduction to the colorful players and issues concerning the efforts to extend Britain's international reach from the Atlantic Ocean to the Bering Strait. May Caroline Chan College of Saint Rose May Caroline Chan May Caroline Chan is Assistant Professor of English Literature at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY. Her specialties are travel literature and Rudyard Kipling. Her most recent essay is "Orientalism Multiplied: Rudyard Kipling's View of Easternness in India and East Asia." Copyright © 2009 The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals

Translating difference: Gabrielle Roy's Inuit stories in French and English

This article will consider the ways in which translation both in its broadest and in its more literal sense can be seen as the site of contact, conflict, transparency and opacity between languages and cultures. The particular instance of Roy's writing of the North in La Rivire sans repos can be seen as an engagement with questions of translatability and of the transparency and non-transparency of language. The first part of the article examines Roy's complex relationship to language and the relevance of work in the field of Translation Studies (Berman, Mezei, Godard) to questions of linguistic and cultural difference in the Canadian context. The article then turns to discuss two of the shorter stories as examples of writing as translation. Finally the English translation of the longest story, La Rivire sans repos, will be analysed to assess the extent to which specificities of linguistic and cultural difference are lost in the process of translating this text in French into English.

Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: The Inuit Testimony

David Woodman's reconstruction of the mysterious events surrounding the tragic Franklin expedition boldly challenges standard interpretations and promises to replace them. Among the many who have tried to discover the truth behind the Franklin disaster, Woodman is the first to recognise the profound importance of the Inuit testimony and to analyse it in depth. He concludes from his investigations that the Inuit probably did visit Franklin's ships while the crew was still on board and that there were some Inuit who actually saw the sinking of one of the ships. He maintains that fewer than ten bodies were found at Starvation Cove and that the last survivors left the cove in 1851, three years after the standard account assumes them to be dead. Woodman also disputes the conclusion of Owen Beattie and John Geiger's book Frozen in time that lead poisoning was a major contributing cause of the disaster.Much of the Inuit testimony presented in Unravelling the Franklin Mystery has never before been published. The earliest Woodman quotes was recorded by Franklin searchers only nine years after the disappearance of the Franklin team. Inuit testimony provided Woodman with the pivotal clue in his re-construction of the puzzle of the Franklin disaster: 'I proceeded from the assumption that all Inuit stories concerning white men should have a discoverable factual basis ...and managed to discover a scenario which allowed use of all the native recollections, solved some troubling discrepancies in the physical evidence and led to some significant new conclusions as to the fate of the beleaguered sailors'. Whether or not one agrees with Woodman's conclusions, his account is compelling and his analysis impressive.

Words Melt Away Like Hills in Fog: Putting Inuit Legends Into Print

Words Melt Away Like Hills in Fog:Putting Inuit Legends Into Print Robin McGrath (bio) Inuit myths and legends, which explain everything from how the world was created to why the raven is black, are wonderful stories for children, incorporating as they do both the real and the fantastic, the natural and the spiritual. However, Inuit stories, like those translated into English from other cultures, vary greatly in both their quality and authenticity. An examination of the processes by which these legends make their way into print can help us to identify what is best and what is to be avoided in oral literature in the written tradition. Inuit myths and legends do not fall neatly into strictly defined categories, but can be loosely divided into the five classifications which Knud Rasmussen identified in the 1920's: creation myths or stories which embody religious belief; stories of fabulous beings such as trolls, giants or ghosts; tales of epic heroes; stories of murder and revenge; and beast fables (McGrath, Canadian Inuit Literature, Chapter VI). We can add one other type of story to this list: the personal memoir. An increased interest in Inuit art has made these memoirs more readily available to children and adults in both the north and the south than they have been in the past, and they are a substantial addition to the corpus. Inuit literature has been available to non-Inuit readers for many years, primarily through the published reports of ethnographers and anthropologists. Franz Boas's innovative The Central Eskimo (1888), Diamond Jenness's Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913-1918), and Knud Rasmussen's Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1929-1932) have all been excavated again and again by writers and editors looking for good, sound (uncopyrighted) material for children's books. Old anthropological reports are often very dry reading, but as a source of legends they are far more reliable than many modern collections. The early ethnographers often immersed themselves in the Inuit culture for many years, they spoke the language, and they tended to publish the stories in a number of variants. Rasmussen, and Jenness, give the original text in Inuktitut using the International Phonetic Alphabet, as well as an interlinear translation into English. Rasmussen, who was part Inuk himself, also includes his own looser, more literary interpretations of the stories. The resulting popular publications can be excellent. I have dealt elsewhere with the problem of how dishonest collectors and ignorant editors change and damage Inuit stories (McGrath, "Editing Inuit Literature"); more profitable here is a consideration of the honest efforts made to produce books that correctly reflect the Inuit culture while retaining the interest of English speaking children. Inuit editors are at an advantage here not only because they can judge the quality of translations more accurately than non-Inuit editors, but because they are more willing to recognize that children reared on American television are not going to be distressed by a certain amount of blood and guts and are insatiably curious about monsters and frightening figures. Mark Kalluak's How Kabioonat Became and Other Inuit Legends contains 42 stories, 26 of which involve acts of considerable violence including murder, starvation, cannibalism, human-dismemberment, and incest. Non-Inuit collectors do not tolerate such a ratio of violence. A comparison of collections edited by Inuit with collections made by non-Inuit (McGrath, "Monster Figures") shows that non-Inuit choose far more stories about benign magic, and happy, talking animals than do their Inuit counterparts who prefer stories about murderous dwarfs and malevolent monsters. Laundered legends are often boring and children simply won't read them. Poor translation is the one element most often responsible for making Inuit legends inaccessible, and when a poor translation is teamed with a bowdlerizing editor, the results can be catatonic. Maurice Metayer's Tales From the Igloo is a rather tame book compared to his academic work Unipkat, from which Tales was taken; eighty of Unipkat's 109 stories contain monsters and violence. However Metayer was a careful and meticulous translator and Tales From the Igloo is an excellent example of oral literature in print. The same cannot be said for the follow-up...