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Utilizing intricately blended visual and written imagery, Arctic Dreams and Nightmares takes the reader on an Arctic journey interpreted through the mythological and contemporary world of an Inuit artist and author. Containing twenty short stories with accompanying pen ink drawings, it is the first publication to exclusively feature the writing and artwork of Alootook Ipellie. At the time of its original publication in 1993, Arctic Dreams and Nightmares was one of the few books to be written by an Inuk in Canada, and became a landmark in the emerging discipline of Inuit literature.
Alootook Ipellie was born in 1951 in a camp near Iqaluit, Nunavut, in what was then called the Northwest Territories. He spent his childhood and teenage years experiencing the transition from the traditional nomadic Inuit way of life to government-sponsored Inuit village settlements. In 1973, after a short stint as an announcer/producer for CBC radio in Iqaluit, he moved to Ottawa to study and pursue a career in art. He became a noted artist and a central figure in the Inuit literature movement. Ipellie was the editor of the magazines Inuit Today, published by the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, Inuit, published by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and Kivioq: Inuit Fiction Magazine. His artwork and writing were first highlighted in the 1978 Inuit writing anthology Paper Stays Put: A Collection of Inuit Writing, and he was the co-ordinator of the Baffin Writer’s Project. His artwork, essays, stories, and poetry have been featured in numerous publications, and his art has been featured in exhibits in Canada, Greenland, and the United States.
Table of contents
Dedication...............................iii
Acknowledgements ................6
Foreword, by Taina Ipellie......7
Publisher’s Note, by Louise Flaherty....................................11
Introduction ............................12
Self-Portrait:Inverse Ten Commandments .............25
Ascension of My Soul in Death...................................31
Nanuq, the White Ghost, Repents....................................37
I, Crucified ..............................41
Public Execution of the Hermaphrodite Shaman ........47
Summit with Sedna, the Mother of Sea Beasts.............53
When God Sings the Blues..................................61
The Five Shy Wives of the Shaman ........................71
Trying to Get to Heaven........79
The Dogteam Family ..............85
Survival of the Most Violent............................95
Super Stud ..............................101
After Brigitte Bardot...............107
Walrus Ballet Stories ..............115
Arctic Dreams and Nightmares ......................123
Love Triangle ...........................131
Hunting for Skins and Fur....................................145
The Agony and the Ecstasy ..............................151
The Woman Who Married a Goose ....................159
The Exorcism ..........................163
Glossary of Inuktitut Words and Their Meanings .................................168