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Rosemary Gilliat (Eaton)
Aggeok, wife of Peter Pitseolak, at Kinngait, Nunavut c. 1960
inkjet print
Rosemary Gilliat was a freelance photographer who worked for various newspapers, magazines and the National Film Board between 1953 and 1964. She travelled to the Arctic during a time of great cultural change. While her powerful images of Inuit life often reveal great empathy for her subjects, they also reflect her own cultural biases and preconceptions. However, Gilliat’s portraits of Aggeok move beyond these constraints; here, her subject engages actively with the photographer. Aggeok, who took many of her husband’s photographs, understood too well the photograph’s power. Her steady gaze engages the camera, the photographer and, by extension, the viewer.
Library and Archives Canada (e010800032)
Rosemary Gilliat Eaton Fonds. Credit: Rosemary Gilliat Eaton
![Peter Pitseolak, Untitled (Aggeok, wife of Peter Pitseolak, wearing beaded amautik [parka with a pouch at back to carry an infant] with butterfly made by her husband), c. 1940–45, gelatin silver print.](https://www.gallery.ca/sites/default/files/styles/ngc_scale_640/public/ngc_.75-x-2641.jpg?itok=E7zIxroc)
Peter Pitseolak
Untitled (Aggeok, wife of Peter Pitseolak, wearing beaded amautik [parka with a pouch at back to carry an infant] with butterfly made by her husband) c. 1940–45
gelatin silver print
Among the first Inuit to assume control of the camera, Peter Pitseolak was determined to leave images of a traditional Inuit culture that was either undergoing radical change or was in the process of disappearing altogether for future generations of Inuit. These photographs display a mixture of the old and new, the traditional and the modern. Pitseolak presented his family, friends and acquaintances, and the occasions and events that informed their lives, in a forthright way. His images disclose the fortitude of a community undergoing numerous and sometimes drastic changes in a short period of time.
CMCP Collection, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Purchased 1975 (no. 75-X-2641)
© Estate of Peter Pitseolak, Dorset Fine Arts
Photo: NGC
George Hunter
Inuit women await the arrival of passengers from RMS Nascopie 1946
inkjet print
George Hunter’s 1946 photoshoot on the Arctic reveals a constellation of different interests, largely centred on the presence of the Nascopie. A powerful symbol of propaganda, a southern audience understood the Nascopie as a conveyor of “civilization” and material values. Photographs of Inuit awaiting its arrival seemed to confirm that they eagerly accepted such views. Fur shipments were also patronizingly characterized as benefitting Inuit, a reasoning that underplayed how such interactions supported economic expansion and associated notions of progress.
Library and Archives Canada (e002213349)
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Fonds. Credit: George Hunter
George Hunter
Inuk man bringing a bale of fox furs out of the Hudson's Bay Company warehouse at Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung), Nunavut, for shipment aboard RMS Nascopie 1946
inkjet print
Library and Archives Canada (e002213359)
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Fonds. Credit: George Hunter
Wilfred Doucette
Salomonie at work on a model kayak for the Canadian Handicrafts Guild, at Kinngait, Nunavut; daughter Annie keeps him company 1951
inkjet print
The Canadian Handicrafts Guild was founded in 1894 to preserve and encourage traditional Canadian crafts understood to be at risk of disappearing. As early as 1915, the Guild recognized the beauty and value of Inuit art and in 1930 displayed the first exhibition of Inuit arts and crafts at the McCord Museum in Montreal. In 1949 James Houston made his first purchase of Inuit art for the Guild at Inukjuak (Port Harrison). He would buy more sculptures at other locations in the following years, and in 1957, introduced Inuit to printmaking. With a market created as a means to earn income, discussions commenced for the creation of a co-operative to sell prints and sculptures at Kinngait (Cape Dorset).
Library and Archives Canada (r002168)
National Film Board of Canada Fonds
George Hunter
RMS Nascopie anchored in Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung) Fiord, Nunavut 1946
inkjet print
The Hudson’s Bay Company icebreaker, the Nascopie, was a critical site of Indigenous and non-Indigenous encounter. A major conduit of Southern values and interests to the North, the ship transported government officials tasked with establishing Canadian sovereignty, as well as scientists, missionaries, medical staff, tourists and HBC employees destined for the northern fur trade posts. The journeys were well recorded by both government filmmakers and photographers, as well as passengers. Images were widely disseminated via illustrated newspapers and magazines, government reports, lantern slide lectures and personal exchanges.
Library and Archives Canada (e010692596)
National Film Board of Canada fonds. Credit: George Hunter
Pitseolak Ashoona
The Critic c. 1963
graphite on wove paper
The visual culture of the North has a rich variety of ways in which Inuit have depicted their communities. For some it was through prints and sculptures. For others, like Peter Pitseolak, it was both printmaking and the camera. In this work, a man appears to be critiquing two drawings by Pitseolak Ashoona, one of which she probably holds up herself. There is a common misperception that Inuit artists do not consider themselves as artists. Yet Pitseolak demonstrates this consciousness by including herself and her artwork in this drawing.
National Gallery of Canada
Gift of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1989 (no. 36404)
© Estate of Pitseolak Ashoona, Dorset Fine Arts
Photo: NGC
The Nascopie
Inuit response to the Nascopie is varied and spoken from an individual perspective. As one Inuk stated about the sinking of the Nascopie in 1947: “Every person has different stories about it, because everyone, like … if I say something about it, it can be a little different from the real story. I was here during that time so I know how to tell a story about [it], because when I hear some people saying [things] about it, it has been said differently.”
[Elizabeth McIsaac, “Oral Narratives as a Site of Resistance: Indigenous Knowledge, Colonialism, and Western Discourse,” in Indigenous Knowledges in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of Our World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 93–94.]
Peter Pitseolak built his house from wood scavenged from the Nascopie. He spoke favourably of the ship, recalling the many useful things one could buy and how the cook fed people. “Since the Nascopie sank, the ships that come are not so much appreciated. When the Nascopie could be seen in the distance, many people were happy…. For a time the people were rich with all the possessions they had from the ship. Today no one has those possessions; worldly goods do not last forever.”
[Peter Pitseolak, People From Our Side: An Inuit Record of Seekooseelak, the Land of the People of Cape Dorset, Baffin Island (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1975), 139.]
Peter Geller, Northern Exposures: Photographing and Filming the Canadian North, 1920–1945 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004).
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