Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Baker Lake (Jun 28/00) - History will be made in Baker Lake on Canada Day.

The Baker Lake Inuit Heritage Centre will unveil the art exhibit, An Inuit Perspective July 1.

Centre director Dave Webster says it's the biggest art exhibit in the history of Nunavut.

"The exhibit consists of 34 sculptures from Baker Lake done in the '60s and '70s, which are now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario," says Webster.

"Even the pedestals which will display the works are absolutely stunning. They have a stainless steel base with plexiglass and wood tops."

Dignitaries, tour groups, the Nunavut language commissioner, and Inuit art curators from the National Gallery of Canada and Winnipeg Art Gallery will attend the unveiling.

Webster says the occasion marks a new direction for the Baker centre, which has borrowed its exhibits in the past.

"We've put this together ourselves and the exhibit will be doing a lot of travelling after its stay in Baker," says Webster. "On Nov. 8, the exhibit goes to the Winnipeg Art Gallery for a couple of months and then on to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It will also appear at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Nunavut legislative assembly in Iqaluit and the Prince of Wales in Yellowknife."

Another important project was the 210 pictures the centre received from the Fifth Thule Expedition in 1922.

The photos are from the Baker Lake and Arviat areas and were taken during the 20,000 mile trek made by Knud Rasmussen, a Greenlander who travelled across the circumpolar North from Greenland to Siberia from 1921-1924.

"We received the photos from Copenhagen and have a number of them scanned and mounted on the wall with books underneath from the expedition for those who want the history behind the photos," informs Webster.

"We've printed out all 210 and made an album containing the photos which people can go through along with the books.

We're also going to make copies and send them to Arviat because there's a lot of Arviat people in them.

"We're hoping to have a lot of people in the photos identified by elders who were here when the expedition came through."