Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Rankin Inlet (Jun 20/01) - Leo Subgut sits in the darkness of an editing suite, the only light coming from the blue glare of a pair of monitors, one of which has captured the frozen image of a man with a rifle strapped across his back.
It's his brother on a seal hunt, and the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation's senior producer in Rankin Inlet's latest project.
Subgut is working on two seal hunting mini-videos to be broadcast on Aboriginal Peoples Television Network this fall.
"I want to inject Inuit culture and language into Canadian culture," says Subgut.
The first video shows Subgut's brother looking for breathing holes in the ice with a harpoon and skinning a seal. In one prolonged session, the hunter braids the intestines of the seal. Subgut says this is done for later food preparation, when the intestines are diced and added to the seal meat.
These are the little things in Inuit culture Subgut wants to share with television audiences.
The scene was shot near Marble Island at peninsula point, about an hour's drive outside Rankin Inlet. Subgut says he's not just shooting a series on Inuit hunting, but rather shooting according to the seasons.
His next harvesting projects will focus on fishing and whaling.
Playing in the video medium for more than a decade, Subgut says his next major project will be a journey back to a time before television.
"I've always wanted to do traditional lifestyles, how Inuit lived in the past," he says. "They were just out there by themselves," he says.
Subgut says he likes the hands-on aspect of producing. He feels a connection between editing harvesting clips, and all the handiwork that goes with it, and the handiwork that goes with harvesting.
"Shooting traditional hunts helps it live on," says Subgut.
Subgut recently finished a music video shot in Iqaluit of Pangnirtung-born singer Annie Keenainak, now living in Rankin Inlet.
Keenainak sings about her two children and Subgut melds nature shots with the intense greens of tundra and melting sunsets with close ups of the singer in indoor settings. The song, in Inuktitut, is about weaving Inuit life into Canadian pop culture, says Subgut.
The music video will also be featured on APTN next season.
