by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Dec 10/97) - Mike Kusugak is a new brand of Northern writer.

Sitting in his Rankin Inlet studio next to a frozen Hudson Bay, Kusugak says he writes stories that, in many ways, tell the history of the Arctic in the words of an Inuk.

His new book, expected to be finished this summer, is no different. Arctic Stories, like his five other works for children, uses many of the true stories his grandmother told him as a child or experiences he had while growing up in Repulse Bay.

The 49-year-old father of four says that the fact he writes primarily children's stories doesn't preclude passing on a message about the North to both young people and adults.

"I want to make a comment about my culture instead of someone coming up from the South to do it," he said. "I get tired of people from the South writing about the North."

Kusugak is, however, quick to cite some authors who have done, in his opinion, an excellent job of portraying the North from the southern perspective, and gives Mordecai Richler as an example.

"I met him once and I asked him how he got his Northern references so accurate," he said.

But what his own writing boils down to, he said, is that he wants to write something that people anywhere will learn from and enjoy.

"I really enjoy reading good books," he said. "I like writing stories about discoveries that make you wonder."

And many would argue that Kusugak has certainly succeeded in his aim to entertain audiences of all ages.

Books like Baseball Bats for Christmas, a story of a group of young boys in Repulse Bay using the wood from airlifted Christmas trees to make bats. Then Agatha and the Ugly Black Thing, which describes the fear people felt in Repulse Bay when an air ship flew overhead in the 1950s.

Told in the framework of a children's story, both events happened in the community and are strong references to events in Inuit history that have shaped the culture of recent years. "The air ship flew over Repulse Bay when I was 10 years old and nobody knew what it was," he said. "It looked like a big bomb." It's stories like these that he spends his time promoting.

Kusugak, who was home in Rankin Inlet recently after spending nearly two months on the road, is now in Winnipeg and will continue to travel throughout the next few months, visiting schools and book stores to talk about his writing.

"The way it works in this kind of business, if you're not out there promoting your books, people forget all about you and your books stop selling," he said.

He feels too strong about what he's doing to let that happen.