by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

ARVIAT (Feb 04/98) - The dolls' sealskin faces have the same weathered looks as Inuit who have endured the harshness of living off the land.

And for doll-maker Martina Anoee, the handicraft represents an old way of life that existed more than 40 years ago when she made her first Inuit doll.

Today, she is the only one in Arviat making the dolls with sealskin faces.

At 12 years old, she wanted an Inuit doll after her father had brought her a doll from Churchill, Man. Shortly after getting this one, she started making her own.

"I had a Kabloonak doll and I wanted an Inuk doll too," she said.

"So I started making my own dolls. When there was nowhere to sell them, I started sewing them for myself."

Long after Anoee lost the doll, her father gave her from the South, she also learned how to make clothes for her dolls out of caribou and sealskin.

"I remember my first doll -- I loved it," she said. "When we went hunting, I didn't have any clothes for my dolls (so) I made clothes from caribou and sealskin." Anoee doesn't know exactly how many dolls she has made since then, but she estimates it's about 1,000.

"I don't count them," she said. "I could buy two Hondas now, but I only buy food."

She has continued to make them for so long because she enjoys the sewing and creation of each doll. She uses only an ulu, thimble, wooden stick, and water to shape the harp sealskin into a face that's amazingly realistic.

"I make it soft with water and my hands -- I have to make the skin soft and check it every hour," she said. "When I like the way it looks, I dry it."

The face alone on the 20-centimetre doll takes a day to shape.

She sold her first doll 27 years ago at an art show in Arviat, more than two decades after she started making them.

"The organizer asked me to make a doll and make it like a real person," she said. "(But) I didn't know I was going to sell them when I started sewing the dolls."

Now desperately trying to keep the tradition alive, she makes dolls when there is a demand. "But there's nowhere to sell them," she said.

Anoee's best course of action, she said, is to teach her daughter Martha the skill of sewing the rare gems.