Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Feb 08/99) - In the interest of disabusing southerners of misconceptions commonly held about the Arctic, the Inuit Art Foundation created a multimedia package that details the present-day reality of the Inuit across the North.

The package, intended mostly for educators -- but also useful for art galleries and museums - contains two VHS cassettes, an audio cassette, 40 colour slides, one photo CD, 105 pages of illustrated text, and a map of Canada. There is also a simple, streamlined map of Inuit communities from Aklavik in the western-most Northwest Territories, through Nunavut, all the way to Kikiak, Nunavik.

If I think back on the very little I learned of the Inuit and the North when I was a girl in the south, this project seems not only most welcome, but basically essential. Perfect little cartoon-like igloos and smiling Inuit, that's what I remember.

What Camik (Canadian Arctic Multimedia Information Kit) might succeed in achieving is impressive. Imagine hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of southern children being taught about the North as a real place with real people.

Imagine these southern children growing up respecting a whole people with a language and a culture of their own, because their teachers are finally supplied with information that comes straight from the source, Inuit people.

Leaving no stone unturned, the text delves into all aspects of Inuit life, divided into five sections. Geography, hunting, wildlife, food and clothing, in the first section, gives a clear sense of the physical environment and physical realities.

The specific details and the photographs -- black and white in the text and colour for the slides and CD -- helps immeasurably in visualizing the indescribable and breathtaking North. In fact, Mike Beedell's photography deserves a mention for its contribution to changing the way the North is seen.

I personally believe everyone should come up North for a visit, but since so many people don't, I guess this is one of the alternatives.

Part two talks about people -- family, communities and spirituality. The text explains Inuit family ways, past and present, it traces how settlements came to be and how the nomadic way of life ended, and it explores how the many missionaries challenged the shaman.

The third section discusses language, education, communications and the media, and transportation, while the fourth elaborates on the creative life -- art and artists, storytelling, music and games. The final section focuses on economics and politic.

The last few sentences of the text is a declaration by the first president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Hans-Pavia Rosing: "We the Inuit want to carve in rock that we are no longer just objects in history -- we are to be subjects of the future history of the Arctic."

Quotes like this one pepper the text, livening and deepening the experience of reading. Quotes from elders, who have witnessed the swift transitions in Arctic life -- in all areas -- are especially informative.

The audio cassette provides a short Inuktitut lesson, providing an opportunity to hear the sound of the language, as well as the chance to learn a few words. In order to ensure that future additions and updates to the overall project can be incorporated without the cost of a second edition, a three-ring binder was used.

Detailed references provide another valuable tool for anyone who seeks more in-depth or more specific information.