Kathleen Lippa
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Sep 08/03) - Dorothy Audlakiak is what I call a true Northerner, born in Iqaluit, and raised in a small community in Nunavut. But she has not seen Nanook of the North.

"It looks like it would be pretty good, though," she said last week at Arctic Ventures where she works.

"There are a lot of movies I haven't seen."

The trouble is, I have seen too many movies.

That is why I love Nanook of the North so much.

It has an innocence about it you just don't find in movies anymore.

Call me a silly Southerner (I know you do anyway) but I am a huge fan of Nanook of the North, the 1922 film by Robert J. Flaherty considered by many to be the first feature-length documentary.

I have told people that I have a crush on Nanook and wish he were still around (he died of starvation a few years after the film was made).

People in the North especially look at me like I have two heads when I speak of my love for Nanook.

But then they just shrug their shoulders.

The film is a very romantic view of the Inuit of Northern Quebec in the 1920s. Local people understand the film was staged, that the walrus hunt and fishing scene were all set up.

But I don't care. I want it all to be true.

Besides, my favourite part -- when Nanook hears a record playing music on a phonograph for the first time and he holds the record, and then tries to bite into it -- couldn't have possibly been staged.

When I lived in Yellowknife I borrowed the film fromthe library so often I wondered if the staff would say something, maybe suggest buying it. But they never did.

I marvelled at the soft black and white of the film --the rippling water of Hudson's Bay full of ice floes, and the beauty and style of Nyla, Nanook's wife.

Here in Iqaluit, I have tried renting Nanook, but it is always out.

And when I called the library I was hit with another blow.

"Well, I have some good news and I have some bad news," the library worker said to me. "We do have Nanook of the North."

"Great!" I replied.

"The bad news is," he continued, "it was borrowed June, 2000."

Trying to keep things light, he joked about it being "long overdue." I was devastated.

"Well, can I order it from you guys?" I asked desperately.

"Oh yeah. Well, actually what we can do is get it sent to us from another library. We have a sharing arrangement with them. So if we don't have something, say a film, we can contact another library in Nunavut and they send it to us."

I'm still waiting.

I have seen Nanook of the North a dozen times, but it is still magic to me.

And judging by how hard it is to get your hands on a copy of it here, I'm not the only one who feels that way.