Iqaluit (Sep 13/04) - Inuit are no strangers to the camera. In 1963, Jimmy Ekho was three years old but he remembers photographers coming to his house in what was then called Frobisher Bay.

Images of Ekho in a knitted sweater with a deer on it, standing close to his mother Naki, and his father Tiglik ended up in a book called "Eskimo Townsmen" published by the Research Centre for Anthropology at the University of Ottawa in 1965.

Today, Ekho shows the book to visitors at the Nunavut Sunakkutaangit Museum where he works. But back in 1963, he was not thrilled with all the attention he was getting simply for being Inuit.

"I threw a rock at the photographer," recalled Ekho. "I didn't know what they were doing. I thought they were going to take my mother away."

Since cameras were invented, photographers have been carrying them North to capture the unique culture here.

Many Inuit can point to themselves and their parents in magazines like Life and Time or in various coffee table books.

"There are so many books and press that come here," said Chris Pudlat who works at the West Baffin Eskimo Co-Op in Cape Dorset. "TV people or newspapers have come here from France, Germany, southern Canada, U.S. -- even Iqaluit!"

The photographers have made such an impact here their presence has turned up in Inuit art itself.

Cape Dorset artist Kananginak Pootoogook created a print of a tall man hunched over -- obviously a non-Inuk visitor -- trying to take the picture of an Inuk.

The print captures the way the visiting cameraman is perceived by Inuit -- the photographer looks out of place. His body language is odd.

But at the same time, the attention he is giving the Inuk for the moment is not entirely unwelcome either.

"There have been many instances where people have come back to the North that were up here in the 1950s and '60s," said Pudlat.

"Inuit didn't have cameras, and when the elders see old pictures it often makes them very emotional."

Ekho admits he doesn't mind looking at "Eskimo Townsmen," especially the pictures of people who still live in Iqaluit, as well as shots of the community fair that used to be held July 1, though Iqaluit doesn't hold it anymore.

"I don't have a favourite image," he said flipping the pages slowly.