IGLULIK
From his birth on the land to the message he delivers on the big screen, Theo Ikummaq's life is one coherent whole. The big screen? Yes.

Theo Ikummaq of Iglulik on the set of the film Chloe and Theo, a dramatic rendition of his true life story. - photo courtesy of Theo Ikummaq

A film, Chloe and Theo, starring Mira Sorvino, who has more than 40 films under her belt, Dakota Johnson, prior to her Fifty Shades of Grey fame, and Ikummaq, an Inuk from Iglulik, is being released at different times in different locations around the world by Spotlight Films this year.

Chloe and Theo will have its Canadian premiere in Ikummaq's home community sometime in the new year.

The journey to creating the film began when Ikummaq toured the United States to talk about climate change.

"Back in 2006, I did a U.S. tour going south on the west side of the U.S.A., then going north on the east side, visiting the large communities. Climate change talks that I did I guess were documented by U.S. people," said Ikummaq.

"He was heard by Monica Ord - an entrepreneur focused on critical global social and health issues - who asked him what she could do," stated businessman and investor Richard Branson on his blog. Branson is the founder of the Virgin Group.

"Theo pleaded with her to visit his hometown. Monica phoned me, and a month later we were all in the Arctic. Travelling by dogsled, we could see the effect that climate change was having on Theo's surroundings and his people. We could not ignore his plea for help."

Ikummaq took the visitors to Iglulik from Iqaluit.

"We stopped here and there, showing little streams that shouldn't have been flowing but were flowing. We stopped around those things and talked about what climate change was doing. That's pretty much from where the script was born," said Ikummaq.

Ord went on to produce a dramatic film, rather than the originally planned documentary.

The final production tells the story of an Inuk - Theo, - sent to New York City by his elders to warn southern elders of the disaster that is climate change. Other big names became involved, such as James Cameron, Canadian director of Avatar and Titanic, and John Paul DeJoria, an American billionaire, businessman and philanthropist. Director Ezna Sands' original professional involvement was that of scriptwriter.

"I had sat down with him and told him what Inuit history was like and what our culture was like," said Ikummaq. "He put two and two together from that session we had in Iglulik. He wrote the script. I did some minor, very minor modifications to that. Nothing major."

In the film, when Theo tells New Yorkers he was born in an iglu, that's true to life.

"The first six years of my life are critical. I was born in an iglu in 1955. My parents were camped in an iglu, they were waiting for me to be born before they moved on to the main camp that we had, which was a sod house, lit by a qulliq alone. That was the lighting system, the only heat source and the only cooking," said Ikummaq. "That was the first six years of my life, living nomadically."

The young boy then spent seven years in the missionary-run residential school in Chesterfield Inlet.

"It was a large building, three storeys high, radiators, running water, toilets. It was totally new to the children. That was the introduction to western culture. It was totally different, taken from the safety of our parents to that kind of atmosphere where abuses were happening - mental, physical and at some points sexual. I think it really did damage us."

Unlike some who are still broken today, Ikummaq was reclaimed by his brothers after his parents died while he was in residential school.

"It was my brothers who got me back to being a human again."

He then became a guide and wildlife officer, intimately linked to the environment.

"Healing, you have to look for it yourself and with assistance from knowledgeable people. I'm still thankful to those who assisted me," he said, agreeing also the work he does on the land and telling his stories is very much a part of his being a "human being."

Meanwhile, a climate change documentary Ikummaq worked on this past spring with National Geographic is also set to be released in 2016.

Climate change is a topic close to Ikummaq.

"Very close to me. Climate change is a reality that shouldn't be overlooked. When I started doing the U.S. tour in 2006, climate change is something people were just getting aware of in the U.S. of A. I had opposition in every city. But now if I go to the U.S. and talk climate change, I don't think the opposition would be as strong as it was back then. The world is adapting to it, slowly taking into consideration that it is a reality.

"What people do about it is determined by where they are in the world. But the reality is it has to be tackled."

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