Archival Materials - Essays
Diary of an Arctic Journey by Irene Baird
Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island. Here – 1300 miles north of Montreal – we’re virtually in the city – in an Arctic sense. But not for long.
Eskimo Carvings by James A. Houston
Living a semi-nomadic existence in tents and snow houses along the barren shores of Hudson Bay and Baffin Island, the Eskimos are hindered by a severe climate which prevents food growing - - food, which has always been the life blood of civilization.
Notes on Eskimo Art: Cape Dorset by Alma Houston
Cape Dorset, on the southwestern tip of Baffin Island, has a population of three hundred and fifty Eskimos. At high tide, Cape Dorset is an island, with rocky coastline and hills up to nine hundred feet high. The settlement is at the mouth of a large bay, which provides a good harbour for ships, and a landing piece for aeroplanes on floats in summer; in winter, ski-equipped aircraft land on the bay’s thick ice.
Rankin Inlet
Anonymous undated essay
On the west coast of Hudson Bay, Rankin Inlet lies 300 miles north of Churchill, Manitoba. The area near the settlement is rocky and many small lakes
Sealskins and the Eskimo Economy
Canada’s Arctic is inhabited by nearly 15,000 Eskimo people. They are in many varying stages of transition. With government programs, economic developments, improved social services and the education system, all designed to enable a higher standard of living, many are taking advantage of wage employment and changing from the old way of living on the land...
Tupilaks by Paul H. Maurer
The Tupilak plays a most important part in the weird array of figures appearing in ivory nakedness on the vast ice stage of the Greenlandic Arctic. Created by Eskimo shamans, working in secret, the tupilak emerges today in all its primitive beauty as an object prized above all other northern sculpture...
