Piksuk Media’s six-episode series about the 2010 Nunavut Quest traditional Inuit dog-sledding race on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. An inside, participatory look at a week of high drama and magnificent Arctic landscape.
EPISODE ONE
Inuit from across Canada’s eastern Arctic gather for the annual Nunavut Quest week-long traditional dog-sledding race. They have prepared for months, making equipment and getting their dogs in shape. Just getting to the starting line is an expedition through a frozen wonderland.
EPISODE TWO
17 teams, — 180 dogs — have gathered at Pond Inlet. 115 helpers on 45 snowmobiles hauling food, fuel and all kinds of supplies set out ahead. Our destination is Clyde River, 500 kilometres away. But first we face ground drift, tricky ice and rugged mountains.
EPISODE THREE
Climate change hits the Nunavut Quest: warm weather and soft snow exhaust dogs and machines. One musher loses his team and is penalized; youngsters challenge the old guard.
EPISODE FOUR
It’s been a winter or weird weather, and one night nature springs a bad surprise: The sea ice under our camp cracks open, and we’ve got to move, fast! It’s a lesson in the new realities of a changing Arctic.
EPISODE FIVE
300 kilometres into the race we find ourselves in a magical world of glaciers, deep valleys, towering peaks. It all comes together at Pilaktuaq, the island that’s “cut with a knife”.
EPISODE SIX
We’re running out of time, so the mushers vote to stretch the final legs of the race. If they only knew… But the excitement builds as the crowd in Clyde River hails the mushers as heroes.
On their way to gaining substantial control of their ancestral land, Nunavimmiut learned important lessons. The creation of Nunavut, itself a twenty-five year effort, was only the stepping stone to other initiatives.
In 2008, after years and years of negotiations, the Ninginganiq National Wildlife Area became a reality. Off the east coast of Baffin Island, south of Clyde River, this marine habitat is the late-summer home of 100 bowhead whales, the largest known concentration of the endangered Baffin Bay – Davis Strait population. The entire coastal area in this region is pristine at present, and supports intact populations of polar bears, ringed seals, Canada geese, snow geese, halibut, ringed seals and narwhal.
History moves fast in Canada’s Arctic, and what was gained through patience and persistence is often taken for granted a few years later. As a lesson for other indigenous communities, “Sanctuary” will look at how the victory of Ninginganiq was achieved, and how the people of Baffin east coast can best protect and use it for future generations.
When Tony Kalluk returned to his home community of Clyde River three years ago, many townspeople feared the worst. In the more than twenty years that he had been gone, Tony had gained the reputation as one of Nunavut’s most hardened and violent criminals, involved in gangs and drugs. But word was that he had reformed, and that he was coming home to begin a new life.
Tony Kalluk’s unfinished life history lays bare the dark underbelly of Nunavut itself, in a way that statistics, government reports and media accounts cannot match. At the same time it is riveting raw material for a film, be it a fictionalized drama or a documentary where Tony himself is front and centre. It could even be a mixture, with Tony and other real-life characters re-enacting episodes from the past while also taking us into their lives today.
As many of Nunavut’s communities struggle with a crisis of addiction, suicide and violence, many committed Nunavimmiut are struggling to turn the tide. Our series explores the issues by profiling the hard work of a cast of counselors, elders, teachers, social workers, justice committee members, health providers, politicians, anti-suicide activists, church leaders and other selected individuals, including people who have themselves been addicts
and convicted criminals. We explore the issues through the work of people fighting to make Nunavut a better place.
Forty years ago, as nomadic life was ending for Canada’s Inuit, the sled dog population plummeted from an estimated 20,000 to about 700. The collapse was traumatic, and the wounds of this loss are still open. What happened, and why? This documentary co-produced with the National Film Board of Canada for the Aboriginal People’s Television Network, and Societé Radio-Canada is making its way on the festival circuit. It will be released by NFB in mid-2011.
In this story of “two truths” and the power of memory, Piksuk crews traveled across Baffin Island to re-enact (photos) the killings of sled dogs in the 1960s and 1970s.
The dogs are back! Every April, Nunavut mushers engage in the week-long Nunavut Quest sled dog race across the northern Baffin region. In 2010 Piksuk crews traveled with the race through the spectacular Baffin Island landscape from Pond Inlet to Clyde River.
180 dogs, 135 humans and 45 snowmobiles made for a dramatic procession as we faced blizzards, cracking sea ice and witnessed dramatic climate change that’s sweeping across the Arctic.
LA QUETE DE PHILIPPE is currently being broadcast by Radio-Canada through its regional services. A six-part series for APT is being completed and will be broadcast in Inuktitut and English later this year. An interactive website and a dog-sledding video game is under construction.
The Mystery of Arqioq tells the story of a lost High Arctic expedition and of the Greenland Inuk guide who returned from the dead. This film was produced in 2007. 47 min.
Vancouver couple Cathy and Martin Ward wanted to adopt a baby. Instead they got five siblings, ages six to seventeen, from Ukraine. The wrenching story of the adoption process is just the beginning of this very human family saga. Since we began filming in 2008, all five kids have arrived and, each in his and her own way, are coping with the transition to youth and adolescent life in Canada. It’s a moving if strenuous ride for all concerned – a story of great emotions and insights into a migration like few others.
To advance the project, Piksuk entered a partnership, which sees Vancouver-based Interfilm produce what has now become a series, backed by The Knowledge Network of British Columbia. Director Julia Ivanova and producer Boris Ivanov are well advanced in the filming and plan to deliver the series by late 2011.
Produced with the financial assistance of Nunavut Film
About us
Piksuk's mission is to promote Inuit history and culture and to train Inuit in all aspects of media work. We've been doing this since 2005. Read more on our company (with video). Or read more about the three people behind it.
