Hunter, the Crown, and the Cameras

Joseph Idlout was one of the most widely recognized Inuit figures of his time, famous for his role in the film Land of the Long Day and for a still photograph of him and his family that appeared on the Canadian two-dollar bill. These as well as other films and photographs were made by Qallunaaq filmmaker Doug Wilkinson. Idlout and Wilkinson had a complex connection forged with cameras: Wilkinson taught Idlout to photograph; Idlout and members of his camp were active collaborators in Wilkinson’s films, never solely the product of southern imagination. Idlout crafted a powerful visual record of Inuit life within a relationship that, while built on mutual dependence and respect, remained deeply inequitable.

Through photographs and Inuit memory, The Hunter, the Crown, and the Cameras traces the entangled histories of Inuit and settlers in the Qikiqtani region during the 1950s and into the 1960s. Idlout’s work serves as a guide to a period of cultural encounter and the role of photography and film in understanding or misunderstanding Inuit life. He was a skilled photographer as well as a hunter, and the Nunavut Archives now hold some three hundred photographs credited to him. Dating from 1951 to 1958, the images depict camp life, encounters with Qallunaat, and a journey he made with other Inuit to Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland. Created during a period of intensified contact with southerners, state intervention, and forced assimilation – what the Qikiqtani Truth Commission calls Sangussaqtauliqtilluta (the disruption) – these images document both the resilience of Inuit culture and subtle forms of resistance to southern authority.

Building on this visual record, family and community voices illuminate Idlout’s images. The volume reproduces contemporary texts by Joseph Idlout and his daughter Leah Idlout d’Argencourt Paulson and includes the words of his children Paul Ullatitaq Idlout and Susan Salluviniq and his grandson Joshua Idlout. Moses Idlout, Ludy Pudluk, Jacob Anaviapik, Elisapee Ootoova, Ruth Sangoya, and Solomon Awa also offer insight into his life and work. The book begins with a foreword by Idlout’s granddaughter Madeleine d’Argencourt; Inuk historian, educator, and curator Augatnaaq Eccles co-authored one chapter and co-curated a related online exhibition.

Structured around cyclical Inuit conceptions of time, The Hunter, the Crown, and the Cameras advances an approach to Arctic history that integrates visual analysis, Inuit testimony, and archival research to re-story Sangussaqtauliqtilluta.