The Shaman's Nephew: A Life in the Far North

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

The Shaman’s Nephew is a very special book for all ages. It’s about
the life of Simon Tookoome, a traditional nomadic Inuit in Baker Lake
near the Arctic Circle. Tookoome feeds his family and sled dogs by
hunting and speaks only Inuktitut. He is also a great Inuit artist whose
art expresses an ancient way of living and perceiving, one first learned
from his uncle the shaman.

A chance meeting in Nunavut brought Tookoome together with Sheldon
Oberman, a Winnipeg writer, storyteller, playwright, and filmmaker.
Oberman had asked to stay with a real Inuit hunter. Tookoome spoke no
English and lived on a diet of raw caribou. Mercifully, one of his older
daughters spoke English and could serve as translator for the two
artist-storytellers from radically different cultures. As Oberman
watched Tookoome drawing in the igloo, the work seemed at first like
prehistoric cave paintings, as foreign as the Inuit’s words.

Oberman learned that the white man’s walls, schools, and food were
all changing the Inuit. Tookoome sought his help in writing a book about
his land and his people, lest his stories be lost. The project
eventually took 10 years, many interviews, and many translators, each
with a different perspective. Tookoome’s gift of art and Oberman’s
patient interpretation reveals an extraordinary world.

Twenty-four powerful paintings in bright colors help to mediate his
vision, as Tookoome conveys to a kindred spirit from the south his life
in the far north, beginning with his memories of his own birth. The
Shaman’s Nephew will help readers to enter and share in this vision,
this life. Highly recommended.