More Tales from the Igloo

Adele Ashby was the former editor of Canadian Materials for Schools and Libraries.

Agnes Nanogak was raised in the Inuit tradition which used illustration in various forms to help to tell the legends of its people, the Alaskan Eskimo and the Copper and the Mackenzie Inuit. In the 1960s, she became involved in the Holman Printmaking Co-operative, and in 1972, she produced 31 drawings to illustrate Father Maurice Metayer’s Tales from the Igloo (Hurtig, 1972). Now, in More Tales from the Igloo, she has combined her own stories and pictures.

Nanogak’s stories are divided into three sections. The first, “Tales of Birds and Beasts,” is a collection of five animal fables, with a number of transformation stories in which humans change into animal form. The five “Tales of Adventure” are filled with epic heroes and supernatural beings. The 12 “Tales of Sorrow and Revenge” are cautionary tales that warn of the consequences of upsetting the norms of community life.

The fly-leaf describes the book as a “collection that includes stories for every taste and age.” I cannot agree. They are filled with bloodcurdling events written in skeletal prose. There are few happy endings, a tradition that reflects an environment so harsh and antagonistic that nothing is predictable. These stories need to be introduced to those accustomed to European storytelling traditions, and the excellent foreword by Inuit literature specialist Robin Gedalof McGrath makes a beginning in that direction. More Tales of the Igloo belongs on the shelf beside its companion volume.