Ukkusiksalik

The People's Story

Published January 2016

E-mail me when this book is available

Description

The remarkable history of a pocket of the remote Arctic, and the oral testimony from the last Inuit elders to live there.

A coastal region of rolling tundra just west of Hudson Bay, Ukkusikslaik was established as a national park in 2003. In earlier times this historic region was the principal hunting ground for several Inuit families and was criss-crossed by missionaries, Mounties, and traders. Since the 1980s, Arctic writer and researcher David F. Pelly has been exploring this region on foot and by sea-kayak, and with Inuit friends, while documenting Inuit traditional knowledge of the land. In this book, he presents the stories of Inuit elders and includes historical records to provide a complete history of this extraordinary corner of our northern landscape, Ukkusiksalik.

Reviews

In this book, Pelly weaves together stories from Inuit elders with historical accounts to provide the complete history of Ukkusiksalik. The reader sees a new way of seeing the world through the oral traditions of telling stories through the generations for centuries.

ArcticJournal.ca/Above&Beyond

What I take away from this volume...is the rich and layered and often quite stories from the elders, talking to us over the arc of decades about a time that, for all practical purposes, no longer exists in Canada. That these stories, most often passed on by oral traditions have been collected and published is an enormous gift to all of us.

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Herald

This book will be very useful for people traveling to Ukkusiksalik National Park (everyone planning a trip there should read it), as well as to students and teachers. It will also appeal to those who enjoy learning about the Arctic and its history.

Arctic Magazine

The history of Ukkusikslaik, a coastal expanse of tundra west of Hudson Bay that would later become a national park, is clearly far more than a geographic account. By centring the oral testimony of the last Inuit elders to live there, Pelly preserves not only memory, but worldview. Landscapes like Ukkusiksalik are often mapped, surveyed, and designated, yet rarely are they allowed to speak through the voices of those who knew them as home.

Adam Makos, bestselling author of The Higher Calling

Contributors

David F. Pelly

David F. Pelly, a modern-day explorer of the North’s cultural landscape, has lived in and travelled throughout the Arctic since the late 1970s. He is the author of ten books and numerous articles on the land and its people, including Ukkusiksalik, The Old Way North, and Sacred Hunt. Much of his writing is based on oral history shared with him by Inuit elders. For this work, he was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 and appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2025. He now lives near Ottawa.

View Author Page