North: Landscape of the Imagination*

Introduction

THE CANADIAN NORTH: harsh and forbidding, beautiful and sustaining; a homeland for the indigenous people who have created an extraordinary art from its rugged landscape; a frontier for Southerners who define themselves against its presence.

From the early days of the Pre-Dorset and Dorset people who moved across the Arctic in the first millennium B.C., Northerners have left a record of their art. We know little of these early people, but we can admire the beautiful ivory carvings they left behind. And we can still respond to the legends the Inuit have told about the Tuniit (only later named the Dorset, for Cape Dorset the site of the first archaeological artifacts recognized to be from a separate culture).

The Canadian Arctic has been described in Norse legends, reproduced in paintings and sketches by early seamen or explorers, recreated through hundreds of years of Inuit sculpture, and painted, filmed and photographed by more contemporary artists. It has provided a compelling setting for fiction, and has inspired countless legends, poems and stories.

In North: Landscape of the Imagination, the National Library has drawn on its collection of books, magazines, manuscripts and music to reveal the North of the artist. The collection contains a rich legacy of publications related to the North, one much broader and deeper than can be included in this exhibition. But it is one which lends itself naturally to the retelling of one strand of northern history - the North as experienced and recreated through the imagination of its artist.

For the purposes of this exhibition, the North has been defined so as to include the Arctic (that area north of the tree-line) and those parts of the sub-Arctic that make up the rest of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Two main threads weave their way throughout this story.

The first is that of those whose art has been inspired by the land in which they live: the Pre-Dorset, the Dorset (Tuniit), the Thule, the Inuit, the Dene and the indigenous peoples of the Yukon. For these artists and storytellers, the Arctic and the sub-Arctic are a homeland. Its rocks, mountains, birds and animals, and its beautiful but frequently hostile environment are a part of the everyday life out of which their art has developed.

The second thread is provided by outsiders, those for whom the North has been a compelling frontier: first the Norse; then the European furtraders, whalers, missionaries and explorers; and later the artists, novelists and poets. For these outsiders, the North represented the unknown, perhaps the unattainable, a challenge against which to measure their own courage and imagination.

For pianist and broadcaster Glenn Gould, the idea of "north" provided "an opportunity to examine that condition of solitude which is neither exclusive to the north nor the prerogative of those who go north but which does, perhaps, appear... a bit more clearly to those who have made, if only in their imagination, the journey north." For the members of the Group of Seven, particularly Lawren Harris, it provided a powerful inspiration. And critics of Canadian literature, from Northrop Frye and Margaret Atwood to Gaile McGregor and John Moss, have interpreted our literature in terms of the creative response of a nation over which looms an Arctic frontier.

Artists, native to the North, have created a deceptively simple written and visual art, its spare form originally dictated by their nomadic and oral cultures. The simple lines of the sculpture for which the Inuit are famous are deeply touching, and the poetic simplicity of the legends and poetry of both the Inuit and the Dene seize the imagination. One Inuit poem in particular, by Uvavnuk an Igloolik Inuit, first written down by Knud Rasmussen early this century, has haunted and inspired with its beauty ever since:

The Great Sea has set me
in motion
Set me adrift
And I move as a weed in
the river.
The arch of sky
And mightiness of storms
Encompasses me,
And I am left
Trembling with joy.*

In North: Landscape of the Imagination, visitors to the exhibition are able to view the art from more than two thousand years of Canada's northern history.

The exhibition is divided into four historic periods:
• the pre-contact period (before 1500), about which the least information is available, but which intrigues with its ivory sculpture, beautifully wrought artifacts and legendary stories;
• the early history (1500 to 1900), with its early Inuit sculpture, maps and legends; and the growing artistic record of visitors from Europe;
• the first half of the 20th century, when the number of visitors to the North continues to grow but the northern homeland is still relatively isolated, except in the Yukon where the gold rush has provided a rich vein for poets and storytellers;
• the modern era, during which enormous changes have taken place. Inuit art takes its place in galleries throughout the world, the literature of the Dene, the Inuit and the indigenous peoples of the Yukon begin to see print, and North American and European visual artists and writers head north, physically or metaphorically.

All material prepared by the National Library of Canada for this project is presented in both of Canada's official languages (English and French). Other material appears in the language in which it was originally published.

The National Library has taken the opportunity of the "International Year of the World's Indigenous People", to recognize and celebrate the long history of artistic work of the indigenous people of Canada's North, as well as that of others who have travelled to that region. This seems an auspicious time to recognize our northern heritage - homeland and frontier - and to turn our eyes northward for continued inspiration.

Canada's Digital Collections

English Foreword
Inuktitut Foreword
Acknowledgements

This digital collection was produced under contract to Industry Canada.

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^* Based on: Martin, Carol. North: Landscape of the Imagination = Le Nord: paysage imaginaire. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1993. This virtual exhibition is based on the one held at the National Library of Canada from Oct. 28, 1993 - March 27, 1994.