Peter Pitseolak

Peter Pitseolak (2 September 1902, Nottingham Island, Northwest Territories—September 30, 1973, Cape Dorset, Northwest Territories) was an Inuit photographer, sculptor, artist and historian.

Life

"In Peter Pitseolak's Home". Credit: Charles Gimpel / Library and Archives Canada /e002414705

He lived most of his life in traditional Inuit camps near Cape Dorset, on the southwest coast of Baffin Island, now in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. This was a time of social and technological change among the Inuit, from nomadic life to permanent settlements, from spears to rifles, from dogteams to snowmobiles. Airplanes, electric generators and Western clothing were also changing the human environment. Pitseolak dedicated himself to preserving knowledge of the old ways, by writing, sketching, and especially photography. He documented customs, hunting techniques, stories and myths. His brother was Pootoogoo, a chief.

In 1912 Pitseolak met photographer Robert J. Flaherty. Flaherty, best known today for his documentary movie Nanook of the North (1922), inspired Pitseolak's interest in photography. It was not until the 1930s, however, that Pitseolak took his first recorded photograph. This was for a white visitor who was afraid to approach a polar bear for a shot. Pitseolak took the photo for him, using the visitor's camera.

In 1923 Pitseolak married Annie from Kimmirut. They had seven children, of whom only two daughters, Udluriak and Kooyoo, survived. Annie died of tuberculosis in 1939.

In the 1940s Pitseolak was living in Cape Dorset working for fur-traders when he acquired his first camera, from a Catholic missionary. With the help of his second wife Aggeok (1906-1977), he developed his first photographs in a hunting igloo. Many difficulties had to be overcome, including extreme climate changes, high light levels from the reflective snowscape, and the difficulty of obtaining film and developer. Peter and Aggeok experimented. They used a battery-powered flashlight covered with red cloth as a safelight, and a lens filter made from old sunglasses.

He was a sculptor; His soapstone carving of a bear was presented to the Royal Military College of Canada on Oct 3 1970 by the class of 1920-24.

He was also a painter, executing a series of watercolors in 1939 for John Buchan, later 2nd Baron Tweedsmuir, son of Governor General John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. The younger Tweedsmuir was a fur trader with the Hudson's Bay Company at the time.

Pitseolak wrote various diaries, notes and manuscripts, all in Inuktitut syllabics. Along with Dorothy Harley Eber he published People From Our Side (1975), the story of his early life,[1] and Peter Pitseolak's Escape From Death (1977), an account of a near disaster among the ice floes.

He photographed himself, his family, and community members in real situations, and also posing with traditional clothing and implements. Pitseolak made more than 2,000 photographs of the disappearing way of life over more than twenty years. In 1961, at the age of 59, he left his camp at Keatuk and returned to settlement life at Cape Dorset. After his death in 1973, more than 1,500 negatives and photographs were purchased from his widow for the National museums of Canada (now part of Canadian Museum of Civilization).

The famed sculptor Okpik Pitseolak (b. 1946) is the wife of Peter's son Mark Pitseolak.[2] According to Terry Ryan, former manager of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, Pitseolak's nephew, Kananginak Pootoogook, greatly admired and was influenced by his uncle.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Pitseolak, Peter; Eber, Dorothy Harley (April 1978). People from Our Side: A Life Story with Photographs and Oral Biography. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34334-5.
  2. ↑ Piseolak, Okpik, Inuit Art FOundation. Accessed 13 January 2013.
  3. ↑ Sandra Martin (4 December 2010). "The guiding voice of Cape Dorset artists chronicled the Inuit past". The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Canada: Phillip Crawley.
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