Germaine Arnattaujuq is an award-winning Inuit artist and illustrator, best known for her prints and etchings depicting Inuit myths and traditional ways of life. In 1999, she designed the special edition two-dollar coin commemorating the founding of the territory of Nunavut. She is the co-author, with Gyu Oh, of My Name Is Arnaktauyok: The Life and Art of Germaine Arnaktauyok, and she has illustrated numerous books. Germaine is the recipient of the 2021 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. She lives in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

Neil Christopher is an educator, author, and filmmaker. He first moved to the North many years ago to help start a high school program in Resolute Bay, Nunavut. It was those students who first introduced Neil to the mythical inhabitants from Inuit traditional stories. Together with his colleague, Louise Flaherty, and his brother, Danny Christopher, Neil started a small publishing company in Nunavut called Inhabit Media Inc., and has since been working to promote Northern stories and authors.

Table of Contents

2 Foreword

10 Pinngurniq: In the Beginning

13 In the Beginning There Was Only Darkness

14 The Origin of Day and Night

17 The Origin of Death

20 Giants of the Earth

23 The Polar Bear Hunt That Marked the Sky

27 The Northern Lights

28 Surainiit: The Crimes That Shaped the Northern Skies

31 The Origin of the Sun and Moon

33 The Giant Orphan in the Sky

37 The Man of the Moon

38 The Orphans in the Sky

42 Nirjutit Papattijingat: Those that Created the Animals

45 The Mother of the Sea Mammals

47 The Spirit that Released Caribou in the World

53 The Blind Boy and the Loon

54 Epilogue

56 The Earth Birthed Children

59 The Tuniit

62 Contributors

64 Glossary of Inuktitut Words