ABSTRACT
On the surface, the drawing looks like a conventional landscape in the western picturesque tradition depicting a placid Arctic spring. Numerical pagination in the upper margin suggests the drawing's place within a larger narrative sequence. Traditional knowledge of the land and the environment embedded in Indigenous art, like Nutarak's drawing, can contribute to contemporary discussions of the Anthropocene. This chapter examines and contextualizes a small selection of Inuit drawings created in 1964 from the North Baffin region of Nunavut, Canada. These drawings reveal profound and complex links between Inuit perceptions of self-identity, geography, ecology, and the environment. The practice of using drawing to mediate the transfer of knowledge in the Arctic became widespread in the nineteenth century, though unevenly practiced. The North Baffin drawings were solicited during a period of intense colonial modernity in the 1960s. The practice of using drawing to negotiate cross-cultural encounters continued into the twentieth century.
