Art in a cold climate

Spread across such a vast region, northwest Canada's creative community can feel isolated, and a festival gives them a chance to share skills. It's like a battery charger for their art, they tell Cathy Henderson.

Bright sunshine streams through the gap in the canvas of the carvers' tent. The air is filled with soapstone dust, the distinctive scent of ground moose antler and the uneven rhythm of hammering and grinding as a dozen artists are busy preparing work for the adjacent exhibition hall.

Located high in the Western Arctic on the delta of the mighty Mackenzie river in the little town of Inuvik in Canada's Northwest Territories, this is the 18th annual Great Northern Arts Festival. Established in 1988 as a forum for first nation artists who live and work in tiny communities scattered across the tundra, this gathering has become an essential fixture for the diverse creative community of northern artists.

These are Inuit, Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Dene, Metis, as well as non-Aboriginal artists from as far away as Pangnirtung on Baffin Island, Gjoa Haven in the Arctic Archipelago, Fort Smith on the Alberta border and from the Yukon Territory. They come to show their work, meet other artists, see different styles of work and learn new techniques.

Curator and festival founder Charlene Alexander was recently awarded the Order of Canada (Canada's highest civic award) for her work in running this event. It began in 1988 as an attempt to overcome some of the extraordinary challenges faced by artists working in such remote and far-flung locations. "The unique circumstances of Northern artists cannot be over-emphasised. No other region of Canada is faced with similar challenges in terms of isolation.

"It's hard for anyone living in the south to appreciate just how remote these places are," she explains. "Travel between these communities and other parts of the country is really expensive - basic needs such as the services of professional photographers, galleries and curators are out of reach up here. Even art supplies and materials can be difficult to come by. You have to appreciate that there just aren't any roads up here. If you want to go any distance you have to go by air."

OBED ANOOE lives in Arviat near the Manitoba border. It took him two days to get here. "As Inuit we usually measure how far away a place is by how many nights' stopover it takes." he explains.

"I always wanted to be an artist. My dad painted, my mum sewed dolls from sealskin and my uncle carved caribou antlers. I guess I learned my carving by watching him. I mostly carve caribou antlers. I find the antlers - which fall around October, out on the tundra when I go hunting."

The whimsical images in Obed's fine lyrical carvings depict hunting and drum-dancing scenes. "Ever since I was little, I wanted to learn to drum dance but I never managed it," he explains, "but I try to connect to my family and my culture through my carvings." Throughout the festival, artists can attend daily seminars on issues such as self-promotion, dealing with curators and website design.

"I never got a website done or anything like that before, cause I was too busy fishing," Obed smiles.

In addition to exhibiting work in the festival gallery, artists must also produce work on location in open workshops. Many of the carvers choose to work outdoors in the sturdy canvas tents where the north wind breezes through and keeps the dust level down. Indoors in the sports arena, among various painters, sculptors, stitchers, silversmiths and beaders, François Thibault, aka T-Bo, from Yellowknife creates exquisite pieces of sculpted metal and bone jewellery.

He is impressed with how the festival has developed: "Now it has become a valuable resource for artists up here - it's a great thing to have because the Arctic is so vast. This event brings artists from all over the eastern and western Arctic, gives them a chance to exchange ideas, talk and learn from each other. Most people here are very accomplished artists and this festival gives everyone a chance to touch base with each other. Otherwise, we might only ever meet up if we were in the capital or one of the big towns to go shopping.

"It's like a bunch of musicians jamming here: everyone is just cracking away at what they do but these artists are very willing to share their skills. You've met some real masters here who are at the top of their game, but as you can tell they're just regular people - there are no airs about them. There's no room here for airs or pretention - there's room for exchanges, there's room to jam, there's room to teach and there's room to learn, but there are no divas here. Looking in from the outside you might say the whole festival is a bunch of divas but if you're here nobody has that title."

As well as the wealth of sculptural work on show, there is a wonderful display of traditional textile arts: delicately stitched mukluks, mitts, beaded slippers, parkas and wall hangings. Another of the younger exhibitors is 20-year-old Caroline Blechert from Yellowknife. Her beadwork won her last year's award for emerging artist and she is heading for art school in Edmonton later this year. She describes her desire to produce jewellery with a cutting edge style using traditional methods and materials.

"I am using porcupine quills and the sort of beads that have been used forever in the north but if I want my designs to work in today's market, I have to use cool colours and my stuff has to look good with what people are wearing now."

Another artist who emphasises the need to connect contemporary issues with traditional techniques is veteran carver Joe Nasagaluak from Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea. His bold stone carvings use a lot of the intensely graphic symbolism traditional in Inuit mythology and folklore.

"I used to do a lot of animals and things but now I want to take my work to another level - I had done a lot of images from legends but then I started what I call statement carvings - making images from current issues," he explains.

"In our communities there are a lot of problems with alcohol, violence toward women, kids abusing drugs and alcohol. I want to reflect some of these things in my work instead of constantly doing images from legends. You have a voice as an artist so you should use it in your art. People have always been carving from what they see and what is going on in their lives so you have to keep that tradition moving forward.

"But it can be hard to keep ideas alive especially when you carve all year alone - you can get a little bit stale. Here it's like a battery charger for your art. Before this there was no way of seeing as much art as there is here. People would just do their carvings and sell them to tourists and no one would see them unless they went into that person's house. Now this is here every year and there are galleries coming up to see the work. It's a very good thing to come to. I couldn't make it to the first of these festivals but I made a promise to myself to make it to the second. I've been coming to most since - that's maybe 16 times now."

The festival always takes place in the height of the summer, the few short weeks during which the sun never sets. The enduring daylight feels like a drug which reduces the desire for sleep. Or perhaps it's a combination of the endless daylight and the tremendous energy provided by the concentration of so much creativity in one small isolated outpost at the top of the world.

After supper each evening, the trail of visitors to the festival site slows down and there is a live musical performance in the sports arena. Acts range from the old-time country and western sound of the Beaufort Sea Boys through the full-on blues rock sound of Yellowknife's own Priscilla's Revenge to the traditional drummers and dancers from Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik who perform the centuries-old Inuit style drumming on their curiously familiar, shallow bodhrán-style drums. These bands include some of the oldest members of the community right through to those who are so young they can barely stand - but even so they are already showing signs of learning the dance moves and of keeping the tradition alive.

Late in the evening, as the performers leave the stage and the audience wanders out again, the sun still shows no sign of setting. The continuing tapping of hammers and chisels and the grinding of the carvers' drills can again be heard from the tents outside as the work goes on throughout this long, intensely creative, magical summer's day.

Cathy Henderson was invited to the Great Northern Arts Festival as a documentary artist, to make a series of drawings recording other participating artists and artisans at work