When I was a child, I loved watching a documentary called #The_Stories_of_Tuktu. It was a beautiful narration of the life of an #Inuit boy and his family. I’m sure all Iranian palls in my age can remember Tuktu. The film aired weekly on a children’s television program. I remember how my sister and I got mesmerized by the stories that Tuktu told to his grandson in each episode, about how they gathered food, made clothing, constructed sleds, kayaks and illuvigait (igloos) and raised their dogs. Without knowing at that time who exactly were these amazing people, we couldn’t help but wonder how it was possible to survive in such a harsh climate, with a life so difficult and dangerous at times, but still so beautiful and joyous, and full of love and caring.
Today I was reading this amazing story, #Upirngasaq (Arctic Spring) by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, drowning in every word of it, the story of Tuktu came in front of my eyes!
I started googling to find it, the only thing I remembered was the name of the grandpa in Farsi “توکتو”. It was quite surprising for me that the documentary was produced by #National Film Board of Canada. During the late 1960s. Laurence Hyde a Canadian artist, used color footage of the #Netsilik (seal) people of #Kugaaruk (formerly Pelly Bay) to narrate the story of a fictional elder, recalling the traditional Inuit ways of his childhood.
This footage belonged to the time when southern civilization had not disrupted the ways these people were living in absolute harmony with nature. As Sheila beautifully said in her story “In our language we have no word for ‘nature’, despite our deep affinity with the land, which teaches us how to live in harmony with the natural world. The division the Western world likes to make between ‘man and nature’ is both foreign and dangerous in the traditional Inuit view.”
Don’t miss reading this amazing story
and watching “in Celebration of Nunavut — Stories of Tuktu”.
