Trusting the Loon

Lipa Pitseolak has spent much of his life on the land. His prints often reflect the old oral tradition of Inuit songs and stories. "I usually try to relate my drawings to the history, the life of our ancestors. These are my visions of how our ancestors' everyday life might have been. They survived through hard work before firearms were introduced, and their main weapon was a harpoon. This I truly believe; they survived through hard work. I want to portray this so it will not be forgotten. I visualize what they had to go through. I can only put my vision on a drawing; it may not have been exactly that way. The idea is, can it be seen again?" (Pitsiulak in Latocki 1983:13). His work also depicted the relationships shared between animals, humans, and the spirit world. He has been the vice-president of the board of directors of the Pangnirtung co-operative.