Land of the Bear

Twelve hundred miles north of the U.S. border, in a land of frozen inlets and howling winds, above the upper reaches of Hudson Bay, is Cape Dorset. Only a cluster of frame houses, snow huts and translucent plastic igloos on the barren southern coast of Baffin Island, it is the trading station for some 320 Eskimos living in scattered three-and four-family camps along the island's frozen coast. It is also the center of the best folk art this side of Africa. Already famed as the most skilled of the Eskimo sculptors, the Cape Dorset people have recently taken up a new art form: prints. Next week the first exhibition of their new work will go on display in Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts.

Mermaids & Omens. Cape Dorset is one of the oldest settlements in North America: Eskimos were living there nearly 3,000 years ago. Still untouched by mining, large-scale commerce and defense installations, the Cape Dorset people retain a fierce pride in themselves as Eskimos, have kept their art uncontaminated by the white man's sophistication.

Eskimos take creativity for granted and find it hard to fathom why anyone would want to collect something another person has made. In a land where a man can be killed by a glass of water thrown in his face (it freezes in flight), and where the main supply of food comes from the hunt, the Eskimo has developed an uncanny sense of observation. He can mimic a stranger on sight, often fools seals by flapping his arms like flippers until he is near enough to throw a harpoon. In his art, he can catch the look of the injured bear, the tension of the hunter standing over a seal hole, the heft and hunch of a seal's body resting on an ice floe.

For the Eskimos, the barren snowfields are alive with spirits, and their art prints are full of the mythological as well as the real (chief of the mystic artists is old , nearly blind Tudlik, the wise man of the Cape Dorset people). The jet-black raven circling overhead is an evil omen; the sea is the home of the mischievous mermaid-like sea goddess Talluliyuk, who lures the seal away from the hunter. And when the aurora borealis flickers overhead, the Eskimos know that the lights come from the dead playing with seal skulls.

By Smoke & Feel. Canadian Eskimo art went unnoticed until 1948, when Jim Houston, 38, a great-great-great-grand-nephew of Texan Sam Houston, went north to paint. Houston was fascinated by the statuettes the Eskimos had made for centuries for their own pleasure and, once made, had tossed negligently aside. Houston took samples south, where collectors snapped them up. In 1951 Houston settled in Cape Dorset as the Canadian government's civil administrator and chief patron of the local artists. Once Houston had built carving into a business that grosses $150,000 each year, he looked for another art form into which to guide Canada's Eskimos. He remembered seeing incised drawings some Eskimos had done in soapstone, and decided they could become printmakers.

A year ago, Houston flew to Japan to learn the technique of printmaking, came back and taught it to the eager Cape Dorset artisans. But the Eskimo print method is still very much his own. He chips the face of the stone flat, then painstakingly files it smooth. Next he polishes the surface by rubbing it with seal oil. Then, brow creased, the Eskimo feels the stone, lets its texture and shape tell him what design is in it. As he works, he depends more on feel than sight to guide him, because the seal lamps make an igloo's interior too smoky to see clearly. The temperature in the igloo is at best just above freezing, but he works with his bare hands.

A Small Thing. Even with his new fame, no Eskimo considers his art as serious work. It is just something to do when the weather keeps him from hunting. Even the terminology reflects this attitude. The word for a carving is sinun-guuak (a small thing-you-make); a print is titokuuak (marks you make with your hand). This humility results in the softest sells in all art history. An Eskimo who has journeyed for days to reach Cape Dorset will tell Houston: "I brought a block for a print along. It's no good, of course. I'm ashamed of it. As a matter of fact, I think it fell off the sled." While he is pro testing, his wife will go out, dig the block out from under some skins at the bottom of the sled.

No artists live a more hazardous life. In the last year, two of Cape Dorset's twelve printmakers have met death on the ice fields. One of the deaths has given the new art form its first legend. Niviaksi-ak, 39, was already a famous carver when he took up prints. Of all the subjects he portrayed, the one that preyed most on his mind was bears. During the last months of his life, he pondered deeply on the soul of the great, inscrutable polar bear.

The Bear Hunt. Three months ago Niviaksiak and a young companion were tracking a bear. After several hours they finally caught sight of him. As they crept closer, the bear, instead of running, turned and gazed squarely at them. Niviaksiak moved in, raised his rifle to fire, then faltered and shrieked: "It's dark. I'm falling!" Without firing, he collapsed on the snow, died within minutes.

The next day, when Niviaksiak's companion and others returned to bury him, they found his body unmauled; the bear had not even come near him. Among Cape Dorset people there was only one explanation: Niviaksiak's art had probed too near, had offended the spirit of the great polar bear.

Today half of Cape Dorset's income derives from the sale of art works. This is just the way Jim Houston intended it. Not even Cape Dorset will remain in violate forever; sooner or later it will be drawn into the modern world where other Eskimos have fared so poorly. Says Hous ton: "Their art is the one thing that can preserve their pride in their Eskimo identity. So long as their art remains true and vital and coveted by the outside world, they will be saved from hopeless apathy in the face of the onslaught of the almighty kadluna [white man]. After they learn to cope with their new world, their art may die. All I ask is that it will then have served its purpose."

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