“Do you know what constitutes a typical Inuit family?
A man, a woman, two children…
…And an anthropologist!”
Michel Hellman promised his publisher a sequel to his first graphic novel. But his gentrifying Montreal neighbourhood, with its intruding condo developments, hipster coffee shops and organic bakeries was no longer the creative inspiration it once was. Deciding to fulfil a childhood dream, he bid au revoir to his wife and child and flew to the vast region of northern Quebec known as Nunavik.
Even though most have never ventured anywhere near it, the idea of an ice-covered and wind-swept “North” is a romanticism held tight by Canadians. It’s a space where trees turn to shrub, eventually becoming mossy tundra before ending at the Arctic Ocean. A place where caribou roam, polar bears hunt seals, and lemmings inexplicably throw themselves off cliffs (NOTE: lemmings don’t actually do this).
Hellman quickly discovers today’s Inuit live a very different lifestyle…The study organism turns out not to be the Inuit, but Hellman himself.
Originally published in French, Nunavik recounts Hellman’s experiences as a tourist-pseudo-anthropologist dropped into this very different world. Instead of a gentle cultural tour, however, Hellman is thrust into a far more chaotic world of drug-smuggling, tiny planes and even a long-extinct paleo-culture. Rather than the Inuit culture of famous old documentaries, he quickly discovers today’s Inuit live a very different lifestyle; one where fast food is popular and traditional hunting is in decline. But he also discovers how modern conveniences have been adapted to continue other aspects of Inuit culture. 
Hellman’s preconceived notions continue to be shattered. The Inuit love to play golf. The bush pilots that fly him in ever smaller planes don’t always fit his imagined stereotype. And in one particular scene, he discovers his presence as a privileged Arctic tourist from the south may, in fact, be reinforcing the extreme poverty and squalid housing found in many of the small communities that pepper Nunavik. The study organism turns out not to be the Inuit family unit, but Hellman himself.
The loose scribbly linework works really well with this material, and elegantly capture the spirit of the communities visited. Hellman is also quite adept at conveying flight in a Dash 8. Anyone who has flown in one of these will immediately identify with the claustrophobic interior and the pendulum-like swinging of the plane as it approaches a runway.
Illustrating Inuit Communities in Nunavik
A good travelogue should immerse you in an environment (see my review of Babylon Berlin or Snow Day), and Nunavik manages to successfully place you within two very different communities. In the prologue, Hellman takes you to a Montreal street corner as an observer to a conversation. Even though the focus is on the narrator and his editor, the urban background continues to move between and across panels. Cars and people pass in the background and a confident pigeon struts 
through the foreground. There is a definite sense of the continuous movement of the city and this particular neighbourhood. A similar experience occurs when Hellman arrives in Kuujjuaq—this time, however, he and a chatty new friend take in the sights (the churches, the general store, and the dump) as they drive from the airport to the inn. Once again, the activity in the background is just as interesting as the main story that’s being told.
This is a graphic novel that can be read at many levels. It can be quick, if all you are interested in is Hellman’s travel journal; or it’s a more in-depth piece that asks questions about the relationship between the Inuit and the people from the south.
Either way, you’ll probably want to visit some of the places Hellman describes.
And that alone makes Nunavik definitely worth reading.
Nunavik
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