Nunavut filmmaker bridges time and space for outpost camp film

Myna Ishulutak, middle, accepts the “Main Film” Young Hope Award for Qipisa at the Montreal First Peoples Festival Aug. 7. (PHOTO COURTESY CTVM)

Myna Ishulutak holds back tears when asked what her grandfather would think of her new film, Qipisa, a 35-minute documentary about the land camp on Cumberland Sound where Ishulutak grew up.

“He’d be so happy that I’m trying to continue our culture,” Ishulutak said Aug. 12 from a coffee shop in Iqaluit’s plateau neighbourhood.

Ishulutak said her extended family wintered at the camp, called Qipisa, until about 1984, when her grandfather’s poor health forced the family to move to nearby Pangnirtung.

A few months later, Ishulutak’s grandfather, a respected leader in his 80s, died.

For her new film, Ishulutak won the “Main Film” Young Hope Award for Qipisa, an award for new filmmakers, awarded Aug. 7 at the Montreal First Peoples Festival.

When asked if she could picture her grandfather, who never travelled off Baffin Island, in that Montreal movie theatre, Ishulutak hesitated, then a big grin spread across her face and her eyes opened wide.

“I can picture him, just to be there with me.”

The inspiration for Qipisa came when Ishulutak’s sons asked their mother if she grew up using a qulliq.

“I suddenly felt like I was losing my culture. I wanted to learn as much as I could and pass it on,” she said.

Even though Iqaluit had been home for more than a decade, Ishulutak said she realized something important was missing from her life.

“I was so lost, even though I was happy in Iqaluit, something was missing. So I decided to go back home,” she said.

In 2013 Ishulutak gave up her full-time job, her nice apartment and even left her common-law partner for a while to head back home.

She lived in Pangnirtung for seven months and made it to Qipisa, an eight-hour boat ride away, for two days of filming, Ishulutak said.

“I kept thinking about all the people that lived there, and all the people who didn’t live on this world anymore,” she said.

To teach her sons about her past, Ishulutak drew heavily on the inspiration from her grandfather.

Besides being a leader among the 30-odd family members spread out in Qipisa’s eight sod houses, Ishulutak said her grandfather, a strict man, also wrote in his journal in Roman orthography almost every night.

“He’d write about the weather that day, or about who was born or who died, or what hunting trips went well. And he would tell me legends about everything. I’m starting to forget some of them now, which makes me sad.”

Ishulutak has her grandfather’s journals and said she continues to learn about life at Qipisa.

Life was very different at Qipisa, said Ishulutak, who wintered there until the age of 13.

“I didn’t know there were other people, like other than in Pang. Like there were Qallunaat, other languages and cultures — I had no idea. And we didn’t know anything about money. I used to think people with money bought new clothes to wear every day,” Ishulutak laughed, slightly embarrassed.

Aida Mt, a French-born filmmaker who worked closely with Ishulutak as the documentary’s cinematographer, said the story told in Qipisa is universal.

“Myna left home to find something, goes through this adventure, and becomes a new person,” Mt said.

Even though Ishulutak told her story mostly for her sons, Qipisa is a “very personal” film, said Mt.

“Every time we show the film, people are really touched,” she said.

Both Ishulutak and Mt said they hope to screen it in other Nunavut communities so other Inuit can find their own stories reflected in Qipisa.

But right now, Mt said she and Ishulutak are working on a distribution deal, which has to be completed before any public screenings take place.