Photo: Inukjuak dollmaker laid to rest

Nunavik artist and dollmaker Elisapee Inukpuk, pictured here at a 2009 elders conference, died March 31 in Puvirnituq. Inukpuk was born in 1938 in Sarollie’s camp along the Hudson coast near Inukjuak. As a child, she watched her mother make dolls for her using animal skins, fur and other cloth. She developed her own signature style, by building bases for her dolls from woven grass, and stone heads that her husband Charlie would carve. Her dolls depicted Inuit women’s everyday activities, like drying skins or stretching kamiks. “We were given our hands at birth to use,” Inukpuk told Inuit Art Quarterly in a 1996 interview. (FILE PHOTO)