Anna Lambe talks universal stories and how Siaja allows Inuit women to get a bit ‘messy’
‘North of North’ success has been ‘weird’ but maybe not surprising, says actor at CBC event
Actor Anna Lambe discusses the success of ‘North of North’ Wednesday at a CBC event hosted by Elamin Abdelmahmoud. (Photo by Sam Laskaris, special to Nunatsiaq News)
While CBC representatives were providing a sneak peek into the future, Iqaluit’s Anna Lambe also talked about some of her recent successes.
Lambe stars in North of North, a comedy series based in the fictional Arctic community of Ice Cove. She plays the quirky lead character, Siaja.
The CBC series, which also aired on APTN and is now streaming on Netflix, was recently renewed for a second season.
And that’s why Lambe was at the CBC Toronto Broadcast Centre on Wednesday. She spoke as part of an event called CBC Always Here for Canada: Season Preview 2025-26, which provided previews of the network’s upcoming programming slate.
Actor Anna Lambe discusses the success of ‘North of North’ Wednesday at a CBC event. (Photo by Sam Laskaris, special to Nunatsiaq News)
Lambe discussed the series, which premiered on CBC in January and consisted of eight episodes.
Reactions to the series have been overwhelmingly positive, which Lambe said has been weird but perhaps not surprising.
She described seeing the potential of the show from the start.
“From the moment that I read the scripts and everything, I mean from the moment that I did the audition, I was so, for lack of a better word, desperate to be a part of it,” she said.
“Because I thought it was really fun and something that we had never seen before on TV, but something that was so reflective of how I grew up and what I understood about the North.”
Lambe said she was pleased viewers of the series were able to see parts of the North as she experienced it.
“Seeing people like my wild cousins and family members represented on screen has been cool,” she said. “And to have had such warm reception across Canada and then internationally, I’m just like, ‘Wow. Weird.’”
North of North was primarily filmed in Iqaluit, and filming came with its own challenges. The show was filmed in Iqaluit’s curling rink, which was jerry-rigged into a sound stage, an experience Lambe described as “really fun.”
Shooting in her hometown was an added bonus, she said.
“Being surrounded by community was so important, and is an integral part of the show because there is this real sense of community in North of North,” she said.
“And that’s because it took a real community to make it.”
The first season included various complicated relationships, including the breakup of Siaja’s marriage. Her character’s journey was universal, Lambe said, but set against a unique backdrop.
“I knew so many versions of Siaja growing up, whether they were my own family members or just small parts of her that I saw within my community,” she said.
“And then other parts in developing Siaja as a character and my understanding of her, I was just kind of like, ‘Who did I think was really, really cool growing up? Who was really interesting?’ I kind of want to base it on them.”
Plus, she said, she was keen to properly depict women from her territory.
Lambe said portraying Siaja’s experiences of getting married young, having a child, longing to be ambitious, making mistakes, allowing for that trial and error — just allowing her to be messy — was important.
“Indigenous women and Inuit women are allowed to want things for themselves, are allowed to be ambitious, are allowed to make mistakes and be unhinged and chaotic and silly and ridiculous,” she said.
“Those are all very natural human experiences that we should all get to go through. And the pressure of being a good housewife, of being the good mom, of being the role model — we feel that so often and so heavily. And so, to have someone who’s just like messy, was so important to get across and I think Siaja really did it.”
Though the series has been renewed for another season, a broadcast date has not been publicly announced.
I wanted to like this show, but in the first couple of episodes I found the stereotypes of inuit and whites to be tired, stupid and uninteresting. I even found myself rooting for the husband, as the main female character was so irrationally unlikeable in the first episode, we didn’t have any back story as to why she was acting out like that (maybe there is no reason?).
Also, when they go on about outsiders, it’s just so obvious that the main character is the actual outsider, she does NOT come off as being a Nunavut inuit woman. It would have been better to write her as a southern inuk who has come back after growing up down south and is trying to fit into a Nunavut community, as she really comes across as a southern person, not a Nunavut inuk.
Would you rather Siaja be a chainsmoker who lives in an overcrowded housing with 10 kids? Siaja is a young educated inuk woman who has quite an abusive husband who at the beginning kinda dismissing her. She doesnt have to have lived in the south but rather social media has shaped every young inuk person without even stepping out of Nunavut. The show is a comedy, not a documentary.
I like the show and the actors and the plots are fine but the show is limited in terms of it’s ability to honestly represent Indigenous culture and society in Canada.
This show isn’t meant to represent Indigenous peoples, it is meant to represent Inuit and the way of life in Nunavut. There are too many differences in First Nations and Metis, one show could never represent all Indigenous peoples.
I don’t think it broadly represents the lives of Nunavut Inuit either. Though you could say it is not meant to and that is fine.
I’m kind of with the first commenter here, initially the stereotypes and cliches are a bit funny, but at some point get a little predictable and tired.
It should show shunning, organizations in the North shun its own people, people from specific area are not taken seriously
What Indigenous culture or society? There are so many different cultures and language groups that one representation is impossible. We don’t try to identify a European culture – Greeks and Danes are so different that it would be impossible, why try the same with Indigenous Canadians?