Rankin Inlet (review)

Ivaluk's letters to his adopted brother, Thomasie, who is at school in the south, detail the pleasures and pains of settlement life, focussing more on public than on domestic domains. Though he writes in English, Ivaluk signs his name with Inuit syllables. [Alison]'s and Ivaluk's passages telegraph their growth individually and as a couple, but Nikmak's contemplation is more complex. The eleven stories he tells his daughter, as she lies dying in the nursing station, not only show his humanity, but they also conjure up the Inuit past. Nikmak's memories provide the critical cultural context, depicting the interdependence of his people throughout time. His recounting is honest and direct, finding good and bad in living off the land, as well as in the wage labour of the settlements. His perspective reflects a will to survive by adapting to circumstance, and in that will lies the endurance of his people. Nikmak ends this section of the novel by relating that he has agreed to Ivaluk's and Alison's marriage because he appreciates Alison's values, demonstrated during his sad days in the nursing station. She is "a real person, an Inuk" (120), worthy of Ivaluk, and he hopes she will recognize Ivaluk's worth. For Nikmak, a balanced perspective is life-sustaining.