Canada's insider blog

It’s a special event collectors wait all year for. In October, the artists’ co-operative Kinngait Studios in the Nunavut hamlet of Cape Dorset released its 51st annual collection of 34 colourful and lively Inuit prints.

Last year, the tiny community celebrated half a century of printmaking, creating iconic Canadian images of hunters, amouti-clad Inuit women and Arctic creatures rich with spirituality. Over the decades, these have been presented to royalty, presidents and Popes. Still going strong are masters like Kananginak Pootoogook and Kenojuak Ashevak, who helped create the original collection back in 1959 while still living traditional lives out on the tundra. But these days, younger artists like Tim Pitsiulak and Ningeokuluk (“Ning”) Teevee are adding a more contemporary, graphic touch that is attracting a new generation of art lovers.

Read more about Cape Dorset.