Analysis Of Nanook Of The North

The Inuit were an Aboriginal society who lived in the northern Arctic. Their name, Inuit, means “people” in their language. Thought to originate from Asia, they settled into parts of Canada, Greenland and Alaska approximately 8 000 to 10 000 years ago.1 In today's society, the term Inuit is mainly used to describe the people who lived within Canada and Greenland whilst Eskimo is to describe those from Alaska. The cold climate the Inuit lived through helped shape their society into a very unique culture. The Inuit society, with its beautiful traditions and its fascinating culture, was one of the most advanced and sophisticated in the ancient world.

However, The Netsilik Eskimo was a unique read in the sense that Balicki did much more than just describe their evolution. He achieved his purpose by focusing primarily on the ways of the Netsilik before the introduction of the firearms, imported clothing, or steel tools. Although it could seem outdated to some readers, it was informative in the area of the lifestyle of the Netsilik that the author was focusing on. If a reader wants to learn more about the recent lifestyle of the Netsilik within the last 50 years, this book does not touch on those subjects. Nevertheless, it was fascinating specifically to me because I was looking to learn about how a group of people could survive in such rigid winter conditions for such a long period. They had very little interaction with white people compared to other tribal groups, so the subject is less touched upon in our education system today. Today, when the early education system in our nation focuses on Native North American tribes, the Netsilik is not included because they were not affected by the famous bills and laws passed by the United States

In the essay “Qallunaat 101: Inuits Study White Folks in This New Academic Field” by Inuit activist Zebedee Nangak. Nangak discusses his attraction with Qallunaat, which he describes as “bordering on awe” (Silverman). Nangak qualifies himself as an expert in Qallunology or the study of white men, having lived immersed in white society for several years as a child. Nangak recalls the various differences between the culture of the white man and that of his own Eskimoan people. Nangak compares everything from the types of dwellings, food, lifestyles, and measures of success including the comparisons between their garbage and language. Nangak claims that his observations of the white man’s lifestyle could fill up numerous volumes of books,

The Netsilik (the people of the seal) are Inuit’s that live in the Canadian Arctic north of Hudson Bay above the Arctic Circle. With the sea freezing in September and not thawing out till the end of July living is very difficult. In the mid-nineteenth century, they numbered about five hundred. As time progressed, their population grew up to 4,000. The Netsilik’s native dialect is that of the “Inuit-Inupiaq” (What when how) which is a branch of the “Eskaleut” (WWH) language family. In the past, they lived in small nomadic villages comprised of igloos that traveled in groups or extended families. However, due to contact with other cultures, they have started to utilize things such as snowmobiles, firearms and other technologies instead of their

Since there is no narration for the entire duration of the film, we never really find out much of anything as to how the documentary was made. There is not really even any conversation between the person filming the documentary and the Ojibwe people. This is not to say that there was no discourse between them, yet there is none that makes it into the film itself. That being said, there is a positive side to not knowing how the film was made. It allows us to take in more information that is presented to us by the Ojibwe and it allows the Ojibwe people more time to speak about the process of creating their canoes. The downside to not having knowledge as to how the film was made would be that there is no way to see if any of the information is biased or altered in any way. It is possible that the Ojibwe were paid to do or say certain things, or that specific information was cut from the film, but there is no way to know this. Overall, I still feel like the Nyholm and the Ojibwe people were represented rather fairly and equally throughout the course of this

After a second expedition to the Hudson Bay area, upon the suggestion of his boss, Sir William Mackenzie, Flaherty bought a Bell and Howell 16 mm film camera and decided to make a visual record of the extraordinary lives and customs he witnessed in the Canadian north (“The Lost Worlds of Flaherty”). Flaherty mentions in the preface of Nanook of the North that when he was not seriously engaged in exploratory work, he would compile films of the Eskimos living with him (“The Lost Worlds of Flaherty”). He also notes that he has no prior experience in filming. Considering the quality of Nanook, I find this particularly remarkable. That said, Flaherty’s first efforts to make his visual record of the desolate Canadian north were wasted due to the film catching fire just as Flaherty finished editing it. Flaherty went north again, for the sole purpose of making a film, and this ultimately led to the making of Nanook of the North, which is essentially a typified, romanticized version of a young Inuk man and his family’s life and struggles (“The Lost Worlds of Flaherty”).

In the film NANOOK OF THE NORTH we are presented with imagery that for the most part had never been seen by the majority of the population of the world. Robert Flaherty had successfully brought an entirely unknown culture to the Western world. In the film we get to see the traditional trading, hunting, fishing and daily tasks of an Inuit family who for all intents and purposes are barely touched by modern industry. Indeed, this very notion is implied in the scene where Nanook gets to listen to a phonograph record at the trading post. The important aspect of NANOOK OF THE NORTH is that it opened the door to what we would call documentary filmmaking today. More importantly, the film conveys a sense of what film could be and what it can be used for, especially in documenting historical events. What we are given are the first steps in understanding the world around us without the added cost of exploring it ourselves. And while it has been agreed that many of the scenes in the film were staged, it's still depicts real life Inuit survival skills. In the seal hunting scene we get to witness Nanook’s acute awareness to his natural environment. He searches the ice for

The North of Canada may invoke thoughts of polar bears, penguins, and Eskimos, however this region has a history of exploitation. Since the 1940's, the Inuit people (Eskimo is considered a derogatory term by locals) have been forced to assimilate to Canadian laws and language. Prior to the arrival of the Canadian officials and their economic and law systems and infrastructures, the Inuit lived in small groups off the tundra. Their economic system was one of trade and they spoke Inuktitut, which was only an oral language until about fifty years ago.

This paragraph is going to be all about the Inuits and what kind of environment they live in what housing and so on.Where the Inuits lived was in the arctic and Subarctic along the side of the arctic ocean and the Bering Sea. How this evidence supports the main point is this tells you where the Inuits live and so on.Next, Inuits make their crafts and out of tools. Most of the time the stone is made into tools. How this supports the main point is by telling you how they got their food and things like that. After,The language

The Inuit and Aleut had an extraordinary arrangement in like manner. Numerous people lived in vault-molded houses made of grass or timber (or, in the North, ice squares). They utilized seal and otter skins to make warm, weatherproof apparel, streamlined dogsleds and long, open fishing vessels (kayaks in Inuit; baidarkas in Aleut). When the U.S. bought The Frozen North in 1867, many years of abuse and presentation to European infections had incurred significant damage. The local population had dropped to only 2,500. The relatives of these survivors still make their home in the region today. The Subarctic culture zone, for the most part made out of swampy, piney woods (taiga) and waterlogged tundra, extended crosswise over a lot of inland The

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen documents the encounter between three Danish explorers, and an Inuit community in Igloolik during the 1920’s. It focuses

In the film, Eskimo Fight for Life, there are several demonstrations of examples that show how the Eskimo’s arrange their social structure. To begin with, when the Eskimo’s catch a seal, each family in the winter camp is entitled to a different part of the seal. The young males in the camp are privileged to eat the seal first and the females are given a drink of fresh blood as a tradition. This shows how important culture is to the Eskimo’s, as many societies would find drinking blood to be abnormal. The Eskimo’s illustrated mechanical solidarity as they have shared moral values which gives them a sense of belonging.

The dramatic effects that Flaherty uses in his film Nanook of the North makes the audience care more about the family and wonder what will happen to them, The film is truthful with the exceptions of the capturing of the animals which was staged to seem more comical and primitive. Flaherty prefers to keep his films traditional and wanted to show that side of the Eskimos. I believe there is a difference between the film being truthful and the film being true, if the film were true Flaherty would not have added the comical aspects of the animals capture nor would he have made the family use primitive tools in hunting the animals. For example, there's scene in the movie where Nanook and members of the family capture and kill a walrus using a harpoon when realistically they would probably have used guns being as they were on the brink of starvation. An example of the comical aspect of the film would be when Nana harpoons of seal and is able to capture it himself after a long struggle of pulling the seal out of its hole. For the film to be true none of these additions would have made it into the

Firstly, Richard Flaherty’s work Nanook of the North portrayed qualities of an ethnographic film, although Flaherty was not an anthropologist. According to Ruby, Flaherty “not only behaved like an anthropologist, but his field methods, his stated intentions, and his willingness to be methodologically explicit place him more solidly within orthodox anthropology than do the actions of most of the contemporary self-professed ethnographic filmmakers” (Ruby 2000, 86). That is to say, by displaying ethnographic details in his film, the use of anthropological

Engraving – A Polar bear approaching Willem Barent’s men: The arctic has had a long history with exploration and exploitation, from early European explorers in the 16th century to this day tensions regarding sovereignty of the arctic regional still exists.