The audience at Iqaluit’s Astro Terrace Theatre witnessed the culmination of years of work on Dec. 16 as the first two episodes of North of North, shot in Iqaluit, premiered.
Series co-creators Stacey Aglok and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, as well as Iqalummiut stars Anna Lambe, Maika Harper and Zorga Qaunaq answered questions from CBC North’s Teresa Qiatsuq following the screening of the first installments of a comedy series to be released on APTN, CBC and Netflix.
Aglok described the project as something she and Arnaquq-Baril “dreamed up” after 2018’s The Grizzlies.
“I knew I wanted to do more comedy,” she said, “and even more so, I found that the comedy that I was drawn to was not just funny, but also pulled at the heart strings and made us feel a lot of things..."
Lambe, who plays the main character, Siaja, added, “I think it's really good for other young women to see an Inuk woman that makes mistakes and then tries again and gives herself grace, and people give her grace to make mistakes and try again. I feel like we can be so harsh on ourselves and we can also be so harsh on our peers, and to just see someone who, no matter how well-intentioned they are, things can still go wrong... it's important for people to see, and how to pick yourself back up after is really powerful. That's kind of how I viewed this show and then I hope other people do it the same way.”
It is a story about a young Inuk woman, but it is also a tale about how she finds herself through the people in her community. The creators drew inspiration from their own experiences as a love story to their hometowns.
“It just felt like a bottomless well of stories because it's [that] familiar to us, and all of the people and ensemble that are in [it]," said Aglok. "[These] are people that we know and love and that we could find in any community pretty much in the Arctic. All the characters are fictional, but I feel like every single one of them, we all know somebody like that."
The series is about community, and that was a theme that came across in the making of the show when it was being shot in Iqaluit last spring. The three female stars on stage are from Nunavut’s capital, with various Iqalummiut recruited as extras, and the city itself as background for the fictional “Ice Cove,” set during Toonik Tyme.
Arnaquq-Baril shared with the audience that despite knowing that the series will be available in 160 countries via Netflix next spring, she was particularly nervous about the screening in Nunavut’s capital that evening.
“Screening to our home is always the scariest thing because you don't want to mess up in front of your own friends and family, and people whose opinions you care about the most," she said. "This is what happens because we care so much about our community and that's why we made this project and that's why we work for years without income, just hoping it will get picked up by the networks. It finally did, and we just hope it's going to be something that people are proud of, that they feel seen by, that makes them laugh.
“Our goal was to make a show that everybody, especially our own people think, ‘Oh, I can't wait to watch the next episode,’ and that you're going to feel warm and fuzzy and laugh and feel good by the end of the episode because that's something we don't do often enough.
“I just also wanted to add how grateful we are to the whole community,” said Aglok, “because probably every single person [in here tonight did] something to help us out at some point, whether it's sending us clothes or giving somebody a ride or, you know, their water truck didn't arrive because our trucks are in the way, and being patient with us to call the water delivery truck to come back. Everybody just helped us out so much and we're so, so, so, so grateful to everybody.”
The series is also about representing the diverse Canadian Inuit community to the world, in a format that’s accessible to everyone.
“Bringing North of North to life — I love this show so much and I'm so excited to share it with the world because we're funny people," added Harper. "So I'm excited for people to finally see that we are really funny and that we're modern and we're gorgeous. We're popping off!”
