The arts division of the West Baffin Co-operative is now called the Kinngait Studios. The prints, drawings and sculpture created here express the community's history, its 'place', its stories and its relevance. Their allure has attracted a dedicated and long term following, and continues to capture the imagination of new collectors. The commercial success of the studios has meant jobs and income for many members of the community and its artists have become cultural ambassadors in the broader, contemporary art world. All of this has been guided for more than fifty years and four generations by a clear mission: to be among the best visual art studios in Canada by providing the community with the space to create and collectors with an exceptional and inspiring product.

My part in the story began on the first of May, 1980, in the very early hours of the morning, when I boarded an Austin Airways flight in Timmins, Ontario, bound for Cape Dorset. I sat in the back of the Hawker-Sidley 748, a twin turbo prop airplane that has replaced the more romantic but less efficient DC-3 as "the workhorse of the north." We made several stops to take on fuel and cargo destined for the tiny communities that dot the east coast of Hudson Bay. When we left Salluit for the final leg of the trip across Hudson Strait to south Baffin, I sat in the jump seat between the pilot and co-pilot and watched as the fog and cloud cover lifted and dissipated into the deep blue of the late afternoon sky. The reflection of the sun on the expanse of ice below was almost blinding, and as we dropped altitude I was told to look for polar bears that might be hunting seals along the coast, hungry after the long winter. I saw no bears on that trip and no seals, but it hardly mattered; it was the ride of my life, and it set the tone for the summer of my life. I didn't know then that it had also set my direction for next thirty-two years.

Cape Dorset is called Kinngait ([pronounced "King-ite") by the people who live there, meaning "mountains." It is a small island lying off the southwest tip of Baffin. The coastline is rugged, beautiful and plentiful, and the Inuit of this region refer to themselves as 'Sikusilaarmiut.', which refers to the lack of ice along this coast or, more accurately, that the waters of the Hudson Strait stay open beyond the edge of the ice floe, even in winter. Like most present-day Inuit communities, Cape Dorset grew up in the 1950's around the Hudson's Bay Company Trading Post, which was established there in 1913. It is now a modern and growing community of 1400 people with all the amenities of any other small community in Nunavut and throughout Canada. But the land beyond the community, "country" food (such as caribou, seal and fish), the language of Inuktitut, and innumerable Inuit cultural traditions still play profound parts in daily life and thought.

The Kinngait Studios have released an annual catalogued collection of limited edition prints since 1959. It is the longest, continuously running printmaking studio in Canada. The early prints were based on the traditional Japanese woodblock practice of Ukiyo-e, where an artist's drawing is given to a master printer to create an edition. Replacing the woodblock with the same indigenous stone used for carving gave rise to the stonecut, unique to Canada's north and synonymous with Cape Dorset printmaking. Over the years, new print media have been introduced - from stencil to stonecut to engraving, lithography and etching - to offer artists as many options for creative expression as possible. These prints are not reproductions. Each impression is inked and pulled by hand, and each is signed by the artist and includes the signature 'chop' of the printmaker and the Kinngait Studios.

Until recently, drawings were used almost exclusively as the creative foundation for printmaking. In the last decade, the Kinngait Studios launched a revitalized drawing program introducing new media and larger paper, opening up a whole new horizon for Cape Dorset graphic artists. 'Titiqtugarvik', or "the place to draw", is a place for artists of all generations, working side by side in a communal, collaborative space. Exciting and challenging work has emerged, putting the community once again at the forefront of innovation in Inuit art.

Cape Dorset artists rarely use the term 'sculpture' to describe their work. They prefer the term 'carving' because it better reflects the dexterity developed through centuries of making things by hand. The word in inuktitut is 'sanaubik', which means to form, or work by hand. When carving, there is a direct bond between the medium, the environment and the history of Inuit culture. Today, artists in Cape Dorset work primarily with a stone called serpentinite, a metamorphic rock well suited for carving the naturalistic forms and extravagant compositions associated with the Cape Dorset style. The colour of the stone ranges from a pale, putty green to bluish, green-grey to almost black. It is quarried at Korak Inlet and Markham Bay, about 200 miles down the coast from Cape Dorset, and as much as 40 tons a year is transported back to the community by boat or snowmobile. There is also a rich vein of marble running like a highway along the coast near Cape Dorset, and several artists have made monumental works in this ancient medium.

There is so much going on in the northern literary scene! Songs, stories and legends that were passed along for generations are now making their way into print and digital media for generations to come. Contemporary writers are telling their own stories in their own language, becoming part of an ancient tradition of authors, storytellers and singers. The gallery will feature northern books by northern authors, for both children and adults, as well as other publications on Inuit art history and contemporary artists who are setting new directions in Inuit art.

Pomegranate (Portland, Oregon) has been supporting Cape Dorset artists for more than 15 years. Their beautiful line of note cards, puzzles, agendas and other fine and fun products feature original prints and drawings licensed through the Co-operative. Pomegranate also published the fifty-year history of the Kinngait Studios (Cape Dorset Prints: A Retrospective) in 2007 and have just released the first monograph on the artist, Tim PItsiulak, in a series of monographs focusing on Cape Dorset graphic artists.

A revolving exhibition of photographs of the community and the studios at work collected over my years spent in Cape Dorset. Think of it as your direct flight to the far north!