Elder, sculptor and author born in Anarnituq, Nunavik in 1906 – died in Inukjuak, Nunavik in 1982.
Peter Kasudluak was born in 1906 in Anarnituq, near the village of Umiujaq, in Nunavik. His childhood was structured around the journeys of his caribou-hunting parents: summers were spent inland, and autumns and winters on the shores of Hudson Bay.
At the end of the 1930s, Peter Kasudluak was living with his wife Dalaisia as well as Annie Qumanguq and her three children: two boys and a girl, Meeko Nastapoka, who was one year old at the time. Annie Qumanguq was the widow of Timuty Anugaaq, a man who may have been Peter Kasudluak’s brother and is said to have disappeared during a caribou hunting trip. Meeko Nastapoka grew up thinking of Peter Kasudluak as her father. The family resided in several Nunavik villages over time: first in Niaqurnaq (now in the territory of Rivière-Koksoak), then in Pamilluq and Iviangirnaaq (now in the territory of Rivière-Koksoak).
Initially, Peter Kasudluak gained recognition as an accomplished and widely recognized sculptor. His most famous works, including Walrus, Seal, and Wounded Polar Bear, date from the 1960s, the golden age of Inuit sculpture in Nunavik. James Archibald Houston promoted these works for over a decade following their creation. Peter Kasudluak’s sculptures, carved in stone and ivory, can be found in the collections of several museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (USA), the Musée de la civilisation in Québec City, the Winnipeg Art Gallery (Manitoba) and the McCord Museum in Montréal. His sculptures were displayed and garnered admiration in several exhibitions, such as Port Harrison/Inoucdjouac, held at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1976, and Images of the Far North, held at the State University of New York art gallery in 1984. Peter Kasudluak signed his works with his disc number (ujamik): E9-777. Unique disc numbers, symbols of Canadian colonialism, were assigned to each Inuk by the federal government between 1941 and 1978.
Peter Kasudluak was first published in the autumn of 1995, in the seventh issue of Tumivut, the cultural magazine of the Inuit of Nunavik, which is published by the Avataq Cultural Institute. In an interview conducted in 1977 or 1979, titled “Seasons on the Hudson Bay Coast / Saisons sur la côte de la baie d’Hudson,” Peter Kasudluak recounted the traditional migrations of the Inujjuamiut (an appellation for the Inuit “hailing from a vast territory spanning from Sanikiluaq on the southern coast of Hudson Bay to the northern reaches of Puvirnituq”) as they journeyed from inland areas to the coastal regions. His recollections contain valuable material for historians and anthropologists specializing in Arctic culture: Gwilym Lucas Eades, for instance, quoted Peter Kasudluak in his book Maps and Memes: Redrawing Culture, Place, and Identity in Indigenous Communities (2015).
Additionally, Peter Kasudluak is renowned for writing The Kasudluak Encyclopedia, a two-volume encyclopedia illustrated by Inuit visual artist Tuumasi Kudluk and published by the Avataq Cultural Institute. The first volume was published in 1999 and the second in 2001. During the spring of 2000, an excerpt from volume 1 was published in the twelfth issue of Tumivut. This excerpt describes the traditional way of life of the Inuit from the interior, covering topics such as seal hunting, the making and transporting of the qajaq (kayak), and fishing practices in use at the time.
Peter Kasudluak died in 1982 in Inukjuak. His manuscripts are preserved in the archives of the Documentation Centre of the Avataq Cultural Institute, alongside Taamusi Qumaq’s stories and Tuumasi Kudluk’s drawings.