Author, actor, and sculptor born in 1943 in Inukjuak (Nunavik) – died in 2017 in Inukjuak.
Adamie Inukpuk, also known as Adamie Quasiak Inukpuk, was born in 1943 in the village of Inukjuak in Nunavik. He is possibly the son or nephew of sculptor and composer Johnny Inukupuk, born in 1911 in Inukjuak.
At the age of sixty-three, Adamie Inukpuk had a desire to share with the younger generations his passion for and knowledge of gimutsiq, the discipline of dogsledding (or mushing) and breeding huskies. He wrote a bilingual (Inuktitut/English) manual on the subject entitled Qimutsi Utiliurniq / How to Raise a Dog Team, which was published by the Avataq Cultural Institute in 2009. Up until 2011, Adamie Inukpuk participated several times the Ivakkak race, winning more than once. The Ivakkak race was created in 2011 to rekindle the interest and passion for dog sledding in Nunavik. Participants travel nearly 450 kilometres from Umiujaq to Puvirnituq via Inukjuak.
Adamie Inukpuk also appeared an actor in several films. He played the role of Nanook in the 1994 film Kabloonak by French director Claude Massot, which tells the story of the making of the 1922 film Nanook of the North by director Robert Flaherty. Nanook of the North was the first documentary film in the history of cinema and was shot in present-day Nunavik. In 1998, Adamie Inukpuk played the role of Nanuk in the French-Italian film Dancing North, written and directed by Pablo Quaregna. In 2001, he appeared as the main character in Great North, a Canadian documentary about the Arctic landscape and the ancestral traditions of the Inuit, directed by Martin J. Dignard and William Reeve.
Adamie Inukpuk was also a sculptor. His soapstone sculptures, which usually depict Inuit practicing traditional activities, can be found in art galleries such as Art Inuit Brousseau in Québec City (Québec). The British Museum (London) also has in its collection a sculpture by Adamie Inukpuk representing a man hunting a caribou. The Avataq Cultural Institute has in its possession a soapstone bird created in 1958 by the nunavimmiut (“ from Nunavik ”) sculptor. Like many artists of his generation, Adamie Inukpuk signed his work with his disc number (ujamik), E9907. Between 1941 and 1978, each Inuk in Canada was assigned a disc number, a sign of colonialism, by the Canadian federal government.
Adamie Inukpuk died in February 2017 in his hometown, Inukjuak.