Author, translator, linguist, and researcher born in the north of Baffin Island (Nunavut) in 1953.
Rachel Qitsualik, who became Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley after her marriage, also known as Rachel Attituq Qitsualik-Tinsley, is of Inuit, Scottish, and Cree descent. She was born in 1953—before the first hamlets were established in the Arctic—in a hunting camp located at the northern tip of Baffin Island, in present-day Nunavut. She was raised according to the traditional Inuit lifestyle. Her father, who later contributed to the founding of Nunavut, taught her Inuit survival skills as he would have a son.
Rachel Qitsualik attended Stringer Hall, a residential school in Inuvik (Northwest Territories) and witnessed first-hand the transition of Inuit culture from traditional to modern life. She then pursued a university education, during which she developed an expertise in archaic dialects. An expert on world languages, religions, and cultures, she worked for several years as a scholar a consultant. During this time, she published over 400 articles about Inuit languages, mythology, and precolonial cosmology. She also served as a judge for the “Stories” category of the Indigenous Arts & Stories contest, sponsored by Historica Canada. Indigenous Arts & Stories is one of the most significant art and creative writing contests for Indigenous youth in Canada.
Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley is married to Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, an expert on the Arctic. Together, they have written both fiction and educational non-fiction books on Inuit culture. They published several successful novels with Inhabit Media, including The Raven and the Loon (2013), Tuniit: Mysterious Folk of the Arctic (2014), and Lesson for the Wolf (2015). The Raven and the Loon was translated into Inuktitut in 2013. These novels celebrate the history and unique character of Arctic cosmology, cosmogony, and shamanism. Many of Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley’s books are taught in schools and universities. Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley also published two books on her own in 2011: Under the Ice and The Shadows that Rush Past: A Collection of Frightening Inuit folktales. The latter was translated into Inuktitut in 2018.
In 2012, Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley was awarded Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contributions to Canadian culture. In 2014, her novel Skraelings: Clashes in the Old Arctic, co-authored with Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award in the English-language Young People’s Literature category. Keavy Martin mentions and analyzes Skraelings: Clashes in the Old Arctic in her book Stories in a New Skin: Approaches to Inuit Literature (2012).
From 1999 to 2010, Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley was a columnist for Nunatsiaq News. More recently, in 2017, she ran in Nunavut’s territorial elections in the Quttiktuq riding, but did not win.
Today, Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley continues to collaborate with her husband Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley: their latest book, published by Inhabit Media in 2019, is entitled Tanna’s Owl.