Content notes: This article contains a brief mention of residential schools. The national crisis line for residential school survivors is 1-866-925-4419. This article also contains a word used historically to refer to Inuit that may be considered derogatory today.
As Inuvialuit, we traditionally passed down our stories through song and dance. People would gather during the dark period of winter, when the sun would not shine for weeks on end, to celebrate their survival through yet another perilous year. It was a time of joy and revelry: the best food was saved for these occasions and old friendships would flare up with laughter and drum dancing. The men would take turns singing songs of their escapades experienced throughout the year with much enjoyment from the community of families. Someone would sing about their frightful encounter with a polar bear and act out the scenes on the dance floor. The shaman would do his dance to summon the caribou spirits for another good year of hunting, while women would dress their families with their best caribou-skin clothing and do their own dances. Living through another treacherous winter was not guaranteed and the drum dance celebration was their reward for making it through.
Abraham Anghik Ruben Shaman Beckoning Sedna (1989) Brazilian steatite and antler 111 × 61 × 46 cmCOURTESY KIPLING GALLERY © THE ARTIST
With the arrival of the Qallunaat, Inuvialuit began their slow assimilation into the new world. Hunting practices changed with the arrival of guns. Cloth replaced the arduous task of tanning caribou skins for parkas. Children were sent off to residential schools to learn English and parents were left with a huge spiritual void. Over time, the art of drum dancing and telling stories began to fade from existence. Christianity began to take over and drum dancing was relegated to very few special occasions. In 1952, then Governor General the Right Honourable Vincent Massey PC, CH, CC, made a special trip to Akłarvik, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT, and my dad’s maternal grandfather, Harry Inukiktluk, can be seen drumming in a photo from that special visit.
But by the time I was born in 1961 in Inuuvik, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT, drum dancing had become virtually non-existent. People had moved into settlements and the fiddle, which had been introduced by the Scottish Hudson’s Bay Company traders, had replaced the drum dance as the main source of entertainment. But a savvy young Inuvialuk named Billy Day saw the writing on the wall. The unique style of Inuvialuit drum dancing was on the precipice. Something had to be done. In the early 1970s Billy started talking to the Elders and warning them that if they did not revive drum dancing now, they would take it to their graves and a large chunk of culture would die with them. They got into action immediately. Elders like Kenneth and Rosie Peeloolook, Tommy and Sarah Kalinek, Almira Soupay, Ida Aleekuk, my aunt Emma Dick and my nanuk, or grandmother, Sarah Tingmiak took to the dance floor once more and the Mackenzie Delta Drummers and Dancers group was born.
The Inuvik drummers and dancers group wearing traditional clothing. Front row (left to right): Tara Cardinal (Day), Carla Smith, Annie Aleekuk and Cathy Cockney. Back row (left to right): Abel Tingmiak, Billy Day and Wilbert PapikCOURTESY INUVIALUIT DIGITAL LIBRARY
Although they were called the Mackenzie Delta Drummers and Dancers, not all the participants were originally from the Delta area. Some of the drummers I remember were those that immigrated to Canada in the 1940s with several other Iñupiat families from Alaska, notably Alex Gordon and his wife, Hope, as well as Amos Paul and Hope’s brother Daniel (Kapok) Shingatook. It had been a bad year for game in Alaska and they heard the Mackenzie Delta was full of game, fur and fish.
The Alaskans were good drum dancers, especially Hope and Alex. Alex had a loon-beak headpiece that he would use when he was drum dancing, a piece of regalia reserved for the most revered of drum dancers. Alex moved with the beat of the drum, and it was mesmerizing to see him dance. He would imitate the loon by bobbing his head around and doing their mating dance.
Amos Paul also had a loon headpiece. He was small but he could squat low and shuffle across the floor like an animal stalking its prey. Daniel Shingatook was also a small man, and usually quiet, but when he heard the drum, it would bring him back to his childhood in Alaska and he would get up on the dance floor and dance with a big smile on his face. I like to think that when he danced, he imagined scenes from his past that only he could see.
Almira Soupay, a Mackenzie dancer, performing at the Eskimo Olympics (now the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics) in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1971COURTESY INUVIALUIT DIGITAL LIBRARY
From Tuktuuyaqtuuq, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, NT, there was Old Raddi Kuiksak, “Big Joe” Nasogaluak, Bertram Kimiskana and his brother Ralph. They were Sallirmiut Inuit from the Beaufort Coast and their songs were different, more staccato. Ralph would accentuate the beat by stomping his feet and making small jerking motions with his upper body, like a ptarmigan feeding in a patch of willow.
Watching the older couples who danced together, especially Kenneth and Rosie and Tommy and Sarah, was an absolute joy. Tommy was more of a drummer while Sarah loved to dance. Her big smile invited you into her world as she waved her arms to and fro to the beat of the drum and the drone of the singers. Though some of the songs dealt with the harsher realities of Inuvialuit life—like the trekking song, which imitated the arduous task of trekking umiat along the rocky coast—Sarah danced it so eloquently that her smile belied the difficulty.
The women had a different style of drum dancing than the men. They would wave both arms back and forth in a rocking motion while the men danced out front, acting out the song. I used to like watching Kathleen Hansen dance, because she could move like a man and sometimes would do the motion dances that were mostly done by the men. But there were also cooperation dances where the men and women would dance together. Kathleen and Alex were famous for their wood-cutting song, where they acted out the chore of cutting wood. They even threw in a little Red River Jig to pay tribute to the fiddle, which had become part of their culture too.
Victor Ekootak Dancing Girl Wearing a Bonnet Trimmed with a Loon’s Beak and a Weasel’s Skin (Nivingajuliat) (n.d.) Silkscreen on burlap 66 × 29.8 cmCOURTESY WADDINGTON’S AUCITONEERS AND APPRAISERS, TORONTO © THE ARTIST
The costumes they all wore formed an essential part of the performance as well. The drummers and dancers used traditional drum dance outfits, which are more like decorated parkas. The women designed the parkas with sunburst hoods that look like a corona of fur around the head by sewing strips of wolverine and wolf fur together. It is a labour-intensive task but the result is stunning. Then they decorated their parkas with strips of wolverine as fringe, which flowed with the movement of their arms. Their mukluks had stroud flower designs called gowaks.
Billy Day used to bring the group down south to perform, like in Montreal, QC. He said the dancers were fascinated by Montreal because most of them had never been out of the North—most if not all of them were born in the early part of the nineteenth century and could remember seeing their first White man or their first time using a rifle! Another time, Billy brought most of the original dance group to Mexico—you can imagine how hot they were in their parkas and gowaks! Billy introduced the world to the art of Inuvialuit drum dancing. The dancers came back home and began to give performances in their own communities. After years of laying dormant in the minds and souls of the Elders, the art of drum dancing began to make a revival. The colonial attitudes which tried to suffocate Inuvialuit culture failed. The new revival instilled a sense of pride into the Inuvialuit and drum dance groups began to sprout in the communities.
Drum dance in Akłarvik in 1950. Harry Inukiktluk, the author’s grandfather, is pictured in the blue parka fifth from the left© NWT ARCHIVES/MCCALL FAMILY / N-2002-022: 0046
As the years went on, some of the Elders passed away and were replaced by new Elders, like George and Martha Harry of Inuuvik. Although the dancers changed, there continues to be strong familial links to drum dancing, since multiple generations of one family often all take part over time. The Gordons, for example, have always been a part of the drum dance community and are probably the most prolific family of drum dancers. Alex and Hope’s son Danny was an expert drum dancer and moved like his dad when he danced. He was animated and always had a big smile. He liked to fool around and make people laugh when dancing. His brothers were drum dancers too: Colin and Andrew. They were just as good as Danny but not as popular—Danny was older and tradition stated the eldest was next in line as master dancer. Andrew was more my age and he used to make us kids laugh when we were his only audience, imitating his dad and making loud sounds like animals. Alex and Hope’s granddaughter Georgieanne also followed in their footsteps and learned to drum dance from an early age.
Drum dancing is strong in my family too. My sister Shirley made sure her daughter Melissa, or Mullook, as we call her, became a drum dancer. Ever since she was a little girl, Melissa would go to dance practice and soon became part of the drum dance group. My dad’s cousin Abel Tingmiak, my god-brother Hans Lennie and his family, my dad’s first cousins William and Kevin Allen, and my cousin Debbie Gordon-Ruben are all also involved, alongside the late Scott Kasook and Brian “Nungkii” Rogers. These were the second generation of Mackenzie Delta Drummers and Dancers, who performed at all the special events around our region.
Three Elders dancing. From left to right: Mabel Stefansson, Alice Simon and Ida AleekukCOURTESY INUVIALUIT DIGITAL LIBRARY
As the years went on and the revival continued with communities beginning their own drum dance troupes, the Mackenzie Delta Drummers and Dancers morphed into the Inuvik Drummers and Dancers. Now almost every community in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region has its own drum dance group. Although many dancers still make their own outfits in the traditional way, some groups are opting for less elaborate and more uniform outfits, perhaps due to the availability of skins and the loss of knowledge.
However, almost all of the participants are the descendents of the original Mackenzie Delta Drummers and Dancers. “These are songs that were passed down to us from our ancestors,” my cousin Kevin Allen, a member of the current generation of Inuvik Drummers and Dancers, told me in a recent conversation. He draws a line from that history to the health of the community today, continuing “The drum beat emulates the heartbeat.”
Mary Okheena They Sang Grampa’s Song and I Danced (1998) Stencil 50.8 × 65.4 cmCOURTESY WAG-QAUMAJUQ PHOTO LIANED MARCOLETA © THE ARTIST
When I moved back home in 1996, the Inuvik Drummers and Dancers talked me into joining the group. I was always self-conscious about drum dancing, but they got me over it pretty quick. While I’m a musician by nature and love any kind of music, I would get too excited and start drumming too fast and they would have to slow me down. I didn’t know the songs either so I would just try to follow their words. When I got a job in Yellowknife, NT, I had to pull up stakes again, but I’ll always be grateful for having the opportunity to drum dance with them. I still partially remember one of my great-grandfather’s songs about stalking a caribou and how he crouched low to keep hidden from sight.
Akłarvik drum dancer Alex Gordon dancingCOURTESY INUVIALUIT DIGITAL LIBRARY
Although many of us who live in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region are children of intermarriages, primarily between Inuvialuit and the neighbouring Gwich’in, Inuvialuit drum dancing gives us a sense of identity and pride. Inuvialuit still gather during the time of darkness to dance. When the sun goes down, people put their worries aside and gather to celebrate yet another year. If you ever get a chance to see Inuvialuit drum dancing live, it is really a treat. You get caught up in the beat and find yourself tapping your toes and moving along with the dancers. My great-grandfather’s song still echoes down through the generations. His great-great-great-great-granddaughter, my grandniece Leslie, sings and moves to his song like the day he made it up. Her daughter Rennley is starting to go to drum dance practice and is catching on quickly. I hope to see you on the dance floor sometime.
Dennis Allen is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and educator from Inuuvik whose work translates seamlessly between film, music, writing and storytelling. A regular contributor to What’s Up Yukon magazine and a self-described “born storyteller,” Allen won the 2017 Sally Manning Award and multiple months of the Edmonton Story Slam in 2023.
This Feature originally appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of the Inuit Art Quarterly.