Of Inuit ancestry, Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley was born into the traditional 1950’s culture of iglu-building and dog-sledding, later becoming a translator, writer, and activist. She is a scholar of world religions, and considered an authority on Inuit language, mythology, and pre-colonial religion. She has published several hundred articles, as well as many mythic retellings and works of original fiction. Her current projects focus on utilizing fiction to discuss unique Inuit mystical and philosophical concepts stemming from Inuit cosmology of the pre-contact period. Her goal is to reveal, for all readers, the secret thought and sophistication behind Inuit cosmology. She has published for a wide range of ages, her work having been accessed as university course content. In 2012, she received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award for her written contributions to Canadian culture.
Ajjiit: Dark Dreams of the Ancient Arctic by Sean Tinsley and Rachel Qitsualik
Ajjiit: Dark Dreams of the Ancient Arctic, by Sean Tinsley and Rachel Qitsualik, is a collection of fantasy short stories based on Inuit myth and culture. It isn’t often I come across wholly unfamiliar fantasy backgrounds, creatures, or images and it really was a pleasure to wander through the utter strangeness of these stories. They took me places I didn’t expect to go: not to the snowy arctic landscape I imagined, but instead deep underground or even, in one story, to the moon for one of the weirder competitions I’ve seen.
And Tinsley and Qitsualik introduced characters I hadn’t expected to meet: not the polar bears and seals and fishermen I anticipated, but rather half-wolves, crystalline-like cavern dwellers and sword-carrying bee creatures. Though indeed, form is something many of the characters and creatur... Read More
