Tanya Tagaq, an Inuit multidisciplinary artist from Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay, Nunavut), is expanding her creative repertoire with It Bears Repeating (Tundra), her upcoming counting book for young readers written in Inuk and English, and illustrated by Cee Pootoogook.
Tagaq is best known for her avant-garde musical compositions featuring throat singing, which have won her the Polaris Music Prize and several Juno awards, as well as for her 2018 debut novel, Split Tooth, the semi-autobiographical story of an Inuk girl growing up in a small arctic town who must deal with an unexpected pregnancy. The book was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the Indigenous Voices Award for Published Prose in English.
In her debut for children, Tagaq explores gentler territory while remaining true to her roots. “A lot of my music and work is quite intense and very adult,” she explains. “I realized that I had never expressed this side of me—the absolute joy of children and how they light up everybody’s life.”
The counting book depicts a procession of polar bears who go hunting for their lunch in a hole in the ice, and is intended to do more than teach children how to count. “It’s a way of introducing young readers to Inuit culture,” Tagaq says, “by showcasing the Inuktitut language together with the stark beauty of the Arctic environment.” The book also touches on themes of food sovereignty and the natural cycle of life in the Arctic, presented in a way that’s accessible to young readers. “The Inuit are very close to the land, and we know exactly where our hamburgers come from.”
The initial concept for It Bears Repeating came from an unexpected source. “I was listening to the White Stripes song ‘Fell in Love with a Girl,’ which has the line ‘it bears repeating’ in the refrain,” Tagaq says. “I thought about that phrase and how, yes, it’s things that should be said over and over. But I also thought about the seasons and how the polar bears come around at the same time every year.”
To stay true to her vision, Tagaq worked closely with her publishers to select an Inuit illustrator for the project. Pootoogook is someone Tagaq had long admired. “It was a very elevating moment when I found out that she would participate,” she says. She likes the way the illustrations draw inspiration from Inuit carvings and further reinforce the cultural context of the book.
While It Bears Repeating is aimed at young children, Tagaq has layered the text with deeper meanings that will resonate with adults. She hopes it will help bridge cultural gaps and foster understanding of Inuit life. “We live across the Arctic Ocean, and the ocean freezes thick in the winter,” Tagaq says. “You can even drive a truck on it. For many months of the year, there’s no vegetation at all. It’s all ice. So, we learned how to live with no trees and no vegetation, by working with and hunting animals.”
Tagaq also hopes It Bears Repeating will help children learn to express themselves in a language not their own. “I just love the idea of little mouths doing the sounds of Inuk,” she says.
