This is a place where night is dark, like everywhere else, and bright,
like nowhere else. This is a people for whom sleep belongs to nighttime,
but who nonetheless favor nocturnal wakefulness. This is a people for
whom almost any activity seems more appealing than sleep. This is a
people for whom darkness did not mean evil, until the arrival of
Christianity. This is a culture which, without totally rejecting binary
or dualistic schemes, tends to favor the notion of continuity between
events, beings and objects: between night and day, dark and light,
dreaming and conscious life. This is a people adept at radical
pragmatism. This is a people for whom words have always been powerful.
This is a people with a unique experience of "nocturnity".
This
book is an invitation to enter the realm of the North Baffin Island
Inuit night.