Hello everybody!
Igal here, co-producer on the project. The game's narrative follows three main characters in the region of Nunavut, a vast desert of ice islands in northern Canada. It depicts the living conditions of indigenous communities and quite a few specific elements of Inuit culture.
In order to ensure the authenticity of the narrative and respect the people whose culture we're portraying, we called on Inuit advisers and an author. Their respective personal stories are also remarkable. Here they are.
Billy Gauthier is an Inuit sculptor from Labrador. In addition to sculpture, he ices fishes, hunts caribou, rides a snowmobile or canoe, and rescues owls attacked by crows.
Billy is also an activist. In 2016, he went on hunger strike to protest the environmental impacts of the hydroelectric dam project in Muskrat Falls, where he's from. 13 days without eating to help sway decision-makers and politicians.
Billy traveled from his home to Lille, in the north of France, to tell us with a mix of intensity and sweetness about these various events, the harshness of his living conditions, the beauty of where he lives, his art, and his inspirations… A big thank you to him.
Monica Ittusardjuat is a teacher, educator, and author of children's books living in Nunavut. She's an active and respected elder in her community, with a lot to say about a myriad of topics, from Inuit spirituality to the making of sealskin clothing.
Monica Ittusardjuat is also a survivor. She attended three residential schools, schools created by the colonialist Canadian government to "kill the Indian within" every Inuit child. This system, in place for a century, contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of children, malnourished and badly treated in schools deliberately located far from their communities of origin. A national scandal.
We spent many hours consulting with Monica by video about Inua's narrative. She helped us with spiritual and moral aspects of the project, and these discussions helped us give substance and truth to the story. We owe her a lot.
Thomassie Mangiok is a school principal, graphic designer, animation director, and board game designer from Nunavik.
In each of his projects, Thomassie strives to compensate for the overabundance of English-language content drowning Inuit youth. He narrates from within his own culture, promotes the Innuttitut language, and offers a vision of the territory and its resources, its heritage.
Thomassie co-wrote a central part of Inua's narrative, an inspired tale steeped in Inuit culture and morals. He agreed to help us when he discovered the name of the game we were asking him to contribute to: a few days after we made contact, little Inua, Thomassie's fourth child, was born! One hell of a coincidence, and a real emotional moment for us too :)
These three encounters, and a few others, produced the same observation, which was particularly difficult in the case of Canada's indigenous peoples: an aggressive expropriation of identities, territories, and cultures by the colonialist spirit. The fight against this spirit is central to Inua's purpose.
Many thanks to Billy, Monica, and Thomassie, as well as Lucy Tulugarjuk and Marie-Hélène Cousineau of Arnait Video Production for their assistance in our research.
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