In Puvirnituq (Povungnituk), carvers began voicing frustration that southern buyers’ preferences were narrowing what they felt able to make. While in the community for fieldwork focused on how Inuit artists understood their own practice, the anthropologist Dr. Nelson Graburn responded by organizing a carving competition that explicitly invited "takushurnaituk," or “not seen before.”

In the fall of 1967, handwritten leaflets were circulated to more than 100 carvers, calling for “new thoughts” and promising prizes for the four most inventive submissions. The rules were deliberately open-ended: carve what you want, in any scale, realistic or not, in whatever material is at hand, whether familiar or entirely new. With that permission stated so plainly, entries arrived in a rush.

The present work is one of the more radical outcomes of Graburn’s project. It does not read as any recognizable creature: a sleek head rising from a single, low sweep of undulating stone, the mouth slightly downturned, the nose perked up, and the eye opened wide. Elongated talons jut from frog-like legs, folded back at the knees. It is, most certainly, something "not seen before" and the result is genuinely thrilling to look at.