Bernadette Driscoll notes in Baker Lake Prints & Print-Drawings 1970-76 that this image carries a profound and personal narrative [1] [2]. The printmaking program at Baker Lake, like in other Inuit communities, plays a crucial role in recording personal and collective memories, creating a powerful visual record of Inuit cultural history. The Dying Man Becomes a Wolf by Kukiiyaut captures the poignant story of her father-in-law, Amaroq. The young woman sings a verse of Amaroq’s personal hunting song, printed in Inuktitut on both the drawing and print. In the song's second verse, Amaroq wishes for his soul to pass into the body of a wolf upon his death, so he may forever hunt the caribou.

1. Bernadette Driscoll, Baker Lake Prints & Print-Drawings 1970-76, (Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1983), p. 9. The print and drawing are reproduced on p. 60 & 61

2. The story is told, more or less, with some minor anchorisms in Ernst Roch ed., Arts of the Eskimo: Prints, (Montreal/Toronto: Signum/Oxford, 1974), p. 216.

The print is also reproduced in Estrellita Karsh, et. al, Shamans and Spirits: Myths and Medical Symbolism in Eskimo Art, (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1977), pl. 4, unpaginated.