In an interview with Marie Jackson, Pudlo shared, “I have done quite a few musk-oxen. That could only be the thing I have drawn over and over again. It could be that I am amazed by that kind of animal [1]." Routledge explains that Pudlo first encountered musk-oxen while travelling abroad the C.D. Howe, after the artist’s sojourn to Hamilton. After experiencing engine trouble, the ship stopped in northern Quebec at Kuujjuaq. In this diminutive print, Pudlo contrasts the massive creature against a small female child, reiterating its powerful form.

1. Marion E. Jackson, “Unedited Transcripts of of Interviews with Pudlo Pudlat, Conducted in Cape Dorset, N.W.T. May - July 1978” and “March - June 1979,” On file in the Documentation Centre, Inuit Art Section, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Hull, QC, as cited in Marie Routledge, Pudlo: Thirty Years of Drawing, [Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1990], p. 24, footnote 39.