The two subjects that Joe Talirunili favoured in the last dozen years of his remarkable career are also the ones he is most famous for: his Migration Boats, and his owls. Migration Boat with Owls and Dog is an extraordinary sculpture that is unique in this artist’s oeuvre, being the only work that combines these two themes. The story behind the making of this gem is as charming as the work itself.

Arden Barnes, an intrepid American nurse anaesthetist, travelled to Churchill, Manitoba in 1960 to experience the northern lands her father had worked in as a Hudson’s Bay fur trader in the early 1900s. Intrigued by a Puvirnituq carving she had purchased there, she flew to Puvirnituq in 1961 and spent the first of what would be nine summers in the Arctic Québec community. She became the neighbour and close friend of Joe Talirunili, whose old plywood doghouse she purchased and “renovated” as her living quarters! Barnes purchased many of Joe’s carvings over the years and particularly loved his owls. One day a beaming Talirunili (who by then had become famous for his Migration Boats) arrived at Barnes’s “house” with a boat full of owls (and one dog) for her! [2] She treasured the sculpture and the rest of her collection for over thirty years, before finally selling it in 1999.

Migration Boat with Owls and Dog was probably carved c. 1966-67, a couple of years after Talirunili’s very first Migration Boat from 1964. The sculpture is beautifully executed and brimming with lively and incredibly charming owls – which is not surprising, since Joe carved it with a very special client-friend in mind. To say that this boat brims with owls is an understatement; it is fairly bursting with them; there is room for only one to slightly spread its wings. The actual dimensions of this compact sculpture (10.25 x 6.25 in) are deceiving, for from some angles it feels that the boat is as almost as wide as it is long. Very few of the owls look forwards; rather they all face outwards, as if straining to look back at us, the viewers; some even gaze upwards. Their eyes are huge, quite mesmerizingly so, and seemingly filled with wonder. The lone dog looks back, its mouth open in an excited bark. The psychological effect on the viewer is quite different from that of a “typical” Migration Boat by Talirunili, but it is no less powerful. Rather than conveying urgency and fear, Migration Boat with Owls and Dog expresses joie de vivre, wonderment, and the quirky exuberance that we associate with its maker. Given Joe’s obsessive fascination with owls, it is not a stretch to imagine that he truly identified with them. So, although this sculpture might not be autobiographical, it certainly feels revelatory.

Migration Boat with Owls and Dog does share several key attributes with other boats by the artist – with a couple of interesting twists. The mast appears to be made of bone (or possibly antler), which is a highly unusual departure. The skin sail also is of an unusual shape, and we wonder if it’s deliberately meant to look wing-like. The boat’s stone rudder, carved as an extension of the boat’s stern, is beautifully shaped, while the antler tiller nicely echoes the organic form of the mast. And Joe has affixed a paper label to the front of the hull bearing his signature in Roman letters and Inuktitut syllabics.

Joe Talirunili is the most celebrated artist in the region of Nunavik (Arctic Québec). He began carving in 1950, one of the first Puvirnituq hunters to respond to James Houston’s encouragement. A selection of his earliest known carvings (including an Owl from 1953) is featured in Darlene Wight’s Early Masters catalogue (WAG, 2006), pp. 108-111. Talirunili’s first depictions of the Migration appeared in 1964, in both sculptures and stonecut prints; owls star in or appear in numerous of his prints over the years. Marybelle Myers’s fascinating 1977 book Joe Talirunili: “a grace beyond the reach of art” features several Migration Boats and an astonishing fifteen Owls by the artist.

1. For a detailed account of Arden Barnes’s time in Puvirnituq, and her own reminiscences of Joe Talirunili, see the November 1999 Waddington’s catalogue, p. 2.

2. Arden Barnes loved dogs and received a husky puppy belonging to Talirunili’s cousin Davidialuk, which she raised at her home in Minnesota.