The history of pictorial engraving in the Canadian Arctic is layered, rooted in the long tradition of ornamented ivory from St. Lawrence Island. By the early twentieth century, Inuit artists were incising tusks and antlers with inherited designs and scenes of camp life. Whaling-era scrimshaw also left its mark, but Inuit carvers made the practice their own, adapting it to local materials and evolving it into a distinct art form.

In the Canadian North, many artists experimented with pictorial engraving on walrus tusk and antler, though few continued later on. The rust-orange stone base points to Lake Harbour in the early 1970s, and the assured pictorial engraving suggests a highly skilled hand, possibly that of Joe Arlooktoo.