The Owl Who Married a Goose : An Eskimo Legend

The owl and the lemming in this animated film are short-legged, plumply stuffed puppets made of sealskin by Inuit artists. The accompanying song and voices are in Inuktitut, although the legend is narrated in English. It is a story that all audiences, especially children, will enjoy. Moreover, it preserves on film an example of Inuit folklore that may in time disappear.

According to this Inuit legend the raven was not always the jet-black bird that it is today. The owl had something to do with it. What happened makes an engaging story acted out by two life-like puppets made of seal fur. The film, narrated partly in Inuktitut, partly in English, is largely the work of Inuit artists.

Lumaajuuq is a tragic and twisted story about the dangers of revenge. A cruel mother mistreats her son, feeding him dog meat and forcing him to sleep in the cold. A loon, who tells the boy that his mother blinded him, helps the child regain his eyesight. Then the boy seeks revenge, releasing his mother's lifeline as she harpoons a whale and watching her drown. As the boy's sister cries over the fate of their mother, the boy realizes the futility of seeking vengeance. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril uses graceful digital animation to retell this story, based on a portion of the epic Inuit legend "The Blind Boy and the Loon.".