Don’t you eat the yellow snow: a review of North of North

Genre Sitcom

Created by Stacey Aglok MacDonald, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril

Starring

• Anna Lambe as Siaja, a young Inuk mother who got married just out of high school and wants to break out of the rut she’s found herself in. She is a sweet and genuine, but awkward person. Though determined, her ambition is often stymied by her awkward nature.

• Mary Lynn Rajskub as Helen, the manager of the local community centre.
• Keira Cooper as Bun, Siaja’s daughter.
• Maika Harper as Neevee, Siaja’s mother who raised her on her own. She is a recovering alcoholic with a harsh personality and a biting sense of humour who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. She runs a local general store.
• Braeden Clarke as Kuuk, Alistair’s assistant.
• Jay Ryan as Alistair, Siaja’s estranged father. He is a researcher for a company looking to build a research facility in Ice Cove. He only recently learned of Siaja’s existence. It seems as though he still harbours feelings for Neevee.
• Kelly William as Ting, Siaja’s husband and local “golden boy”.
• Zorga Qaunaq as Millie, Siaja’s friend.
• Bailey Poching as Colin, Siaja’s friend who runs the local radio station.
• Nutaaq Doreen Simmonds as Elisapee, Siaja’s coworker
• Tanya Tagaq as Nuliajuk.
• Vincent “Vinnie” Karetak as Jeffrey, the local owner of the dump.
• Taylor Hickson as Alexis.

Composers Caleb Chan & Brian Chan

Country of origin Canada

No. of seasons 1 No. of episodes 8

Production

Production companies Northwood Entertainment, Red Marrow Media

Original release

Network CBC Television, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

Release January 7, 2025 – present

It’s hard to imagine a title more Canadian than North of North. “The true North, strong and free” is part of the Canadian anthem, and while few Canadians have ever been north of Edmonton, polar bears, baby seals, and rawhide snowshoes are a large part of the national identity.

But it’s rare for a television program to actually be a part of this huge treasured region, an other-worldly source of fascination. Arctic Air took place in Yellowknife, NWT, and Due South, the hilarious series of a Mountie transferred to Chicago on a punishment detail, starts and ends in the Yukon.

But North of North is something new, valuable, and long-overdue. The series focuses on 21^st century life in a town thousands of miles from the nearest traffic light, and the largely Inuit population therein.

The series takes place in the fictional town of Ice Cove, on Prince of Wales Island, a Wales-sized island in the geographic center of the vast Canadian archipelago. (In reality, the island has no permanent settlements.) Filming took place in Iqaluit, Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut. Qikiqtaaluk is, quite charmingly, the Inuit word for “very big island” and the California-sized place, also known as Baffin Island, is the fifth-largest island in the world. Iqaluit, with a population of about 7,000, is the capital city of the territory of Nunavut. With one of the coldest climates outside of Antarctica, it has indoor plumbing, central heat, and electricity. But skidoos and dog sleds and bush planes are still the main types of transportation out of town.

The stereotype of the “Eskimo woman” (and the term is considered derogatory in Canada) is that of two puffy brown cheeks seperated by a wide grin topped with black eyes, swaddled in sealskin and furs. Siaja (Anna Lambe) blows that image right out of the water. Modern (she’s a Swiftie), vivacious but socially awkward, she married straight out of high school to the local equivalent of the star jock, Ting (played by Kelly William), and is in a unsatisfying marriage with a daughter, Bun, who is about seven or eight. As her relationship with her self-absorbed and sexist husband deteriorates, she seeks to broaden her horizons, not an easy task given her locale. Her only relative is her mother, a bitter dry drunk.

As her marriage disintegrates, she finds work at the community center working for Helen (American actor Mary Lynn Rajskub), a blonde who seemingly embodies the facile self-serving nastiness of the small-town political climber. The rest of the cast are mostly Inuit or First Nation, plus a couple of scientific researchers and surveyers usually described with a dismissive sniff as being “from Ottawa.”

The show is described as a sitcom, and it has a lot of genuinely hilarious moments, but it is an unadorned look at the complexities, subtleties, relationships and difficulties of a small, tight-knit group of people from an ancient and pervasive culture coping with one another in the least hospitable and most remote regions of Canada.

It’s a fine mix of humor, humanity, and cultural complexities.

Now on CBC, APTN and Netflix.