A new display of Inuit artwork on the mezzanine level of the Winnipeg Gallery includes this popular piece called Migration by Joe Talirunili. It tells the story of a harrowing time in Joe’s childhood. I found many different versions of the story on the internet but here is my compilation. 
Joe and his family and some friends were going back home on their sleds after a celebration on an island in Hudson’s Bay. The ice under them began to break up and they were trapped on an ice floe. They had to work fast before the ice floe broke up further, but they managed to use the wood from their sleds and some seal skins to make a boat that got them to shore. The shoreline was made up of very steep rock and so they secured their boat with a rope and waited. The wind blew incredibly hard for almost a week making it too dangerous for them to leave. They nearly starved to death before the weather let up and they were able to find their way home. Some people lost their lives at various points in the tragic story. 
Joe made some thirty carvings of this adventure all called Migration. One of Joe’s Migration sculptures was featured on a Canadian stamp in 1976 the year he died and in 2006 another sold at auction for $278,000 the highest price ever for a single Inuit artwork.
Other posts about Inuit artists………
Transferring the Real to the Unreal
What Next? 