Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew

Written by Susan Aglukark

Illustrated by Amiel Sandland and Rebecca Brook

Inhabit Media

978-1-77227-433-2

36 pp.

Ages 5-7

June 2022

 

After Ukpik's father (ataata), uncle and cousin return from a hunting trip with five caribou, the child's mother enlists her help in preparing the furs for a special project. Though she doesn't know what the special project will be, Ukpik is delighted to be part of something that will include some beads (sunguajait) that her anaana had been saving.

From Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew by Susan Aglukark, illus. by Amiel Sandland and Rebecca Brook

First, Ukpik is told get the ulu her grandfather (ataatatsiaq) had made for her as she would help with the cleaning of the skins. She is instructed on how to remove incidental fat and how to be careful with the sharp tool. Later the skins are stretched out and pinned to the ground to dry.

From Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew by Susan Aglukark, illus. by Amiel Sandland and Rebecca Brook

 

As they wait for the skins to dry, Anaana allows Ukpik to work with the beads forming a pattern. After the skins are dry, Anaana teaches Ukpik how to soften the skins by tromping on them and also using a sakuut. 

For practise, Anaana cuts pieces according to a pattern for Ukpik and her friend Qopak to learn to sew mittens. When it becomes evident that the girls are becoming fatigued, Ukpik's anaana reminds her that:

You must begin your lessons now so you know how to do the right stitches for each pattern. The size and shape of the stitches matter, Ukpik, and to get these right, you must practise. (pg. 25)

From Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew by Susan Aglukark, illus. by Amiel Sandland and Rebecca Brook

It takes days of patience and meticulous work to prepare the skins so that they might be fashioned into clothing, and it's a skill that connects Ukpik and Anaana and others with their ancestors. Anaana and Ataata recognize that the world for Ukpik and her peers is changing (the earlier book Una Huna?: What is This? relates the introduction of new tools to the community from the south) but that skills like sewing and skin preparation are lines of kinship that will link them with their heritage forever.  

 

Author Susan Aglukark is perhaps best known as an award-winning Inuk singer-songwriter but her Una Huna? picture books take us to a northern Indigenous community in a different way, perhaps to see what growing up there might have been like for her. Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew reminds us that learning is happening constantly for children and especially for this Inuk child who wants to know and to discover all that she can. Una Huna? translates to "What is this?" and reflects Ukpik's inquisitive nature and desire to understand the nature of her people's ways of living while still being a kid who likes to play with her friends and puppy on the tundra. And, for most readers, Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew will be an introduction to traditional skills of the Inuit in addition to their language (a glossary with Inuktitut pronunciation guide is provided), making this picture book another culturally relevant book from Inhabit Media.

 

The illustrations by Amiel Sandland and Rebecca Brook are both playful and informative, striking the right balance for young readers who will learn but be entertained by the artwork. Amiel Sandland has always been astute at keeping the art simple enough for children to get the essentials of the details without overloading them with insignificant fluff. As such, the illustrations give us the starkness of the tundra and the straightforwardness of living as Inuit on the land while emphasizing an ancestry of significance.

 

Una Huna?: Ukpik Learns to Sew is an endearing recollection of the learning of traditional skills from a parent who is both patient, wise and loving.  It's about being at the crossroads of past and future, connecting to one's heritage but seeing what that might mean for later. It's a big story told skilfully with the essence of the Inuit at its core.