Book review: Skraelings

Reviewed by Karl Hele

Rachel and Sean Qitsaulik-Tinsley’s Skraelings is a wonderfully rich exploration of Vikings, Tuniit (Dorset people), and Inuit interactions aimed at pre-highschool readers. Skraelings was awarded the Burt Award for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Literature’s prize. The authors’ attention to Inuit perspectives based on oral histories, cosmology, and knowledge flows through the pages of the book.  This attention to the Inuit perspective, embodied by the main character Kannujaq, creates an immersive and informative read.

Kannujaq is a young hunter who is travelling the tundra with his dog team when he stumbles upon a Tuniit community being attacked by strange beings known as the Siaraili. Kannujaq, enters the Tuniit community as the Siaraili are withdrawing and meets a child-shaman, Siku. Siku relays the tale of Siaraili attacks and bullying by the community’s leader. The child-shaman then requests Kannujaq to help save the community. As the story unfolds, Kannujaq finds himself entangled in a situation that tests his values as a human being as he learns why the Siaraili are attacking this Tuniit settlement. It is eventually revealed that the Siaraili are the Vikings.

A key aspect of the novel is the intervention of the authors in the introduction, at the start of some chapters, and at the end of the book.  These interventions provide readers with context as well as highlighting just how the world appeared to Kannujaq and how he would have been shocked by the modern world. By asking readers to engage in a suspension of belief, the authors are more effectively able to demonstrate an Inuit perspective, while teaching about core Inuit values and beliefs as well as their understanding of the Tuniit.

The Qitsualik-Tinsleys also provide a pronunciation guide and glossary. Taken together, these aid the reader in pronouncing Inuit words in the text as well as understanding some of the complex dynamics of meaning contained within the words. Additionally, the authors inform the reader that the Tuniit are known to non-Inuit as the Dorset culture, who may have continued to exist as a distinct culture into the late 19th or early 20th centuries before introduced foreign diseases drove the Tuniit to oblivion. They also reveal that the Viking term “skraeling”, referred to the Tuniit, and meant ‘coward’ or ‘weakling’.  Moreover, by placing the Inuit hunter Kannujaq in an Tuniit camp during a Viking raid, the authors are showing the complexities of life and the meetings of different peoples in the Arctic.

Skraelings is an excellent introduction to Inuit stories, cosmology, and the complexities of life and contact. It will encourage readers young and old to learn more about the Inuit while promoting positive understandings. I highly recommend that this Inuit authored and award-winning book be read by anyone looking to learn more about the pre-colonized world of the Inuit. Importantly, it is a compelling read with a good story and solid characters.

Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley. Skraelings. Iqaluit: Inhabit Media, 2013.

ISBN: 1927095549