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Editor: Sue Hamilton
Webmaster: Mark Hamilton
The Fan Hitch, Journal
of the Inuit Sled Dog, is published four
times a year. It is available at no cost
online at: https://thefanhitch.org.
The Fan Hitch welcomes your letters, stories, comments and suggestions. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit submissions used for publication.
Contents of The Fan Hitch are protected by international copyright laws. No photo, drawing or text may be reproduced in any form without written consent. Webmasters please note: written consent is necessary before linking this site to yours! Please forward requests to Sue Hamilton, 55 Town Line Rd., Harwinton, Connecticut 06791, USA or mail@thefanhitch.org.
This site is dedicated to the Inuit Dog as well as related Inuit culture and traditions. It is also home to The Fan Hitch, Journal of the Inuit Sled Dog.
The Fan Hitch welcomes your letters, stories, comments and suggestions. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit submissions used for publication.
Contents of The Fan Hitch are protected by international copyright laws. No photo, drawing or text may be reproduced in any form without written consent. Webmasters please note: written consent is necessary before linking this site to yours! Please forward requests to Sue Hamilton, 55 Town Line Rd., Harwinton, Connecticut 06791, USA or mail@thefanhitch.org.
This site is dedicated to the Inuit Dog as well as related Inuit culture and traditions. It is also home to The Fan Hitch, Journal of the Inuit Sled Dog.
Okpik’s Dream will have its Nunavik premier on March 26, 2015 in Puvirnituq during that community’s biennial Snow Festival.
It is hoped that the annual Ivakkak* dogteam race (set to begin on March 16th in Kuujjuarapik, Nunavik) will have good weather, allowing it to end in Puvirnituq during the festivities. As in year’s past Harry Okpik, the movie’s protagonist, will be competing, this year with Gary-Joe Angnatuk (there are two dog teamers per qamutiq).
In order to allow Okpik’s Dream ample opportunity to participate in the film festival circuit, it is not likely that the documentary’s DVD will be available until about this time in 2016. Check to see if a film festival where Okpik’s Dream is entered is within your reach, by visiting the Okpik’s Dream web page. Here producer Katarina Soukup, writer/director Laura Rietveld and their colleagues have created a fantastic site loaded with goodies including a trailer, several interviews with Harry Okpik and accompanying videos and still photography on many topics relating to Inuit Dogs including fascinating archival material, and lots more all set to lovely music. So much to see and learn at the Okpik’s Dream website, this cultural resource is a real gem!
*According to the Ivakkak website, “At the end of the last century, the pure-breed Husky dog was nearly extinct in Nunavik…Yet, the memories of another time when dogs were man’s most reliable partners are not so far behind, [when] dogs were once essential to the survival of Inuit in the merciless arctic environment…In fact, only a few decades ago, sled dogs were a foundation of the Inuit nomadic way of life. These brave allies were central to seasonal Inuit movements, especially in the winter.” In referring to the first ever Ivakkak (which translates from Inuktitut to ‘when the dogs are at their best pace’) back in April 2001, the website also explains, “When the dog teams passed through Inukjuak and then reached Puvirnituq, the triumph of this strong culture of the Inuit could be found in the people’s happy faces… The Inuit had shown that no matter how the world would change, their traditions would always survive.”