● Storytime with Uncle Castor

Ukpik and The Enchanted Owl

A true story from Kinngait, Nunavut

For the youngest kits

≈ 14 min read-aloud

Read together

A small owl sat on a rock above a small town.

The town was Kinngait.

It is on Baffin Island, at the very top of Canada, where the sea turns to ice in November.

The owl’s name was Ukpik.

In Inuktitut, ukpik means snowy owl.

Ukpik was round. Ukpik was fluffy. Ukpik was never, ever still.

✦ ✦ ✦

“Grandmother,” said Ukpik, “tell me the story again.”

Grandmother Owl fluffed her feathers.

“Long ago, before this town had streetlights, a woman lived here named Kenojuak Ashevak.

All her life she had sewn pictures into sealskin with a needle.

One day, someone gave her a pencil.

She had never drawn on paper before.

She drew an owl.

An owl with feathers like the rays of the sun.

She called it The Enchanted Owl.

That drawing went out into the whole world.

Canada even put it on a stamp.

Today it is the most famous owl in the country.”

“And where did she get the owl?” asked Ukpik.

“From your great-great-great-great-grandmother,” said Grandmother.

“She sat very still on a rock by the bay, and the woman watched her.

We are the owls who were seen.”

✦ ✦ ✦

Ukpik could not sleep.

The most famous owl in Canada.

“I want to be seen too,” he said to the stars.

The stars did not answer.

But the north wind went hoooo, and Ukpik decided that meant yes.

✦ ✦ ✦

In the morning, Ukpik flew down to the town.

Past the red house. Past the blue house. Past the yellow house with the sled outside.

To a small building by the shore.

Inside, people were bent over tables.

They were drawing. They were carving stone. They were pressing paper onto ink.

It was the print studio.

Grandmother said people had been making pictures there longer than anywhere else in Canada.

Ukpik hopped onto the snowbank by the window.

He puffed out his chest.

He opened his eyes very, very wide.

Look at me!

✦ ✦ ✦

Nobody looked.

A man was carving a stone.

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

A woman was rolling ink.

Shhhp. Shhhp.

A dog by the stove was asleep.

Snore.

Ukpik lifted one wing.

He lifted the other.

He turned around twice.

Nobody looked.

✦ ✦ ✦

A raven landed on the roof.

“What are you doing?” said the raven.

“Being seen,” said Ukpik.

“You look like a snowball with a cold,” said the raven.

Kraa. Kraa. Kraa.

Ukpik flapped harder.

Snow went up his nose.

A-choo!

The raven laughed all the way across the bay.

✦ ✦ ✦

Ukpik tried for three more days.

The window ledge. The sign above the door. A snowmobile parked outside.

Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.

People walked past with their hoods up against the wind.

Nobody looked.

On the fourth evening, Ukpik flew back up to his rock.

His wings ached from waving.

His chest ached from puffing.

Below him, the bay was changing.

Yesterday it had been dark blue.

Today a thin white skin lay across it.

Tink. Tink. Tink.

The new ice was whispering.

Ukpik forgot about being seen.

He tucked his wings in.

He sat the way owls sit.

Round. Quiet. Watching.

✦ ✦ ✦

He did not hear the footsteps on the snow.

A girl had come up the hill.

She had a red parka and a small pad of paper.

Her grandfather carved stone in the studio.

She stopped.

She looked.

On the rock sat a small owl, as still as the rock itself, with the pink sky all around him.

She took out her pencil.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

Ukpik did not move.

He was watching the ice.

✦ ✦ ✦

Every autumn, the studio sends its new pictures south.

On planes. In boxes. To cities far away.

That year, there was a small owl among them.

Not puffed up.

Not waving.

Just sitting, the way owls sit, with the ice coming in behind him.

✦ ✦ ✦

A long time later, far to the south, I went to a museum in a big city.

That was me — Uncle Castor, with my scarf wrapped twice.

There was a whole room of pictures from Kinngait.

In the middle of the wall hung The Enchanted Owl, with its feathers like the rays of the sun.

People stood in front of it for a long time.

And beside it, in a small frame, was a new picture.

A round owl, sitting on a rock.

Not puffed up. Not waving.

Just sitting, the way owls sit, with the ice coming in behind him.

A child pointed at it and laughed.

“That one looks like he’s about to say hello.”

I opened my notebook and wrote:

You cannot make someone see you.

You can only be yourself, very well — and let them look.

Far away, on a rock above a small town, Ukpik was asleep.

He never saw his picture.

He did not need to.

Yours, from the reading chair,

And in case you thought Uncle Castor was making it up — here she is, and here is her owl.

What’s true in this story. Kinngait is a hamlet on Baffin Island, Nunavut. Its print studio has been making art since 1959 — longer than any other in Canada. In 1960, an Inuit artist there, Kenojuak Ashevak, drew The Enchanted Owl. In 1970, Canada put it on a stamp. Her owl hangs in museums across the country, and every fall Kinngait still sends its new prints out into the world.