The story behind the company name Nanook

The company name Nanook, comes from the documentary titled Nanook of The North. Robert J. Flaherty’s classic film, Nanook of The North tells the story of an Inuit hunter named Nanook and his family as they struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of Canada’s Hudson Bay region. Enormously popular when released in 1922, Nanook of the North is a cinematic milestone in that it is considered to be the first documentary ever made. Nanook is also Inuit for Polar Bear.

Nanook of the North was screened in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1. and the original print was black and white and colour tinted. The film was silent, and the original duration was around 56 minutes (today's duration is around 79 minutes). Robert Flaherty's personal print has been preserved since 1939 by the British Film Institute.

In undertaking to shoot a narrative-based film that would demonstrate the character and majesty of the Inuit people of Hudson Bay, Canada, Flaherty chose as his protagonist a revered hunter. He accompanied the man, named Nanook in the film, and his extended family for a year from igloo to igloo, from kill to kill. Technical ingenuity and the collaboration of the Inuit were key to the film's success. When an actual seal killing could not be filmed, for example, the Inuit dragged a carcass under the ice and re-created its fight for life.

An explorer who charted the Canadian tundra for mineral and railroad interests, Flaherty first brought a movie camera with him on an expedition of 1913 in order to make visual notes. Filmmaking soon became his primary focus. Nanook of the North was financed by a French furrier, Revillon Frères, and distributed by the French movie giant Pathé. America's top movie companies had turned it down, but the film became a huge critical and commercial success, and the progenitor of all documentaries to come. Unlike the typically detached travelogue, Nanook of the North blended realistic, stark, and beautifully composed images with a loose story line and a strong central character. Moreover, with its fictionalization of real-life events, and with Flaherty's romanticisation of his subject, the film continues to raise issues about the objectivity of the documentary genre.

While this landmark 1922 production isn't a true documentary by contemporary conventions, it remains the first great non-fiction film. With the help of Nanook and his friends and family, Flaherty undertook the mission of re-creating an Eskimo culture that no longer existed in a series of staged scenes. Nanook ice fishes, harpoons a walrus, catches a seal, traps, builds an igloo, and trades pelts at a trading post, all captured by Flaherty's camera. On a purely visual level the film is a beautiful work of cinema, an understated drama in an austere, unblemished landscape of snow and ice. With unerring simplicity and directness, Flaherty re-creates the details and rhythms of a culture long gone and gives the world a glimpse, a glimpse of Nanook of The North. So now you know more about the Gregory Connors founded company and the origins of the name Nanook.

Nanook

Cast   

Nanook...  Himself
Nyla...  Herself- (Nanook's wife, the smiling one)
Cunayou...  Herself- (Nanook's wife)
Berry Kroeger...  Narrator- (1939 re-release)
Allee...  Himself- (Nanook's son)
Allegoo...  Himself- (Nanook's son)