Agnes Nanogak (sometimes called Agnes Nanogak Goose; her husband’s name was William Goose) was a prolific graphic artist based out of Ulukhaktok (Holman), Northwest Territories. Her father was from Nome, Alaska, and her mother, a Mackenzie Delta Inuit; as a result, Nanogak had a rich and varied cultural upbringing. The family moved to Ulukhaktok in 1934, long before a settlement existed on that spot. Since the first print collection to come out of Ulukhaktok in 1965, Nanogak has contributed every year (until the end of the 1990s) and has had over 140 of her drawings translated into prints.

These three prints are monochromatic and rely on shape to reveal their narratives. In Building an Igloo, the viewer looks down from above on two figures and their partially built structure. The creative perspective imbues this print with a playfulness, while the subject feels quasi-documentary. Both Safeguarding Eggs and The Power of a Sorcerer draw on the artist’s interest in shamanism and myths and legends. In the first, a human-like bird figure, perhaps a transformed shaman, guards three eggs held in a sack. In the second, a shaman undergoes a test of their power via strangulation. Rather than killing them, this test draws out a bear-spirit. While this story is likely of Alaskan origin, the style is possibly influenced by fellow Ulukhaktok graphic artist Helen Kalvak.