In 1969, a weaving program was established with the support of the federal government in the small community of Pangnirtung, Baffin Island, Nunavut. Local artists designed tapestries which were then woven on looms by a different set of artists. This untitled tapestry is likely designed by Malaya Akulukjuk and demonstrates the typical features of the first generation of artists/weavers in which subjects reflect traditional life, legends and shamanism. Single, bold figures float in two-dimensional space, in this case a bird or spirit bird. The simplicity of design reflects the developing and tentative skills of the weavers in the early period, with limited details or texture. The enigmatic bird-like figure suggests a creature not of this earth. When asked about these kinds of figures, Akulukjuk responded that they came to her in a dream or had been described to her by someone who had seen them.

Malaya Akulukjuk was born in 1915 (1912?) at Qikiqtat camp in Nunavut and settled in Pangnirtung in the early 1960s. As a respected community elder (and reputed to have been a shaman), she was the first local women to be approached for her drawing designs. Throughout the 1970s, her designs were selected almost exclusively to be translated into woven tapestries. She drew until the 1990s when illness prohibited further artistic output.