Visual Stories

VIDEO: Throat singer Celina Kalluk's 'Daylight Remains'

Celina Kalluk learned Inuit throat singing from her uncle's wife in the village of Resolute Bay, Nunavut, in the high Canadian Arctic where she grew up. Her aunt taught her that Inuit throat singing started as a way for women to soothe their babies. "They imitate sounds from their environment -- animals, rivers and dog team, and even cooking and mosquitoes. Mosquitoes in throat-singing sounds beautiful," Kalluk said in a 2007 interview with The Pure Drop. "When you're concentrated on keeping track and keeping on rhythm, even keeping on note with the other person, it's like you're sharing the same breath, because you're overlapping and alternating individual sounds."

Kalluk relocated to Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, where she works as a writer and illustrator. Through her children's book "Sweetest Kulu" and her work on children's schoolbooks, Kalluk has been helping preserve the Inuktitut language.

The throat-singing sisters Karin and Kathy Kettler, together known as Nukariik, are also doing their part to preserve the culture of their Nunavut ancestors.

Read more: Inuit throat-singing sisters from Canada

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