New comedy series based in fictional Inuit community

Anna Lambe is thrilled that she was given an opportunity to showcase a different side of her acting abilities.

Lambe, a 24-year-old actor from the Nunavut capital Iqaluit, plays the lead role of Siaja in North of North, a comedy series that premieres on both CBC and APTN on Jan. 7.

The first season of the eight-episode series will then start streaming on Netflix this spring.

North of North is set in the fictional Nunavut community of Ice Cove. It focuses on Siaja as she tries to bring some stability to her life following the breakup of her marriage.

“This is my first big lead,” Lambe said. “I was hungry for it. For lack of a better word, I was desperate because I had only really done drama. Most of my roles had been quite heavy and sad and angry. I do love doing that kind of stuff. I think drama is so much fun.”

Lambe’s breakthrough in the acting industry came when she landed a role in the 2018 movie The Grizzlies, a film about a group of Inuit students whose lives are changed when they are introduced to lacrosse.

Lambe also was included in the 2020 TV series Trickster. And she was also featured in a pair of other television series, Three Pines and True Detective.

When she heard a comedy series would be created in her home territory, Lambe was willing to do anything it took to be included.

Landing the lead role was certainly a bonus.

“Ultimately being cast as Siaja was a dream,” she said. “I cried. And I cried many times before hoping that it was going to be mine. And I cried many times after knowing that it was. I’m so grateful. The workload was intense and it was cold and it was exhausting. But I think the really beautiful thing about this project was such an incredible cast, an incredible ensemble of cast that held so much space for one another.”

Lambe said there are some similarities between her latest TV character and herself.

“I definitely see aspects of myself in Siaja,” she said. “I think we handle things very differently. And I think we approach life quite differently. But in the sense of trying, really struggling to figure yourself out and being really afraid of how people are going to perceive you and what the consequences of decisions you make will be is something I understand deeply.”

Lambe said she could also connect to the experiences of growing up in a small town.

“There’s so much love and support,” she said. “But there’s also that fear that I don’t want to disappoint people. I don’t know how people feel about me. I don’t know how people feel about the things that I’m doing. And so, there was that aspect of it that I really enjoyed.”

Lambe added playing Siaja has advanced her personal growth.

“I think where we really differed is how Siaja, her anxiety kind of just exists at the top, exists outside of her and she really kind of projects it,” she said. “It was quite cathartic for me to be able to express some of the things Siaja was expressing – to express frustration, to express joy, to express love, to express fear so outwardly and to get the support from the people around her because I’ve always internalized quite deeply.

“And it kind of has allowed me to feel things a bit more openly. And for that I’m very, very grateful for Siaja.”

North of North was filmed entirely in Nunavut, at times taking over Iqaluit’s curling rink to shoot numerous scenes.

A spinoff benefit is that a studio started being constructed in Iqaluit. It is expected to be completed in the coming months.

Future Nunavut filmmakers will be able to utilize the facility instead of travelling countless kilometres to produce work at other venues.

“It’s underway,” Alethea Arnaqud-Baril, a co-creator of North of North said of the Iqaluit studio. “We were building it while we were in production. So, it was a big job to be managing two big projects like that at the same time.”

The series’ other co-creator is Stacey Aglok MacDonald. Like Lambe, Arnaqud-Baril and Aglok MacDonald had worked on The Grizzlies together.

Getting funding for the Iqaluit studio enabled plans to go forward.

“The Indigenous Screen Office came on board really quickly,” Arnaqud-Baril said. “They saw the vision and knew that this was more about not just a production but about building an industry which our whole careers have been about. So, they were first money in and it triggered additional funding from the government of Nunavut and the federal government. And it’s going to be done soon.”

North of North reps are anticipating they will hear in late spring if their series is picked up for another year.

“And then the idea is that, fingers crossed we get a season two, we won’t be taking away community space from the community because we had to shoot the first season in a curling rink, which meant taking away important infrastructure that we don’t have a lot of in our communities,” Arnaqud-Baril said. “So, we didn’t feel great doing it but we needed a spot for our sets.”

Aglok MacDonald said North of North has allowed Arnaqud-Baril and herself to correct the vast inaccurate stories of Inuit people in previous films.

This previous storytelling includes portrayals of Indigenous women being at risk or disposable.

“And we wanted strong female characters that are powerful and that own their own physical being and sexuality,” Aglok MacDonald said of those in North of North. “And we wanted to portray Native men kind of opposite to how they’ve been portrayed as kind of dangerous or scary.”