The Fox Wife

This picture retells a traditional Inuit story. A fox woman meets a human family, and she wants to learn more about them. She follows them and learns human ways. One day she realizes the oldest boy Irniq has been watching her. When he’s old enough, the oldest boy leaves his family to go hunting by himself. When he comes back to his tent, the lamp is lit, and the hot tea is made. The fox becomes Irniq’s wife, but he doesn’t know that she is really the fox.

He doesn’t like the fox’s musky smell, so she runs away. She thinks that if he doesn’t like the smell, he won’t like her true self. When Irniq sees the fox leaving, he calls to her, asking whether she is the fox that has been following him all his life. But the fox runs away and never comes back.

I like the drawings, especially of the fox. The pictures are my favorite part. Sometimes the characters have speech bubbles, like in cartoons, but the drawings of the landscapes and characters are realistic. I feel like I’ve learned a little bit about Inuit life in the Arctic. Maybe the moral of the story is if some random woman comes into your tent and says she’s your wife, don’t complain.