If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in a town of just over 2,000 people in the Arctic, cuss out your toxic partner at a huge community event, scheme your way into hooking up with queer transients to make up for the small dating pool, and try to rebuild your life while navigating intergenerational trauma—you should probably watch the series North of North.
Actor Anna Lambe (The Grizzlies) plays Siaja, an Inuk woman who, along with her daughter Bun, moves in with her mother Neevee while looking for a job—and life—of her own. Produced by Inuit-led company Red Marrow Media and Canada’s Northwood Entertainment, the series follows Siaja as she learns about lost family members, burns through relationships and rekindles others.
But make no mistake, this is a comedy. North of North pulls laughter from audiences without trying to stifle the grief Siaja feels when she learns her sister was stolen from her mother, or conversations her mother has with an elder about her experiences in residential schools. The series helps viewers breathe through the pain.
After the inaugural season of the CBC, APTN and Netflix show hit nine million views in its first month, won nine Canadian Screen Awards and landed a spot in Netflix’s top 10 across 33 countries, North of North welcomes its second season. Its name is a nod to its setting in the fictional town of Ice Cove, which lies at the heart of the Arctic. In reality, it was filmed in Iqaluit—making it Netflix’s first original Canadian series. The second season premiered earlier this week on CBC Gem and APTN. It will be available to stream on Netflix this fall.
Xtra spoke with Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq, who plays Siaja’s friend Millie, about what viewers can expect from Season 2.
Siaja was determined to change her life when the show started, and by the time we get to Season 2, she’s in an entirely different phase. Whose character growth do you identify with?
Anna Lambe: There’s kind of this overarching question for [Siaja], which is, “What do I actually want and what does it mean to pursue it?” I had a bit of a breakdown because I don’t know the answer to that question for myself. Being able to play Siaja and go through that journey with her, I really do feel like I grew and changed so much. Siaja’s journey trying to pursue what she thinks she wants, doing so messily, hurting a lot of people in the process and then being told that she’s still lovable; that her determination sometimes hurts people, but it’s not for nothing—that made me really emotional and it was also quite cathartic.
Zorga Qaunaq: I also related a lot with [Siaja’s love interest] Kuuk’s arc this season, with him reconnecting with the community. He has a beautiful storyline that just feels so real to so many people I know, including myself, about finding your place in the community and finding your belonging even though you’ve never been there before or you’ve been away for decades. The [writers] told that story so beautifully this season.
Not knowing where you belong and trying to find yourself is very queer-coded. What advice would you give to a queer person who doesn’t feel like they’re in the right spot?
ZQ: I was thinking a lot about this in general. It relates to queerness, but just being your big, colourful self. The more yourself you are, the more you have to offer. I’m someone who just wants to give to my community and is so generous and helpful … I realized trying to give myself away all the time or making myself small or helping everyone else except me—that was not helping. Being myself as much as possible—that includes my queerness—is making space for all those people that feel like they can’t be themselves. And if we’re all ourselves, then we won’t fight over it.
AL: One of the takeaways that I really think a lot about is when you find your community, they allow you to make mistakes. They love you at every stage of who you are, whether that’s with a lot of warmth and celebration or with tough love. But they really hold space for you at all the points in your journey of you figuring out who you are.
There’s no extended family beyond Siaja, Neevee and Bun. They’ve really had to create a community around themselves and choose who they feel safe with, and who they go to when they feel vulnerable. That real chosen community is just as valid and just as important. The people that love you, love you because you’re you—not because of social structures or labels we give ourselves.
There’s so much forgiveness in that process too. How has playing these characters changed how you forgive and give grace?
AL: Forgiveness really is an art. It’s a skill that you have to build. It’s easy to be angry at someone for the rest of your life. It’s okay to protect yourself, if it’s what makes you feel safe. But there are also elements of forgiveness that we need to practise, and I’m really glad that the show gets to talk about this. It’s allowed me to think about the things that I’ve been angry about and ashamed about, and about how the act of grace, forgiveness and apology is a bit of a scary mountain. But I think it’s almost always worth looking and at least checking to see what the other side is like.
ZQ: That’s why it’s easier to be angry. There is no-one-size-fits-all to any relationship, to any identity, to any person’s growth. It is hard because you have to keep working at it. Having [North of North] show that by example; how people reconcile. You would think it should be just there for us to see all the time, but this is quite revolutionary for us Inuit—to see this healthy relationship building onscreen and to be able to talk about it. And I’ve seen with my own eyes and my own ears; I’ve witnessed people having healing conversations that I’m sure were inspired by seeing the relationship between Neevee and Siaja.
In the first season, Elder Elisapee shares their and Neevee’s late mother’s experience in residential school with Neevee, even though Elisapee makes it clear they don’t like Neevee. It was almost startling seeing them have such an emotional conversation.
ZQ: Yeah, I would say that’s Inuk culture. You’ll be talking with an elder, and they will—what people would call—“trauma dump.” They’ll just say some intense things. Most of the time, ideally, they wouldn’t just leave you with that. They would have some sort of story to help you through it. That’s amazing to see. Because everything can feel so fragmented when represented on TV. [Viewers may say], “It’s a comedy show, so you should only have comedy and no drama,” or “No, this is a drama. You should only talk about all the nitty-gritty stuff.” As a new actor to all this and a consumer of media, I love to see the mix between all the genres altogether because that’s what life is. It’s messy, and we Inuit live that and know that. We’ll be laughing one second, crying another, then mad one second. Our elders encourage us to move through our feelings as they come and go, so that’s shown really well in the show, for a comedy show with only, like, 20 minutes [per episode].
When Siaja is presenting on why Ice Cove should host a polar research station, she talks about how people come to the North ready to change the community, but she wants people to let the community change them. How has filming North of North and Iqaluit changed you, and how do you think it will change the entertainment industry’s approach to telling Arctic stories in the future?
AL: North of North has profoundly changed my life. I’m from Iqaluit, I grew up there, so there was a real comfort of being home while filming it, but being able to celebrate Nunavut and Inuit, and in many ways, each of us getting to celebrate this feat of television-making. It’s a miracle that we have a TV show now. It’s so difficult, and we had every challenge and everything kind of stacked against making a show like this happen.
So many people think that the North needs to be fixed because of what has happened with colonialism and the impacts on our community and how that continues to reverberate. I think it’s really interesting when people think that the answer is colonialism lite. You imposed yourselves on us once upon a time and continue to—but then you think if you impose yourself on us while saying you’re helping us that it’s different.
They don’t see Inuit as people with autonomy and people who are able to make decisions for themselves. But if they see the joy and the beauty, and not just the perseverance through colonialism; that our communities continue to thrive in many ways, even in struggle—I don’t want to say it’s like inspiring in like a trauma-porn way because that is what it can sound like, but I think it recontextualizes life for a lot of people.
ZQ: I’m spoiled to be able to shoot up there: having the community there, inspiration all around me because the people are there, and that’s what we’re making the show about, and that’s who I am. The community having the chance to see a real show being made and being able to participate in it. There’s going to be little kids who were born now who don’t know what it was like to not have North of North shooting every couple of years in the Arctic. So this is planting all the seeds.
In the episode when viewers find out Millie is queer, she’s waiting at the airport arrivals for new people for Siaja to hook up with, and finds a woman to flirt with as soon as she steps off her flight. What advice do you have for queer dating for people looking for love or hookups in small towns?
ZQ: Oh man, just go pan, bro. Just kidding. Travel, I guess. Get a private space and find spaces for your queer friends as well.
I realized through playing Millie that I’m pan[sexual]; it’d never really occurred to me. I’m representing a queer character. I’m gonna be facing people in the community who are mad or happy about it. Whether I want to or not, I’m representing this character, and I felt a lot more responsibility [to learn about] it.
I was like, “What is this? Oh my gosh, I think I’m pan. I don’t need to tell anybody.” But then I saw some homophobia in my own community online, and I was like, “Shit, my nephews and my family are there. It is nobody’s business, but if I am loud and proud about my queerness, it will make it safer for all those people in the community.”
During the airport scene, I was so proud of myself because I spoke my language [Inuktut] with the lines, but I’m not fluent. I was hitting on a woman, and I haven’t talked to my dad about it yet. He’s probably proud of me, but also a little bit embarrassed. But he still loves me and accepts me, so I guess that’s a win.
What queer characters in the media have been significant for you in the way Millie’s may be significant for others?
ZQ: Orange Is the New Black. That was amazing. It just broke down the heteronormative stuff that I was used to all the time. I was talking to a friend of mine about how I want to see more queer representation and complicated relationships, because that’s what all human relationships are.
Your gender is so different from your sexuality, and colonialism tries to fragment everything. It’s so frustrating because when you do that, you’re always asking for an answer. [There’s an expectation that] you need an answer. You need some box to check.
We’re humans. We don’t even know. I don’t know shit. Just give me that time and space to figure out who I am whenever I want, and I can change whenever I want. And so can you.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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