“I Am but Mad North-northwest: When the Wind is Southerly I Know a Hawk from a Handsaw”

he true north strong and choked with ice, " wrote Canadian poet Al Purdy, about the Arctic (1). " The sea ... was like the concentrated essence of all the blue that ever was; I could feel that blue seep into me and all my innards change colour. And the icebergs! They were shim-mery lace and white brocade, and they became my standard for the word beauty " (2). Purdy's thrill at drifting with " the tides on Cumberland Sound and its blue fi ord, [where] bergs and growlers are always in sight, even at the height of summer, " (1) echoes the experience of many who visit the North; among them, Fred Machetanz, painter of iconic Alaska. A native of Kenton, Ohio, educated at Ohio State University , the American Academy of Art in Chicago, and the Arts Students League in New York, he ventured to Unalak-leet, a tiny fi shing village on the Bering Sea, in 1935 to visit his uncle. Captivated by the landscape, he moved there to celebrate it in his work for years to come. " I was just nuts about Alaska " (3). Artists have long traveled to the icy North. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as part of explorations, they documented discoveries and sought adventure and new cultures. John Webber, offi cial painter for Captain James Cook's voyage (1776–1780), produced countless expertly painted records. By the end of European exploration and after the purchase of Alaska in 1867 from the Russians, travel into paint their romantic vision of " the last frontier " with its pristine wilderness and sparse inhabitants close to the land. Some of these visitors became the best landscape painters of the day. The art of Alaska's own populations, a long and rich tradition, was infl uenced by the onslaught of imported forms (4). Much history of the Eskimo culture of North America in early 20th century comes to us from the work of Dan-ish anthropologist Knud Rasmussen, whose expedition crossed North America from east of Baffi n Land to Alaska and across the Bering Straight to Siberia. He lived to report conditions more inclement and dangerous for humans than nearly anywhere else in the world. " Cold and mosquitoes, / these two pests / come never together, " goes the Iglulik song, " I lay me down on the ice, / Lay me down on the snow and …