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One of the most prolific artists in the history of Inuit art, Pitseolak Ashoona produced nearly 8,000 drawings in 25 years. Her epic creative output has made her the most represented Inuit artist in the University of Alberta Art Collection with more than 65 works. Her images range from the fantastical — drawn from an imagination stimulated by the oral and shamanic traditions of the Inuit — to the more naturalistic, chronicling past ways of living in the Arctic. Of particular note is Ashoona’s love of birds — a reoccurring subject throughout her career, perhaps because her name “pitseolak” in Inuktitut, the language of Inuit, means sea pigeon. When she saw the pitseolaks flying over the sea, she would say “There go those lovely birds — that’s me, flying!”