Northern stars

Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, creators and exec producers of CBC, Netflix and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network comedy North of North, chat with DQ about making the most ambitious Canadian series ever shot in the Arctic and building a brand around Inuit comedy.

Whenever you have to transport your sets, props and most of the physical aspects of a production to a new city, it’s a big undertaking. And those challenges multiply significantly when you are headed more than 2,000 kilometres north from Toronto to Iqaluit, the capital city of Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic.

That is the setting for North of North, a half-hour comedy co-commissioned Canadian pubcaster CBC and Netflix in association with Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).

Set to premiere on CBC and APTN today, followed by an international release on Netflix in the spring, the eight-episode project is the largest Canadian scripted series ever produced in Nunavut.

Set in the fictional town of Ice Cove, the series follows a young Inuk woman, played by Anna Lambe (True Detective, Three Pines), who is attempting to reinvent herself in her small Arctic town after a spontaneous and very public exit from her marriage. But that is easier said than done in a community where everyone knows everyone else’s business.

The show also stars Maika Harper, Braeden Clarke, Jay Ryan, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Kelly William, Zorga Qaunaq, Bailey Poching, Nutaaq Doreen Simmonds, Keira Belle Cooper and Tanya Tagaq.

The reason few TV series shoot in Iqaluit is because there is little production infrastructure and the logistical issues are many, including extremely cold weather and difficulty bringing in crews from outside.

“Convincing everyone this was doable was the first obstacle,” says Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, who executive produced, wrote and created the series alongside Stacey Aglok MacDonald.

Along with executive producer Miranda de Pencier, the production team secured a green light from the CBC around three years ago. But another partner was going to be required if they wanted to film the series on location in the Arctic.

After conversations with several parties, Netflix Canada joined the project as a co-commissioner, providing the budgetary boost needed to realise the creators’ ambition and vision. By early 2024, production was ready to begin, with sets being built in Toronto and then driven to Ottawa and flown up to Iqaluit for filming to begin in March.

“We really needed the airlines to make space for us, because it’s all fly-in, there are no roads, no ships, so everything had to be put on a plane,” says Aglok MacDonald.

Given the unpredictable nature of the weather, the production team had to be flexible in terms of time and money as they faced snowstorms and illness among the crew. Shooting in Nunavut also presented other logistical challenges that most would never consider, such as hairspray not working because the air is too dry.

North of North is produced by Aglok MacDonald and Arnaquq-Baril’s Red Marrow Media (The Grizzlies) and de Pencier’s Northwood Entertainment (Anne with an E). Other executive producers on the project include Anya Adams, Susan Coyne and Garry Campbell.

While the show is very much a comedy, it also tackles more weighty subject matter including generational trauma, complex family dynamics and the colonisation of Indigenous communities.

Aglok MacDonald describes the process of finding the balance between comedy and drama as a “bit of push and pull,” adding: “In the process of writing scenes, we [would ask ourselves], ‘Is that too much drama?’ And if it is, is it good, and does it just need a moment of levity to pull us out?”

Walking the line between comedy and drama was a constant conversation during development. Aglok MacDonald and Arnaquq-Baril had initially pitched the CBC with a sitcom that did not get picked up. The process of developing that project made them realise this story was better told as a comedy-drama than in a sitcom format, which could run the risk of veering into “cheesiness,” according to Arnaquq-Baril.

The writers were deliberate in their goal of creating a show that “feels like a joy and is an easy decision to watch,” she continues. “We wanted emotion, we wanted to make people cry sometimes, and I think we do that successfully, but we never wanted to lean into the point that people have to brace themselves to watch this show. That was a very conscious decision, and the networks were very involved in the scripts to help us find that balance.”

Given that this community and part of the world have so rarely been depicted in scripted shows, the aim is also to shine a spotlight on Inuit comedy. Arnaquq-Baril says the hope is to “build a brand of what Northern humour is.”

“When you think of Italian mafia movies, or British comedy, there’s a vibe. And now with Taika Waititi’s work in New Zealand, they’ve got a sense of humour that’s becoming known by the world,” she says. “I’m hoping we get a chance to build a reputation for what it is to have an Inuit sense of humour, and make our own little genre.”

Another goal of the series is to showcase Arctic fashion, with its magnificent parka jackets and other visually stunning clothing. Arnaquq-Baril says the fashion in the show is “unlike anything that’s ever been seen before” in a scripted series.

“People think we’re doing a heightened version of what we wear – like Emily in Paris – but this is what people wear to the grocery store or when out walking their dogs,” adds Aglok MacDonald.

As for what might come next for the show, the creators say they have a multi-season story arc “clearly pictured,” though at this stage they are focused on North of North landing with the audience and securing a season two commission.

Aglok MacDonald says the writers had to be disciplined and fight the temptation to squeeze too much plot into the first season. “It was hard, though. We’re in this position where we’ve never been able to tell a story at this level, on this stage, but what if we only ever get one season and we don’t even get to touch on some of the other stories [we want to tell]?” she says. “It was a case of trusting the process and not trying to shoehorn everything into the first season.”

In addition to producing the series in Nunavut, the creators also want to use the project as a launchpad to build more local infrastructure in the territory. As such, they are leading an initiative to build a sound stage in Nunavut that will house production on subsequent seasons of North of North (assuming it is renewed) and third-party projects.

“We are ambitious creators ourselves, but not just for our own stories – we’re ambitious for an industry to develop further in Nunavut,” says Arnaquq-Baril. “There’s been a long history of production in the North, and there are a lot of incredible Inuit creators, but the infrastructure hasn’t been there for series work.”

The goal, she explains, would be for North of North to use the sound stage for roughly half the year, and then other projects from Inuit creators to shoot there for the other half.

The much easier – and cheaper – route for this project would have been to shoot the majority of it in southern Ontario. On the eve of the show’s release, its creators say they feel vindicated in their decision to conduct as much of the production as possible in Nunavut.

“It really shows on screen that we didn’t just shoot in a studio in Toronto and then get some B-roll up North,” says Arnaquq-Baril. “It just permeates the whole series – the landscape, the community, the buildings, the background actors, everything – that we prioritised shooting in the North.”

tagged in: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, CBC, Netflix, North of North, Northwood Entertainment, Red Marrow Media, Stacey Aglok MacDonald