LAST SPRING, ISRAELI COMEdian and TV personality Dudu Topaz took a film crew to Ellesmere Island, and to Grise Fiord, Canada's most northerly Inuit settlement. His purpose: to "confirm" Israelis' stereotypical notions of polar life. To this end, Topaz recruited Larry Audlaluk - a 47-year-old truck driver transported to Grise when he was 3 - to show his viewers how to build an igloo and run a dog sled.
Never mind that the Inuit in Grise Fiord, as elsewhere in the High Arctic, now live in modern houses with central heating, own the full gamut of modern appliances, and travel about by air or skidoo snow machine. Or that the ability to build snow houses and keep a dog team has, among the Inuit, become a cultural affectation.
Topaz arranged for an Israeli flag to fly from a hastily constructed snow house, and, at the end of his sojourn, invited Audlaluk to Israel for a visit. Cut to the Tel Aviv beach, where a caribou-clad Audlaluk in his mukluk sealskin boots spreads suntan lotion on a young woman in a bikini. Cut again to Eilat, where he is perched atop a camel.
During the course of his 10-day stay in Israel, Audlaluk found Israelis surprisingly accommodating and easygoing, despite his own devout Christianity and the ubiquity of automatic weapons.
"In the North," he says, "some white people wear their guns to let you know they have authority. In Israel, it's like when I go hunting. I carry a gun, but I have nothing to prove. Israeli kids carry guns, but they also say hello and smile. At first it made me nervous. Later, I relaxed."
Audlaluk's antics in the Holy Land were almost as widely reported in the North as they were in Israel. Ironically, they seemed to make more non-aboriginal northern residents squirm than they did Inuit. The Inuit understood that this is how the world prefers to see them.
No one could have been more gracious, in fact, than Audlaluk. "Look, I've been to Japan and a number of other places," he says. "I'm not a rube. But it's not every day that an Inuk can visit the Holy Land. As a Christian, the opportunity to actually see Jerusalem was of great interest to me. If I had to wear my furs, why not?"
No sooner had Audlaluk returned to Grise Fiord than he began to get fired up about returning. "People just can't seem to hear enough about my visit," he says. "So I'm looking into the possibility of taking other Inuks to Israel. It's not as outlandish as it sounds. It costs more to fly from Grise to Montreal than it does from Montreal to Tel Aviv."