Nanook of the North (also known as Nanook of the North: A Story Of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic) is a 1922 American silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty, with elements of docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist.^[1]

In the tradition of what would later be called salvage ethnography, Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuk mannamed Nanook and his family in the Canadian Arctic. The film has been incorrectly considered the first feature-lengthdocumentary.^[2] Some have criticized Flaherty for staging several sequences,^[3] but the film is generally viewed as standing "alone in its stark regard for the courage and ingenuity of its heroes.

Flaherty has been criticized for deceptively portraying staged events as reality.^[9] "Nanook" was in fact named Allakariallak (pronounced: [al.la.ka.ɢi.al.lak]), while the "wife" shown in the film was not really his wife. According to Charles Nayoumealuk, who was interviewed in Nanook Revisited (1990), "the two women in Nanook - Nyla (Alice [?] Nuvalinga) and Cunayou (whose real name we do not know) were not Allakariallak's wives, but were in fact common-law wives of Flaherty."^[10] And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his recent ancestors in order to capture the way theInuit lived before European influence. On the other hand, while Flaherty made his Inuit actors use spears instead of guns during the walrus and seal hunts, the prey shown in the film were genuine, wild animals. Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim, often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation two years after the film was completed, whereas in fact he died at home, likely of tuberculosis.^[11][12]

^{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4kOIzMqso0}