This sculpture represents two stories of the Inuvialuit shamans. The story of Kublualuk and how he became a shaman is well known to people of Inuvialuit ancestry as is the Apakghuk story. Both Kublualkuk and Apakghuk had the white falcon as their spirit helper. Apukghak is visit by the white falcon in a dream and teaches him how to become a shaman.
The story of Apakghuk is of a renowned shaman from Alaska and in the sculpture he is accredited with bringing a boy back to life. A young boy has fallen down a forty-foot cliff embankment. He is pronounced dead by the priests; but Apakghuk, at the insistence of the boy’s parents, brings the boy back to life. He achieves this by calling on the spirits of the Land Sea and Air to come to his aid and bring the boy back to the world of the living.
