A new children’s book is taking flight, owed in part to imagery of the Northwest Territories painted by Salmon Arm’s Audrea Loreen-Wulf.
Written by Danielle Matcalfe-Chenail and the book’s subject, Frederick “Freddie” Carmichael, Freddie the Flyer – released by Penguin Random House Canada in October – pays homage to the 89-year-old Charmichael, the Artic’s first Indigenous commercial pilot, highlighting moments of his life, from his early childhood dreams of flying, to achievements experienced in his 70 years of flying.
The book has been praised for its captivating children’s story about an Idigenous “first,” for drawing on the Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun languages, and for Loreen-Wulf’s artwork, which Kirkus Reviews says “underscores the breadth and beauty of the subarctic landscape with scenes of musk oxen and caribou, broad snowfields, and swathes of seasonal wildflowers beneath twilit skies and bright Northern lights…”
The book itself was a first for Inuvialuit painter Loreen-Wulf, who knows and has been a passenger of Carmichael’s when he’d fly her into bush camps. She said Carmichael and Penguin/Random House Canada reached out to her to illustrate the book, which she agreed to. However, Loreen-Wulf’s “illustrations” are actually colour-accurate photographs of paintings on canvas she did for each of the pages.
“I do so much on canvas; I didn’t want to illustrate it as a drawing and then colour the drawings,” said Loreen-Wulf. “So I made an agreement with Penguin that I would just paint it right on canvas and they agreed to it. They photographed it and it turned out really interesting. It might be something for other artists to consider.”
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Flipping through the book, Loreen-Wulf becomes excited when it stops on a page with a painting of a snowmobile travelling at night towards one of the Northwest Territories’ famous Pingos (Inuvialuit for “small hill”).
“This is really important because snowmobiling to the Pingos, there’s two Pingos… in the middle of the night, that is really something,” said Loreen-Wulf.
Another thing in the book that stands out for Loreen-Wulf is a page in the back that offers the names of the months, and what they mean, in both Gwich’in and Inuvialuktun.
“It was supposed to be totally translated but it got too much,” said Loreen-Wulf. “Getting anything translated is really expensive, so we settled with just this. But the Penguin people were happy with it.”
Born in the Tuktoyaktuk area, Loreen-Wulf said she got into art and painting when she was in school.
“I was never a smart person at school but I could paint, I could draw, I could do all those things, so it’s something that I just kept going, and I started selling with just little cards at first, and it grew onto paintings and it’s what I’ve been doing all my life,” said Loreen-Wulf, noting much of her work has focused on the Northwest Territories, where much of her work has sold.
“She’s got paintings everywhere; she does portraits – in the Northwest Territories, in Yellowknife where the Legislative Assembly is, she did a portrait of one of the premier’s there,” said supportive spouse Harald Wulf. “She is well known.”
The Wulfs said they lived up north much of their lives, and called Burns Lake home prior to relocating to the warmer climate of Salmon Arm about a year ago.
“When we moved to Burns Lake, we didn’t know that was the coldest place in B.C.,” said Harald. “We said no, we want to get a little warmer, and we like fishing and stuff so this is good.”
Asked what she enjoys painting, Loreen-Wulf said she prefers animals and landscapes, though she receives a lot of requests to paint people – and their dogs.
“I’m not fussy – I’m a commercial artist, said Loreen-Wulf. “I’m the first one to say that. I attended a commercial arts school for a year where I learned all the disciplines of doing artwork . You can spend a lot of money and have lots of paintings collecting dust in your home, or you can sell things.”
Loreen-Wulf said Freddie the Flyer was available locally at Bookingham Palace.