Tundra Woman

I’d like to have ended the year with several posts on recommended viewing and
reading, but I should know by now that making plans is how you get the universe to laugh at you. Which actually isn’t a bad segue into talking about North of North.



The delightful series’ first season of eight half-hour episodes debuted in Canada last January and globally on Netflix in April. It’s happily been renewed for a second to bow in 2026. Pretty much every critical review or discussion I came across when it premiered all but apologized for pushing it, comparing its tone and/or environment to some of the brightest stars in the constellation of great television while cautioning that it was merely, to repeat my own self, delightful — and for those averse to the unfamiliar it might be a tough sell considering the only recognizable face in its cast for most viewers will be 24’s Mary Lynn Rajskub.

I get where those caveats are coming from. North of North is set in the fictional Ice Cove, a tiny community in the Canadian Arctic, filmed on location in Nunavut. A comedy with drama, or vice versa, as well as romance and not quite enough magical realism for my taste after the first chapter’s inciting event, it has workplace humor, relationship farce, and local color that may remind you of Northern Exposure, Parks and Recreation, Gilmore Girls, and the recent, outstanding Reservation Dogs.



All of it revolves around Siaja, played by Anna Lambe on the heels of a small role in True Detective: Night Country, searching for direction after disappointment in what others consider having it made in terms of life as they know it. Siaja got married young to Ice Cove’s golden boy of her generation, Ting, but following an epiphany while nearly drowning she moves with her daughter Bun into her free-spirited mother Neevee’s house, gets a trial position at the community center under Rajskub’s Helen, and meets the father she never knew via circumstances that I’ll simply describe as less than ideal.

The show’s creators, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald, both from Nunavut, have with their crew and cast forged a tremendously specific yet universally relatable little saga. As I’ve done watching the recent crop of television revolving around or inclusive of Indigenous and Native American society, from Reservation Dogs to Dark Winds and The Lowdown or even the Marvel series Echo, I find North of North a much appreciated window into another culture that, again, resonates broadly. Like the critics mentioned earlier, I’m not saying that it’s the absolute best thing streaming, but also like them I’ll make a last-ditch effort at getting you to check it out some cozy winter night by teasing one episode title and the game behind it: Walrus-Dick Baseball.
You’re welcome.



Images from North of North courtesy Netflix.


Related: Cryptopia • Osteo la Vista • North Mythology