"Ikumajaq" genre: Abstract
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	5000 years ago, an Innu man finds himself trapped under the arctic ice, these are his dreams, or hallucinations. This soundscape accompanies a flash animation which has been accepted into the LOOK Exhibition, a juried art exhibition in the Gallery Lambton in sarnia, Ontario, Canada.
	CD: Earth 2   Label: MBPro Credits: Mike Blackmore - composer, engineer
	Story Behind the Song Fifty centuries ago, in a time before borders, Ikumajaq pulls his ikyak across a barren landscape. There are no laws for him to obey other than the common sense rules which permit survival in such a harsh terrain. The forces of the wind, the water, and frigid cold, grind away on all life present. Ikumajaq is crossing one hundred yards of untrustworthy ice in the high arctic. He hums to ease the fear, straining to pull the eighty pounds of seal meat back to his family. Knee-deep drifting snow snakes across the black ice surface. It is a bright day. He stops halfway across the inlet, from this vantage point he should see his home, but today he is denied a glimpse. Deep cracks form around his eyes and on his brow. He squints, in a vain attempt to see the encampment, still a mile away. The day is bright. One step, one step on a weak spot in the ice, maybe a seal had made a breathing hole there a few days ago, or he has been too deep in thought to hear the ice splitting beneath, maybe the current was swifter than in years past, for whatever the reason, he has missed the signals that would have told him of the weak surface he is now plunging through. He finds himself looking up through the ice. It’s bluish hue is like the sky. Ten thousand years ago, at a time of great climactic changes on the earth, life in Africa became unbearable, forcing a great migration. Seven thousand generations of Ikumajaq’s ancestors had passed since the trek began. Living and dieing in a succession of new found homelands, in the Caucuses, on the Steppes, throughout the Aleutians. Their culture and belief system changing with their environment and new peoples encountered along the way. They had in merely went from one desert to another, both extreme, and both unforgiving. Ikumajaq has dreams, whether they are dreams of the past, or of the future, in these dreams there are so many places, people, and things he could never explain to his wife, mother, father or children. The dreams are familiar, but different from the campfire tales of his people, more vivid, more colourful and more real. As Ikumajaq looks into the blue glow of the ice that traps him, he curses the goddess Nuliaguk for pulling him down, and, releasing his last breath, he begins to dream … these are his dreams …

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