page_title: The Way of the Eskimo
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: The Way of the Eskimo / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Advertisement for Selig one-reel drama films in 1911, including The Way of the Eskimo, The Warrant, and The Profligate; published in The Moving Picture World, July 15, 1911, p. 59.
context_page_description: The Way of the Eskimo is a lost 1911 American silent drama film that portrayed the Inuit or "Eskimo" culture of northeastern Canada along the coast of Labrador. Directed by William V. Mong and produced by Selig Polyscope Company, this "photoplay" was based on a love story written by Columbia Eneutseak, a young Inuit woman who was born in the United States in 1893, in the "Esquimaux Village" exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She, fellow Inuit performer Zacharias Zad, and William Mong costarred in the film with a supporting cast that included members of Columbia's immediate family and other Inuit players. While this production was promoted in 1911 as being filmed on location in northern Canada, it was actually shot that year at the snow-covered port town of Escanaba, Michigan, along a frozen stretch of shoreline of Little Bay de Noc, which connects to Lake Michigan.
  No copies of the motion picture are listed among the holdings of major film repositories in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or in the European Union. It is therefore currently classified as lost.
context_section_description: In trade publications in 1911, the film received generally positive reviews. The Moving Picture World in its July 29 review states, "This picture is unusual enough and good enough to make a good feature picture." The journal then remarks, "It is markedly educational and it tells a very interesting story. The story in this setting, primitive and simple, has much beauty...It is very commendable. A week later, in its August 5 issue, The Moving Picture World highlights the film again with a photograph of Columbia posing with her siblings and her mother, noting that audiences should find the film of "peculiar interest" since "the leading part has been taken by a young Eskimo girl of American birth". Cincinnati-based trade magazine The Billboard judged the "Eskimo love story" to be an "oddity" but "a very well acted little play".
caption: Promotion of "a story of heart interest" that was "produced in the far North".
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Photoshop Express 20.16.0.2760", "Image DateTime": "2020:05:26 15:44:47", "Image ExifOffset": "166", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:05:16 02:44:04", "EXIF OffsetTime": "-04:00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "580", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "800"}