Female doll dressed in winter caribou-skin clothing.

In 1910, the Canadian Northern Railway commissioned Robert J. Flaherty (1884 – 1951) to search for iron ore deposits along the northeast coast of Hudson's Bay. Flaherty visited the Arctic over several years during which he collected a wide range of Inuit artifacts. He became interested in filming Inuit life and his popular 1922 silent film, Nanook of the North, garnered him acclaim as a documentary film pioneer.