A familiar song can bring back a person as clearly as a photograph. For Elisapie, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” became a connection to her older brother Sailasie, who died when she was two. In her account of adapting the song for Inuktitut, she describes her mother’s emotional response to Fleetwood Mac and the way the music kept her brother present in their home.
She has now adapted another song called “Dreams,” this time the Cranberries’ recording, for another kind of story. “Sinnatuumakka (Dreams)” was recorded for North of North, whose second season features the Inuk singer-songwriter in a cameo performing it alongside “Arnaq.” The two recordings share an English title. Each has its own reason for being sung in Inuktitut.
In the announcement for the new recording, Elisapie connects dreaming with escape, the possibility of imagining another life when circumstances in the North are difficult. She relates that possibility to Siaja, the young Inuk mother played by Anna Lambe, who wants a better life for herself and the people around her in the fictional Arctic community of Ice Cove.
The filming produced one more performance beyond the scripted scenes. Series creators Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril describe Elisapie singing additional songs for the audience after filming wrapped, including a dedication to residential school survivors in the room, a gathering where the emotions of the performance didn’t have to fit inside the filming schedule.
The adaptation follows a process Elisapie developed on Inuktitut, her 2023 album of ten translated rock and pop songs. The idea began in the winter of 2021, when recordings she remembered from Nunavik’s community radio hit her with unexpected force. The album’s notes describe songs by Blondie, Metallica, Queen and Fleetwood Mac as music that offered refuge while colonization challenged community and cultural life. She began matching songs to the people and memories attached to them, then sought permission to translate and adapt them, with Joe Grass producing.
Her earlier “Sinnatuumait (Dreams)” honours Sailasie. Its video, directed by Philippe Léonard and filmed around Salluit, connects the recording to an early memory of riding on a motorcycle with her brother.
Heard together, the two adaptations show how differently a cover can function. Fleetwood Mac’s song carries a family memory. The Cranberries’ song carries Siaja’s hopes for her future. Same English title, same language of performance, and two distinct relationships to Inuit life.