The Inuit Demi-Goddess Nelvana of the Northern Lights - a Cowgirl?

Nelvana of the Northern Lights, a comic book created and drawn by Canadian artist Adrian Dingle in 1941, adheres to many of the tropes contained within the cowboy genre but fundamentally the character Nelvana subverts many of the traditional characteristics of the Cowboy.

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, Nelvana was written during the Second World War when Canada could not obtain comic books from the United States due to the War Exchange Conservation Act.  This unique heroine Nelvana--who predates Marston's WonderWoman--was a demigod born of a mortal mother and an unseen Inuit God/father by the name of Koliak. However, she was represented as the familiar archetypal white bombshell beauty, modeled off of Hedy Lemar, in lieu of the more exotic and foreign Inuit female. Additionally, Nelvana had her own super-powers, and was the rescuer of her people; the Eskimos (Inuit).

Nelvana, the feminine protagonist, certainly does not fit many of the traditional cowBOY characteristics but as you will see Nelvana of the Northern Lights--at least in the earlier story-lines--fits the western genre. The first multi-episodic story arcs were set in the Canadian Arctic. Nelvana is summoned by her people, a politically matrilineal culture, to protect them from the external threat at the hands of the evil Kablunets.* The Kablunets were attacking the Canadian North for its resources in an effort to win the war.  In one episode we see the Kablunets hunting all of the whales to destroy a food source for the Northern Canadians and to obtain an alternative form of fuel, and in another indenturing the "Eskimos", forcing them to mine an ore of strange powers.** In all of the early stories, Nelvana most definitely protects her people (the Inuit/Eskimos) from an outside threat, but rather than gunslinging skills, she relies upon her near omnipotent superpowers. 

What is interesting, particularly given the era this was written (1940's) , Dingle paid particular attention to the process of colonization and in doing so, he subverted the Cowboy/Indian motif. In Nelvana, the threat is provided by the warring non-Indigenous foreigners exploiting the unknown lands, rather than the traditional warring "Indians" threatening the settlers' new homesteads, whilst the hero--the cow"boy" as a girl--and her Inuit people are the "good guys" protecting themselves from the foreign threat. Dingle slyly places us, the readers, in the position of an as yet unconquered people who are fighting back against the invading antagonists/colonizers, whilst bringing the thrill of World War II to the shores of Canada. Additionally, by placing the threat in the Canadian Arctic, Dingle creates a jonbar point and asks the question "What if the War came to Canada?" (keep in mind, the war never actually touched Canadian soil). Readers experienced the thrill of this alternative possibility from a safe and still "foreign" distance, and from the colonizer's perspective, even though Canadians were at risk, it was never "real" Canadians at risk due to their Indigeneity, and thus not "quite" as threatening to Dingle's intended audience. 

     (Page 4, Panel 4 of Death Stalks the Arctic)                     

However in choosing to use an Inuit Demi-Goddess, Dingle created a challenge for himself; very few Canadians knew much if anything about the Inuit culture. In order to rectify this Nelvana is at times a didactic reader of sorts, providing an introduction to how the Inuit lived, including nominal translations of Inuit words.

(Page 2 of Death Stalks the Arctic)                

Dingle incorporated many attributes of the Western in his war-time anti-Western. He uses the Arctic for the setting; a barren, largely uninhabited, and by nature of the extreme climate, threatening terrain for the protagonist and her people. Very few Canadians have ever experienced this landscape, even today, let alone in the 1940's, despite being "Canadian". Due to its remoteness, Dingle created a romantic foreign setting also typical to the western. He capitalized on the public's knowledge of the war to both criticise the Germans and the German ideology that threatened our real daily lives, and to drive his story of the Kablunets*** threatening the way of life for the Inuit. In order to make Nelvana yet more relatable to his readers, Dingle re-envisioned the popular Canadian built  DeHavilland Mosquito--a plywood bomber--with the "Plastex Dragon-flies". 

                                                                      (Page 5, Panel 6 of Battle of the Arctic) 
 
Throughout  the short lived run of Nelvana, Dingle penned a strong, independent, and appealing character--with super-powers--who fought, and defeated, a recognizable enemy that threatened our daily lives. Looking at Nelvana today, we are transported back in time, and can read Nelvana in the same romantic light as we do the traditional Cowboy Western, albeit with a unique... Canadian twist. 
 
*Germans and/or Whites/Non-Indigenous people depending upon where in the series you happen to be, there is some confusion as to the usage; variation on the spelling of Qallunaat that means "white people"

**Presumably Plutonium 

***This is where the intended meaning of Kablunet gets blurry. Was Dingle referring to the Germans threatening Canadians, or was Dingle taking a stand on colonialism and the White threat to Indigenous livelihoods?

Works Cited:

Dingle, Adrian, Nelvana of the Northern Lights. Nicholson, Hope (Ed.) & Richey, Rachel (Ed.). Canada, IDW Publishing. 2014. Print.