North of North actor Anna Lambe has been chosen by Up Here magazine as its 2025 Northerner of the Year.
The Arctic comedy series, jointly produced by APTN, CBC and Netflix, was widely considered a triumph on its arrival at the start of the year and has been renewed for a second season.
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Lambe, from Iqaluit, stars as Siaja, whose attempts to navigate her personal and professional lives in a Nunavut community form the heart of the show.
“Lambe’s voice grew along with her confidence, and she’s emerged not only as an artist but also as one of the most eloquent and empathetic voices representing the culture, identity and experience of young Inuit today,” Up Here writes in its latest edition.
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“The North occupies a mythic place in the Canadian imagination. But what most people know about it comes from the clipped voice of news coverage, at best. They may understand issues in abstract, intellectual ways, but they don’t relate on a gut level.
“Lambe’s presence changes that. She delivers more than something to think about. She communicates northern realities that have been too easily overlooked for too long. You feel them – the good and the bad, the messy and the funny.”
Lambe’s on-screen debut came in The Grizzlies, a 2018 sports drama about youth in Kugluktuk that was mostly shot in Iqaluit.
“She’s such a natural leader,” the magazines quotes The Grizzlies director Miranda de Pencier as saying.
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“Even when people are challenging her on social media or wherever, she’s able to turn it back to people, even in conflict, and have conversations that are really honest in a way that preserves this openness about her.”
Last year, Up Here selected Yukon “bear whisperer” Phil Timpany as its Northerner of the Year.
The magazine says its first Northerner of the Year was Tagak Curley, then a minister in the NWT government, selected in 1987.
