Beatrice Deer – Inuit Legend
Today, acclaimed “Inuindie” singer-songwriter Beatrice Deer announced her new album Inuit Legend, set for release on April 3.
The project is a portal to a wildly enchanted world largely unknown to those outside its borders. Throughout the spellbinding suite of songs, Beatrice Deer reimagines a number of fables and real-life tales passed down from her ancestors, interpreting each phantasmic piece of folklore through a decidedly modern lens.
With its deliberate focus on stories of feminine power, the album makes for a thrilling document of transformation and survival – a narrative closely aligned with Deer’s own journey in struggling against the extraordinary hardship endemic to her homeland of Nunavik (a historically disenfranchised region deep in the Canadian Arctic). When met with her raw yet extravagant take on indie-rock, Inuit Legend brings a bold new vitality to its age-old stories, ultimately transmitting their transcendent wisdom to an audience that spans beyond boundaries of any kind.
Alongside the announcement, Beatrice Deer shared the single + visualizer,“The Bear.”
The brooding yet exhilarating indie-rock track tells the true Inuit tale about how an elderly woman, left to travel alone during a famine, encountered a polar bear and killed it using only her walking stick and mittens – returning at dawn with fresh meat that ensured the survival of her family.
Deer says, “‘The Bear’ is one true story of many about survival during the famine of the early 1900’s. We Inuit are alive today because of the sacrifices and selfless acts our ancestors did during those dark times. It’s also a reminder to our youth that ‘you can’t die when it’s not your time’ so choose life instead of ending it.”
Beatrice Deer is an award-winning Inuit singer-songwriter based in Montreal. Half-Inuk and half-Mohawk, Beatrice was born and raised in Nunavik, Quebec, in the small village of Quaqtaq. Her award-winning songs are crafted upon deeply personal lyrics and blend indie rock and modern folk with traditional Inuit stories and throat singing.
Deer’s illustrious career is marked by a string of remarkable achievements and accolades in the arts community. Her achievements include winning the 2018 Canadian Folk Music Award, the 2019 Indigenous Music Award for Best Folk Album and the 2020 Canadian Screen Award for her co-composed score for Giant Bear. In 2021 she was awarded the Prism Prize and named an Apple Ambassador, and appeared as a finalist on Quebec’s Talents Bleus. Her film score for Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice earned multiple honors including IMDB Short Cuts’ Best Canadian Film at TIFF and a shortlisting for an Oscar nomination. Her 2021 single “UQAUTINNGA” reached No. 1, and in 2022, she was invited to sing for the Pope during his visit to Canada. Deer was named Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Award Inuit Artist of the Year in 2023 and received the King Charles III Coronation Medal in 2024.
A beloved figure in Arctic Canada, Deer has performed worldwide, at the Venice Biennale, Norway’s Førde Traditional and World Music Festival, and the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. She was named Woman of the Year by The Montreal Council of Women in 2023 and was commissioned to tailor an outfit for Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, for the coronation of King Charles III.
#beatricedeerband