Featured Inuit green soapstone carving

Canadian goose; sorry I missed the front on pic. I can't decipher the symbols at all, but think it also has the similarly meaningless (to me) number B5.723-3

 

B. I. NWT: Baffin Island, NW Territories?

 

it looks like it could be rather nice !

Jimmy Eesahlu....ee ha lu..??

@Mark London

 

I would say only the syllabics are original to the carving, the other notations and numbers are not usually found on inuit pieces, numbers are, of course but these numbers look like owners marks rather than co-op identifiers which have a different format.

 

It is actually siltsone or argilite from Sanikiluaq (Belcher Islands) carved before the creation of Nunavut. The artist is likely Josie Eqilaq (born 1960). All the writing except the numbers are likely by the artist.

 

Argillite? some soft variety I'm not familiar with I suppose - not at all like the Haida Gwaii stuff, is it? Looks like regular old soapstone to me, but I guess that's just my generic name for most Inuit carvings that aren't specifically identified other than by colour, e.g. black stone/green stone etc..
The electric chatter-marks from the engraving pencil present in the BI INUIT engraving was the reason I suggested only the syllabics were by the artist - which were as per usual practice, just scratched in.

 

Haida argillite is indeed quite different ...it's a carbonaceous shale.