Kunuk has said his love of movies came from watching 16mm John Wayne films on Saturday nights at a community center.
Kunus and his 5 siblings grew up in a sod house in the Canadian arctic. His parents hunted with a dog sled and took care of the house in a subsistence culture.
He made living carving souvenirs, then larger art pieces. In 1981, in Montreal, he bought his first video gear and began a production company with Paul Apak Angilirq.
He learned English at age 9, at a parochial school in Igloolik, Northwest Territories (now Nunavut). At the time, the Canadian government forced
indigenous children to attend boarding schools.
He only shoots digital video, and has never shot film.
He has said the only instruction he has received on filmmaking was when
someone showed him how to recharge his camera battery.