Anna Lambe takes the ELLE Canada cover as her career moves far beyond North of North
Anna Lambe appears on the cover of ELLE Canada’s October 2026 issue, on newsstands Sept. 21.
Photo credit: Royal Gilbert/ELLE Canada.
Anna Lambe is on the cover of ELLE Canada this fall, arriving there during a September that has already included the second season of North of North and the world premiere of another Canadian film in which she takes the lead.
The magazine has named the Inuk actor from Iqaluit its October 2026 cover star, with the issue arriving on newsstands and Apple News+ Sept. 21. Photographed by Royal Gilbert and styled by Jay Forest, Lambe fronts an issue that ELLE Canada is introducing with a simple description of where she is now: “dreaming bigger and discovering that there are no limits to what she can do.”
There is plenty happening around her to support the timing. The second season of North of North began its exclusive world premiere on APTN+ Sept. 1, with its final two episodes scheduled to arrive Sept. 22 before the season completes its APTN television run Sept. 29. Lambe is back as Siaja, the young Inuk mother at the centre of the fictional Nunavut community of Ice Cove.
Earlier this month, Lambe was at the Toronto International Film Festival for the world premiere of Nyla Innuksuk's In the Heart of the South. She plays Yura Ivalu, an Inuk artist making a name for herself in Toronto who turns to a traumatic episode from her childhood when she is given the opportunity to make a film. Her estranged childhood friend Sesi, played by fellow North of North actor Zorga Qaunaq, reappears as Yura's professional success is growing.
The film premiered at TIFF Sept. 10 and is continuing through the Canadian festival circuit, with screenings scheduled at the Calgary International Film Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival.
Lambe's screen career began with The Grizzlies, the Nunavut-set film directed by Miranda de Pencier. She played Spring, making her screen debut after almost missing the opportunity entirely. According to the Inuit Art Foundation, Lambe almost didn't attend the audition until a former drama teacher encouraged her to try out.
The film was shot in her hometown of Iqaluit, and her performance earned her a Canadian Screen Award nomination for supporting actress. Two of its producers, Nunavut filmmakers Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, later created North of North. The Grizzlies itself was made with extensive Inuit and Indigenous participation: the production reported that more than 91 per cent of its cast and more than 33 per cent of its crew were Inuit or Indigenous.
Lambe went on to appear in CBC's Trickster, adapted from Eden Robinson's novel Son of a Trickster, and later joined HBO's True Detective: Night Country as a guest star, in a cast led by Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.
Aglok MacDonald and Arnaquq-Baril eventually brought Lambe back to Nunavut television with North of North. Co-commissioned by CBC and Netflix in association with APTN, and produced by Red Marrow Media and Northwood Entertainment, the series follows Siaja as she rebuilds her life in the fictional Arctic community of Ice Cove. Netflix calls it its first original series commissioned from Canada, and the company has described it as the first production of its scale filmed in Nunavut.
Lambe drew from her own experiences growing up in Iqaluit when developing Siaja. She has spoken about recognizing elements of the character's story in people she knew growing up, while the series gave her room to play a contemporary Inuk character navigating motherhood, work, relationships and life in a small community.
Her newest lead role keeps her in an Inuit story while taking her somewhere very different. In the Heart of the South begins with Yura and Sesi as children in Iqaluit before moving years later to Toronto, where Yura is working in the art world. Vancouver International Film Festival describes Innuksuk's psychological thriller as engaging with questions of representation, appropriation and the exploitation of Indigenous pain within the screen industries.
The film also reunites Lambe and Qaunaq after North of North, where Qaunaq plays Millie. This time they are playing childhood friends in a story that becomes increasingly unsettling as Yura turns her past into material for a film.
Lambe also has work ahead outside Canada. The Calgary International Film Festival lists her upcoming credits as including Heart of the Beast and The Social Reckoning, while the Inuit Art Foundation has separately identified Heart of the Beast, the David Ayer film starring Brad Pitt, among her upcoming projects.
Throughout that growing filmography, Iqaluit remains the clearest and most consistently documented way to describe Lambe's own community connection. The Inuit Art Foundation identifies her artistic community as Iqaluit, Nunavut, within Inuit Nunangat, and has described her as Iqaluit-born. Lambe has also repeatedly discussed growing up in the city and drawing on those experiences in her work.
Her ELLE Canada cover arrives while North of North Season 2 is rolling out in Canada and less than two weeks after In the Heart of the South premiered at TIFF.
The October issue of ELLE Canada, featuring Lambe on the cover, goes on sale Sept. 21.
