[1] Ruben was born south of the hamlet of Paulatuk in the Inuvik Region east of the Mackenzie River Delta in the Northwest Territories, Canada in 1951.
[2] Ruben was born on November 26, 1951, at his family's winter camp, which was located at the old Catholic coal mine, about 35 miles southeast of Paulatuk.
[5] The rich vein of coal in the Paulatuk region had been used as fuel by the Inuit, then American whalers and missionaries, who set up their mission in 1938.
"[6] They moved among seasonal fishing and hunting camps, and most of their diet consisted of caribou, moose, muskox, game birds, waterfowl, and sea mammals.
[2]: 6 [4][8] At the university's Centre he "developed the understanding of how to combine traditional material and techniques with the contemporaneous interpretations of many myths and legends.
[3][8] After surviving cancer in late 2004, Ruben's sculpture reflected his interest in the Inuit/Norse Viking "contact period from the early 900s to the 1400s"[14] long before Europeans arrived in North America.
In his biography, Ruben described how he was partly inspired by the story of his maternal aunt, Paniabuluk, who became the Inuk wife of Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson and who assisted him on many of his expeditions.
Since then, Ruben has researched the "cultures of the circumpolar world, including those of Siberia, Scandinavia, Greenland and Iceland"[14] and found resonance between Inuit narratives and myths which is expressed through his art.
"[15]: 17 [16] Ruben works with a wide variety of materials including whalebone, narwal tusk, "soapstone from British Columbia, Oregon, Brazil and South Africa; alabaster from Utah, Portugal and Italy, Italian Carrara marble"[12] and bronze.
[10] From May to September 2014, the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in New York, a Smithsonian affiliate, hosted "The World of Man, Animals and Spirits: A Personal Interpretation" which includes about twenty sculptures in soapstone and bronze in which Ruben "contrasts the ancient lives of two northern peoples-Norse adventurers and Inuit (Inuvialuit) whale hunters-guiding us to a new perspective on the complex history of the North American Arctic, a history shaped by movement, contact, and change".
[14] In 2014–2015 his solo exhibition, Abraham Anghik Ruben "Moving Forward: Breaking Through" was shown at the Museum Cerny Inuit Collection, Bern, Switzerland.
[11] In 2015–2016, "Aurora Borealis: Abraham Anghik Ruben" was shown at Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife, NT.
[22][Notes 2] Ruben was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada on November 17, 2016, for his artistic contributions and for his preservation of Inuvialuit culture.