[3] With her mother's encouragement, Napachie began drawing in her early twenties, developing her own unique style and viewpoint.

[2] The drawings created toward the end of her career told stories from her personal life and those of her ancestors, going back two generations.

[7] Some of those later pieces illustrated darker aspects of Inuit life – covering themes like spousal abuse, starvation, forced marriage and infanticide.

[7] Pootoogook's drawings were primarily done with acrylic paints, black felt-tipped pens or pencil crayons.

[2] Her artistic style changed after she completed courses in acrylic painting and drawing workshops at the West Baffin Co-operative in 1976.

[8] In 1981, her work was included in an exhibition titled "Eskimo Games: Graphics and Sculpture" at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome, Italy, and a traveling exhibition titled "Arctic Vision: Art of the Canadian Inuit" organized by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in Ottawa.

[8] In 1988, the University of Missouri included her work in an exhibition called "Inuit Women and their Art: Graphics and Wall-hangings.

"[1] In 2005, her work was shown alongside her daughter Annie Pootoogook's at Feheley Fine Arts Gallery in Toronto, Ontario.

[1] The 1993 documentary Quanak & Napachie documented Pootoogook's throat singing and her performance in Ottawa at a Canada Day celebration.