[3][4] He lived most of his life in traditional Inuit camps near Cape Dorset, on the southwest coast of Baffin Island, now in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

[5] In the face of rapid technological change in the Inuit community, Pitseolak dedicated himself to preserving knowledge of the traditional ways of living, by writing, sketching, and especially photography.

Flaherty, best known today for his documentary movie Nanook of the North (1922), inspired Pitseolak's interest in photography.

[9] In the 1940s Pitseolak was living in Cape Dorset working for fur-traders when he acquired his first camera, from a Catholic missionary.

Along with Dorothy Harley Eber, he published People From Our Side (1975), the story of his early life,[11] and Peter Pitseolak's Escape From Death (1977), an account of a near disaster among the ice floes.

After contracting tuberculosis in 1945, Pitseolak shifted his work more towards intimate indoor photos of family and friends.

[13] According to Terry Ryan, former manager of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, Peter Pitseolak's nephew, Kananginak Pootoogook, greatly admired and was influenced by his uncle and also became an artist.