Thomassie Mangiok loves his land and the culture it created so much he wants to share it with everybody.

Since he can’t bring the world to his tiny Arctic hamlet on Quebec’s northernmost tip, he invented a way to bring Inuit life in Ivujivik to the world.

“I’m inspired by Inuit culture,” Mangiok said in a telephone interview.

“When I was out on the land, I want to share what I love. I think I was out on the snowmobile when I thought, ‘OK, I have to make a game out of this.’

“I’ll make a game that promotes balance, living healthily with nature and give people a sense of exploration as they play.”

The result is a board game called “Nunami.” The object is not to control territory or dominate your opponent, but to achieve a productive co-existence.

“It came from my love of things out of my culture,” said Mangiok, a school administrator. “I wanted to encourage people to live in balance with others — people, animals, plants, whatever.”

In “Nunami” — Inuktut for “on the land” — two to four players take roles as either human or nature. The players put pieces within hexagons on the game board and try to collect points by filling the hexagons.

Players get points if they have most of the pieces in a filled hexagon, or if the sum of numbers on the pieces stays within the game’s 12-point range of minus six to six. If the total is out of that range — meaning the hexagon is “out of balance” — all the pieces come out and no points are scored.

It took Mangiok about a year to work out the rules and to make his first games out of paper and parts fabricated on the school’s 3D printer. “We got a 3D printer because we like to encourage our students to produce things.”

His mother, Passa Mangiuk, and his daughter, Pasa Mangiok, helped with the design.

He now has a deal with a U.S. company to mass-produce “Nunami.” And he has almost 400 people lined up to buy the game as soon as he reaches his fundraising goal on Kickstarter.

When that goal is reached — Mangiok was less than $2,000 away on Monday — production and shipping is to begin.

Board games are big in Mangiok’s family — especially during Ivujivik’s long, cold winters — and he’s played plenty of them, from classics such as checkers to modern favourites such as “Settlers of Catan.”

He believes his game is hooking into something that people are looking for.

“People generally are becoming very sensitive to the environment, to the damage that we’ve been causing. I’ve been receiving positive comments.”

But he’s quick to add that “Nunami” is, after all, a game.

“As long as you get to have fun, that’s what’s important.”

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter @row1960