Pootoogook was born at a traditional Inuit camp called Ikerasak, near Cape Dorset, Nunavut (then in the Northwest Territories) to Josephie Pootoogook, leader of the camp, and Sarah Ningeokuluk.
While working on his final, and unfinished, drawing of a Peterhead owned by his father, he was struck by coughing spells, which he declared was cancer.