With Old Traditions and New Tech, Young Inuit Chart Their Changing Landscape | Hakai Magazine

2022-09-05

I recommend this article, for it story-telling and stunning photos (and infographics). We’re learning more about the Inuit culture and life in the Arctic as the Arctic warms, jeopardizing the Inuit culture as well as the welfare (and lives) of animals (mammals, fish, birds, insects) that are facing extirpation or extinction. This article lays it all out for you, in detail, and with interesting side stories.

This article is way too long for a fair excerpting. Hakai doesn’t have a paywall, so enter and read.

Then there’s this little essay from one of the two Hakai staff members who went up north to document this story. It’s worth a read:

I hadn’t expected to see whales die. Cheryl Katz and I had traveled to Arviat, Nunavut, to report on a story about a community-led seafloor mapping project. But reporting trips almost always necessitate rolling with what comes, and on our first day in the northern territory, we were swept along on a community beluga hunt. I lifted my camera, gunshots ringing out around me, and tried to both brace myself against the rocking boat and to ground myself in neutrality. As someone prone to feeling others’ pain too acutely, the plumes of blood blossoming in the shallow water and tails beating with last, desperate muscle twitches made my throat tighten. It was my first time seeing belugas in the wild, and it was hard to witness life draining from them. But I am also rooting for the people who rely on a challenging landscape for much of their food, and who have remained resilient in the face of invasive colonial influences. Whose well-being should take precedence? As a visitor, it is not my place to say. But as a photographer, I believe it is imperative that I share images responsibly. Photographs can be conduits for criticism, and there’s a troubling history of outsiders judging the actions of Inuit or other Indigenous hunters from afar. I don’t want my camera to invite disdain. In the end, our team chose to include a few images of the hunt, trusting that our readers are attuned to the complexities of and rights ingrained in sustenance hunting.

The handful of whales that died that night yielded bins full of jiggly meat that the hunters brought home to divvy up among family and friends. When we arrived back on shore, dozens of people were eagerly waiting with plastic bags or buckets to receive their portion. Far behind us, where the whales had been butchered, the remaining flesh would soon be consumed by hungry polar bears, birds, and other organisms—a few animals lost fueling so many others.