The importance of hunting to Inuit in 2021
Here's the situation: At your local airport, some Southerners are passing through. You overhear them making negative comments about hunting that you know aren't true.
Here's what you have to do: Pick one of the points that these people are talking about, and educate them about the Inuit perspective. Write one paragraph - from the heart, but backed up with facts that you have learned in land claims class (such as the Nunavut Wildlife Harvest Study). Respond on this blog.
Here's what the people are saying:
POINT 1: "Wildlife and their habitat must be left alone, or we will not have animals around in the future. Hunting and conservation don't go together!"
POINT 2: "Who hunts these days anyways? It's 2021, not 1921! Hunters are irresponsible and trigger happy! Hunting is a sport that has no place in our modern times!"
POINT 3: "Hunting is not necessary. You can feed your family at the grocery store if you just get a job!"
This is your chance to educate these people about your culture, and how important hunting is to Inuit. Good luck!
The importance of hunting in the North is a crucial part of our Inuit culture. We preserve and manage how we hunt, how much we hunt, and where we hunt. This practice has been used for thousands of years. If you compare buying grocery at your local grocery store yes it's easily accessible but hunting also provides nutritional meals as well, it's also a form of finding peace of escaping the "internet" or the "modern world" as it can be so hectic in the community or at home.
ReplyDeletePoint 3- "Hunting is not necessary. You can feed your family at the grocery store if you just get a job
ReplyDelete1"
First of all, Point 3 speaker needs to educate themselves of how it is to be an Inuk hunter up north. Point 3 needs to be in our hunters shoes before having these words said out loud. Point 3 person doesn't realize that not everyone in the community has jobs due to no available jobs for everyone in the community, some families in the community depend on family allowance and child tax every month. Point 3 person should ask our wildlife officer if they are able to hunt, but they would need a hunting license for certain animal they are interested in hunting. My common law of almost 5 years have been getting himself fishing license because he is not an Inuk, he is Indian.
I agree, it is so important for non-Inuit communities to learn and truly understand what it is like in the North. It gives me confidence knowing my partner would be able to join me in a activity on the land if I ever bring her up. I am glad our laws allow for the active regulation of wildlife by our own Hunters and trappers organizations.
DeleteFor point 1, in the land claims book there are regulations that are put up called Hunters and Trappers organization or HTO which each community gets an HTO representative. The HTO decides what can be hunted and where, ex. if there are fewer caribou than usual HTO would make a regulation so that people can only hunt what they need and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteHunting is a part of Inuit way to keep us living our healthy ways. Most hunters are taught by their fathers,grandfather, brother or even mothers. we are taught on how we use all parts of the animal, like the meat, skin/fur, how to cut it and we use the skin to make our hunting clothing. We do not waste any of the meat
ReplyDeletehunting is part of Inuit life we go hunt far and wide so we can feed our family and friends. this is not the old days anymore we can hunt in the mainland but in and in Baffin Island we have to have tags to hunt the caribous because of the low population in Baffin Island. and we have to have tags to hunt polar bears to kill them but if we kill them without tags were going to go to a court for killing the bears. Inuit loves eating polar bears too but needs tags to kill them.
ReplyDeleteAnyone can hunt nowadays, even ladies can hunt with boats. I have a cousin who loves to go boating with her own boat and motor. She has been hunting all summer and caught a lot of whales. She is so expert in everything. Hunting is now for everyone. She is so happy when she hunts out on the land, on the sea and she also loves to hunt geese during the spring. This year she caught lots of whale so she can have maktaaq the whole winter. Hunting is not only for men. Its 2022 now.
ReplyDeletePoint 2. Inuit hunt any kind of game, big or small. 2022, there is still hunting not just for sport but for food and our own nutrition. When Inuit are hunting, that is the time you will see them the most responsible, not being in the act of violence. In modern times, it is still crucial to us to hunt animals. It may not be your sport but it is the sport majority of us are best at.
ReplyDeleteAnswering Point 3.
ReplyDeleteHunting is very important especially to Inuit, imagine one day there are no more stores to buy food from, Inuit need to keep our hunting skills alive, Hunting animals makes a fridge/freezer full and so does our stomach we can be full for hours even days.
Getting a job is a good idea, but there are others with no job and wants to borrow cash from people with jobs.
To accurately assess the needs of Inuit at the basic level, one must first begin to understand the fact that Inuit for thousands of years have been stewards of the land. In order to fulfill this position it is essential in their culture that harvesting and gathering can effectively take place. Harvesting provides not only a means of nutrition, but a way of perceiving life. In Inuit culture, the reciprocal nature of our activities on the land dictate the method of our being. Harvesting provides a means of education, medicine, and social order. These activities are evident by evaluation of the Nunavut Wildlife Harvest Study which clearly indicates the level of participation in the cyclical economy. For instance, in the year 00/01, there were 1639 ringed seals caught in one community alone (Arctic Bay). This is evidence of Nunavummiut exercising their rights to harvesting a healthy diet to provide for their family and community.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteReplying to blog 3
Hunting and eating country food in Nunavut has been here since one thousand+ years ago.
Inuit has always relied on country food, Inuit has always said and still say hunting is a therapy. I don’t think the day will ever come where Inuit stop hunting.
In 1950’s the Government said to Inuit that if they stop hunting and stop living how they were living at that time, is that they would get paid millions but our leaders said “no forget it, our land is not for sale” so that is why aboriginal rights was first introduced in 1973.
Inuit got sick of doing whatever the Qallunaaq wanted them to do. All the dog slaughtering, sending Inuit children to residential school’s without any permission from the parents, this all took place in the 1950’s through the 1970’s, that’s 20 years! 20 years of just doing whatever they were told to do, no wonder they finally stepped up during the 1970’s. That is when aboriginal rights was first introduced in 1973. Aboriginal means that Inuit get to have rights to their own land and their tradition.
Kaaju.A
ReplyDeletePOINT 3: "Hunting is not necessary. You can feed your family at the grocery store if you just get a job"
As these are the modern times, this may seem barbaric, but as I see your shallow views, i cannot help but educate you in this matter. These group of people have been here before the colonizers, so what you're seeing right now is a practice of culture that has been preserved for thousands of years with no waste of the animal. Also as you can tell, we're very far from the store bought food with no roads to Nunavut, creating a high price here for everything here. As I can tell, you've only seen the southern ways and cities, Canada is very diverse, even with the indigenous, so please watch your mouth as you've only experience one way of living. Thank you, I hope you enjoy your trip experience.
As Inuit, we have been hunting and providing for our families since before colonization, since before the white man came around our land. For a southerner, who knows nothing about Inuit knowledge and tradition/culture to assume and say that "hunting is not necessary” and “you can feed your family at the grocery store if you just get a job” only shows how much they don’t know about our way of life - that being said, they have known only one way to live, and that is buying food from the store. As we live so far away from the rest of Canada, it means we have to get our food and everything else shipped by plane and ship yearly and it is NOT cheap.
ReplyDeleteWe have been living our way of life for a thousand years. Being colonized did not help. It made our way of life much more difficult. Food prices aren’t cheap, as they are down south.
So, before you have an opinion about something specific ALWAYS educate yourself! Do not assume things, that makes it much harder for you to know facts about something specific.