Trove of Inuit hunters’ wisdom retrieved amid Lancaster Sound debate

RANDY BOSWELL
Postmedia News

Nearly 40 years after researchers captured the memories of aging Inuit hunters from Baffin Island about lives spent in pursuit of the polar bear, whale and walrus, that priceless trove of traditional knowledge has been recovered from the vaults of Library and Archives Canada to be used in defining the boundaries of a proposed — and controversial — national marine conservation area in Lancaster Sound.

The rescue of accumulated decades — and, in effect, centuries — of Inuit hunting knowledge has come amid rising tensions between the federal government and several Baffin region communities over the planned marine park, which became a legal battleground this summer after a planned seismic survey of the Lancaster Sound seabed was scuttled by an Inuit lawsuit.

An injunction granted by a Nunavut court acknowledged the validity of Inuit concerns that sound blasts to have been used during the federally commissioned probe might harm populations of marine mammals that have been harvested by hunters for generations.

Former federal environment minister Jim Prentice — who has described Lancaster Sound as the “Serengeti” of the Arctic because of its impressive biodiversity — had insisted the summer seabed scan was not a prelude to petroleum exploration nor a danger to the narwhals and other species that inhabit the area.

Underlying the court fight were fears among environmentalists and Inuit groups that the seabed probe was a sign that federal geologists were preparing for potential oil exploration in the very Arctic waters scheduled to be set aside as an ecological reserve.

Now, in a bid to assert Inuit interests in protecting Lancaster Sound as both a species-rich ecosystem and as an important hunting resource, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association — in collaboration with federal archivists and the Montreal-based environmental consultancy Strata360 — have converted mountains of recordings, interview transcripts, hand-drawn maps and other documents into a set of proposed boundaries for the marine park.

The information, gathered by university researchers from Inuit hunters and elders in 1972 and 1973, was collected partly to ensure the accumulated wisdom of a people would not be lost amid wrenching social changes then unfolding in the North.

“At the time, as there was nowhere to store the material, it was agreed that the National Archives of Canada was the best location,” said Stephen Bathory, director of lands with the QIA.

“The information was stored with the intent that it one day would find its way back to Inuit.”

The challenge, Ottawa-based Library and Archives researcher Marc Cockburn told Postmedia News, was to organize the enormous mass of archived material and create a special finding aid to permit efficient access and analysis of the data.

In the end, he said, with direction from Strata360 consultant Bill Kemp, much of the collection was digitized and otherwise organized into a system that could yield useful summaries and maps of Inuit hunting history at the north end of Baffin Island.

For the Inuit, said Cockburn, this vast storehouse of traditional knowledge has “almost been rediscovered” through the process.

Last week, QIA vice-president George Eckalook announced the release of a detailed map based on the archive and its planned use in helping to establish the Lancaster Sound marine park boundaries.

“For many years, the knowledge collected from our community members has not been available to us,” he said. “I am proud that (the association) has committed to developing ways to return such valuable information and resource to the communities. ”

He added that the association “remains committed to the development of a National Marine Conservation Area in the Lancaster Sound area” — despite the recent legal battle with the federal government.

“Our communities are deeply tied to the wildlife and marine environment.

“This is our food source; this is our livelihood,” he added. “It is our goal to ensure the Inuit relationship to the Lancaster Sound area is used as a basis for boundary selection and conservation.”

This map was created by Qikiqtani Inuit Association, based on traditional knowledge of hunting areas for polar bear and walrus around Lancaster Sound, which lies between Baffin Island and Devon Island in Nunavut. Much of that knowledge was recovered from files stored at Library and Archives Canada following interviews conducted in the early 1970s to capture details about traditional Inuit hunting activities in the region.