#arctic history

Not explorer related, but just a few reminders of why it’s so important for Inuit communities to have a say in how the archaeology of the Franklin wrecks is conducted and artifacts displayed.

I love seeing the Inuit artifacts in Canadian museums that are so sorely lacking in US ones, so my trip to see the new Erebus artifacts was, of course, also one to see the rest of the museum. With a modern focus on indigenous rights, museums are more willing to display artifacts that may have been nationally embarrassing years ago. Like these. The soapstone carving depicts a provincial officer shooting sled dogs, which was apparently supposed to encourage the Inuit to remain sedentary and part of French/ Anglo civilization (the logic of that escapes me as well). I was unaware of this until I saw the carving, but it was apparently a practice from the 1950s through the 1970s( 60s?). The next picture is even more unsettling as it reminds me of the yellow stars during the holocaust. Those are Inuit ID tags, and were supposed to be worn as a means of identifying the number of Inuit living in a province. I’m not sure if they were to be worn constantly or by those being relocated (anyone know more? This info is new to me becasue it was swept under the rug for so long and therefore not a part of any culture or archaeology book). Whatever the case, the existence of those things is disturbing to me. Especially since they were a part of a massive relocation and ’re-education’ program that involved taking children from their families and putting them in poor quality boarding schools.

The quote was in a display, and it really sums up why being able to handle all aspects of history is important to the people living on the land. Not too much to ask considering what came before.

Historical footage of a seal hunt (looks like it was filmed in the 1980s?) This film shows some of the skill and knowledge that is necessary to do this. Note how tiny the breathing hole is and the fact that the seal itself isn’t even visible until its dug out. You can see why European explorers don’t write much about killing seals in the arctic. The Antarctic, however, is a different game. Antarctic seals haven’t evolved with any land predators, human or otherwise. They just didn’t see humans as a stimulus to flee and were easily dispatched.