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.
Inuits in the Arctic can survive perfectly on a plant based diet
Vegans: We care about all life! We’re all equal!
Also vegans: I think Inuit people should starve :)
Animals in nature: *kill and eat each other all the time.*
vegans:
Commercial agriculture: *develops certain GMOs and pesticides that kill keystone bug species, which disrupts the environment and kills many different animals up the food chain as a result*
Vegans:
Commercial agriculture: *destroys local ecosystems by ripping out native species and replacing them with massive farms of exotic monocultures, resulting in the deaths and endangerment of millions of species*
Vegans:
Inuit people: *live in an environment where growing plant based food is extremely difficult, and where grocery prices are inflated past affordability so they hunt a few large animals every year which feed their entire community*
Vegans: that’s immoral and evil, actually.
@feathertayl
MY PEOPLE! MY PEOPLE ARE ALREADY STARVING! We are NOT the reason animals are going extinct. We have kept the EXACT SAME HUNTING PRACTICES FOR CENTURIES! CENTURIES! Before cars we hunted this way, before light bulbs we hunted this way, BEFORE AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA WAS COLONIZED WE HAVE HUNTED THIS WAY!
Orange juice in my home town is 25$ minimum! We buy bread for special occasions! Something Southern people have on their dinner table 24/7 is something I would see only a few times a year!
Not to mention, we use AS MUCH OF THE ANIMAL AS POSSIBLE! Bones become plates, and silverware (or in some cases jewlery), fur and blubber becomes homes and clothing and beds. Teeth become combs. And we eat EVERYTHING! I’ve had brains, and eyeballs, and intestines. Anything that can be eaten, will be eaten. We DONT throw ANYTHING away. And if we have too much (which is rare but has happened before) we leave it for the suffering wild life!
Polar bears will come and gouge themselves on a whale we don’t finish, wolves will feast on some left over seal tails, foxes will devour caribou carcases!
Even now, we are curbing our hunting ideas. We DONT hunt as many whales as we used too, we used to hunt maybe five a year, but now we hunt one to three! Seals are also taken care of but use only hunting males, and older males at that! Caribou was my family’s main meal, and lemmings when they would come around.
If you are vegan, cool! More power too you! But you probably live in a place that can grow more than lichen, and grass. You live in an industrialized place, where everyone has a car, and house.
Some of my people still don’t own these things. We are so far north, cars are hard to maintain, electricity for my childhood home came from a car battery we would buy from the soldiers and sailors, we didn’t have wifi, or even phones.
