The Wreck-site

Althought the wrecksite can be seen as a familiar trope in the post-humanities and "blue" literature, it is in this case not a metaphorical figure. Around Gjoa Haven, two such sites, harbouring the shipwrecks of HMS Terror and HMS Erebus exist in proximity to the community. These sites speak to longstanding (knowledge) encounters between Qablunaat (non-Inuit people) and Inuit across time and space. Whether such encounters materialize through site-specific instances, by for example the repurposing of wood from these shipwrecks to create traditional objects, or through more generally encompassing structures like the Inuit Land Claim Agreements, the wrecksite refers, for me, to the materiality of cross-cultural encounter across time and space.

The wrecksite to me also slowly started to emerge as a complex body in which the apparatuses of (inter)national science-based polar bear conservation, Inuit self-determination, polar bear co-management and monitoring, but also the Bearwatch project, my knowledge-land-scape and your decisions are entangled. The shipwreck is a figure that gestures towards the dynamic interplay of all such material agencies.

Considering the BearWatch project as multiple sites of both cultural and natural multiplicity and opportunity, allows for understanding that ethical engagement might not need to be all or nothing endeavor, but rather a vista that opens previously closed processes to the possibilities of doing things differently - even if only "here and there". Like shipwrecks, projects might be sites of ‘becoming reef’, as well as they are sites of ‘becoming heritage’.

See how, a process of wayfaring reconceptualizes the idea of "final workshops" from projects coming to an end, towards being stories-so-far that are always also another point of beginning.

Turn to "Another Point of Beginning"