Wayfaring the BearWatch Project

Workshops Summer 2019

Based on the desire for recognition and acknowledgement of the impact of these polar bear quota regulations, two workshops were co-organized, in the summer of 2019, to discuss and document testimonies of Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members.

Participants discussing during BearWatch TEK workshop 2019

The workshops were advertised over the radio in both English and Inuktitut (Inuit language), and interested individuals signed up through the HTA. One workshop was held May 15, 2019 in the evening with 10 participants and one on May 16 in the morning with 11 participants. These participants comprised mainly older male community members, many of whom had hunted, or still hunt polar bears. There were two female participants in each workshop. Three of the participants were between the ages of 20 and 40, with the remainder older. The two workshops focused specifically on the impacts of polar bear hunting quota reductions on the community. The workshop questions were co-designed by the BW academic researchers and HTA representatives and were asked in both English and Inuktitut to prompt discussion. The format however remained open-ended, meaning that "off-script" discussions were encouraged during the workshop, and occasionally specific members were asked to participate in answering particular questions because of their connection to the issue, as identified in previous interviews or by other community members. Two BW researchers and an interpreter would ask the pre-designed questions and prompt discussion, while a third BW researcher made notes. Both workshops were audio-recorded.

These recordings and workshop notes became the primary materials which were transferred to me, as a new PhD student on the BW project in 2020, with the purpose of having these experiences written out, as to a larger academic audience, through academic publishing, as part of the overarching research project.

Click here to go (back) to my deliberations around non-Indigenous scholars presenting Indigenous experiences in academic research

Click here to go straight to the different narrative outputs that BearWatch scientists, the Gjoa Haven HTA and several community members co-created, building off of these workshops.

Staying with the trouble: Politics of recognition

Covid-19

Invitation:Join along for a Caribou hunt

Covid-19 Remote interviews

Kingston in isolation

Punk and personal publication

Fieldtrip BW team Summer 2021

Gjoa Haven

Voices of thunder meetings

Camping at the Weir

Invitation:Trail-off to understand better how my whereabouts influenced my writing, reading and broader relationship to the country after this fieldtrip

Meetings Spring 2022 Coral Harbour

Walking the same road every day

Gender based violence

In text link to Point of Beginning Mx. Science

Fall 2022 Coral Harbour

In text link naar Design consultation pre-workshop & workshop Coral Harbour

Fall 2022 Gjoa Haven

In text link naar Design consultation pre-workshop & workshop Gjoa Haven

Prayer

Truck Flat Tire

In text return to Preparation Gjoa Haven workshop in the Workshop Gjoa Haven trace.