Learning About Wrecksites

Like the other figures in this Knowledge-Land-Scape, wrecksites are not merely a metaphorical figure.

In the case of Gjoa Haven, two shipwrecks, respectively the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, exist in proximity to the community.

These shipwrecks speak to longstanding (knowledge) encounters between Qablunaat (non-Inuit people) and Inuit across time and space. Such encounters materialize through site-specific instances, like for example local trade, and later the repurposing of wood from these shipwrecks to create traditional objects. The wrecksites however also alludes to more expansive relational dynamics between Qablunaat and Inuit, like the Inuit Land Claim Agreements, (inter)national science-based polar bear conservation and polar bear co-management and monitoring.

Here and there, the shipwrecks of such larger generative forces reveal themselves as materially constitutive agential cuts that determine what can, and what can not exist, at particular moments in time within my research, this Knowledge-Land-Scape, and your decisions as you thread your way through it.

You have now learnt about all the phenomena that you may encounter in this Knowledge-Land-Scape. Return to the instruction cut to end this tutorial.

Return to instructions