Caribou hunt
During my first stay in Coral Harbour I was welcomed, kept company, and supported by Coral Harbour-based PI Leonard Netser and his family. Having never travelled to the North, and without the other research team members present, the situation allowed for Leonard and I to become acquainted with each other in a way that allowed for a degree of separation from some of the other emergent relational dynamics between the two of us as the project unfolded further. On March 23rd, 2020, Leonard invited me along on a Caribou hunting trip with his son. I was borrowed a suitable Caribou skin parka and pants, wolf-fur mitts, and polar bear fur Mukluks (boots) to remain comfortable during the 6 hours, -58 windchill hunt.
This hunting trip significantly influenced how the rest of my PhD-research developed. It was my first on-the-land experience in Inuit Nunangat, and my first exposure to hunting. As a visiting guest, and newly exposed to these circumstances, I was struck by the process of decision-making at multiple moments during the hunt. The choices made in terms of passing by multiple herds to reach seemingly more suitable areas for hunting Caribou, the procedures of tracking footprints, choosing which Caribou to shoot, and the obvious skills in terms of skinning and stripping the Caribou once shot all spoke to a dimensional richness of IQ that seemed to be missing from the TEK wokshops conducted in Gjoa Haven in 2019.
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Dressed in Caribou furs -
After hours on the back of a skidoo -
Leonard and Troy skinning and stripping a Caribou
