We Need To Take a Second Look At Who We’re Advocating For
Why is the seal hunt is so essential in Inuit communities?
The traditional seal hunt is a sustainable way of getting local resources. If Canada were to ban the Inuit seal hunt completely, Inuit families would suffer from malnutrition, they wouldn’t have money for needs and another part of their culture will be ripped from beneath their feet.
Harp seals are not endangered in anyway, if anything this is an act of balancing nature, there are about eight to ten million harp seals in the Atlantic. This is something that is pushed to the side but in just 2010, seventy percent of Inuit reported food insecurity.
The traditional seal hunt is essential in Inuit communities because it is the main source of food and resources, as well as it’s a way to connect with tradition on a wider scale and reinforce community ties.
In 1983, an anti-seal ban was set in place which stopped people from buying seal skins, this lowered the price of seal skin market.
As a result, about seven out of ten Inuit children go to school every day hungry. Along with this, Inuit peoples have the highest suicide, poverty and unemployment rates, along with the highest living costs.
An individual living in these remote communities with fifty dollars in hand could buy fuel to go hunting or a very small amount of junk food from the Arctic store.
“Seal meat is lean with less than two percent fat…It’s a free, local and inexpensive food source that offers much better nutrition than what you can often buy in Arctic stores” . This is an example of why this hunt is needed, because money is a huge issue in these communities so they really only have what the land can give them.
In 2017, I got the chance to go into one of these communities and see first-hand what is really going on. Going to the store for me was difficult with things priced like eighty-two dollars for a case of pop, thirty dollars for a little container of blueberries and twenty-five dollars for a cabbage. I wouldn’t even want to think how I’d feel to go home with not even enough food to make my family dinner because I didn’t have the money.
Something equally as important, many people like to say that the seal hunt is the most inhumane out of the hunts but, this is just a rumor, they do not waste any part of the seal and they have a deep connection with them. “You can weave the intestines together to make rope. Every part of that beautiful animal is used…It is a deep respect” . This just shows how much they try to salvage from the seal, every part down to the intestines.
These resources are used, sold and consumed for example:
They eat the meat and the organs
They make jewelry, tools, art and games from the bones
They use the fat and oil for lamps to light and heat their homes
They treat the pelt as a bonus, these are made into clothing, shoes and accessories
The bonuses are important for the Inuit to be able to generate an income for simple needs like rent. Also, the fur pelts are a very important thing to possess in their cold winters.
Really, what’s the big difference between us killing hundreds of cows daily for meat and wasting the hides from the traditional seal hunt where they only kill when needed and use every single part of the animal?
As a result of colonialism, connecting with tradition and reinforcing community ties is very important in Indigenous culture.
Due to actions taken by Christian- European culture, like creating residential schools, Indigenous people lost most of the traditions they practiced, it is important to keep as many as we can alive.
“Many traditions, customs, beliefs and oral histories revolve around the seal. Inuit peoples were and still have an important and direct relationship with this animal” . This meaning, the Inuit way of life revolves around hunting mainly seals due to the harsh conditions they live in, hunting is just a tradition in their culture. Due to the conditions they have to live in, it is difficult for other animals to survive.
When hunting, they never kill in an inhumane way, they think of the animal as a blessing rather than a reward. That to say, these traditions are harmless practices that bring people together as a culture.
”One of the traditions is to melt snow in your mouth and then put it into the seal’s mouth so their spirit isn’t thirsty in the afterlife” . This is one example that explicitly shows how the Inuit still value the life of the animal after it’s past away.
This admiration for the animal is carried out throughout the entire process of obtaining resources from the animal, whether that be using the skins for clothing of using the meat for consumption.
This is a celebration of life that brings individuals together, just like birthdays, weddings, funerals or practicing Christian- European culture, they’re all different types of traditions.
The traditional seal hunt is crucial in these remote Inuit communities. The main reasons of this are because it is the main source of food, income and resource and it connects Inuit to tradition on a wider scale and reinforces community ties. This is such an important topic because it results in larger issues like food insecurity, malnutrition and many more!
