Walrus hunt captured in photos for Inuit cultural school
Piqqusilirivvik project to document hunt, meat preparation
A group of photographers joined a walrus hunt near Igloolik recently to help put together learning materials for Nunavut's cultural school.
Niore Iqalukjuak was one of three photographers enlisted to record the hunt in still photographs and video, using cameras, go-pros and drones.
"Our culture — we learn by watching and everything isn't really documented because of that. Piqqusilirivvik is trying to put together documents that will show how everything is done… Almost like a textbook," he said.
The photographers tried to capture everything from the beginning to the end and the project won't be done until next April when the meat is done fermenting. He said they were lucky to go out with people who knew what to do and each had their own way of preparing and caching the meat, and were eager to share their methods.
For Iqalukjuak, the hardest part was not taking part in the hunt when guides offered him the chance.
"My head kept saying no … because I knew how important it was for me to capture everything, but my heart kept saying 'yes, yes, I'd love to get a walrus.' It was a tough thing to do, to just shoot pictures."
He says photography is "a pretty neat way of sharing how we live" and he takes his camera along to all sorts of different activities in his community. He hopes the photos and video recorded of the hunt do it justice.
"You want to do a good job of it. You're capturing something that people will learn from. And hopefully whatever I capture will be still be used long after I'm gone. That is something that is, to me, amazing."
