Hunting with my Ancestors - Bowhead Whale Hunt

From the 6-episode series Hunting With My Ancestors, in which Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk sensitively addresses the challenges and realities of traditional hunting in a rapidly changing world, the episode presented here focuses on bowhead whale hunting. This millennia-old practice, vital and culturally significant, was long forbidden due to commercial overfishing.

Reauthorized in the 1990s following an increase in the bowhead whale population, the government now allows a few communities to hunt one whale per year. A single one of these immense mammals can typically feed several hundred people. Every part of the whale is consumed or repurposed, from the meat and baleen to the fat. Even the bones are used to create sculptures. This puts into perspective the colonialist views of contempt and ignorance often conveyed by the anti-hunting movement in the mainstream media.

Son of a hunter, filmmaker Kunuk invites us to join him through all the stages of this impressive ancestral activity, alongside elders and young hunters from the Iglulik community. We discover traditional techniques skillfully adapted to the contemporary world and the changing conditions of the Arctic. This enriching immersion offers us the chance to be privileged witnesses to a practice of great cultural and identity significance for this people.

Jason Burnham
Tënk editorial manager