Nunavut’s hunt for healthy food – Canadian Geographic

by ahnationtalk on January 24, 202553 Views

Jan 24, 2025

Across Nunavut, food insecurity continues to affect daily life. For many Inuit, the answer lies not in the grocery store, but on the land.

With winter retreating and warm temperatures returning, hunters in communities across the North ready their rifles for the season of the nesting geese. As the sea warms further, nets are laid in anticipation of the season of the running char. Soon after, the midnight sun coaxes bloomed tundra flowers into setting fruit, marking the season of the berries. And when migrating hooves begin to beat the Earth once more, ATVs are mounted and rifles slung over backs for the season of the caribou hunt.

Rather than by months, communities across the North have long broken down their years into seasons that once dictated where a group would live geographically to make the most of the available resources. Hunting, fishing and gathering were the traditional mainstays of a healthy diet but also, more broadly, of daily life. They still are, but as of 2020 about three- quarters of Nunavut’s Inuit households are considered food insecure. These cultures, long adapted to exist amid the challenges of Arctic living, are losing secure access to the diet that their ways of life had long sustained.

Food insecurity might just be another way to say that an individual, family or group doesn’t have enough food. But on a more nuanced level, what does that actually mean? Or perhaps simpler yet, why are people in the North unsure where their next meal will come from? Questions like these led Yellowknife-based photographer Pat Kane down the proverbial rabbit hole. “Is it like people can’t afford food? Or it’s just not available? Or people can’t hunt? Or what is it?”

Read More: https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/nunavuts-hunt-for-healthy-food/

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