Nanisiniq: Arviat History Project

Inuit traditional food diet

by Curtis Konek
Aug, 19, 2011

Inuit have been eating traditional food for a very long time and have been hunting them for centuries. When inuit were nomadic inuit survived by eating traditional food and by following the herds of caribou and by hunting any small animals such as pitarmegin, rabbit, fish, beluga whale, seal, warlus and any other animal. Inuit from up north above the arctic circle ate the same animals we eat but they also eat musk-ox and narwhales. Fox were use to buy food from the hudson bay company, from the late 1920’s or later. The HBC provide food for the inuit to trade food for fox furs, one fox fur cost about $60.00 the HBC provided white flour, pilot biscuits, magic baking powder, lard, and a few more items. When inuit where nomadic inuit were much stronger and healthier. They would eat traditional food daily and be active daily during the winter. Inuit who were born on the land are healthy and have a lot of traditional knowledge. What we are doing in this project is important because we are learning from our elders about IQ, Inuit Qauyimayatukagit ”Inuit traditional knowledge”. We are also learning from our youth about how arviat is and what they think about living in arviat and how it has changed in arviat in the past few years.

Inuit have experienced a lot of change in their diet. Our elders are the only ones who actually eat traditional food every day, our young people still eat the traditional food today, but only once in a while. Younger inuit are more into store bought food and more likely to eat it. That is why the younger generation is slowly developing poorer health conditions. That means most young inuit are more in to sugar not poutine. Most inuit love to eat junk food now days, and less real food.

Inuit today are still strong in hunting and survival skills, but slowly are losing their culture and traditional knowledge. We still love to eat our traditional diet and we want to keep out traditional diet the way it is for a very long time. And we want to learn more about inuit traditional diet and knowledge. We need to interview more elders and get a better information from them.