Inuuniurutikput

How We Live

Inuuniurutikput is a direct translation for ‘how we live’ in Inuvialuktun. This is our very own way of life. Our land is both our territory and where we come from. Here we show you how we draw life from the land and are connected to it. Our people have lived and traveled in every channel, eddy, mountain and pingo of what we now call the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

Over countless generations, we have developed many skills to make a living in different places. For example, fox-trapping and muskox hunting have always been central to our way of life on Banks Island, beluga hunting and muskrat trapping to life in the Mackenzie Delta. While climate change is significantly impacting caribou populations and migration patterns, the caribou harvest has always been vital to the existence of Inuvialuit—the Porcupine Caribou herd to families on the Yukon North Slope, and today, Inuvik and Aklavik; the Barren Ground Bluenose herd to the people of Paulatuk and Tuktoyaktuk; and the Peary and Dolphin Caribou herds to people of Banks Island and Ulukhaktok. Families from all of our Inuvialuit regions take advantage of the sunshine and thick ice in early spring to go jiggling for fish like Arctic charr, whitefish, losch, and grayling.

Our families, as well, often move and visit between regions, in order to make a living, out of curiosity to see other places and try something new, and for love and travel and adventure. This has always been our way.

This section showcases how we live as Inuvialuit through our Arctic seasons. We share an array of short videos from the Inuvialuit Communications Society archive and those produced by our project which represent many different aspects of Inuvialuit experiences, histories, regions and activities. For example, you can see: Mary Kudlak ice-fishing near Ulukhaktok, Peter Green talking about the Inuvialuit land claim, Lena Wolki spinning muskox wool, Renie Arey and Walter Bennett re-visiting Niaqulik, Ned Kayotuk and Daniel Apsimik whaling at East Whitefish, and Inuvialuit youth speaking to climate change issues. Explore these and many other topics below.

Two photo galleries celebrate aspects of our Inuvialuit lifestyles and livelihoods. Our Lives through the Seasons takes you through the seasons as we live and experience them, our land- and town-based activities such as hunting, ice-fishing, and spring jamboree. The second, Tools That We Make, is a gallery of ancestral Inuvialuit belongings, artifacts made by Inuvialuit through our long history in order to thrive on the land and water: hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering; cooking, carving, crafting and sewing; dancing, singing, visiting, and travelling. These images are curated from our Inuvialuit Living History archive website.

Video Library Title

Our Lives Through the Seasons

Upin’ngaqharaiyaliqtuq

Spring

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

Auyalliliqutuq

Summer

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

Ukiahaqharailiqtuq

Fall

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

Ukiuq

Winter

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.