Coastal Hunters

We have always been a coastal People. Our Ancestors were skilled sea mammal hunters. Oral histories and material remains left by our Ancestors at their camps show the great time depth of sealing and whaling in our communities.

This illustration shows hunters in qatjat (kayaks) pursuing beluga whales. It was created by an unknown Inuvialuk and acquired by a trader at the Hudson’s Bay Company post at Fort Anderson around 1865. Photo credit: MacFarlane Collection/National Museum of Natural History – Smithsonian Institution/E2545-2a.