caribou, whale & walrus

nunatsiaq news has an article about the interesting situation in greenland, whose population is kalaaliit (i.e. "greenland eskimo", a loanword from 12th century Norse skrælingi "savage" [see fortescue, jacobson & kaplan, Comparative Eskimo Dictionary: With Aleut Cognates (Alaska Native Language Center Research Paper 9), ISBN 1-55500-051-7]).

it's about food.

In Nunavut, the sale of fresh caribou, fish, whale and walrus happens largely out of sight if it happens at all [...]

nunavut is a (comparatively) new canadian province. its official languages include inuktitut ("canadian eskimo") and it is largely inhabited by inuit ("canadian eskimo"). as such, it is a self-governing, majority-First Nations province, which is fairly remarkable.

... but in Greenland, country food is widely available: in outdoor markets where Inuit hunters sell their produce directly, or in the freezer aisle of the grocery store.

“In each town, you find a big marketplace where you will be able to buy seal meat or whale meat, muktuq [skin and fat of a narwhal, cut into small cubes -ed.], and whatever you need,” said Rasmus Ole Rasmussen, a professor at the Institute of Geography and International Development studies at Roskilde University in Denmark.

The outdoor markets — where hunters go to sell their products — have been operating for 150 years.

As in Nunavut, store foods began to take the place of country foods in the diet of Greenlanders in the 1970s and 1980s, especially for younger people, who either lost the skills to prepare their own country food from scratch, or had no time or inclination to do it themselves.

But that trend was reversed when country foods were introduced in supermarkets, neatly cut up and packaged just like chicken, beef or pork, at the end of the 1980s.

hm. but the problem is that the lives of professional hunters apparently sucks - highly impoverishing - and hence greenland is seeking to improve this situation.

i dunno, i just wanted to balance out the post on the imitation human flesh product. i don't know if i'd want to be eating muktuq myself, but here's the story.