Inuit Knowlege & Climate Change: Peter Kanayuk on Childhood and Hunting Bears

Peter Kanayuk from Pangnirtung speaks about his childhood and hunting bears. "The most enjoyable, my favorite hunt, is the polar bear. You have a different feeling when you're after the bear. It's fierce and you're feeling happy. Not every day you catch a bear. Those were my favorite times."

English Transcript:

In the springtime in June and July there would be no wind for a month. We'd be hunting all over the place.

Mainly seal we hunted. Beluga whale and walrus were caught very often. We'd go caribou hunting. Seal was mostly hunted.

Sometimes, at the floe edge, when its really calm, hunting at the seal holes. The most enjoyable, my favorite hunt, is the polar bear. You have a different feeling when you're after the bear. It's fierce and you're feeling happy. Not every day you catch a bear. Those were my favorite times.

I've seen dog teams hunting bear. It was a way of life. Most of the children didn't get to go out. Maybe they had poor winter clothes. I always went on a bear hunt as a child with my uncle and father when they'd go. I've seen it.

When they site a bear, we would notify our dogs. When the dogs get to the bear tracks, they really work hard. Some of the dogs would be let loose. Those particular dogs that can stop the bear. In a dogteam, most of them can't catch the bear. Only some of them can do it. The bear is stopped by the dogs.

They would cut the lines close to the dog or unhook it. The lines have to be short. Not a long rope. They were scared if the dog line is too long. The bear could kill the dog.

There's a lot more polar bears today. As I said, I grew up on the other side of Cumberland Sound. I saw hunters going out bear hunting. In the spring time, when seals had their pups, they'd go polar bear hunting. all the way to the point near Iqaluit. That's a long way to travel. At that times, when they went hunting, they'd site two or three polar bears. Now, at the same month, if I'd go down there by skidoo, we'd see twenty to thirty bears a day. Just traveling you see they're around. Some with cubs. There's a lot more bears now compared to when I was a child.