Eyewitness to a Whale Hunt: Theory, Event, and Apology in the Inuit North

Abstract

The paper revisits a whale hunt that took place in the vicinity of the hamlet of Pangnirtung, Nunavut, in 1998. An eyewitness to the hunt, I wrote a Master’s thesis, “The Bowhead Whale Hunt at Kekerten, Nunavut Territory (July 1998),” giving a chronicle of its duration and preparation. The hunt was undertaken by the Inuit as a way of dealing with a haunted piece of their past: the catastrophic aftermath of the presence of European whalers in the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which deeply challenged both the physical and cultural survival of the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic. The hunt was carried out at a significant site of memory/ lieu de mémoire: a former whaling station in proximity to the community. An important aspect of the Pangnirtung hunt was the assertion of Inuit collective identity in the claim of sovereignty over the management of bowhead whale stock in the months preceding the creation of Nunavut, in April 1999. Yet departing from conventional interpretations that would understand the Inuit as the recipients of a “gift” in a cycle of forgiveness and restitution (apology-as-discourse), I argue that the event itself was not the result, but the very substance of apology. Bringing the past forward into the present, the Inuit of Pangnirtung introduced an event as a critical requirement in undertaking the work of apology.