The hunt for life-giving ‘country food’ in the Canadian Arctic

In the village of Inukjuak, men hunt seal, beluga, and wild caribou both to maintain traditional knowledge and to provide a vital source of sustenance to their community.

For thousands of years, the Inuit have lived above the arctic tree line as hunters and gatherers in an ice-based landscape. Over the past century, they’ve faced a number of threats to their way of life, including decades of oppression and culture-stripping initiatives by the Canadian government. But climate change may be the most existential threat to their way of life yet.

Many in the community of Inukjuak, which lies 900 miles north of Montreal in the Canadian Arctic, still rely in part on hunting for subsistence; processed Western food has had negative health consequences among the Inuit. The traditional diet, known as “country food,” includes fish, wild caribou, game birds, and fatty marine mammals like seal and beluga, often eaten raw, frozen, or cured — a way of eating for which the Inuit have unique genetic adaptations.

With the Arctic heating up nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, the winter hunting season has shrunk by two months, while ecological shifts have created new difficulties, such as competition with killer whales allowed in the Hudson Bay by melting sea ice.

In the face of these challenges, people like Willia Ningeok — the manager of Unaaq, a men’s association that organizes hunting trips like this one in October 2024 — are working to preserve Inukjuak’s cultural heritage and pass on traditional knowledge and foodways to the next generation. Recently, the village celebrated the premiere of a new documentary about their community, A Century After Nanook, with a community feast of country food. “It’s about food security,” says Ricky Moorhouse, 40, the current town manager. “There’s a lot of people that still eat country food every day.”