After our previous night’s polar bears sightings we awakened to a beautiful sunny morning while sailing through calm Pond Inlet passage. Pond Inlet is the largest of the four hamlets above the 72nd parallel with a population of 1,315. Pond Inlet was named in 1818 by the explorer John Ross for John Pond, an English Astronomer, though its Inuktitut name is Mittimatalik. Mittimatalik means the resting place, talik, where Mitima is buried. It is a small Inuit community on Eclipse Sound in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, located of the top of Baffin Island.
“Inuk” is a singular word for our people, Inuit. This is the appropriate name for the First Nations people, and Inuktitut is the language they speak. During the cultural presentation we were able to travel in time through the Inuit traditions and be delighted with a very genuine sharing of their culture.
Some highlights of the demonstrations were the Lighting of the Qulliq and the drum dancing way of celebrating life. The Arctic Winter Games were initiated in 1970, a high profile sports competition for circumpolar athletes. During the demonstration we saw the finger pull, Alaskan high kick (world record is 7 feet 4 inches), one hand reach balance, and the one foot high kick where they test power, flexibility and balance jumping off both feet but touching the target with the kicking foot only.
Throat singing or katajjaq is a form of wonderful musical performance uniquely found among Inuit women. Usually done in duets it is an entertaining contest to see who can outlast the other. Throat singing is usually an imitation of animals and nature. Each throat singer makes three to four different imitations while inhaling and exhaling.
They also explain to us their clothes, such as, amauti the Inuit women parka designed to carry a child in the same garment and the kamik a pair of seal skin boots made by women. And the Inuktitut, a stone figure that can have different forms and purposes: show directions, warn of impending dangers, mark a place of respect, and point a direction to an open channel for navigation or to mark camping territories.
We finished our cultural journey with the Nunavut Flag: “Our land became its own territory from the Northwest Territories in 1999 and has changed the map of Canada and the rest of the world!”
Inuks are well known for their humor and smiling is their way of greeting or showing respect. Inevitably we all left Pond Inlet with a smile on our face…
