Brendan Griebel’s research while affiliated with University of Toronto and other places

The term Inuinnaqtun is often used in reference to a dialect of Inuktut spoken by Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) of the Central Canadian Arctic. The broader meaning of Inuinnaqtun, however, is to speak, to create, to practice, to do, to think, to be, like an Inuinnaq (a human being). Inuinnaqtun was once its own robust ecosystem, with Inuinnait physically immersed in a landscape and way of life that nourished a fluent and full language, supported human relationships, and maintained a sophisticated body of cultural knowledge. The Inuinnait journey into the 21st century has challenged the practice of Inuinnaqtun, along with the connectivity of its ecosystem. How can an integrated Inuinnaqtun ecosystem be restored in contemporary Inuinnait society? In this paper, we outline the decade-long development of a digital mapping program to document traditional forms of engagement between Inuinnait people, language and land, and facilitate the continued circulation of knowledge that underlies these relationships. In reviewing its various successes and challenges, we critically question digital technology’s ability to digitally represent Inuinnaqtun ontology, in addition to the role that digital technologies can play in facilitating the local relocation of knowledge, objects and relationships dispersed into global contexts.

In 2013, an Arctic-based organization known as the Inuit Heritage Trust spearheaded a new campaign to increase archaeological awareness in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. While Nunavut remains an Inuit-centered territory—founded on the knowledge and values that have long sustained its predominantly Inuit population—the rules and regulations surrounding archaeological resources are largely grounded in more scientific, and distinctly non-Inuit, valuations of the past. For multiple reasons, Inuit and non-Inuit traditions for understanding and preserving heritage resources have proved difficult to reconcile, despite numerous attempts at community outreach programs and the regular hosting of archaeological fieldschools. For many Inuit, the methodological and impersonal approach to history endorsed by incoming archaeologists remains a foreign concept. This paper will present a series of community resources developed as part of the Inuit Heritage Trust’s new archaeological awareness campaign, produced in partnership with archaeologists Brendan Griebel and Tim Rast. These resources seek to address the question of how to educate about Nunavut’s past through a framework that aligns with the interests and realities of both professional archaeologists and Inuit populations. To date, this campaign has produced two unique resources: the first, a guidebook series that explores archaeology’s relevance to community members, students and heritage workers in Nunavut, and the second, a portable excavation and experimental archaeology kit. While the campaign does not intend to change the way that either Inuit or archaeologists value the past, it does attempt to create a mutual awareness of differing worldview so that both groups might better navigate the complex landscape of regulation and interaction ascribed to Nunavut’s heritage resources.

The Inuit qalgiq, or gathering house, once served as a forum for bringing communities together through acts of storytelling, drum dancing, shamanism, and the intergenerational transfer of knowledge. While the specific traditions associated with these structures have varied over time and space, they have remained of central importance to the affirmation of group identity and communal decision-making. In 2008, the excavation of an early Thule qalgiq near the Nunavut hamlet of Cambridge Bay provided a team of local participants and University of Toronto archaeologists with an opportunity to interpret the social position of the qalgiq in the context of a contemporary Inuit population currently struggling with issues of collective identity. This article presents a project originally designed to reconstruct a qalgiq as a museum exhibit with a structure drawn primarily from archaeological findings. By embedding the project in local understandings of history as a source for community wellness and revival, however, a different course was taken. While combining archaeological blueprints with contemporary realities and beliefs, the qalgiq was ultimately re-imagined as a venue in which ideas about community, both past and present, can be voiced.

Résumé Cette étude décrit l’évolution d’un programme communautaire mené sur le terrain pendant un an en vue de jeter un pont entre les approches méthodologiques et thématiques du passé propres à l’archéologie et les intérêts et les réalités sociales du peuple inuit. À travers une série d’ateliers pratiques organisés en partenariat avec la Kitikmeot Heritage Society de Cambridge Bay, elle montre comment une pratique archéologique moins étroite et plus soucieuse de s’adapter au contexte culturel permet à cette discipline de mieux explorer de nouvelles voies où l’interprétation de l’histoire associe scientifiques et autochtones.

This article follows the evolution of a year-long community fieldwork programme, designed to bridge archaeology’s methodological approach and thematic concerns about the past with the interests and social realities of Inuit people. Focusing on a series of practical workshops run in partnership with the Kitikmeot Heritage Society of Cambridge Bay, the work explores how the development of a broader, more acculturated practice of archaeology allows the discipline better to navigate new directions in both academic and local understandings of history.

Resume Cette etude decrit l'evolution d'un programme communautaire mene sur le terrain pendant un an en vue de jeter un pont entre les approches methodologiques et thematiques du passe propres a l'archeologie et les interets et les realites sociales du peuple inuit. travers une serie d'ateliers pratiques organises en partenariat avec la Kitikmeot Heritage Society de Cambridge Bay, elle montre comment une pratique archeologique moins etroite et plus soucieuse de s'adapter au contexte culturel permet a cette discipline de mieux explorer de nouvelles voies ou l'interpretation de l'histoire associe scientifiques et autochtones.