Copper Inuit.html



Holman, 1980s

Copper Inuit (or Kitlinermiut) are a Northern Canadian Inuit group who live north of the tree line, in Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region and the Northwest Territories's Inuvik Region. Most lived in the area around Coronation Gulf, on Victoria Island, and southern Banks Island. Their western boundary was Wise Point, near Dolphin and Union Strait. Their northwest territory was the southeast coast of Banks Island. Their southern boundary was the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, Contwoyto Lake and Beechey Lake on the Back River. To the east, the Copper Inuit and the Netsilik were separated by Perry River in Queen Maud Gulf. While Copper Inuit traveled throughout Victoria Island, to the west, they concentrated themselves south of Walker Bay, while to the east, they were concentrated south of Denmark Bay.²

Having no collective name for themselves, "Copper Inuit" is an English term³ representing those westernmost Central Inuit who used and relied on native copper gathered along the lower Coppermine River and the Coronation Gulf.⁴

According to Rasmussen (1932), other Eskimo referred to Copper Inuit as "Kitlinermiut", as "Kitlineq" was an Eskimo name for Victoria Island.⁵

History

Early millennia

Copper Inuit are descendents of Thule culture. Noice may have been the first to articulate that changes in the local environment resulted in the transition from prehistoric Thule culture to Copper Inuit culture, a modern people.²

For approximately three millennia⁶ prior to the settlement and acculturation of the last 50-60 years, Copper Inuit were hunter-gatherer nomads. When settlement replaced the nomadic existence, Copper Inuit continued the hunting and gathering lifestyle.⁷ They lived in communal snowhouses during the winter and engaged in breathing-hole (mauliqtoq) seal hunting. In the summer, they spread out in smaller, family groups for inland caribou hunting and fishing.¹

The copper arrows, spear heads, ulu blades, chisels, harpoons, and knives that they made were for both personal use, and an object of trade amongst other Inuit. In addition to the copper products, Copper Inuit soapstone products were highly regarded in the Bering Strait trade network.⁸ Other trade partners included Inuvialuit from Avvaq and Caribou Inuit to the south.⁹ Many Copper Inuit gathered in the Cambridge Bay area in the summertime because of plentiful game.¹⁰

Post-Euro-Canadian contact

In 1771, Samuel Hearne was the first European to explore the Coppermine River region. It was here that Hearne's Chipewyan Dene companions massacred a Copper Inuit group at Bloody Falls.¹ Further exploration didn't occur until the period of 1820-1853 which included the Sir John Franklin expeditions of 1821 and 1825. John Rae encountered Copper Inuit at Rae River in 1847, and Cape Flinders and Stromness Bay in 1851.¹¹ Robert McClure's ship, HMS Investigation, was abandoned at Mercy Bay on Banks Island in 1853 and provided extensive amounts of wood, copper, and iron which the Copper Inuit used for years. Richard Collinson explored the area in 1850-1855.

20th century

Believing that the Copper Inuit had migrated thereafter to Hudson Bay for trading at the various outposts, the Canadian government's 1906 map marked Victoria Island as "uninhabited".¹ So it wasn't until the early years of the 20th century that trading ships returned to Copper Inuit territory following the discovery and report of the so-called Blond Eskimos amongst Copper Inuit by Vilhjalmur Stefansson¹² during his Arctic exploration trip of 1908-1912.¹³ During the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-1918, Canadian ethnographer Diamond Jenness spent two years living with and documenting the lives of Copper Inuit and sent thousands of artifacts of their material culture to the Geological Survey of Canada.¹⁴

Along with trade, European contact brought influenza and typhoid. Between 1929 and 1931, one of five Copper Inuit died from a tuberculosis epidemic. Around the same time, the whaling industry deteriorated, bringing Alaskan Inupiat and Mackenzie Delta Inuvialuit into the Coronation Gulf area to co-exist with the Copper Inuit.⁹ The first Holman-area trading post was established in 1923 at Alaervik, on the north shore of Prince Albert Sound, but it closed five years later, relocating to Fort Collinson on Walker Bay, north of Minto Inlet. Two other stores opened in Walker Bay but closed by 1939.

Settlement

In 1960, the federal government shipped three housing units to Holman, and another four in 1961. In the years to follow, some families moved to Holman permanently, while others live there seasonally. Some Copper Inuit moved to the communities of Coppermine or Cambridge Bay, and still others gravitated to the outposts along Bathurst Inlet, Contwoyto Lake, Coronation Gulf, and on Victoria Island.¹⁵

Snowmobiles, satellite dish television service, Christian churches, and a switch from Inuinaqtun to English language all brought radical social change to the Copper Inuit.¹

Culture

Language

Copper Inuit speak Inuinnaqtun¹⁶ and Western Canadian Inuktitut (also referred to as Inuvialuktun).¹⁷

Habitat and diet

Historically, Copper Inuit lived amongst tundra, rocky hills, outcrops, and some forested areas towards their southern and southwestern range. Here they hunted arctic ground squirrel, arctic hare, caribou (barren ground and Peary's herds), grizzly bear, mink, moose, muskox, muskrat, wolf, and wolverine. An extensive network of ponds, lakes, and rivers, including the Coppermine, Rae, and Richardson Rivers, sustained large populations of fresh water arctic char, grayling, lake trout, and whitefish. The marine waters supported codfish, bearded seal, and ringed seal.¹⁵ Ducks, geese, guillemots, gulls, hawks, longspurs, loons, plovers, ptarmigans, and snow buntings were also part of the Copper Inuit diet. They liked raw but not boiled eggs.¹⁸ Food and products from the sea were used, cooked, and kept separate from those of the land.¹⁹

Clothing

Copper Inuit wore short-waisted inner parkas accented with long, narrow back tails, and sleeves that came short of the wrist. In severe weather, they added a heavy, outer parka. Women's parkas were distinguished by elongated hoods, and exaggerated, pointed shoulders. Boots extended up the leg and buttoned at the waistline. The soles were made of feathers or bird skins.¹⁵ Copper Inuit used different napkins for different meals: ptarmigan skins when eating caribou, and gull skins when eating seal.¹⁸

Contemporary clothing and boots may be made of a variety of skins, including:¹⁵

• Dance cap: caribou, ermine, and the bill of a yellow-billed loon¹⁸
• Parkas: arctic hare, otter, rabbit, wild mink
• Mitts: beaver, polar bear, skunk
• Boots: caribou, dog, polar bear, seal, wolf, wolverine
• Kamiks: caribou, moose

Religion

Copper Inuit had an animistic spiritual system,¹⁹ and believed that animal spirits could be offended through taboo violations.³ They believed that dwarfs, giants, caribou people, and the sea-goddess inhabit the world,³ and considered the tupilaq similar to the Christian Devil.²⁰

Shamans (angatkut) could be male or female. They warded off evil spirits, functioned as intermediaries between people and the spirit world, healed illness or taboo violation, and controlled weather.³

Subgroups

Copper Inuit lived within geographically defined subgroups well documented by Stefansson,²¹²² Franz Boas, and others:

• Ahiagmiut: Ogden Bay
• Akuliakattagmiut: Cape Bexley
• Ekalluktogmiut: Ekalluktok River, Albert Edward Bay; central Victoria Island
• Haneragmiut: Dolphin and Union Strait
• Haningayogmiut: Back River
• Kaernermiut: Back River
• Kangiryuarmiut: Prince Albert Sound, Cape Baring, central Victoria island; Nelson Head on Banks Island
• Kangiryuatjagmiut: Minto Inlet; between Minto inlet and Walker Bay
• Kanianermiut (or Uallirgmiut; or Ualiryudrmiut): west end of Coronation Gulf; headwaters ("kangia") of the Rae River ("Pallirk")²³²²
• Kilusiktogmiut: Victoria Island's Mackenzie River region, including Coronation Gulf area off the mouth of the Mackenzie²²
• Kogluktogmiut: Bloody Falls on the Coppermine River, Dease River, and Great Bear Lake (McTavish Bay); Coronation Gulf, southeast of Cape Krusenstern
• Kogluktualugmiut (or Utkusiksaligmiut - "the dwellers of the place where there is pot stone"): Tree River ("Kogluktualuk"), 80 miles east of the Coppermine River²¹
• Kogluktuaryumiut: from the mouth of the Kogluktuaryuk River²¹ which flows into Grays Bay on up river; Grays Bay and the Coronation Gulf ice off of it²²
• Kugaryuagmiut: Kugaryuak River²¹
• Nagyuktogmiut (or Killinermiut): Nagyuktok Island, one of the Duke of York Islands;²¹ central Coronation Gulf; Victoria Island northeast of Lady Franklin Point; mainland east of Tree River; Dismal Lakes near the head of Dease River;²² ("Deer Horn Esquimaux")
• Noahonirmiut (or Noahdnirmiut): Liston and Sutton Islands in the Dolphin and Union Strait to the mainland: north of Rae River, south of Lambert Island²¹²²
• Pallirmiut: mouth of the Rae River (Pallirk) and head of Dease River; Coronation Gulf, southeast of Cape Krusenstern²¹²²
• Pingangnaktogmiut: Pingangnaktok ("it blows a land wind"), inland west of Tree River²¹
• Puiplirmiut (or Puiblirmiut): Dolphin and Union Strait near Liston/Listen and Sutton Islands; also north and northeast of Simpson Bay on Victoria Island²¹²²
• Ugyuligmiut: north of Minto Inlet²¹
• Ulukhaktokmiut: Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories (formerly known as Holman), after the copper used in ulu making that was found there³
• Umingmuktogmiut: permanent village of Umingmuktog on the western coast of Kent Peninsula;²¹ Bathurst Inlet²²

Notable Copper Inuit

• Joe Allen Evyagotailak
• Donald Havioyak
• Helen Kalvak
• Helen Maksagak
• Kane Tologanak

References

External links

• The Copper Inuit
• Photos