Huntington, Henry P.

English

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168 •  REVIEWSThis is a book with great potential, but like most memoirsit would benefit greatly from some editing. If that were done,I see no reason for it not to appeal to a wide readership.Gerald W. Hankins#11, 216 - Three Sisters DriveCanmore, Alberta, CanadaT1W 2M2VOICES FROM THE BAY: TRADITIONAL ECOLOGI-CAL KNOWLEDGE OF INUIT AND CREE IN THEHUDSON BAY BIOREGION. Compiled by MIRIAMMcDONALD, LUCASSIE ARRAGUTAINAQ, and ZACKNOVALINGA. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Arctic ResourcesCommittee and Environmental Committee of the Munici-pality of Sanikiluaq, 1997. xiii + 98 p., maps, b&w illus.Softbound. Cdn$41.14 (includes postage from the Cana-dian Arctic Resources Committee).Placing traditional ecological knowledge on paper oftenseems an attempt to make a silhouette: the outlines can betraced, perhaps from several angles, but even the compilersacknowledge that the essence is missing. Voices from the Bayis an elegant proof that this need not always be so. MiriamMcDonald, Lucassie Arragutainaq, and Zack Novalinga haveproduced a beautiful, eloquent, evocative summation of whyHudson Bay matters to those who live there, and why the restof us should listen to them.Despite the subtitle, this book is not about traditionalecological knowledge as it is often narrowly defined. It doesindeed include a detailed description of the Bay and itsenvironment, as well as appendices with information aboutcertain animals. But it is far more than a compendium ofobservations and explanations. Copious quotations fromCree and Inuit residents of the villages around the Baydescribe how they feel about the changes that are occur-ring and what they consider to be the most pressing needsin their struggle to pass on to their children the clean andproductive environment in which they were raised. These“voices from the Bay” enlighten us not with informationbut with insight.The book has four main sections, plus appendices onmethods, environmental indicators, and other details fromearlier Hudson Bay Programme reports, also available fromthe Canadian Arctic Resources Committee. The main sec-tions of Voices from the Bay are Traditional Knowledge ofEcosystem Components, Environmental Change and its Sig-nificance to Inuit and Cree, Indigenous Perspectives onDevelopment, and Future Needs. These are illustrated withmaps, diagrams, and photographs. The diagrams, unfortu-nately, are often complex and confusing, failing to distin-guish between causes and effects, as in Figure 4: Effects ofCurrents, Spring Tides, and Wind on Sea Ice. The maps, onthe other hand, are well done, and the well-chosen combina-tion of old and new photographs vividly shows the continuityand change that are characteristic of Arctic communities.Two significant aspects of the research that led to Voicesfrom the Bay are that it was carried out by Cree and Inuit, andthat its funding came from a wide variety of sources, includ-ing government agencies, private foundations, utilities, andthe Canadian Arctic Resources Committee and its members.Few community-based projects are able to garner such sup-port, and the results should encourage those who wish to seea greater role for indigenous peoples in research about themand their knowledge.The great strength of Voices from the Bay is that it conveysa tremendous volume of information without dense text andwithout losing the connection with the people of the region.Descriptions of traditional knowledge run several risks: ab-stracting data so that its context is lost, cramming in too manytangential threads so that narrative continuity is lost, or,conversely, reducing a rich and interrelated body of knowl-edge to a simple sketch. The compilers have applied a lighthand to the text that explains and joins the quotations, and theresult is a finely balanced presentation that places the “voices”in context without overshadowing their message.But the book has interest far beyond the manner of itspresentation. The Hudson Bay bioregion is not the pristineand untouched wilderness of southern imagination. Enor-mous development projects, such as hydroelectric develop-ment in Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba, have altered patternsof wildlife and humans. Contamination from long-rangetransport of pollutants as well as from local military sites hasentered the food chain. Social change, too, has altered pat-terns of land use and other cultural practices in Cree and Inuitcommunities of the area. The combination of such factorsmakes the challenges facing today’s youth vastly differentfrom those that faced their parents and grandparents.Despite these changes, Voices from the Bay gives a stronganswer to the question, how can the knowledge accumulatedthrough generations of living along Hudson Bay and depend-ing on its resources help solve problems today? Traditionalknowledge can be used with scientific knowledge to betterunderstand the environment and potential impacts of devel-opment, both locally and globally, as indicated in Figure 12.Cultural patterns reinforce survival skills needed in the North.Respect for the environment supports sound management ofresources. Above all, for the people of the region, theirknowledge and their culture provide the basis for thrivingcommunities. Without that knowledge and the culture builtupon it, the communities of Hudson Bay are in peril.This peril is perhaps one of the most troublesome issuesraised. How can Cree and Inuit cultures be sustained in theface of exposure to southern influences ranging from TV tofood to industry? Will the wisdom shown in the statements ofthe elders be lost when they are lost? Or can the youngergenerations maintain the connection with their ancestors andwith their land and sea? This sense of loss permeates many ofthe quotations, and the “voices from the Bay” should be heardnot just by outsiders, but by the people of the Bay.Voices from the Bay conveys a sense of meaning, a senseof belonging, and a sense of sadness. We learn what mattersand why, but we also learn to fear for the future. We are givenREVIEWS • 169more than just an outline of what the Bay’s inhabitants knowabout it. Indeed, the title in French, La Baie: cœur et âme, isequally fitting: McDonald, Arragutainaq, and Novalingahave indeed shown us not just the shadow, but the heart andsoul of Hudson Bay. We can only hope that others will listento the voices with which they speak.Henry P. HuntingtonHuntington ConsultingP.O. Box 773564Eagle River, Alaska, U.S.A.99577PEOPLE OF SUNLIGHT, PEOPLE OF STARLIGHT:BARRENLAND ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES OF CANADA. By BRYAN C.GORDON. Hull, Quebec: Archaeological Survey of Canada,1996. Mercury Series Paper 154. 332 p., 101 maps, 57illus., 5 line drawings, glossary, bib., index, appendix.Softbound. Price not indicated.This volume in the Mercury Series of the ArchaeologicalSurvey of Canada reflects an advanced stage in Bryan Gordon’sresearch into Barrenlands precontact history—research whichstretches back to 1970. This very substantial volume synthe-sizes a massive amount of data relating to that area, which isthe range of the Beverly herd of barren-ground caribou. It isalso an attractive publication, with excellent artifact imagesas well as some judiciously chosen historical photographs.On the whole, this volume is well edited, with few typos andother errors (although “Hudson’s Bay Company” is repeat-edly rendered as “Hudson Bay Company”): the MercurySeries has come a long way from the “quick and dirty”monographs of two decades ago. An introductory chapterprovides an environmental overview as well as Gordon’sreasons for undertaking this work. Chapter 2 outlines thehistory of European exploration of the Beverly herd regionand archaeological activities in this vast area. Each of thefollowing eight chapters focuses on interpretations relating tothe various archaeological cultures that have been recognizedon the Barrenlands. A concluding (eleventh) chapter com-pletes this work.Gordon’s purpose is essentially to compare variations inthe technology of particular cultural groups as they movedseasonally between the tundra and the forest over the past8000 years. He notes (p. 2) that his recognition of suchseasonal differences is fairly recent. However, basic to thistheory of seasonal movement is Gordon’s concept of “herdfollowing” (p. 11– 15). This concept involves a model, basedlargely on historical and ethnographic evidence, which pro-poses that the peoples of this region followed the barren-ground caribou as these herd animals moved in an annualmigratory cycle between the tundra in the summer and theforest in the winter. Some evidence supports the applicationof this model to precontact times. For instance, Gordonobserves that the “distinctive Eyeberry Lake quartzite fromthe heart of the range [was] being carried several hundred kmsouth to Lake Athabasca” (p. 11). Indeed, the fact that thediagnostic artifacts of each of the cultures are distributedfrom the tundra south into the forest seems to be the strongestevidence that herd-following was practised by all of theprecontact occupants of this part of North America. On theother hand, the faunal remains from many of the sites are soscanty that in general it has not been possible to demonstrateat what seasons certain cultural groups (e.g., Middle Taltheilei)were present on the tundra or (in particular) in the forest.With herd-following accepted as a basic premise, Gordonexamines differences in material culture between sites on thetundra and in the forest, for each of the cultural periods. Helooks at variations in the lithic materials used, in the shapesof tools such as endscrapers, and in breakage patterns. Whilematerials from some 1002 sites are considered, very impor-tant to Gordon’s analysis is the ability to identify the archaeo-logical culture of tools such as endscrapers, knives, chithos,and adze blades, when found in unstratified contexts or on thesurface. In some cases, Gordon quite wisely does not attemptsuch identification; however, in other cases he seems to over-identify. For instance, the characteristics of two endscrapersfrom the historic levels at two sites in the tundra zone areemployed to identify, as historic, scrapers from several sur-face occurrences throughout the range of the Beverly herd(p. 34–35). One wonders whether a sample of two is suffi-cient to provide a clear idea of the normal characteristics ofhistoric period endscrapers. As well, some of Gordon’sseasonal interpretations seem a little strained, such as theproposal that the production of “4-sided” scrapers in theforest during several cultural periods occurred because thisshape was more easily handled by mittened hands (e.g., p. 64,225). This is a plausible hypothesis, but just how it could betested is not apparent.Each of the cultural phases in this region is fascinating,whether Palaeo-Indian, Shield Archaic, Pre-Dorset, Taltheilei,or historic Dene (Chipewyan); however, I find myself quib-bling not so much with Gordon’s interpretation of ancientlifeways within the range of the Beverly herd, as with hisideas about the relationship of these various cultural groupsto their neighbours to the south. For instance, with referenceto Northern Plano, Gordon states (p. 219) that a “thin distri-bution of bison hunting camps extends northeast from Wyo-ming to northern Saskatchewan.” This seems to be hyperbole,since Northern Plano points are in the Agate Basin style and,in Saskatchewan, I know of no Agate Basin finds situatednorth of the southern fringe of the forest. There are a few lateplano points (Angostura or Lusk) on the upper ChurchillRiver system, but these differ stylistically from Agate Basinpoints. In short, in Saskatchewan there is a huge gap of at least550 km between the northernmost known occurrences ofplains Agate Basin points and the Northern Plano points ofLake Athabasca (Meyer, 1983:147–148). Also, Gordon mighthave made reference to findings in Alaska which indicate thatAgate Basin may have been present there as much as 12 000years ago (Kunz and Reanier, 1995; Reanier, 1995). In short,peoples carrying that culture may have expanded east and

Voices from the Bay: Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Inuit and Cree in the Hudson Bay Bioregion, compiled by Miriam McDonald, Lucassie Arragutainaq, and Zack Novalinga

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Voices from the Bay: Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Inuit and Cree in the Hudson Bay Bioregion, compiled by Miriam McDonald, Lucassie Arragutainaq, and Zack Novalinga

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