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Artifacts tell great stories Darrell Greer Northern News Services Published Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The students are being led in a preparing-for-change course by adult educator Glen Brocklebank. The students are studying where Inuit have come from and how they're preparing for the modern workforce. Brocklebank said the group decided to tackle the past by exploring the land around Chesterfield Inlet and cataloguing every artifact they could find. He said there's a huge Thule site near Chester, and the group has found a number of different types of animal traps and kayak stands in their exploration. "Some of what we found are quite old, based on the moss growth on the rocks and the way they've been built," said Brocklebank. "It looks to us as though there's been three different groups who have inhabited the area around Chester over the years. "The area's obviously been used for a long period of time and we've found three different styles of traps so far. "Some of what we've found looks like it might predate the Thule site." There are five students in the core group, along with Brocklebank and Inuktitut teacher Casimir Kriterdluk. Brocklebank said, although the group members are doing the work as part of their course at Nunavut Arctic College, they're also mapping the various sites and taking photos to present a study of the Chester area. Once completed, they hope to have a viable tourist's map for visitors to the area to use, he said. "We're trying to compile a complete-as-possible inventory of what's around the area. "The Thule site is about 500 years old, and we've inventoried items that look even older than that. "We've had some really amazing discussions on this, including Inuit pride in their ancestors, what it took for them to survive and how it must have been in the past. "We've been doing the course on Fridays and some students have expressed sincere disappointment on days the weather was too bad to go." Brocklebank said it tends to be even more interesting on the days the group is accompanied by Kriterdluk. He said Kriterdluk gives them an in-depth perspective on what the items they find were used for. "We try to figure everything out by watching videos from the Celebrating Nunavut series and conducting other research. "We watched a few videos from the 1940s, '50s and '60s, and tried to use inferences to figure out what some of these items are. "Some we thought were traps, for example, turned out to be fish caches. "It's been an interesting experience and my favourite course of the semester."
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