Reviving culture with kayaks
Outdoor adventurer Eric McNair-Landry discusses how a seafaring expedition across Baffin Island shed light on traditional skill
Robin Grant
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Kayaking across Baffin Island, the fifth largest island in the world, is a challenging feat - but not impossible.
Yellowknife resident Eric McNair-Landry and a crew of athletic adventurers - his sister Sarah McNair-Landry, wife Katherine Breen and professional whitewater kayaker Erik Boomer - are a testament to this fact.
In July 2013, the Arctic explorers shipped off with Inuit-style kayaks they built themselves from Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut, and travelled across the Penny Ice Cap and through Auyuittuq National Park to Pangnirtung. From there, they paddled the traditional hunting routes from Cumberland Sound to Nettling Lake, the Amadjuak River to Amadjuak Lake, then through small islands to Baffin's southeast coast. The final part took them along the Hudson Strait coast to Cape Dorset.
"The expedition was about more than just traditional sea kayaking," said Eric McNair-Landry, who is also director of Ecology North.
"It was supposed to be a synopsis about kayaking itself. Its origins, destinations and how we choose to shape it going forward. It was designed also to inspire people."
He was at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre on Sunday discussing how to handcraft Inuit style kayaks.
During the two-hour presentation, which included lessons on Inuit traditional paddle dancing and how to assemble a half-scale model of a kayak with Inuvialuit artist and educator Myrna Pokiak, the outdoor adventurer talked about the 2013 expedition and the need to revive traditional Inuit kayaking culture.
McNair-Landry said he had the idea to kayak Baffin Island after a trip to Greenland where he and his sister Sarah visited a small Inuit community that was celebrating traditional kayak building.
As someone who grew up in Iqaluit, McNair-Landry said he knew the tradition had not been maintained as much on Baffin Island.
His woodworking skills came in handy when he began researching traditional Baffin-style kayaks with the aim to build them and then paddle across the island.
While the Inuit would have used animal skins and driftwood, McNair-Landry used more modern material - including nylon fabric -but built in the traditional style.
"Baffin's an incredibly dynamic place," he said. "The route we ended up choosing started out on an ice cap and went through Auyuittuq National Park, probably one of the most scenic areas on the planet."
Breen also attended Sunday's event. She is a physician, a yoga teacher and lover of the outdoors.
"It was a really incredible learning experience to paddle from Pangnirtung to Cape Dorset along the traditional Inuit route both to learn how the kayaks worked under those conditions and to have a fun experience just being out on the land for a couple months," she said.
Since the seafaring expedition, McNair-Landry said his focus has been on helping to revive traditional kayak building in communities in Nunavut by teaching workshops to youth.
"It's the place where people in Northern Canada used to use kayaks pretty heavily. The NWT and Inuvik already have a small kayaking club and so we're really looking at communities in the Eastern Arctic."
McNair-Landry and Breen moved from Iqaluit to Yellowknife two-and-a-half years ago.
