Gjoa Haven -
Uqsuqtuuq
ᐅᖅᓱᖅᑑᖅ
ᐅᖅᓱᖅᑑᖅ
Galerijtentoonstelling; Foto's: Sacha de Boer.
Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde
Steenstraat 1, 2300 AE Leiden
www.sachadeboer.com www.volkenkunde.nl
De fotoserie ‘Gjoa Haven’, in april 2008 gemaakt tijdens een avontuurlijke reis voor het Wereld Natuur Fonds, geeft een kijkje in de Inuit-gemeenschap van Uqsuqtuuq (Overdaad aan vet) en de ervaring met de harde wekelijkheid van het Arctische klimaat.
Uqsuqtuuq ofwel Gjoa Haven ligt op het King Williams eiland in Nunavut, Canadees Noordpoolgebied.
De Noordpool is een punt gelegen in de Arctische Oceaan (Noordelijke IJszee).
In 1904 ging Poolreiziger Roald Amundsen met het schip de Gjøa bij King Williams Eiland voor anker en verbleef er twee winters samen met zijn bemanning. Hij vond dit 'het mooiste haventje ter wereld' en noemde het plek Gjoa Haven. De Gjøa, die nu bij het Noorse Maritieme Museum in Oslo ligt, is ook de naamgever van een olieveld in het Noorse deel van de Noordzee.
Amundsen, die als eerste door de Noordwestelijke Doorvaart voer, leerde veel van de Netsilik Inuit, die in het gebied rond King Williams Eiland, rondtrokken. Tijdens zijn Zuidpoolexpeditie had hij daarvan veel profijt. Amundsen, bekend met de reizen van dr. John Rea, die als eerste de Noordwestelijke Doorvaart gezien had en waarvan dit jaar zijn 200ste geboortedag herdacht wordt, heeft terecht de sleutel tussen King William eiland en het Boothia schiereiland, boven het Rasmussen Basin, de Rae Strait genoemd. Ook heeft Rea vastgesteld dat King Williamland een eiland is.
Eerst in 1927 vestigde de Hudson's Bay Company een post bij Gjoa Haven en groeide het uit tot de huidige nederzetting.
Ken McGoogan schreef o.a. het fascinerende boek: Fatal Passage. The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin. McGoogan selecteerde en introduceerde ook: The Arctic Journals of John Rae.
Eerder verscheen het fotoboek: Gjoa Haven.
Foto’s: Sacha de Boer. Tekst: Babs Assink.
Uitgeverij: Veenman Drukkers (2008); 194 blz.
ISBN: 9789086902262
In preparation, the whaling party took advice from experienced bowhead whalers in other communities of the Kivalliq region that have performed such hunts, including Kugaaruk, Rankin Inlet, and Taloyoak.
“We’ve heard a lot from other communities on how to hunt and butcher [bowheads],” he said. “We’ve been studying the anatomy of the whale too.”
Twelve other communities of Nunavut have had bowhead hunts since 1996, when Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board first agreed to allow a limited hunt of the animal in the Nunavut Settlement Area. Since 2009, no more than three bowhead hunts per year are permitted in Nunavut – one to a given community in each region of the territory.
The communities of Pangnirtung and Repulse Bay caught this year’s two other bowheads in August.
Gjoa Haven hunters originally planned to do their hunt in mid-August, Qitsualik said, but a visit from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who came to see the Canadian Rangers in the community, wiped out those plans.
“That’s when they got all the Rangers and we had trouble finding boats and hunters. So we had delay after delay,” he said. The captain originally assigned to the hunt backed out for the Rangers’ work, and a second captain resigned before Qitsualik took the post.
Meanwhile, the whaling party changed their choice of hunting location. Ice and wind conditions in James Ross Strait ruled out their first choice, 289 kilometres of Gjoa Haven. The hunters’ second choice - to hunt for a whale in the Gulf of Boothia - is now underway.
Although the second choice is closer, little more than 160 km away, the whaling party has to portage boats and equipment over a narrow section of Boothia Peninsula, just east of the community of Taloyoak, to get to the site.
“The people of Taloyoak kept encouraging us to come here and they’re willing to help. That’s why we just said OK, let’s go,” Qitsualik said from the community on Sept. 11, where the party was planning the next stage of their journey after having spent the night.
Qitsualik and his crew of 15 expect to find many whales on other side of the portage at Lord Mayor Bay, he said, which faces the Gulf of Boothia.
“There’s a lot of whales on the other side, and there’s not many on this side,” Qitsualik said. Arctic waters between Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak “can be hazardous,” he said.
“We feel we’ll be safer here and we can get more help while we’re here also.”
Qitsualik and his whaling party are taking advice from the captain of last year’s bowhead whale hunt in Taloyoak along the way, he said. Taloyoak whale-hunters caught their bowhead last year with captain Abel Aqqaq.
The party has a lot of heavy lifting to do on the portage. Four hunting boats will hit the waters of the Gulf of Boothia some time after Sept. 11, said Qitsualik, transported by ATV-towed trailers.
Once the whalers set up camp and set out into the water, they will search for a “small” bowhead, he said, 30 to 40 feet (nine to 12 metres) long.
“We don’t want a huge bowhead. The bigger they are, they’re stiffer and tougher, and not as tender and tasty,” Qitsualik said, ideally a “32-footer.”
“Our goal is to get a young one, as long as it’s not a calf or its mother.”
The whaling party hopes to meet their goal quickly, as temperatures drop and shallow waters begin to freeze. Qitsualik expects his group will also come across polar bears, which adds some urgency.
“We want a quick kill and we want to butcher it [the bowhead] as fast as possible, because the polar bears are going to come around,” he said. “The sooner we get it done, the better.”
If all goes well, Qitsualik expects the whale to be caught and butchered some time between Sept. 16 and Sept. 21, he said.
Once done, the whaling party’s priority will be “getting the maktaaq on this side of the ocean [Taloyoak and James Ross Strait], and bringing it to the community,” he said. “That’s the hardest part — and hauling our gear from one side of the ocean to the next.”
The whaling party planned to set up camp at Lord Mayor Bay in the Gulf of Boothia by Sept. 12, and hunt for their bowhead in those waters.
Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde
Steenstraat 1, 2300 AE Leiden
www.sachadeboer.com www.volkenkunde.nl
De fotoserie ‘Gjoa Haven’, in april 2008 gemaakt tijdens een avontuurlijke reis voor het Wereld Natuur Fonds, geeft een kijkje in de Inuit-gemeenschap van Uqsuqtuuq (Overdaad aan vet) en de ervaring met de harde wekelijkheid van het Arctische klimaat.
Uqsuqtuuq ofwel Gjoa Haven ligt op het King Williams eiland in Nunavut, Canadees Noordpoolgebied.
De Noordpool is een punt gelegen in de Arctische Oceaan (Noordelijke IJszee).
In 1904 ging Poolreiziger Roald Amundsen met het schip de Gjøa bij King Williams Eiland voor anker en verbleef er twee winters samen met zijn bemanning. Hij vond dit 'het mooiste haventje ter wereld' en noemde het plek Gjoa Haven. De Gjøa, die nu bij het Noorse Maritieme Museum in Oslo ligt, is ook de naamgever van een olieveld in het Noorse deel van de Noordzee.
Amundsen, die als eerste door de Noordwestelijke Doorvaart voer, leerde veel van de Netsilik Inuit, die in het gebied rond King Williams Eiland, rondtrokken. Tijdens zijn Zuidpoolexpeditie had hij daarvan veel profijt. Amundsen, bekend met de reizen van dr. John Rea, die als eerste de Noordwestelijke Doorvaart gezien had en waarvan dit jaar zijn 200ste geboortedag herdacht wordt, heeft terecht de sleutel tussen King William eiland en het Boothia schiereiland, boven het Rasmussen Basin, de Rae Strait genoemd. Ook heeft Rea vastgesteld dat King Williamland een eiland is.
Eerst in 1927 vestigde de Hudson's Bay Company een post bij Gjoa Haven en groeide het uit tot de huidige nederzetting.
Ken McGoogan schreef o.a. het fascinerende boek: Fatal Passage. The Untold Story of John Rae, the Arctic Adventurer Who Discovered the Fate of Franklin. McGoogan selecteerde en introduceerde ook: The Arctic Journals of John Rae.
Tegenpool
Fotoboekje: Sacha de Boer + Raymond Rutting
Uitgeverij: Atlas-Contact (1-2011); 64 blz.
ISBN: 9789045019178; Ramsj € 7,99
Het boekje bestaat uit twee delen: foto’s van Gjoa Haven (Sacha de Boer) en van een toeristenreis naar het Zuidpoolgebied (Raymond Rutting, verslaggever de Volkskrant). Doordat het kan worden omgekeerd, wordt de achterkant een nieuwe voorkant. Hierdoor wordt het werk van beide fotografen, dat opvallend verschillend is, gescheiden. Aan beide kanten staat een beknopte inleiding, de foto's zijn voorzien van korte bijschriften, met o.a. uitleg over de manier van fotograferen, bijvoorbeeld praktische tips hoe je met de apparatuur moet omgaan in extreem koude omstandigheden.
De opbrengsten gaan naar een goed doel om klimaatverandering tegen te gaan.
Fotoboekje: Sacha de Boer + Raymond Rutting
Uitgeverij: Atlas-Contact (1-2011); 64 blz.
ISBN: 9789045019178; Ramsj € 7,99
Het boekje bestaat uit twee delen: foto’s van Gjoa Haven (Sacha de Boer) en van een toeristenreis naar het Zuidpoolgebied (Raymond Rutting, verslaggever de Volkskrant). Doordat het kan worden omgekeerd, wordt de achterkant een nieuwe voorkant. Hierdoor wordt het werk van beide fotografen, dat opvallend verschillend is, gescheiden. Aan beide kanten staat een beknopte inleiding, de foto's zijn voorzien van korte bijschriften, met o.a. uitleg over de manier van fotograferen, bijvoorbeeld praktische tips hoe je met de apparatuur moet omgaan in extreem koude omstandigheden.
De opbrengsten gaan naar een goed doel om klimaatverandering tegen te gaan.
Eerder verscheen het fotoboek: Gjoa Haven.
Foto’s: Sacha de Boer. Tekst: Babs Assink.
Uitgeverij: Veenman Drukkers (2008); 194 blz.
ISBN: 9789086902262
Gjoa Haven whalers seek bowhead in Gulf of
Boothia
Crew travel by boat to Taloyoak and portage to hunting site
nunatsiaqonline.ca
NEWS: Nunavut September 12, 2013; Peter Varga
Crew travel by boat to Taloyoak and portage to hunting site
nunatsiaqonline.ca
NEWS: Nunavut September 12, 2013; Peter Varga
Whalers
in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut’s third and final community permitted to hunt a bowhead
whale this year, finally set sail on their whaling expedition Sept. 9, after a
series of delays.
The bowhead hunt is the community’s first in recent memory. In fact, no members of the whaling crew have ever hunted such an animal.
“We’re all hunters, but none of us have
ever been on a bowhead hunt,” said James Qitsualik, chairman of the Gjoa
Haven Hunters and Trappers organization and captain of the whaling party. “We’re all new to this.”The bowhead hunt is the community’s first in recent memory. In fact, no members of the whaling crew have ever hunted such an animal.
In preparation, the whaling party took advice from experienced bowhead whalers in other communities of the Kivalliq region that have performed such hunts, including Kugaaruk, Rankin Inlet, and Taloyoak.
“We’ve heard a lot from other communities on how to hunt and butcher [bowheads],” he said. “We’ve been studying the anatomy of the whale too.”
Twelve other communities of Nunavut have had bowhead hunts since 1996, when Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board first agreed to allow a limited hunt of the animal in the Nunavut Settlement Area. Since 2009, no more than three bowhead hunts per year are permitted in Nunavut – one to a given community in each region of the territory.
The communities of Pangnirtung and Repulse Bay caught this year’s two other bowheads in August.
Gjoa Haven hunters originally planned to do their hunt in mid-August, Qitsualik said, but a visit from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who came to see the Canadian Rangers in the community, wiped out those plans.
“That’s when they got all the Rangers and we had trouble finding boats and hunters. So we had delay after delay,” he said. The captain originally assigned to the hunt backed out for the Rangers’ work, and a second captain resigned before Qitsualik took the post.
Meanwhile, the whaling party changed their choice of hunting location. Ice and wind conditions in James Ross Strait ruled out their first choice, 289 kilometres of Gjoa Haven. The hunters’ second choice - to hunt for a whale in the Gulf of Boothia - is now underway.
Although the second choice is closer, little more than 160 km away, the whaling party has to portage boats and equipment over a narrow section of Boothia Peninsula, just east of the community of Taloyoak, to get to the site.
“The people of Taloyoak kept encouraging us to come here and they’re willing to help. That’s why we just said OK, let’s go,” Qitsualik said from the community on Sept. 11, where the party was planning the next stage of their journey after having spent the night.
Qitsualik and his crew of 15 expect to find many whales on other side of the portage at Lord Mayor Bay, he said, which faces the Gulf of Boothia.
“There’s a lot of whales on the other side, and there’s not many on this side,” Qitsualik said. Arctic waters between Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak “can be hazardous,” he said.
“We feel we’ll be safer here and we can get more help while we’re here also.”
Qitsualik and his whaling party are taking advice from the captain of last year’s bowhead whale hunt in Taloyoak along the way, he said. Taloyoak whale-hunters caught their bowhead last year with captain Abel Aqqaq.
The party has a lot of heavy lifting to do on the portage. Four hunting boats will hit the waters of the Gulf of Boothia some time after Sept. 11, said Qitsualik, transported by ATV-towed trailers.
Once the whalers set up camp and set out into the water, they will search for a “small” bowhead, he said, 30 to 40 feet (nine to 12 metres) long.
“We don’t want a huge bowhead. The bigger they are, they’re stiffer and tougher, and not as tender and tasty,” Qitsualik said, ideally a “32-footer.”
“Our goal is to get a young one, as long as it’s not a calf or its mother.”
The whaling party hopes to meet their goal quickly, as temperatures drop and shallow waters begin to freeze. Qitsualik expects his group will also come across polar bears, which adds some urgency.
“We want a quick kill and we want to butcher it [the bowhead] as fast as possible, because the polar bears are going to come around,” he said. “The sooner we get it done, the better.”
If all goes well, Qitsualik expects the whale to be caught and butchered some time between Sept. 16 and Sept. 21, he said.
Once done, the whaling party’s priority will be “getting the maktaaq on this side of the ocean [Taloyoak and James Ross Strait], and bringing it to the community,” he said. “That’s the hardest part — and hauling our gear from one side of the ocean to the next.”
The whaling party planned to set up camp at Lord Mayor Bay in the Gulf of Boothia by Sept. 12, and hunt for their bowhead in those waters.
In
Norway, Aglukkaq visits Gjoa exhibit, promotes Arctic Council
Geplaatst: 21.09.2013. Gewijzigd: 2013 09 24
“Amundsen’s
story and this ship are very meaningful to me"
3 September 2013
 |
| Nunavut
MP Leona Aglukkaq speaks Sept. 2 at the Fram Museum in Oslo. |
While in
Oslo, Norway for the United Nations-linked Climate and Clean Air Coalition
meeting, Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq, who is also Canada’s environment minister
and minister responsible for the Arctic Council and the Canadian Northern
Economic Development Agency, stopped by the Fram Museum Sept. 2 to praise
Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen — and talk about Canada’s Arctic
Council chairmanship.
In June 2013, a new wing of the Fram Museum opened to house the Gjøa, the ship used by Amundsen to navigate the Northwest Passage in 1906.
Amundsen became trapped in the ice off King William Island, near the community now called Gjoa Haven. There, he and his crew spent two winters and developed a close relationship with the Netsilik Inuit.
“Amundsen’s story and this ship are very meaningful to me. I grew up in the small Arctic community of Gjoa Haven. My family lives there today, and I still call it home,” Aglukkaq said. “The traditional knowledge, expertise and cultures of the people living in the Arctic were critical to Amundsen’s success in reaching the South Pole in 1911. And I believe they will also be key to the future success of the Arctic region.”
Aglukkaq repeated her message that the overarching theme of the Arctic Council under Canada is “development for the people of the North,” that is, she said, responsible Arctic resource development, safe Arctic shipping and sustainable circumpolar communities.
“Very simply, Canada will put the interests of those who live in the Arctic first. During Canada’s chairmanship, the council program will include the creation of a circumpolar business forum, recommendations for incorporating traditional and local knowledge into its work, and the development of actions to address black carbon and methane emissions,” Aglukkaq said, referring to the goals of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition meeting.
In June 2013, a new wing of the Fram Museum opened to house the Gjøa, the ship used by Amundsen to navigate the Northwest Passage in 1906.
Amundsen became trapped in the ice off King William Island, near the community now called Gjoa Haven. There, he and his crew spent two winters and developed a close relationship with the Netsilik Inuit.
“Amundsen’s story and this ship are very meaningful to me. I grew up in the small Arctic community of Gjoa Haven. My family lives there today, and I still call it home,” Aglukkaq said. “The traditional knowledge, expertise and cultures of the people living in the Arctic were critical to Amundsen’s success in reaching the South Pole in 1911. And I believe they will also be key to the future success of the Arctic region.”
Aglukkaq repeated her message that the overarching theme of the Arctic Council under Canada is “development for the people of the North,” that is, she said, responsible Arctic resource development, safe Arctic shipping and sustainable circumpolar communities.
“Very simply, Canada will put the interests of those who live in the Arctic first. During Canada’s chairmanship, the council program will include the creation of a circumpolar business forum, recommendations for incorporating traditional and local knowledge into its work, and the development of actions to address black carbon and methane emissions,” Aglukkaq said, referring to the goals of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition meeting.
