Inuit Land Use Patterns in the Hopedale Region

• Main Author: Elliott, Deirdre A
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: The Open Repository @ Binghamton (The ORB) 2024
• Subjects: Labrador; Inuit; land use patterns; culture contact; Archaeological Anthropology; Hopedale; inuit
• Online Access: https://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol50/iss1/3; https://orb.binghamton.edu/context/neha/article/1552/viewcontent/NEHA_V50_2021_03_Elliott_pp5to19.pdf; https://orb.binghamton.edu/context/neha/article/1552/filename/0/type/additional/viewcontent/Figure_1_Hopedale_2018_survey_location.tiff; https://orb.binghamton.edu/context/neha/article/1552/filename/1/type/additional/viewcontent/Figure_2_Locations_of_surveyed_areas.tiff; https://orb.binghamton.edu/context/neha/article/1552/filename/2/type/additional/viewcontent/Figure_3_Schematic_diagram_of_tent_ring_forms.tif; https://orb.binghamton.edu/context/neha/article/1552/filename/3/type/additional/viewcontent/Figure_4_Tent_rings_photographed_in_2018.tif

This paper presents preliminary insights from an exploratory archaeological survey of the Hopedale region, Nunatsiavut. Despite its continued importance — from the 17th century as an Inuit whaling community — to the late 18th century with one of Labrador’s first Moravian missions, to today as the seat of the Nunatsiavut government, Hopedale has seen relatively little archaeological activity since the 1930s, and most of the islands and bays near the town had never been surveyed. A brief survey in the summer of 2018 recorded nearly 30 prehistoric, historic, and ethnographic sites, affirming the Labrador Inuit Association’s 1977 statement– “Our footprints are everywhereâ€. The majority of these sites are the remains of short- and long-term summer habitation sites, and speak to the extensive and intensive use of Hopedale’s outer coastal region by Labrador Inuit since the 16th century. Here I explore what this land use meant in terms of Labrador Inuit lifeways and mobility, and the intersection of Inuit and European presences (both transient and permanent) that these spaces represent. I thus demonstrate that, as well as being on the periphery of many worlds, Hopedale has a long history as a nexus of economic and social activity.