The Harp-seal Controversy and the Inuit Economy

• Main Author: I George Wenzel
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Foote; Harp Seal; inuit; Northwest Atlantic; ringed seal
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.544.3888; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic31-1-2.pdf

At a time when the economy and culture of Canada's Inuit are coming under increasing strain as a result of the penetration of southern ways of life into the North, a second potential threat to them has also arisen from environmental-activist groups opposed to the northwest-Atlantic seal hunt. Just over ten years ago, D.C. Foote called attention to the effects protests directed at the Gulf of St. Lawrence harp-seal hunt were having on the local ' economies of Inuit com-munities in the eastern Arctic. In a brief note (Foote 1967), he pointed out the close economic and cultural relationship between the Inuit and the ringed seal. By the end of the nineteen-sixties, the intensity of the protest had diminished and the market for ringed seals stabilized. Until 1977, little more was heard from the protesters. Then the controversy surrounding the organized hunting of newborn harp seals by Canadian and foreign sealers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence again arose. Several organizations located in southern Canada began an intensive publicity campaign to have the hunt banned. The form which the protests has taken is well known, for it has