Inuit plant use in the eastern Subarctic: comparative ethnobotany in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik and Nain, Nunatsiavut

• Main Authors: Cuerrier, Alain, Clark, Courtenay, Norton, Christian Howard
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing) 2019
• Subjects: Kangiqsualujjuaq; Nain; Nunavik; inuit; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/94314; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjb-2018-0195

Plants are important in traditional Inuit life. They are used for food, tea, medicine, etc. Based on semi-structured interviews with 35 informants, we documented and compared plant names and uses in Nain, Nunatsiavut and Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik. Plant names and uses were expected to be similar between communities owing to common boreal-subarctic environments and cultural ties. Both communities reported the same number of taxa, with equivalent proportions of vascular/non-vascular, growth forms, use categories, and medicinal uses. Forty-three species were used in each community, for a total of 78 species from 39 families. Despite a high overlap in species distributions, only 35% of non-vascular and 56% of vascular species were used in both communities. Correspondence was higher at the family level (64% of non-vascular and 75% of vascular families shared). The Ericaceae family was the most-used, followed by Rosaceae. Thirteen of 30 medicinal species were shared between communities. There was a low correspondence regarding the conditions for which the medicinal species were used. Edible taxa were shared the most (52%). Plant uses unique to either Nain or Kangiqsualujjuaq may reveal separate bodies of traditional knowledge, or may reflect an overall loss of ethnobotanical knowledge in the Subarctic due to recent lifestyle changes. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author.