Research news
Arctic research visit underlines importance of community
partnerships
Keeper of the British Museum’s Department of Africa, Oceania and
the 
Americas, Jonathan King
has returned from a research visit to distribute copies of the
Museum publication, Arctic Clothing to members of the
community of Igloolik in northern Canada.
The trip was the latest in a number of partnership projects
between the British Museum and the Igloolik Elders Society. It was
funded through a programme of research and development of Native
North American activities, supported by the Eugene V and Clare E
Thaw Trust based in Santa Fe, in the United States of America, and
the Sosland family.
Jonathan King spent four days in Igloolik presenting copies of
the book, which explores the way well-designed clothing enables
people in the Arctic to hunt and survive in the world's harshest
conditions, to elders, government leaders and friends.
“Arctic Clothing was very well
received,” he said, adding: “among non-Inuit it is already
well-kno
wn and much
appreciated.”
He explained that the visit emphasises the
significance of working in partnership with communities around the
world. “It is hard to exaggerate how important continuity in
research and in personal contacts matters. Research partnerships of
this kind provide an international benchmark for local
identity.”
Located between Baffin Island and the Canadian
mainland, Igloolik is around 1800 miles directly north of the US
city of Detroit. With a population of 1,600 it is an and
ancient and important trading community, which since the 1960s
became a permanent settlement for Inuit to receive education,
medical and social services.
Today, as part of the self-governing territory
of Nunavut, Igloolik is a standard bearer in cultural practice
among aboriginal peoples of the Arctic. Its education and
administration systems are bilingual, trilingual with French as the
second official language. Isuma, the film making studio run
by Zac Kunnuk is located there, while the Elders Society, in
co-operation with the Igloolik Research Centre has created a
translated digitised collection of more than 520 interviews with
elders, recorded in the hamlet since 1986.
Both sea and land animals, birds and fish, provide raw materials
for the creation of unique forms of highly efficient clothing in
the region, from different types of parkas, to trousers, layered
footwear, gloves and headwear. Clothing in the Arctic not only
protects people but connects them to the environment they live in,
and most importantly their world view.
In 2001, the British Museum presented Annuraaq - Arctic
Clothing from Igloolik, an exhibition focussing on
contemporary work by women from Igloolik, as well as a conference,
Arctic Clothing of North America - Alaska, Canada,
Greenland. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with
the Department of Culture, Language, Elders, and Youth of the
Government of Nunavut, and with the Inullariit Elders' Society,
Igloolik, and the Igloolik Research Centre of the Research
Institute of Nunavut.
Images (from top):
Maurice Arnatsiaq and Jonathan
King in Igloolik, 28 November 2007. Photograph by John
MacDonald.
Charlene Kappianaq and her grandmother Rachel Uyarasuk,
looking at Arctic Clothing, 30 November 2007.