February 12th- Aurora Borealis and Traditional Hunting Tools

Another thing on the bucket list.. See the Aurora Borealis, or more commonly referred to as the Northern Lights!

The presenter started off the day with describing what the Northern Lights are. They are lights of green, purple, pink and white that dance in the icy skies on the North. There are many legends and myths behind these lights as signals of changing weather and signals of impending doom. There was a long held belief that sunlight was being reflected off of the polar ice caps to create the Aurora Borealis but actually, energized particles entering earth's magnetic fields from the North and South Poles make up the aurora. The best time to see these astounding acts of nature are between 10pm-3am daily, and they are best seen in late fall, winter and early spring. 

I truly hope to be able to see these in person someday. I find it so amazing and surreal that the Earth that I am apart of is capable of such beauty 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcfWsj9OnsI

A beautiful time-lapse video of the Northern Lights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc3FxNXjBs0

The Northern Lights in Finland.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/northernlights

So beautiful!

Joe was the second presenter of the day and chose to do his topic on Traditional Hunting Techniques and Tools in the Arctic. Hunting and trapping techniques throughout the region have remained quite similar. Trapping became very extensive during fur trade, especially for the Arctic Fox. To catch one, the traditional Inuit would build an igloo structure out of rocks and leave a hole at the top, and once baited, this would become the trap. When hunting for wolves, the Inuit would take a knife and cover it in layers of frozen seal blood and this would cause the wolf to bleed to its death. Caribou were a vital part of their hunting and they would use everything from their skins, bones, antlers and meat. When fishing, the lure was the most prominent tool used. The Inuit would craft many different lures using various bones, shells and antlers. Seal Hunting was the largest and most important aspect of the Inuit diet. The hunters would use their dogs to track down seals through their breathing holes. Once the seal resurfaced to these holes, they would would spear it to death with a tool called a "unaq". 

Joe raised two good discussion questions. He asked "What are the positive and negative aspects of the traditional techniques?" and "Does the invention of the rifle and new techniques help or kill the Inuit culture?". I feel that there are many positive aspect of the traditional techniques, including the fact that the Inuit can live so close off of the land. They aren't using anything high-tech to catch these animals and that definitely makes it a lot cheaper for them to hunt. The negative aspect of the traditional techniques could be that it takes quite a bit longer to catch the food than it would be to use a rifle, or a modern-day tool. I do worry that the invention of the rifle is helping to "put a nail in the coffin" of the Inuit culture. The Inuits need to continue to implement both modern day and traditional techniques so that the older techniques are not lost. 

http://naindians.forsyth.wikispaces.net/Inuit

An "Unaq"

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_male_arctic_char.jpg

One of the most common types of fish fished for, the Arctic Char

I hope that you have enjoyed reading up on these two presentations! I could of posted a thousand videos of the Aurora Borealis and would never get sick of looking at all that beauty! 

But until next time..

Janelle