4 Berry Harvesting in the Eastern Arctic An Enduring Expression of Inuit Women’s Identity

The land is an inextricable part of Indigenous peoples’ identity and well-being. More than merely a physical space, the land holds a spiritual meaning integral to the very nature of Indigenous cultures, a truth recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (see United Nations 2007, esp. article 25). Speaking to the Northern context, Nuttall (2001) has observed that land is fundamental to the expression of identity and feelings of belonging for Greenlandic Inuit. We might apply this insight to how Arctic peoples more broadly connect to the land:

The expression of locality appeals to the sense of a bounded nature of a specific territory or area in which people live and to which they belong . . . [and] implies a sense of belonging or coming from those places, of being born in a particular place and having kinship relations there—in short, having roots. (Nuttall 2001, 54)

This observation suggests that a sense of continuity and tradition holds localities together through stories, place names, and individual experiences, and that memories cannot be separated from the places in which they are formed. Discussing significant sites, returning to them time after time, and harvesting the land’s bounty are important activities and interactions necessary for Inuit to remain close and connected to the land and to their history. This land-based connection is fundamental to the continuation and preservation of identities (Jacobs 1986).

Inuit maintain a land-based identity that is a product of their travels, food-procurement activities, and social interactions (Dowsley 2015; Gombay 2005). They historically named local bands and places after landscape features (Boas 1888; Briggs 1970), and they keep memories alive and transmit their knowledge of the land to younger generations by frequently visiting old occupation and resource-use sites (Dowsley 2015; Nuttall 2001).

Their interactions with the land often take into account the non-human occupation of the land too. Many places are understood by Inuit to be associated with the behaviour and actions of spirits and legendary beings (Burch 1971; Hill 2012; Pratt 1993). This non-empirical element of the landscape, with roots in the pre-Christian, shamanistic past, persists as a belief among many Inuit even though Christian missionaries encouraged them to abandon such world views. Likewise, long-held beliefs about reciprocity, sharing, and obligation have also persisted into modern times in the face of increasingly capitalistic economic relations (Dowsley 2010, 2015). The Inuit world view holds that animals are sentient beings who offer their bodies to people in return for respectful treatment (see Stairs and Wenzel 1992). Productive hunts will only follow on the basis that hunters share their quarry with other Inuit, and that they treat the land and its animals with respect. Inuit have long maintained that a departure from this mutual understanding and obligation will likely result in a poor hunt and a lack of game.

Given the meat-based diet of the Inuit, their lack of agriculture, and the arctic biomes they inhabit, early ethnographers tended to infer that their interactions with the botanical realm were insignificant. Accounts and reports of early explorers and naturalists generally lack descriptions of Inuit knowledge and conceptions of the plant world. Of course, Inuit have maintained a deep understanding of plants for generations, with a rich knowledge passed on through oral means concerning their medical qualities, nutritional value, properties, flavour, seasonal characteristics, and their use by birds and animals (Hantzsch 1928).

Inuit maintain a system for knowing and naming plants, a taxonomy that is only now being understood and appreciated by non-Inuit ethnobotanists (see Pigford and Zutter 2014; Whitecloud and Grenoble 2014). A detailed classification system is presented in a study of the botanical knowledge held by Inuit elders in Kangiqsujuaq, a village located in Nunavik, on the northeastern tip of the Ungava Peninsula (see Cuerrier et al. 2011, 72) (figure 4.2). The study reports that plants (pirurtuq) are conceptually connected to nuna—the Inuit word for “land,” although nuna can also mean “everything that grows in the earth, vegetation,” as well as “country that is inhabited” (Cuerrier et al. 2011, 72; Schneider 1985, 223). While berries (paurngaq) are not explicitly assigned to a particular category of plant in the study (presumably they would be classified under pirursiaq, “small plants with flowers”), a significant part of the study nonetheless contains descriptions, names, and information about activities associated specifically with berries, including berry picking (Cuerrier et al. 2011, 72; Schneider 1985, 259).

To some degree, land-use studies across the Canadian Arctic have identified, but not necessarily placed emphasis on, the cultural significance of berries through the mapping and identification of berry-picking locations, berry camps, and associated travel routes. One example is the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project (Freeman 1976). This study used ethnographic techniques to depict and describe the extent and type of land, ice, and sea use engaged in by Canadian Inuit. The resulting maps were based on details provided through interviews with Inuit men; the perspectives of Inuit women and their interactions with the land were not captured in this project. Hugh Brody was the only regional director of research, out of seven in the study, that mentioned berries. He recognized that a more complete understanding of berry picking would probably have been gained if Inuit women had been canvassed for the study.

There are reasons for supposing that the range is understated. As well as restriction to the best or core areas, there is a tendency for men to disavow berry picking as a subject of importance. Even the core areas marked are likely to be fewer in number or less detailed than that that women could have marked. (Brody 1976, 171)

Regrettably, the maps to which Brody refers did not make their way into the study’s published findings. The omission of information on berry- and other plant-harvesting activities makes it impossible to study longitudinal shifts in the importance of berries to the Inuit of those regions, especially in the face of the increasing availability of store-bought foods, alterations to the physical landscape, and changes in Inuit cultural practices of land use. In the absence of information on plants, the report unfortunately conveys the sense that the harvesting of caribou, fish, geese, and whales is of greater significance than the gathering of plants to the Inuit cultural landscape in general.

The lack of mention of berries in most historical documentation on the Canadian Inuit is a remarkable oversight given that both Inuit and non-Inuit people have always harvested berries, especially since some accounts in the historical record suggest berries were more than just sources of food. Evidence suggests that berries were associated with spiritual understandings of landscape. This is apparent in Rasmussen’s account, in Intellectual Culture of the Hudson Bay Eskimos (1929), of a shamanistic séance in which a woman is healed for breaking a whole range of taboos, among them “eating of the earth” (berries and sorrel) when she is in an unclean state:

Shaman: Even for so hardened a conscience there is release. But she is not yet freed. Before her I see green flowers of sorrel and the fruits of sorrel.

Listeners: Before the spring was come, and the snow melted and the earth grew living, she once, wearing unclean garments, shovelled the snow away and ate of the earth, ate sorrel and berries, but let her be released from that, let her get well, tauva! (Rasmussen 1929, 139)

Similarly, the naturalist Edward Nelson recorded a Yup’ik story from Alaska in the late 1800s that possibly connected berries to shamanistic practice. This appears in an account relating to Yup’ik beliefs on moon travel:

On the lower Yukon [River] and southward they say that there are other ways of getting to the moon, one of which is for a man to put a slip noose around his neck and have the people drag him about the interior of the kashim [men’s house] until he is dead. At one time two noted shamans on the Yukon did this, telling the people to watch for them as they would come back during the next berry season. When the season designated had passed, the people of the village said that one of the shamans came back, coming a little out of the ground, looking like a doll, but he was very small and weak and there was no one outside the houses at the time to feed and care for him, except some children, so that he was overlooked and went away again. (Nelson 1899, 430–431)

The majority of descriptions relating to berries in the written record, however, pertain to abundance and crops. The accounts relating to the names Inuit ascribed to berries, and remarks on the distribution of berries, provide a sense of how important berries have always been to Inuit as a food source. The Hudson’s Bay Company trading post records and missionary reports contain some mention of the quality and quantity of berry harvests. Sutton (1912, 285), a missionary doctor in Labrador, noted that the berry crop of that region failed in 1904 because “a plague of mice had eaten the young shoots in springtime.” Reporting on Labrador Inuit lifeways in the early 1900s, Hawkes (1916, 34) observed: “The abundance of various kinds of berries compensates for the absence of large fruit. Nearly twenty varieties of edible berries are distinguished and named by the natives.” On naming and knowing berries, Hawkes (1916, 35) also reported that Inuit “distinguish several varieties of blueberries and blackberries as to colour and shape,” adding that “these distinctions may be due only to seasonal changes, but go to show what sharp observers of natural phenomena the Eskimo are.” Writing on the Inuit living in what was then the District of Ungava (northern Québec), Hantzsch (1928, 172), an ornithologist who visited Labrador in 1906, observed: “If September is warm in the vicinity of Killinek [Killiniq], large quantities of berries ripen. I found such especially in Arctostaphylos alpina [mountain bearberry].” He went on to note that “it only pays to gather them in exceptional years” and that “much of this is done by the Eskimos in districts of Labrador situated farther south.”

Hantzsch (1928, 226) further noted Inuit use of this berry as a prophylactic for rash—hence the Inuktitut name for the berry, kallaqutik, from kalaq, a scabrous sore (Schneider 1985, 118). The closely related Iñupiaq of Alaska also used several berries for medicine (Burch 2006, 188–189). Common juniper (Juniperus communis or tulukkam asriaq) berries, along with the leaves and stems, were brewed as medicinal tea. “Blackberry (Empetrum nigrum, or paunġaq) juice was squeezed into the eye to relieve the symptoms of cataracts and snow blindness” (Burch 2006, 278). Burch also noted that lowbush cranberries (Vaccinium vitis-ideae) “were used, along with seal or fish oil, to cure loss of appetite; they were mashed into a paste and placed around the neck to cure a sore throat; and they were similarly wrapped around a person’s abdomen to cure a potentially fatal affliction known as siksisaq” (Burch 2006, 189).

Burch (2006, 188) also provides a description of berry-harvesting methods among the Iñupiat:

Salmonberries [Rubus chamaemorus] and blackberries [Empetrum nigrum] were carefully picked by hand, but the others were picked quickly and in a seemingly chaotic manner. Women placed small baskets or buckets beneath the shrubs. The shrubs were then stroked with a special instrument resembling a short-handled pitchfork . . . or whacked with a spoon or a dipperlike implement known as a qalutaq. This knocked the berries off the stems and into the container without damaging them. A considerable quantity of leaves and twigs inevitably fell into the container as well. The berries were periodically separated from the leaves and twigs by pouring them slowly from the small container, held two or three feet (60–100 cm) high, into a larger container resting on the ground. If there was even a light breeze, the detritus was blown away, leaving the container full of nothing but berries.

Berries were consumed raw across the Arctic, but their use in more processed dishes is also sometimes mentioned. Mixing berries with caribou fat, fish eggs, and other summer foods like eggs and sorrel leaves was common among the Iñupiaq (see Burch 2006, 213), who, it should be noted, had access to more species of berry shrubs as well as other plant foods compared to the more eastern Inuit. The Iñupiat preserved their berry harvests both through immersion in seal oil and through storage in food caches dug into the ground (Burch 2006, 222).

Over the past few generations there has been a decline in berry harvesting across the northern hemisphere in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities (see Berkes et al. 1994; Pouta, Sievänen, and Neuvonen 2006), which is attributed to the wider selection of imported food and increasingly urban lifestyles (Dowsley 2015; Pouta, Sievänen, and Neuvonen 2006). For example, in Finland the national participation in berry picking declined from 69 percent in 1981 to 55 percent in 2000 (Pouta, Sievänen, and Neuvonen 2006). A similar trend has been observed among the Attawapiskat Cree in the Canadian Subarctic near James Bay (Cummins 1992). What is intriguing, however, is how, in the face of the rapidly changing socio-economic landscape, the practice of berry picking has persisted while the harvesting of many other wild plants has declined precipitously. The reasons for this persistence are apparently not related directly to material benefit, because of the availability of alternate foods in most areas. Instead, we find much evidence that the value of berry harvesting relates more to its facilitation of social and cultural practices.

Norrgard (2009) found that around Lake Superior in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, berry harvesting allowed Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) to continue to practice traditional activities and embody cultural values, like sharing and mutual support, during periods of historical change. From the mid-nineteenth century to the post–World War II period, which was marked by the growing induction of Indigenous peoples into the wage economy, commercial sales of berries provided a significant amount of cash income for the Ojibwe of the region. Berries were picked both by individuals (usually women) and also in larger groups of both women and men, especially during periods when fewer opportunities were available for employment in traditionally male occupations such as lumbering. People travelled long distances to participate in berry-harvesting expeditions, and some berry patches were large enough to support pickers from the neighbouring Ho-Chunk (Winnegabo) people in an amicable intertribal harvest and celebration. The harvest itself represented both an enactment of harvesting traditions rights and an expression and confirmation of Indigenous identity and relationships with the environment. The decline, after World War II, in the market value of berries, and thus of the quantities harvested, has not diminished their cultural value. Thomas Peacock, from the Ojibwe Fond du Lac community in Wisconsin, stated, “Our ancestors saw bears eating blueberries. Our grandchildren will do the same. We are part of a story that goes on forever” (quoted in Norrgard 2009, 54–55). Being on the land and harvesting berries as part of the endless cycle of life remain integral parts of Indigenous identity, despite changing economic circumstances.

As part of the traditional subsistence economy, berry picking has historically been a major seasonal activity for many Indigenous groups (see, for example, McDonald, Arragutainaq, and Novalinga 1997; Parlee, Berkes, and Teetl’it Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council 2005; Pigford and Zutter 2014; see also figure 4.5 below). Norrgard (2009) reported that the Ojibwe around Lake Superior spent much of the summer season in berry camps. Among the Iñupiaq nations of northwest Alaska, the men left on hunting forays in the fall while the women focused on harvesting fish and on collecting berries and other plants (Burch 1998, 73). Even now, the Nunivak Islanders in Alaska often spend up to a month on the land in activities that include harvesting berries (Pratt 1994, 336–337). Such dedication of time to the activity clearly situates berry harvesting as a major opportunity for nurturing the human-land relationship in many Indigenous cultures.

Michell describes this experience for Cree people (in central and northern Ontario) as follows:

Gathering berries brings family together. Any sense of alienation and isolation quickly dissipates as people actively engage in simple talk. Getting in touch with the earth fosters an overall sense of interconnectedness. The fresh air, the sun, the wind, and the sounds and smells of nature refresh the mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical dimensions of our being. Gathering berries helps people communicate with that quiet stillness where peace and wisdom dwell. It is through berry picking and prolonged periods of time out on the land that we bond with the natural world. (Michell 2009, 66)

Further north, Parlee, Berkes, and the Teetl’it Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council (2005) worked with the Gwich’in in the Canadian Northwest Territories to identify nine values derived from berry picking that strengthen women’s connection to the land: individual preference; individual well-being; family well-being; social connectivity; cultural continuity; land and resource use; stewardship; self-government; and spirituality. It is interesting to note that the research participants did not list among these values the commercial sale of berries, which is legal and commonly occurs at the roadside or in some instances to companies for jam or other foodstuff production. These numerous examples of berry harvesting from different North American Indigenous groups illustrate the devotion of time, opportunities for nurturing human-environment and social relationships, as well as the key role of women in berry harvesting across cultures.

In many Northern cultures, including the eastern Canadian Inuit, berry picking (figure 4.4) is the major land-based activity organized by women (Giffen 1930; Pouta, Sievänen, and Neuvonen 2006; Whitecloud and Grenoble 2014). Giffen (1930, 10), writing on Inuit gender roles, states that, “in the autumn, abundant stores of berries are gathered by the women, who seem to have this department of the economic life entirely to themselves.” In our work with Inuit in the eastern Canadian Arctic over fifteen years, we have often learned about berry harvesting. In exploring some of these lessons below, we include comments made by our Nunavut research participants.¹ The general information was collected from Nunavik (northern Québec), Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut (Inuit homelands in northern and southern Labrador, respectively), and across Baffin Island (Nunavut).

Inuit women’s involvement in berry harvesting is noted in early reports (see, for example, Birket-Smith 1924; Dall 1870; Hall 1865; Langsdorff 1814; Nelson 1899; Porter 1893; Thalbitzer 1914). Recent decades have seen a decline in many Inuit land-based activities for a variety of economic, social, and environmental reasons (Collings 2014; Dowsley 2015). However, Inuit women have often indicated to us that berry picking is their most important food-procurement activity, and it draws the greatest number of participants among women in their communities. As Rachel Qaqqaq (Dowsley interview, 2012), a resident of Qikiqtarjuaq, an island community off the eastern coast of Baffin Island, emphatically stated, “Berry picking is the number one priority for ladies in September!” It is also apparent that women’s berry-picking activities are important for recalling and transmitting values and traditions about land, people, places, place names, and related phenomena. Berry harvesting thus sustains and reproduces Inuit identities, particularly for women. As the primary means through which Inuit women independently articulate their relationship with the natural environment, an examination of berry harvesting provides us with a forum for addressing the gender gap that several authors observe in environmental and Indigenous geography (Kermoal and Altamirano-Jiménez 2016; Reed and Christie 2009).

CONTEXT

In the eastern Canadian Arctic (central and southern Baffin Island and Nunavik), berry harvesting is generally conducted during the open-water season starting in late July and extending into October or November, depending on local conditions. While warm summer and early fall days are the most pleasant for picking, “some berries are at their best only after the first frosts of early fall” (Brody 1976, 171). The diversity of berry species generally declines with increasing latitude, as do the length of the growing season and size of the plants and berries. For example, the Inuit of Sanikiluaq—a community situated on the Belcher Islands in the southeastern portion of Hudson Bay, at a latitude of approximately 56°N—reported that they consume five local species of berries: blueberries (Vaccinium uliginosum), crowberries (Empetrum nigrum), bog cranberries (Vaccinium oxycoccus), cloudberries (Rubus chamaemorus), and, more rarely, red bearberries (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) (Wein, Freeman, and Makus 1996). Roughly 1,400 kilometres due north, Inuit living on northwestern Baffin Island in the vicinity of Foxe Basin reportedly distinguished four different types of berry (Brody 1976, 171). Surveys undertaken in Qikiqtarjuaq, situated slightly to the south but on the east coast of Baffin Island, indicate that the resident Inuit harvest three species: alpine bearberries/kallait (Arctostaphylos alpina), blueberries/kigutangirnait, and crowberries/paurngait (Inuktitut spellings from Ziegler, Joamie, and Hainnu 2009). Approximately 1,300 kilometres due east, the Inuit of southern Greenland also harvest three species: crowberries and blueberries, as well as lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-ideaea) (Whitecloud and Grenoble 2014).

Rather than attempt a nutritional and/or quantitative analysis of berries, which is available elsewhere (see, for example, Boulanger-Lapointe 2017; Jones 2010; Kuhnlein and Turner 2009; Pouta, Sievänen, and Neuvonen 2006; Whymper 1869), we focus here on the social and cultural aspects of berry picking. We agree with Parlee, Berkes, and the Teetl’it Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council (2005) that a quantitative approach would be too reductionist to ascertain the cultural nuances that inform our focus on identity, gender, and environment. In any case, the Inuit we spoke to did not describe their harvest in terms of quantity, but rather in terms of time needed for the harvest or length of time they had berries in their larders (consumption time). We observed that a weekend of berry picking can fill from one to three 5-kilogram buckets. Berries last for various lengths of time, depending on the household. There are some houses that only eat the berries fresh, while many others freeze their harvest. Some families run out of berries before winter, while others can make their harvest last until near Christmas, and in a good year, some are able to make theirs last into February. Berries are sometimes turned into jam as well, but some people indicated that they do not know how to make anything out of the berries. Consuming berries fresh was the most common method of eating them, and a few women add berries to muffins. Considered a delicacy by some community members, berries mixed with seal brains, melted blubber, and blood are readily consumed when available. Berries can also be added to caribou, seal, or narwhal fat, or mixed with char fish eggs as well. Interviewed in 1999 as part of the Igloolik Oral History Project, Rachael Uyarasuk described popular ways to utilize berries:

Q: When you are mixing caribou back fat for pudding, what would you add in the mixture?

RU: Caribou stomach content, when it was still frozen, having shaved it into small pieces, this could be supplemented with caribou back fat, the one that is mixed when it is not frozen, even in the winter. Berries would be added, or meat would be minced while it is frozen. These were the things that were used to supplement the caribou back fat. Or adding rancid blubber, where you would find it in the abandoned tent rings, if a [piece of] blubber had been left behind. The rendered oil from the blubber would get rancid, [and] by adding arctic willow, you would chew it as you would with a [piece of chewing] gum. And if there were berries, then you would collect them, the rancid blubber that we had made into gum, then by adding rendered oil, the colour would turn white like the colour of a caribou back fat. Then adding berries, you would make a pudding and eat it.

Q: Even using a rancid blubber?

RU: Yes.

Q: What would you use to hold the rancid oil?

RU: In the abandoned tent sites, or abandoned winter dwelling, once it thaws out, then it would [be] exposed where there might have been some blubber, so you can tell easily where the rancid oil is—so the arctic willows would be gathered, and you would chew these by adding rancid oil, then you would make gum so that it became quite large, then you would use that for mix.

Q: The rancid oil must be sticky?

RU: If you add Arctic willow, it no longer becomes sticky, that is, when you are chewing it. It is sticky when the rancid oil is not mixed with anything. That way you would make gum, after you had it for gum, as we would be berry picking, then the one that we were chewing would be mixed with oil, the dish would get large after you had added berries. That was the way we did it. They may not be appealing; nevertheless, we used to eat them.

These various reports on harvesting and using berries give an idea of how berries were utilized by the women in various ways as food, and they also give some hint of the large amount of time spent picking.

Berry bushes are quite common across the Arctic, but berries are not available everywhere, nor are the bushes equally productive across all areas. Berry picking does not occur homogeneously across the landscape, nor is it restricted to the best berry patches in terms of productivity, size, or other features of the berries. It is instead directed by social decisions in addition to ecology. Trusler and Johnson (2008) examined the factors that determine the location of berry-harvesting patches in the traditional territories of the Gitksan (Gitxsan) and Wet’suwet’en in British Columbia. They found that the locations were not strongly based on natural ecological characteristics. Instead, multiple factors such as proximity to human settlements, scheduling of other seasonal activities, resource management, and social and political structures, were also important. They labelled berry patches as cultural ecotopes, or a particular kind of place. Similarly, Inuit selection of berry-harvesting sites involves several factors unrelated to ecology of the berries. For example, the land in central Baffin Island is quite mountainous and many slopes are covered in berry bushes—but these are too steep to allow the berries to be gathered safely. Furthermore, if the harvesters wish to stay overnight, they will need an area with fresh water and flat, dry ground for camping. Cabins thus often become the headquarters for berry picking, regardless of whether they happen to be situated in the vicinity of the best berry patches.

Transportation to berry patches is another important factor. Women may walk or drive all-terrain vehicles to areas where berries grow. However, in the community of Qikiqtarjuaq, which is on an island, boat transportation is considered essential for a serious expedition. Boats are nearly universally operated by men. Usually, women travel with close male relatives, but occasionally they hitch a ride with other groups. Ulusi Rosie Koksiak (Dowsley interview, 2009) reported that she has to find someone to give her a lift. Another woman who lacks transportation has been known to berate the men on the community radio, telling them to take her berry picking. She always gets an invitation. Culturally, the human-land relationship is of central importance, and, out of respect, a woman who indicates her desire to get out on the land is usually obliged. However, Sheila Kopalie (Dowsley interview, 2009) explained that berry pickers who lack transportation usually have little choice but to use whatever berry patch the boat is already heading toward. Lacking close male relatives with whom to coordinate picking as a family event, she focuses instead on maximizing her harvest:

Every year I pick them. I find a way to go. I pick one bucket Friday to Sunday. It’s from my elbow to the tip of my fingers deep. The berries are mixed together in the bucket because the patches of berries are scattered so there are a lot of small patches. I systematically cover an area each day and take all of them. There are blue and blackberries. I don’t pick any other kinds. I go out alone, tagging along with another family, so [I] don’t bring my daughter.

Other women in Iqaluit likewise struggle to gain access to the land. Opportunities to go out in boats are in high demand in the community, and women with limited social networks are often at a disadvantage. Some women, particularly young women, described feeling shy about asking to go berry picking, preferring to be invited.

For many people, the geographic location of a summer/fall trip on the land is based on a site from which to harvest the more patchy hunting resources, and the fairly ubiquitous berries are collected in that locality as well. Thus, for both women travelling with their families and women hitching a ride, women’s berry picking is often tied closely to men’s hunting activities. This does not mean that berries are considered a less valuable resource than the products of men’s hunting. Both are valued in their own way: meat is the staple food, but berries are only seasonally available and are considered somewhat tedious to collect—and for these reasons berries are a delicacy. The privileging of geographic orientation toward hunting merely indicates the efficient spatial organization of Inuit harvesting. Berry bushes are abundant while animals are quite uneven in their distribution across the landscape. It is logical to travel to a good hunting area and harvest berries there rather than vice versa, which would reduce hunting success and only marginally (if at all) increase berry harvests.

The composition of a berry-harvesting party thus often includes men serving as pilots, providers of fresh meat to the camp, and bear guards. Children help out, but males are a major source of other forms of support. As Anore Jones (2010, 74) observes, “Although women pick most of the berries, children of all ages are highly praised for what they contribute. Many men pick berries, too. Those who don’t pick show their appreciation in other ways by tending camp, cooking, washing dishes, babysitting, and whatever will allow the women to pick more berries.”

The involvement of Alaska Native men in berry picking is an individual choice and results in some very committed male berry harvesters (Kenneth Pratt, pers. comm., 2017). The partial reversal of gender roles, where men become caregivers and keepers of the camp, as well as continuing their traditional masculine roles of pilots, hunters, and protectors, illustrates the flexibility of Inuit social structure (Giffen 1930). It also serves to strengthen the respect between spouses as they appreciate the contribution each makes to the household. The joy of being out on the land, combined with the shift in gender roles, makes berry season a time for family bonding, as everyone is involved in the fun and the family functions under slightly different norms (figure 4.6).

Berry-picking expeditions also often involve children, as Inuit women are generally the primary caretakers. Much berry picking is done close to camps or communities so that children might accompany their mothers or other relatives. Berry harvesting further from permanent dwellings is often accomplished through travelling to a base camp with the whole family. In the case of berry harvesting during a longer expedition, when the men are not occupied in hunting or fishing, they will watch the youngest children while the women pick berries. As Hannah Audlakiak (Dowsley interview, 2012) says of berry picking, “It is a long tradition, mainly upheld by the women, but with men as important support. Children are taught it at a young age and it is very popular with people of all ages.” In fact, as elders reduce their involvement with more rigorous harvesting activities, they often continue to participate in berry picking. Kenneth Pratt (pers. comm. 2017) suggests that berry picking is probably the first and last subsistence activity engaged in by individual members of Indigenous groups in Alaska; and we suspect that this is generally true for Indigenous peoples across the Arctic. Tutoring children in how to pick often involves encouraging them not to eat berries during picking or using other motivational games to increase the likelihood that they will not return to camp empty-handed. It is seen as important to introduce children to a subsistence lifestyle in which their contributions to feeding the group are recognized, and their identities as providers, group members, and descendants of their ancestors are built.

It is, of course, often difficult to keep children focused on harvesting, and berry picking with children can devolve into an amusing day on the land, with memories of exploration, adventure, and teachings about other aspects of the environment as the main product, rather than berries. As a multifaceted event, going berry picking entails many other activities that serve as training for children in interacting with the environment. Picnics often occur; children explore rocks, vegetation, water bodies, capture and examine small animals, or hunt birds and small mammals. Women and children often climb hills to take in the view and perhaps build an inukshuk. For some women, including Sheila Kopalie, maximizing the volume of berries collected is one goal; but for many women, interacting with the land and enjoying each other’s company is the major benefit of berry picking.

During the rest of the year, the female domain is the household and the workplace, in addition to the social aspects of the community. Women participate in community life as volunteers sitting on various governance committees (particularly those focused on education, health, and families), as unpaid caregivers for the elderly and children, and, increasingly, as heads of household (Dowsley et al. 2010). In the workplace, women tend to hold more white-collar and full-time jobs than men do, and a hunter needs a wife who earns a good income to finance his hunting (Kuokkanen 2011; Quintal-Marineau 2017; Todd 2016). This is because purchasing and maintaining hunting equipment, including boats and snowmobiles, is expensive. Before the mid-1980s, when fur trade bans were activated in Europe and the Inuit seal skin trade collapsed, women used to process the skins of seals and sell them to support their husbands’ hunting (Wenzel 1991). Thus, subsistence was a closed economic cycle, with men hunting for food, women preparing the meat and seal skins, and the proceeds from the fur trade in seal skins being used to support all the subsistence activities of the family, including subsistence hunting and berry harvesting. Today skins have little economic value, so the family needs another source of income. If men are to spend significant amounts of time hunting, their wives need to supply the money to do so. Women whose male partners are involved in hunting tend to be more involved in subsistence or land-based activities themselves because the family owns the equipment and the husband possesses the skills necessary to support her and the rest of the family in excursions (Inksetter 2012). Ironically, then, a woman needs to participate in the market economy in order to participate in the subsistence economy under these conditions. Her participation, however, requires her to spend most of her time working, thus contributing to the development of a gendered division of space, in which the land is a place for male hunters and the village becomes feminine.

The exception to this division is most strongly seen in berry picking. Berry harvesting is both a feminine time and a feminine place that extends out from the normal female domain of the household and community and into the masculine-dominated landscape. When not constrained by their transportation providers, women make the decisions about when and where to pick berries, as well as which species and the quantity they will harvest. Unlike most discussions of gendered divisions of labour in contexts where the feminine is said to lack any essential qualities, and is instead defined as the complement or support of masculine activities, in berry season, we see women as the leaders of the activity and the men as supporters or minor actors (Simard-Gagnon 2013). Indeed, the hillsides and berry patches, places offering few hunting opportunities for men, are female spaces. To sit on such a hillside on a warm late-summer afternoon and watch the men on the shore of the fjord far below fetching water, fishing, or chasing after toddlers, and to be only in the company of other women, is at the core of how Inuit women relate to their landscape. People enjoy picking berries together, but they do not necessarily position themselves close enough for conversation with anyone. The space is simultaneously social and solitary. This peaceful, relaxed cultural space is shared by the related Iñupiat of Alaska:

Berries are by far the most popular plant food harvested from the land. Groups of women and whole families go out for days and weeks at a time to camp where the berries grow. They put up tents, set a fish net if possible, and hunt for meat to supplement whatever store food they have brought. These camps capture much of the beautiful aspects of the old Iñupiat. Long hours are spent picking berries and packing them back to camp. This is a happy time of living outside on the land and enjoying the friendship of partners and family. It is also a lovely time to be alone with your thoughts as you pick. (Jones 2010, 75)

Berry picking is the primary time for women to interact with the environment, and it is also their major vacation from the demands of work and village life. But in addition to that, it is a time and space in which they can enjoy a reprieve from their social responsibilities as caretakers and are in charge of a materially productive activity. It is where they are most free to relate to their environment, reflect on their lives, and nurture their spirits.

Although berry picking is often located within the context of male hunting excursions, we have learned about some cultural norms governing rights to berries and berry patches. Exclusive ownership of either the berry patch or the berries themselves is a delicate matter in Inuit culture. Sharing and respecting the gifts of the earth are paramount concepts (Dowsley 2015; Stairs and Wenzel 1992), and people are obliged to share country foods including meat, fish, and berries. However, in other Indigenous cultures, use and ownership rules are well-known and transgressions are socially proscribed (see, for example, Parlee, Berkes, and Teetl’it Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council 2006; Trusler and Johnson 2008). To prevent the overuse of common resources—otherwise known as a “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin 1968)—Indigenous communities have often developed institutions or rules-in-use that govern common resources such as berries (Parlee, Berkes, and Teetl’it Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council 2006). Similarly, women engaged in berry picking in the eastern Canadian Arctic have also developed their own loose rules, though they have not reported any serious pressure on the resource that might cause overuse or create the conditions in which stricter rules might become necessary.

In many communities, there is a family-based territorial system for berries. Berry patches are passed down from generation to generation. These may be located around current camps or cabins, which are often built on ancestral family lands. The traditional areas of past generations are also recognized, and people may have social sanction to pick at these old sites even without owning a modern cabin nearby. As Elizapee Kopalie (Dowsley interview, 2009) explained, “It’s not strict who can go there; a friend might come, or they might tell a friend and the friend decides to go or not.” A woman given a lift by another family is de facto invited to pick in their area for that trip. Parlee, Berkes, and the Teetl’it Gwich’in Renewable Resources Council (2006) noted that among the Gwich’in of the Northwest Territories, rules of access became stricter during times of berry scarcity. In our discussions with Inuit women, we found that in response to “bad” (unproductive) berry seasons, women commonly reported going berry picking earlier the following year because they were craving berries (Hannah Audlakiak, Dowsley interview, 2012). They also reported going to other areas in search of berries, although this choice depended on the accessibility of those areas and pickers’ social licence to harvest there.

There are also cultural norms around distribution of the berries. Traditional sharing networks are at the core of the subsistence economy (Gombay 2009). It is in the distribution of products from the land where Inuit social identity is most strongly enacted (Dowsley 2015; Kuokkanen 2011). It is therefore common for harvesters to ensure that non-pickers have berries, especially the elderly or others who cannot pick themselves. Eva Nookiguak (Dowsley interview, 2009), of Qikiqtarjuaq, explained that she gets berries from four different family members because she is too scared to cross the ocean in a small boat from her island community and harvest herself. Sheila Kopalie (Dowsley interview, 2009), whose description of her methodical picking procedures we read above, provides berries for the elders that she looks after as an in-home care worker, even though she has to find a spot on a boat in order to gather berries. She only consumes berries fresh, so after she supplies the elders, she will put her excess berries out in front of her house for everyone to share so that the berries do not go to waste. The pleasure Sheila derives from sharing her berries is consistent with the observations of Nicole Gombay (2009) and Martha Dowsley (2015), who emphasize that sharing is an integral part of being an Inuk.

The integration of the physical, social, psychological, and nourishing features of berry harvesting is one aspect of the way that Inuit conceptualize health (figure 4.7). Rather than the mere absence of disease, health is understood holistically, to include a person’s connection to the environment and all living things, both human and non-human (see, for example, Richmond et al. 2005). This holistic view of the person in the environment extends to plants, whether they are consumed as food or are used in the preparation of medicines.

Elisapee Ishutak (Dowsley interview, 2012) remembered a time when food came from the land, and there were hardly any grocery stores. People were healthier than they are today, partly because they had not yet developed a taste for foods high in fat, salt, and sugar. Her view of health extended beyond non-Indigenous conceptions of physical health. Rather, she was referring to the deeper feelings of harmony and well-being engendered by the experience of both picking berries and sharing them with other people. Much as being on the land nurtures Inuit identity, the berries harvested there are part of that larger social fabric of Inuit communities. They feed people, but they also nurture relationships and reciprocity, engender good feelings toward others, and thus make everyone feel better.

What comes through unmistakably when one listens to the voices of Inuit women in the eastern Canadian Arctic is that berry picking holds a value beyond the need for subsistence, which may explain why the act of berry picking has persisted in the face of capitalism and the constraints imposed by modern living conditions. Rauna Kuokkanen (2011) agrees, citing the intrinsic cultural values of land-based activities as the reason why a reticence exists in Indigenous communities about relying on money for anything other than securing supplies for a subsistence lifestyle:

Indigenous economies such as household production and subsistence activities extend far beyond the economic sphere: they are at the heart of who people are culturally and socially. These economies, including the practices of sharing, manifest indigenous worldviews characterized by interdependence and reciprocity that extend to all living beings and to the land. In short, besides an economic occupation, subsistence activities are an expression of one’s identity, culture, and values. They are also a means by which social networks are maintained and reinforced. (Kuokkanen 2011, 217)

As Kuokkanen points out, the Western development paradigm that emerged following World War II brought with it a sustained discursive assault on subsistence economies. Drawing on Rosa Luxemburg’s analysis of imperialism in The Accumulation of Capital ([1913] 1951), Kuokkanen notes that the expansion of capitalism into new markets requires the ongoing, and typically coercive, destruction of the economic autonomy of subsistence producers so as to render them dependent on wage labour. Once wage labour comes to be viewed as the only productive form of work, however, women’s unpaid contributions to household economies cease to hold value (Kuokkanen 2011, XX). At the same time, in Indigenous communities characterized by mixed economies, cash income is often valued primarily as a means to purchase the materials and equipment now required for the pursuit of subsistence activities (Kuokkanen 2011, XX; Quintal-Marineau 2017, XX). Despite limited job opportunities in the Arctic, Indigenous communities have retained their resilience and have managed to adapt to the market economy in ways that allow them to continue their subsistence lifestyle, which is the basis of their culture.

While berries provide sustenance to Inuit communities in the eastern Canadian Arctic, berry picking has become increasingly difficult. In particular, because of the capitalist system, the monetary cost of supplies, such as boats or snowmobiles and gasoline to go out on the land, has been increasing. However, as we have demonstrated, Inuit women stand to incur a far greater social and cultural cost if they stop berry picking. For these women, berry picking provides a way to maintain and strengthen cultural and ecological values, as well as community relationships and relationships with the land.

Berry and other plant harvesting is often classified as women’s work, and it has not been explored extensively by researchers (but see Simard-Gagnon 2013 and Boulanger-Lapointe 2017). This omission underscores the continued neglect of women in research on human-environment relations. We see a similar neglect in the study of other human-plant interactions (Head and Atchison 2009). Although plants and their potential pharmaceutical uses have been examined in scientific studies, more research needs to be conducted from a social and cultural perspective. Indeed, in order to appreciate the complex relationships between humans and their environment, we need to bridge the divide between science and humanities by combining quantitative and qualitative studies (Ryan 2011). We look forward to seeing more attention paid in the future to the human-plant relationship, and the gendered nature of that relationship, as part of an increasing focus on Indigenous women and the environment.

We thank our Inuit colleagues and friends for passing on their knowledge of the land to us, and for welcoming us into their homes. Thank you to John MacDonald and Carolyn MacDonald for providing constructive feedback and comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

1. 1 Unless otherwise indicated, interviews were conducted on eastern Baffin Island, by Martha Dowsley, or in Iqaluit, by Anna Bunce, and are identified in the text accordingly. (For further details, see Dowsley 2015 and Bunce 2015.) When research participants gave permission to use their real names, we have done so.

Interviews conducted by Anna Bunce in connection with Gender and the Human Dimensions of Climate Change: Global Discourse and Local Perspectives from the Canadian Arctic. Department of Geography, McGill University, Montréal. Interviews were conducted in English, unless otherwise indicated. Transcripts in possession of Bunce.

Iqaluit mother. Interview no. 1. June 2015.

Iqaluit elder (female). Interview no. 4. June 2015. Inuktitut, translated into English by Naomi Tatty

Iqaluit mother. Interview no. 6. June 2015.

Iqaluit grandmother. Interview no. 9. June 2015.

Iqaluit mother. Interview no. 13. June 2015.

Interviews conducted by Martha Dowsley in connection with Inuit Women and Subsistence: Social and Environmental Change. Department of Geography and the Environment, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario. Interviews were conducted in Qikiqtarjuaq, NU unless otherwise noted. Transcripts in possession of Dowsley.

Tina Alookie. Interview #B250609-1. 25 June 2009.

Daisy Arnaquq. Interview #B080609-2. 2009. 8 June 2009. Interview conducted by Jocelyn Inksetter

Hannah Audlakiak. Interview #20121215-Q2. 15 December 2012.

Mary Onga Audlakiak. Interview #B090609-1. 9 June 2009. Interpreter: Lavinia Curley

Oolootie Cormier. Interview #B060609-1. 6 June 2009. Interpreter: Lavinia Curley

Elisapee Ishutak. Interview #20121212-P2. 12 December 2012, Pangnirtung, NU. Interpreter: William Kilabuk

Ulusi Rosie Koksiak. Interview #B-070609-1. 7 June 2009.

Olasie Kooneelusie. Interview #B200609. 20 June 2009.

Elizapee Kopalie. Interview #B080609-1. 8 June 2009.

Sheila Kopalie. Interview #B210609-1. 21 June 2009.

Eva Nookiguak. Interview #B270609-1. 27 June 2009.

Rachel Qaqqaq. Interview #20121215-Q1. 15 December 2012. Interpreter: Martha Nookiguak

Igloolik Oral History Project. Igloolik Oral History Centre, Nunavut Arctic College, Igloolik.

Zachariasie Uqalik. Interview #IE-209. 1991.

Rachael Uyarasuk. Interview #IE-436. 1999.

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