ArchaeoCafé - Episode 2-11 - Wily foxes: An interview with Adrianna Wiley

In this episode I talk with Adrianna Wiley about the Thule Inuit usage and processing of Arctic foxes and about their modern day use by the Inuvialuit on Banks Island (Northwest Territories).

Episode notes are available on the ArchaeoCafé website.
http://archaeocafe.kvasirpublishing.com/archaeocafe-podcast-ep-211-wiley

About Adrianna Wiley

Adrianna is an anthropologist and bioarchaeologist studying at the University of Guelph. Her research has focused on topics such as Arctic fox butchering, as well as mental well-being among university students. Her research project was funded by SSHRC, NSTP, Western University USRI.

Web:
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/adrianna-wiley
https://socioanthro.uoguelph.ca/people/adrianna-wiley

Some useful terminology and links

Inuvialuit
The Inuvialuit are Inuit people who live in the western Canadian Arctic region. They are descendants of the Thule who migrated eastward from Alaska.
https://irc.inuvialuit.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuvialuit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuvialuit_Settlement_Region

Inuvialuit Living History (Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait) project
A project focused on the little-known MacFarlane Collection of objects housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
https://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/

Thule
The ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by the year 1000 CE and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_people

qarmaq (plural: qarmat)
An Inuktitut term for a type of inter-seasonal, single-room family dwelling. To the Central Inuit of Northern Canada, it refers to a hybrid of a tent and igloo, or tent and sod house. Depending on the season, the lower portion was constructed of snow blocks or stone, while the upper portion used skins or canvas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarmaq

ulu (plural: uluit)
An all-purpose knife traditionally used by Inuit, Iñupiat, Yupik, and Aleut women. It is utilized in applications as diverse as skinning and cleaning animals, cutting a child's hair, or cutting food. Traditionally they were made with a caribou antler, muskox horn or walrus ivory handle and slate cutting surface.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulu

Selected reading

A Paleoeskimo Occupation on Southern Banks Island, N.W.T.
by Charles D. Arnold
Arctic, 1980, Vol. 33(3), p. 400-426
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40509052
https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic2574

Fox Exploitation by the Paleoeskimo at The Tayara Site, Nunavik
by Hervé Monchot and Daniel Gendron
Arctic Anthropology, 2011, Vol. 48(1), p. 15-32
https://doi.org/10.1353/arc.2011.0107
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254927048

For more episodes and news, visit our website and social media pages.

Blog: http://archaeocafe.kvasirpublishing.com/archaeoblog/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archaeocafe/

Anchor: https://anchor.fm/archaeocafe