Adventure Canada

Travelling in the Company of Inuit

Reprinted with permission from Adventure Canada’s 2010 brochure, Canada and the North

When I travel the Arctic, I travel in the company of Inuit. Always have, since an Inuit dogteam carried my mother from Kinngait / Cape Dorset to Kimmirut, the start of a long journey South so I could be born.

We were returned to Baffin Island on the C. D. Howe four months later, and that trip likely sparked my love of sailing Arctic seas, but I think it goes deeper than that. The Arctic feels as mysterious, exotic and elusive a place today as it must have appeared through the spyglasses of early explorers. The mind requires a context to make sense of its mirages, its rhythms, its scale – and no-one can create that context like Inuit can. We also need time to process all that information – and travel by ship allows us that time.

I think the best way to experience the Arctic is on a sea voyage with Adventure Canada. They were first to engage Inuit resource staff, a decade before other ecotourism operators followed suit. And today, Inuit are indispensable partners in Adventure Canada’s cultural sharing! The opportunity to spend time with people who live their culture, who embody their values, who share their world so generously – brings one to a better understanding of the true nature of culture. And spirituality. And hospitality.

The opportunity to spend time with people who live their culture, who embody their values, who share their world so generously – brings one to a better understanding of the true nature of culture. And spirituality. And hospitality.

Perhaps international awareness of the Inuit character began with Robert Flaherty’s film: Nanook of the North. Now the filmmaker’s grand-daughter, Martha Flaherty, is one of the Inuit featured in a film she has co-written. The ancient Inuit oral tradition was challenged by the arrival of our non-native culture, but Inuit quickly found new ways to communicate. Inuit culture is alive. It is thriving in Inuit art, in performance, in film, television and digital animation. Inuit are communicating to the world and amongst themselves the need for us all to cling tightly to culture, if we are to preserve our identity.

The Arctic sea and land are calling. If we listen, they will set things right deep within us. And the Inuit we meet on our travels remind us of what is truly important in life. As long as I am able, I intend to travel the Arctic seas. Always have done. And I always will.

– John Houston, Arctic filmmaker, Inuit art specialist
Travelling with Adventure Canada since 1991