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Breathing life into the past INUVIALUIT LIVING HISTORY PROJECT KEEPS ARTIFACTS, CULTURE AND TRADITIONS ALIVE
Without attention, the past is easy to forget. Spawned from an appreciation for the collection of Inuvialuit artifacts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Inuvialuit Living History Project seeks to keep those memories alive with a constant celebration of Inuvialuit history. The Smithsonian’s MacFarlane Collection, named after the Hudson’s Bay trader who assembled the objects, includes thousands of natural history specimens, from birds’ eggs to animal skeletons, plus 300 cultural objects collected from Anderson River Inuvialuit in the 1860s.
This September, the team in charge of the project brought some of those items to Inuvik at East Three School for students and the public to admire and inspect. Elders spent the week with students teaching them about ways of the past and present, from carving fish hooks to telling stories and playing Inuvialuit games. Between sessions, students perused the artifacts and learned about their origins. The gathering included a community feast and drum dancing. In the following pages are photos from the event and words from some of the elders on the importance of keeping Inuvialuit history alive.
