Inupiaq People & Core Values
Dating from approximately 600 B.C.E., Point Hope has one of the longest documented, continuous occupations of Iñupiaq marine mammal hunters in the Arctic. Layer upon layer of archeological remains have provided a window into the lifestyles and traditions of the region’s people.
Point Hope ancestors crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia in one of two Beringian migrations (10,000 to 5,000 years ago). The first group was the Na-Dene speaking Indians, and the second the Esk-Aleut linguistic family, which separated into Aleut and Eskimo. The Eskimo maritime-oriented group further divided into Inupiaq and Yup’ik, separating at the border of the Yukon River.
The famous Ipiutak site at Point Hope — a large village of over 600 houses and a cemetery — has been a rich source of archeological information. When Ipiutak was at its peak, members of the Old Bering Sea Culture occupied other coastal villages on Cape Prince of Wales, Saint Lawrence Island and the Siberian shore. Ipiutak lasted until the Thule Tradition appeared around 500 CE. The Birnirk Culture (part of Thule Tradition), first coexisted with Late Ipiutak, then eventually replaced it.
The Thule Tradition
The Thule Tradition —from 2,000 to 400 years — includes the Old Bering Sea, Okvik, Punuk, Birnirk and Thule Cultures. Thule was based on large sea mammal hunting in open water. Innovations included the use of polished slate tools, skin boats, drag floats and dog traction. During the winter, people subsisted on stored surplus of sea mammals, primarily bowhead whales and lived in semi subterranean houses constructed with rafters of whale jawbones.
Thule people spread from northern Alaska across northern Canada to Greenland. They exploited a wide range of resources, kept up extensive trade networks and social relationships and were the people to encounter European explorers.
Birnirk disappeared by 1000 CE, leaving behind a legacy of the Thule lifestyle of large whaling villages, skilled boatmen and hunters, open sea hunting and dog sleds. Evolving skills also resulted in better housing, clothing and tool efficiencies. The Arctic coastal villages of Point Barrow, Point Hope and Wainwright became major whaling communities and local Inupiat continue to harvest marine and land mammals for subsistence uses.
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Eskimos have hunted whales for centuries. For at least 2,000 years the cultural and social structure of northern whaling village have centered around the hunt. Landing a whale is most often the most important community event of the year. The entire village hoists the whale up onto the ice and participates in butchering it. A time-honored process of sharing, celebrating and preparing for the next year’s hunt follows. Whaling captains are highly respected village leaders.
The bowhead whale is hunted exclusively by Alaska Eskimos from the ten villages extending from St. Lawrence Island in the Bring Sea to Barter Island in the Beaufort Sea. Today, in accordance with International Whaling Commission (IWC) rules, Alaska’s Native whalers can legally hunt an allocated number of bowhead whales each year for food, oil and Native craft materials. The whaling commission consists of ten villages, including: Barrow, Gambell, Kaktovik, Kivalina, Little Diomede, Nuiqsut, Point Hope, Savoonga, Wainwright and Wales.
The hunters honor the animal by utilizing as much of it as possible as a way of giving thanks to the whale for giving itself to the village. In the past, whalebones were used quite extensively in structural and ceremonial use. The baleen was used to make daily-use items. Whalebones continue to mark grave and festival sites in some villages. Whale meat, blubber, skin and muktuk continue as dietary staples. Oil rendered from the blubber can still be used as fuel when needed.
Four centuries of commercial whaling extended from the North Atlantic in the 1500s to the North Pacific by the mid-1900s. Commercial hunters valued the whales for the large quantities of baleen and oil they yielded (one whale could yield up to a hundred barrels of oil and 1,500 pounds of baleen). The continued demand for oil, meat and products made from baleen would have decimated bowhead populations, but eh introduction of petroleum fuel diminished the demand for whale oil. Whalers however continued to take whales for baleen only,
discarding the rest of the animal. This concept was completely foreign to Native whalers. Around 1910, the development of spring steel caused the baleen market to die and commercial whaling came to an end.
In the 1930s bowhead whales came under protection of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and in the 1970s of the U.S. Marine Mammal and Endangered Species Acts that established Native-only subsistence hunts for bowhead whales.
Bowhead Whale Hunting
Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) are found only in the Northern Hemisphere, in Arctic waters. Once plentiful in polar waters, numbering nearly 30,000, they are now estimated at 7,000 to 9,000. The bowhead whale — a close relative of the northern right whale and also known as Greenland right whale — is an Arctic baleen whale that lives around the pack ice, often in shallow waters.
Protected from the icy waters by a two-foot blubber layer, bowhead whales migrate seasonally between summer feeding areas and wintering areas. Headed for summer feeding areas in Canadian waters, they travel north through open ice leads in the spring, reaching Point Barrow by early June. In August they move west
toward Wrangel Island, and in late fall return south through Bering Strait. Bowhead whales usually travel alone or in small groups of three to six in the spring and in pods of about 50 whales in the fall. Beluga whales frequently follow northbound Bowheads through the ice leads. Besides man, the only known predator is the killer whale, although they may become trapped and frozen in heavy ice.
Appearance
The bowhead name comes from its high, arched lower jaw that resembles the shape of an archer's bow. The powerful head, which can break through a foot of sea ice, is one-third of the whale’s total body length. The arched mouth reaches up to 10 ft. wide and 20 ft. deep, contains a series of food-filtering baleen plates.
The large round whales, which have no dorsal fin, are blue-black with spots of white on the jaw. Two breathing blowholes on the top of the head send out V-shaped blows 20 feet into the air. The deeply notched fluke of a mature bowhead whale can measure 25 feet from tip to tip and the paddle-shaped flippers are nearly six feet long.
Adult males reach a maximum of 60 feet and may weigh more than 60 tons and adult females are slightly larger than males. Although they can stay under water for an hour, Bowhead dives usually last from 4-15 minutes to a depth of up to 500 feet.
Bowhead as an Endangered Species
Decades of commercial whaling in the Bering and Beaufort Seas during the 1800s severely reduced the numbers of bowhead whales. At the start of commercial whaling the population was close to 30,000. Fortunately market changes brought an end to whaling. around 1910 and bowheads came under the protection of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, then in the 1970s under the U.S. Marine Mammal and Endangered Species Act, Native-only subsistence harvests were allowed.
Based on numbers showing the bowhead population at only 600-2000, in 1977 the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moved to end the harvest. Traditional knowledge, however, indicated differently and the Eskimos objected. They believed there were more whales.
A temporary reduced harvest was negotiated and the US government agreed to expand its bowhead research program. The Northern Eskimos formed the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission to speak for their concerns, assist in research and allocate the quota among villages.
Initially, bowhead management conflicts between North Slope Natives, the federal government and the International Whaling Commission were intense, leading to a federal grand jury investigation in 1980. North Slope Natives were told that they needed to cease whaling — a definite lifestyle intrusion. To add further pressure to the resource, a major Beaufort Sea oil and gas lease sale was planned in the bowhead’s habitat.
The North Slope Native group signed a co-management agreement with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to resolve their differences. In 1981 the group also signed an agreement with the North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling