Hunting For The Right Words Summary

“Hunting for the Right Words” is an article written by Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon and published in 2010 by Alternatives Journal, Canada’s national environmental magazine. Lennon and a group of 24 other students and professors from the University of Manitoba spend 6 weeks in the small arctic community of Pangnirtung, Canada, located on the shore of Cumberland Sound and less than thirty miles South of the Arctic Circle. Pangnirtung has a heavy Inuit influence and by living with them, Lennon has the opportunity to learn about Inuit culture and lifestyle firsthand. “Hunting for the Right Words” talks about Lennon’s experience learning about Inuit culture through a seal hunting trip and her understanding of how celebrities and the media as well

as the European seal-product ban has affected the Inuit culture she has come to know.
Nearly half of Lennon’s article is set as a narrative of her experience with Inuit culture while seal hunter with elder and hunter Joansie Karpik, his grandson Marcus, and six other members of Lennon’s group.

On this trip Karpik and the Qallunaat (non-Inuit people) are hunting “nattiq (ringed seal), not qairuli (harp seal) nor ujjuk (bearded seal)” (Lennon). Seals are a large aspect of Inuit culture, as they supply a steady food source. Seal pelts can also be made into leather, and “well-made clothing is a matter of life and death” when living in places as cold as Pangnirtung. The hunting party spends a waiting, staring at the endless sky, water, ice, and occasional Naujaq (seagull). Finally, one of Lennon’s classmates shout, “Nattiq!” and a shot is fired at a “tiny black shape on the water” (Lennon). When the hunt is over, a few natives teach Lennon how to transform the seal skins into the leather they use for summer clothing. Lennon says they “spend hours patiently scraping and stomping and crumpling and scraping again until a dried skin is transformed into supple leather and glowing fur” (Lennon). Because of Lennon’s unique experience living with the residents of Pangnirtung, she is able to see firsthand how the Inuit people use and respect every part of the seals they kill and sell what they can to countries willing to pay for seal-based

products.
The problem that Lennon discovered while living just outside of Pangnirtung is that not everyone is willing to buy seal-based products because of the negative publicity related to seal hunting. Lennon cites many examples of celebrities and animal rights organizations who have corrupted the Qallunaat opinion on seal hunting. The first example Lennon gives occurred in 1988, when “French actress Brigitte Bardot hugged a stuffed white harp seal pup . . . and so began Europe’s focus on seal products and the era of celebrity involvement“ (Lennon). What Lennon is saying is that because a famous actress was seen with the seal pup, Europeans became involved in the rights and life of these seals and their treatment almost overnight. Lennon also uses Pam Anderson and Paris Hilton as examples of celebrity involvement, as they wore clothes with the phrases “The Seal Hunt Sucks” and “Club Sandwiches, not Seals” respectively. Animal-rights organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, or PETA for short, have also been a factor in the non-Inuit opinion of seal hunting. In her article, Lennon talks about when PETA held a campaign that discouraged the purchase of Canadian maple syrup in an attempt to draw awareness to seal hunts. Though PETA intended to “target the commercial East Coast hunt, not Inuit sealing . . . their messages are not explicit in making this differentiation” (Lennon). The campaign used pathos, as they depicted bloody seals on their website and gruesomely described the so-called ‘massacre,’ but the campaign didn’t don’t bother to share both sides of the story. Killing a harp seal pup while it still has a white coat has been illegal for over 20 years (Lennon) and that 98% of seals hunted in 2002 were killed in an “acceptably humane manner” and that seal hunting “has the potential to be among the most humanely conducted hunts of wild animals, whether for commerce or sport” (Daoust). Despite the inaccurate publicity, demand for seal products and pelts is way lower than it was previous to this negative attention from the media.
Lennon has found that the bad publicity associated with seal hunting has led to the main obstacle Inuit culture is facing today, the European Seal Ban. The European Union has banned the import of white-coat harp seals and blueback hooked seals since 1983 and more recently tightened the ban to include all “products and processed goods derived from seals” in 2009 (Lennon). Though this ban excludes products related to “traditional Inuit seal hunts” like the one Lennon is on, it still caused a major drop in seal skin prices. These lower prices have severely impared Inuit economy and lifestyle, often causing social problems due to the lack of income. Prices that far north are already much higher than down south, with 2 L of milk costing $6.70 according to Pangnirtung’s official website, and the lower income of the seal hunters makes their way of living that much more difficult. This ban affected the Inuit from both Greenland and Canada to the point where they are planning to sue the EU at the time this article was written (Lennon). The ban, as it turns out, might not be completely legal. The ban was put into order to protect the animal rights of the seals in question, but because it still allows the Inuit to hunt seals, it isn’t providing enough protection for the seals to justify the trade restriction (Hennig).
Lennon went on her trip to Pangnirtung to learn that the “Arctic is Inuit homeland. and not just a barren tundra playground for geologists, archeologists, mining companies and adventure seekers” (Lennon). The arctic is home to a traditional, proud people whose culture and way of life is being threatened by Qallunaat and their misguided view of seal hunting. Lennon found that celebrities like Brigitte Bardot and animal rights organizations alike have been creating negative publicity for decades without knowing or acknowledging the all of the facts. Lennon has experienced the effects that the European Union’s ban on seal-based products has caused firsthand and acknowledged the Inuit’s efforts to repeal the ban and sue the EU for their losses. President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Mary Simon, says it best when she said “We will not have our way of life dictated by European leaders who we believe are being duped by animal rights activists [and create new markets instead]” (Simon).