Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
sible to find a spot which has not been modified in some tangible way by Inuit hands.” Contemporary Inuit
have continued to exploit the land-based flora and fauna, especially caribou, but the marine life of Labrador
has been the main provider.
Two decades ago, I was at sea in the Okak Islands with an Inuit fisherman who was tending his nets for Arc-
tic char and Atlantic salmon. Several kilometers away, the snow-covered peaks of the Kiglapait Mountains
rose out of the sea, crimson in the morning light, while several hundred meters away towered a Greenland type
of iceberg, featuring two prominent steeplelike pinnacles. Suddenly, between our boat and the berg, a small
whale surfaced. “Grumpus,” my Inuit host observed. Such sightings were obviously a common event, hardly
worth noting except, in this instance, for my benefit.
By its size and pleated throat, I identified the small whale as a minke. Although the term “grumpus” is
sometimes applied to young humpback, sei, or other rorqual species, most often it refers to minke whales, the
most common cetacean in northern waters. Fin, humpback, bottlenose, and sperm whales, as well as common
porpoise, are also frequently sighted.
Exploitation of the rich resources of the Labrador Sea can be traced to the Maritime Archaic culture, which
occupied southern Labrador at least eight thousand years ago, when the ice retreated from most lowland
coastal areas. As their name suggests, this ancient Indian people made their living largely from the sea, devel-
oping a sophisticated sea-hunting technology, including barbed harpoons and slate spears used to lance sea
mammals. Beginning four thousand years ago, a succession of early Inuit cultures, including the classic Dorset
culture, moved into northern Labrador from both the Canadian Arctic and Greenland. Shortly after 1300,
Thule culture with origins in the western Arctic arrived in northern Labrador from eastern Baffin Island via
Resolution and the Button Islands, known locally as the “stepping stones.” With their large skin boats and
heavy duty harpoon gear, they quickly spread into the rich whale-hunting regions, where they replaced the res-
ident Dorset people who, though largely maritime in their lifestyle, were not fully exploiting the whales and
other marine species.
Having retained the maritime skills their Thule ancestors first developed in the western Arctic, contempor-
ary Labrador Inuit have exploited all of the faunal resources from the edge of the landfast ice to the heads of
the bays, including marine mammals, birds, and fish. They have also made extensive use of land animals, es-
pecially caribou, black bear, and many species of smaller fur-bearing mammals.
“The Front”
The presence of landfast or pack ice, open leads, and polynyas has a profound influence on the life cycles of
the seals—ringed, bearded, hooded, and harp—commonly found along the Labrador coast, affecting their
whelping, molting, feeding, and migrations. Landfast and pack ice is a feature of the coast from November
through June. The degree and extent to which land-fast ice is formed is influenced by the character of the
coast. North of Cape Harrison, there are two types of coastal topography. The first is described as “closed
coastal” and is composed of deeply incised bays or fiords, flanked by many islands beyond the headlands.
These act to anchor the ice, providing a stable platform for the whelping of ringed seals. The second type is de-
scribed as “open coastal.” It too consists of deeply incised bays and fiords but has relatively few ice-anchoring
islands beyond the headlands. This latter type of coastal topography applies to the area north of the Okak Is-
lands, extending to the tip of Labrador at Cape Chidley, and includes the imposing ramparts of the Torngat
Mountains—an area with relatively little coastal landfast ice.
Harp seals are the most abundant seal in the North Atlantic and may well be the second most common seal
in the world, after the crabeater seal of the Antarctic. As we have seen, there are two breeding populations in
the northwest Atlantic: one in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Newfoundland stock that breeds at the Front,
an area of southward drifting pack ice that forms each spring off southern Labrador and the northeast coast of
Newfoundland. The two stocks intermingle and are capable of interbreeding but for the most part remain sep-
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