Harvesting the Land and Sea

The rich natural resources of the Port au Choix area have drawn people here for thousands of years. They have lived by hunting, fishing and gathering - turning what they found into the things they needed. They hunted seabirds, duck, walrus, seal, cod, whale, caribou, bears, foxes, beaver, salmon and trout. They also collected wood, berries, chert, slate and quartz crystal as well.

 

Hunters of the Harp Seal

The Dorset Paleoeskimo were very skilled hunters who came to Port au Choix for the seals. Small groups of one or two families would come each year to camp on the headlands, harvesting the herds of harp seal that migrate past this coast every year in late winter and early spring. The standard weapon for hunting seals in prehistoric times was the harpoon. Finely crafted of bone, ivory and stone, it was effective - the height of technology. Its long shaft had a shorter, thinner foreshaft permanently attached. At its end was a head with a sharp stone tip. The harpoon head was designed to detach when it embedded in a seal. A line running from the animal's head to the hunter, kept the animal from escaping until it could be reached and killed with lances. In preparing the meat, the Dorsets used narrow sharp blades, so called microblades, to remove the head from the rest of the body, to detach the ribs from the backbone and to cut the carcass and flippers into smaller meat packages. When animals were plentiful, the Dorset people prospered. Seals, walrus and bears were essential to their survival and central to their way of life. Amulets and carvings of these animals may have been used to honor their spirits and encourage their co-operation.

 

A Northern Way of Life

With no written records, most of what we know about the prehistoric peoples of Port au Choix comes from archeologists finding the places where they lived and studying the things they left behind. We can flesh this out by looking at more recent people who live in similar places and may have comparable lives. All northern hunters and fishers have some important things in common. They live on the move; people who rely completely on natural resources move with the seasons going where things are plentiful, when they are available. The families stay together, especially related families. Groups of fewer than 25 people live independently, only occasionally joining with others to harvest a particular resource and to socialize. The whole group decides things democratically, by consensus. The community comes together to share the work and its rewards.

 

Links to other

aspects of the Dorsets:

Settlement Areas

Historical Aspects

Religious Aspects

Hunting And Living