Netsilik Inuit

What wonders opened out before
The nomads
The harshest adaptation
One could feel
The drama and sensation
Of their lives out on the sea ice
Breathtaking and dramatic
And so real.

They took on frozen seas
And wild cold winds
And so much snow
Exposed themselves to those extremes
With temperatures as low
As minus 50 imagine that
Every boundary, and we
Can only respect these people
Who walked gently through history

Canada the Hudson Bay
The Northern regions are
Kitikmeot region Nunavut
Great expanses far
From anywhere
A wilderness exceptionally severe
The Netsilik,”people of the place”
Is where they did appear

Their individuality
A powerful driving force
Enduring the unbelievable
Physical at source
To be part of an incarnation
On the barren stark
Their connectedness apparent
Which is how they made their mark

From September through to June
Their clan ship was in awe
It’s where families came together
It’s where they are most sure
Of taking on the elements
Confronting them with ease
Of working with their genuineness
And their identities

The vastness of the ice fields
Their hunting ground it be
Their store cupboard of seal
Or polar bear there ranging free
The bluest sky there ever was
And the white out everywhere
The search for fresh seal
Needful of the blow holes that they share

Raw meat provided glycogen
Found in muscles and the liver
Minnows in a sea of ice
Realised the giver
Was Mother Nature
Always she had the upper hand
And their doting respect for her
Helped them understand

This is their last migration
What was their fight for life
An overriding consequence
The earthly bite and strife
The all embracing spirit
For total harmony
The proper state of order
And continuity

The camp was built together
Integration their
Hand built igloos from ice slabs
Where everyone could share
The internal space
What warmth was generated
By the group
The precedence of family
In a kind of human soup

They all would sleep together
As one unit so to say
The Caribou skins to cover
But their bodies were the way
They managed and were strengthened
By the need undoubtedly
To survive in such vile temperatures
And face their destiny

The dogs were outside seemingly
Able to withstand
The frantic icy howling winds
That wreak havoc in this land
The seal hunt every other day
Is necessary they
Must eat fresh meat
They have to
And so they hunt away

Wooden sleds and dogs
To pull
And the most meagre of tools
These are avid hunters
Who know all the rules
How to find the blow holes
And sit and wait until
A seal comes up to breathe
That when the harpoon will
be plunged into its body
And then be pull onto
The ice to be transported back
That is what they do

A long wait in the icy air
For hours crouched by the hole
Covered over with snow
The Inuit his role
Is to remain quietly waiting
And act when he has to
When the fluff upon the Caribou bone
Moves when he must do

The obvious harpoon the seal
Breathing down below
It’s all done in a moment
Under the ice flow
And it’s about survival
The Inuit they need
The blood and guts and blubber
If they are to succeed

Every part of every seal
Is used nothing to waste
The hunters eat the liver
Warm and then it is graced
With due respect and honour
The minerals intact
The young girls drink the fresh blood
That happens to be fact

All the families share the spoils
It’s a tested technique they
Each know which piece they will take
And it’s carved up as I say
There are never arguments
Respect goes a long way
And everyone seems happy
And enjoys their work and play

The culture comes from stories
Exchanged most every day
Grand am tells her daughter
Who tells the children
So the way
Ahead appears to be
be Happening there is s permanence
A great stability

The Netsililk are now living
In houses in a town
They are not now the nomadic people
That they were it’s down
It seems to Canada who seemingly believes
The Indigenous should cared for
But whether it achieves

The goals I would not hasten
To bet it’s seemingly
Bringing them in contact
With waste and the constancy
Of all losing their ableness
Their prominence to be
Able to live nomadic lives
Their culture alive and free

Now they seem beholden to the state
In what they do
They slot into the waste bins mentality
It’s true
It’s not seal meat they are eating
But doughnuts and yes coke
They have lost their natural diets
And now it’s just a joke

Sickening for more things
Most are on the net
No one’s even fishing
The supermarkets set
The market up before them
They can just go and buy
Whatever happens to be there
And this is really why

In the space of a few years
A people are forced to be
Weaker and less lively
Than they used to, we
Were sitting on a fortune
And we chose the easy way
And all then became weaker
And less able I can say