Seal-skinning earns GG rock-star status among Inuit

[CHIMO]

Source: THE CANADIAN PRESS

IQALUIT, Nunavut – It may have bombed in Brussels, but Michaelle Jean's seal-skinning performance has earned her rock-star status on the tundra.

The Governor General was given a hero's welcome in Arctic hamlets, and on Friday two provincial-territorial governments publicly congratulated her.

Jean's decision to help butcher the blubbery mammal at a festival was derided as "bizarre" by the Belgium-based European Union, and compared by environmentalists to Neanderthalism and wife-battery.

One woman in Iqaluit said residents were grateful that the Governor General was unlike other "high people" who looked down their noses at Inuit customs.



Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/642785#

[flvegan]

1. Newsflash: Politician Using Inuit In Attempt to Make Point with EU

Slag.

[Canuckistanian]

2. It's not the Inuit I have a problem with

They're doing what they have done for thousands of years. They use the pelts themselves and use every part of the animal for food or other purposes.

It's the white Newfoundlanders who are doing the killing for profits. I consider it the same as the slaughter of the Bison by the white man on the prairies.

I don't see her motivations being to change any minds in the EU. In fact, it was a horrible thing from a PR standpoint for that purpose. In fact, she didn't mention one word about the seal fur trade in her trip.

It was just a way to show solidarity with one of our most neglected cultural groups.

[flvegan]

4. I'm not faulting the Inuit either.

I'm chastising what is to me a publicity stunt she's using to make the Canadian seal hunt parallel with the cultural/subsistence hunt of the Inuit. Until I'm proven wrong, I won't believe it's anything else.

[Canuckistanian]

9. Ok, I'll ask you a question then

How are teams of white men on the ice, clubbing immature seals a parallel with the Inuit?

The Inuit themselves don't kill seals that way. They kill fully mature seals with rifles.

Do you see what I'm getting at? The Inuit do it for sustenance and take only what they need.

The white men do it for profit.

[flvegan]

13. And I'll give you an answer.

It isn't. She's trying to bring the two together to make a point with the EU who recently banned seal products from Canada but not from the Inuit. She's pandering. Like I said, I'm not faulting the Inuit. I don't have a problem with them.

[Posteritatis]

37. You missed someone wanting the Inuit to be relocated to the south in another thread

The rather unashamedly neocolonialist attitudes people were spewing around in that one make it understandable that people are jumpy defending the Inuit in this one. Lots of really irritating "their culture offends me so it must be eliminated" bullshit.

[LeftyMom]

22. The seals are just as dead.

:shrug:

[BrotherBuzz]

31. removed - see marzipanni's post below

[marzipanni]

33. Alaska is famous for giant cabbage

but farther north people would be dead if they tried to rely on growing soybeans and other vegan fare.


(:P BrotherBuzz was on DU on one browser and I didn't switch to mine)

[sharp_stick]

5. Seal - Newfie = Bison - Cowboy

damn but that is some wild extrapolation on your part.

[Canuckistanian]

8. The "cowboys" nearly made the Bison extinct

They killed THOUSANDS of Bison for their hides and their tongues - popular in restaurants. The rest was left to rot on the prairies.

Some didn't even even harvest the hides - they just killed for sport, sometimes from moving trains.

I realize the seal hunt isn't going to make the harp seal exinct - but the waste is almost the same. Pups are killed for their soft, smooth hide to be sold to fashion designers for big bucks.

Sorry, I don't consider that to be a good, moral practice.

[Ztolkins]

6. I don't understand...

the issue with the NFDL hunt. It's not as if they have much of an economy to do anything else, nor do they kill seals for the hell of it. Methinks a lot less people would care a whole lot less if seals resembled something akin to a pig.

[Canuckistanian]

7. I agree, the Newfoundlanders have a hard time makng ends meet

But the harp seal hunt must go. The seal skin industry is entirely for vanity. I've lived my whole liefe in Canada and I've never been able to afford sealskin clothing. Only the very rich can afford their product.

And the hunt is so wasteful. They usually leave the carcasses on the ice to be scavenged. Sure, some there eat seal meat, but the main catch is seal pups - not much meat there.

And it goes against a basic principle of mine regarding hunting- if you didn't grow it, then you'd better eat it.

[ConcernedCanuk]

14. "They usually leave the carcasses on the ice to be scavenged" - - WRONG

.
.
.

If you would do a little research

or just even THINK for a few minutes

you would realize how wrong that statement is.

these are poor people trying to make a living

They will use every part of the animal that is possible, including eating the meat, harvesting the oil that makes medicine and so on

SURE

They are making money out of it

As do you for the slaughter of cows, chickens, pigs for your meat,

or loss of habitat for many species when we use land to grow our vegetable crops

HUMANS KILL TO LIVE

It has always been that way,and if we stop killing everything

We will die

[Canuckistanian]

15. I reject this "seals are the same as cows" idea

Sure we kill. But we have vast industries for that already.

Cows,pigs and chickens are born, bred, and raised for that very purpose. Seals are not.

And if seal meat is completely used, why can't I buy seal meat at my local store?

Because they only slaughter immature seals with not much meat. Nice fur, not much else.

And this "seal oil" industry is just an attempt to quell protest. It's hardly a traditional, sustainable or popular product.

Where can I buy seal oil, anyways? I've never seen any.

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. I'll try to answer this in order to your post

.
.
.

"Cows,pigs and chickens are born, bred, and raised for that very purpose"

yup - but that doesn't mean that it's right

as for the " Seals are not. And if seal meat is completely used, why can't I buy seal meat at my local store?" part

We can't buy moose, deer, bass, pickerel, pike that we hunt/fish in our own back yard up here

but it is perfectly legal to hunt/fish/harvest them for our own use

and sell the pelts' racks/ have the carcasses taxidermy and aso on

AND

I suspect that the people in those northern climate NEED the meat - not enough to spread around because they DON'T breed and farm them

The colder climate you live in, the more protein you need

they sure ain't gonna sell it to some millionaire so that they can buy twinkies and shreddies

Canada has a problem with obese natives - first nation people that lived here before the white man came over to make everything better

ya know why?

First Nation people now gotta eat White Man' food, full of sugars, preservatives and all that

Their diet before we got here was fish, deer, buffalo, and so on

I guess we'd call that "free range" nowadays

If the likes of Greenpeace would make videos of the lives of chickens, pigs, cows their target

then chickens, pigs and cows would replace the outrage over the seal hunt.

As for the Seal Oil thing

Ever heard of GOOGLE?

only found results of >>> 78,800 for seal oil capsules"

doh!

[Canuckistanian]

19. Look, NO-BO-DY makes a profit on seal meat or oil

It's the PELTS that the Newfoundlanders are after. It's the PELTS that pay the bills for those long trips to the wilderness. All the "millionnaires" are sitting in around in design houses WAITING to buy those PELTS.

And my point is, the seal hunt is unnecessary for basic human needs.

Cows, pigs and chickens are NOT unnecessary - they downright ESSENTIAL for our culture.

[ConcernedCanuk]

20. gimmee proof, links - I've read on this for a decade - I think you are wrong

.
.
.

prove me wrong

or stfu

[Canuckistanian]

21. STFU?

We're done here.

[jpak]

26. Just an observation from someone who actually lived in NFLD

Back in the day (pre-confederation and up to the late '60's), Newfoundlanders lived a very precarious existence - fishing was it.

The outports lacked electricity and most folks survived the winter on salt cod, hard bread (naval "hard tack") salt beef ("navel" sic naval beef) and whatever meager crops they could coax from the rocky soil in the short summer - potatoes, carrots, turnips and cabbages. They salted down the cabbages as well. Hard bread and "navel" beef (ye olde British Navy fare) are still staple foods found in NFLD grocery stores today.

The spring seal hunt was only opportunity for Newfoundlanders to obtain and consume fresh meat. The "flippers" (seal scapulae) were brought home by sealers for their families and sold locally. In the present day, sealers also sell flipper to NFLD markets. If you go down to to the docks in St. John's in April, people (eagerly) line up to buy flipper, and fish mongers sell them out of the back of trucks on the roads (along with cod, mussels, lobster etc.). Social organizations hold "flipper dinners" in the spring and these events are attended by hundreds.

Whilst modern day Newfoundlanders subsist on Kraft Dinner and McCain's fried potatoes and gravy:), seal meat was and is part of their cultural tradition.

[Bert]

16. You must be crazy

If we stop killing everything we will die. I dont know where to start. Many people and civilizations
manage to not kill animals at all. I wont waste any more time responding to such an ignorant and inflamatory statement.

[CHIMO]

11. So

Are you saying that if they are harvested as are cows, pigs and others that you wouldn't have an objection to it?

[Canuckistanian]

23. If we raised them in large numbers for meat, no

But these are wild animals. And I'm not sure our killing them in large numbers is not detrimental to their survival.

We HAVE almost killed off the Cod by over-harvesting. And no one saw it coming until it was too late.

Are we doing the same to the seals?

[Robb]

24. To be fair, you're guessing.

To make your point we'd have to know how the population -- which IIRC is subtantial -- is doing.

Wild animals from time to time do breed themselves into incredibly oversized populations. Natural forces usually take care of that, but who's to say the seal hunts aren't helping balance that?

And for that matter who's to say they aren't? Unfortunately we can't make a "they're screwing with the natural order of things" or "they're balancing the ecosystem" argument until we have data, which we don't.

I lived out in the twigs on the Western Slope of Colorado for about ten years, and watched as deer populations went through the roof -- specifically as I watched the number of them dead from car/truck strikes on the side of the highway climb alarmingly. Hunting permits also rose as the area gained in popularity... but I finally had a long conversation with a naturalist who had been doing a six-year study on the deer population, and she told me the numbers were still climbing like crazy -- despite all the deer taken by hunters and big-rigs.

Turned out the issue was that the big cats -- mountain lions and such -- that kept the deer population from exploding every spring had moved south to a less human-populated area, where the deer population was actually smaller, and that cats' population (also being tracked for another long study) was shrinking.

Anyhow. This has gotten a tad on the long side. The point is, in the right situation, "nature" can create population explosions that would put our biggest factory farms to shame... and the other way, too. It's very, very complicated and often surprising. :)

[Canuckistanian]

25. Yeah, I'm guessing

But I remember that a few years back, some Nfld. sealers tried to make the argument that the seals were killing off all the cod, so the seals needed to be controlled.

I thought it was the stupidest argument I've ever heard. 100 years of over-fishing cod had nothing to do with the collapse of the cod fishery, I guess.

I think we have upset the natural ecosystems everywhere. Then when we see overpopulations, we just go in and kill off a bunch of them because "we have to keep the balance".

Yes, we humans feel have to rush in and "fix" nature. How did nature ever survive without us?
It's the biggest vanity.

[baldguy]

35. "white Newfoundlanders"?

[time_has_come]

29. You know nothing about it

If you cared, you'd know she's not a "politician."

If you cared, which I don't think you really do beyond taking an opportunity to name-call and deride the Canadian head of state, you'd know what she was doing there and why she partook.

She was visiting the Inuit, and unlike some elected politician who would likely only care about scoring points, she is sincere and listens and respects people where she goes. She doesn't just fly in, shake some hands, kiss some babies, and fly out. She is above that shit. So when she was invited to partake in a feast following the hunt of course she accepted. That's showing respect for indigenous people. If she were a vegan then she wouldn't have eaten the heart, but she's not. Even if she was though, she would have had respect and understanding for our arctic population.

[Dutch]

45. If you think the G-G isn't a "politician", you are naive beyond help.

This was blatantly obviously a political gesture, given the timing.

[time_has_come]

49. Blatently obvious political gesture? You clearly have no understanding

of it at all.

She was visiting the North. That's part of the GG's role, to visit Canadians..especially those facing poverty and hardship. While there it was the Inuit to invited her to join the festival. If she had refused it would have been an insult and shown her unfit to be GG.

Take your timing, which you think tells you everything, and go get educated. And tell me, would there have been any timing that would have made it not a political gesture in your eyes? No, of course not.

[chatnoir]

51. Sorry, but she basically admitted as much herself

That it was a msg to the EU:

Canada's governor general ate a slaughtered seal's raw heart in a show of support to the country's seal hunters, a display that a European Union spokeswoman on Tuesday called "too bizarre to acknowledge."

Governor General Michaelle Jean, the representative of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as Canada's head of state, gutted the seal and swallowed a slice of the mammal's organ late Monday after an EU vote earlier this month to impose a ban on seal products on grounds that the seal hunt is cruel.

Asked Tuesday whether her actions were a message to Europe, Jean replied, "Take from that what you will."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/26/canadian-governor-general_n_207844.html

[time_has_come]

53. She specifically explained why she partook and why she ate the heart...

..the "take from that what you will" is a pretty good answer to idiot reporters who are looking for controversy.

Pretty smart answer, actually. What should she have said? No? Then you wouldn't have anything to be outraged about.

Take from it what you will is a good answer to give people who want to read all kinds of things into our behaviors.

[Dutch]

44. Yep. And she's just doing more to tarnish Canada's increasingly sorry international reputation.

[Arctic Dave]

3. I think need to realize how close to the earth the Inuit live.

They have no Walmart, no farming, no industry in the arctic villages. They will eat the animal from head to toe and use the skins for clothing or make things for tourist.

I very much proud of this lady for sharing the ways of people who a different from her.

[twitomy]

10. As long as the seals arent endangered,

I cant see banning whitey from hunting them. Sure, I think it is somewhat wasteful, and I couldnt and wouldnt do it, but at least the fur is sustainable and not some faux petro-chemical synthetic. Yes some might think just taking the fur is immoral, but who are we to shove our morals down anyone's throat? Live and Let Live I say...

[Arctic Dave]

12. If you don't plan on eating, don't shoot it. Period.

(for the idiots, yes shoot it if it trying to kill you)Hunting for horns, racks or hides is for shitbags.

[twitomy]

18. Like I said, hunting is not for me..

But I'm not going to stop someone from being a shitbag as I dont like government dictating morals..

[Arctic Dave]

27. Being against wastefulness and "thrill kills" is not a moral issue.

And the this is exactely what government is for.

[twitomy]

28. Well I Disagree,

I guess thats the liberatrian in me...

[Arctic Dave]

34. Admission is the first step.

:D

[twitomy]

40. I'll admit my politics are all over the map...

So I guess I am a box of chocolates...

[joshcryer]

38. They do have 4 wheelers, motorized boats, and electricity.

Let's not delude ourselves here, they are living a modern life with much higher populations. I support any human killing animals relentlessly (so goes nature), but I do not delude myself about the sustainablity of these acts and hope that we can move beyond such uncivilized practices.

[Arctic Dave]

39. Yes most of them have all those amenities, brought to them by their governments.

Almost all of it subsidized by the urban areas and their Native Corporations. They are well aware that this lifestyle is a flash in the pan and will end in due time. This is one of the reasons they wish to protect the subsistence life they have come from. You can not do that if some jackass wants to go on a killing spree because they can make a few bucks off of it before they kill it into extinction.

"I support any human killing animals relentlessly"

Are you for real? This is the stupidity that ruins it for people now and in the future that enjoy outdoor and hunting lifestyles.

[time_has_come]

41. What you fail to realize is the cost of supermarket food....

is often quadruple in the north what it is in a place such as...Regina, Winnipeg, Kenora, Calgary...Canadian locales closer to the U.S..

You are also deluding yourself greatly if you think the Inuit seal hunt is not sustainable. It's far more sustainable than your own lifestyle, I'd bet, regardless of whether you eat meat or not. Even the Newfoundland seal hunt is sustainable. The population is closely monitored, and common sense should tell you that given the high level of scrutiny the hunt is under.

But again, regarding the Inuit, they kill what they need and use absolutely everything. They've been doing it for thousands of years. Regardless of them having modern vehicles, hunting seal is still a way of life for them.

[chatnoir]

42. "I support any human killing animals relentlessly"??

Uh, :wtf:

[time_has_come]

30. A beautiful gesture for the Inuit from a beutiful lady

The Inuit and the survival hunting they do is often lumped in with the Newfoundland hunt. By accepting the Inuit invitation to partake in their festival and accept the honour of eating seal heart she has done them a wonderful service towards removing the ignorance of their way of life.

[Spazito]

32. I totally agree!

She said NOTHING about the seal hunt, her comments were about the Inuit way of life and their culture. The media, as usual, put an inaccurate slant in order to create a controversy where there was none.

[Tim01]

36. I agree. Good post.

[Dutch]

46. Yeah, njothing as beautiful as shoving an animals heart down your gullet

Her looks are 100% irrelevant, but that was a seriously ugly thing to do.

[time_has_come]

47. Maybe it looks ugly to people who don't understand the occasion or the place.

To an ignorant person, in other words.

[KamaAina]

43. This would be the same Governor General who allowed PM Harper to suspend Parliament

rather than face a certain vote of no confidence late last year. :eyes:

Hmmm... attractive, popular in the far North, and as my Grandma would have said, "not too B-R-Y"... could she be the Canadian Sarah Palin?? :shrug:

[time_has_come]

48. Doing that was the right decision too.

Very "B-R-Y", in fact. And not just because it ultimately was a good decision for the left in Canada.

Comparison to Sarah Palin? Why? Because she's a woman? Beyond that the comparison is pretty simplistic and belies a lack of knowledge and understanding of Canada's GG, her role, and her actions.

[KamaAina]

50. No, because she let the "Pro Rogue" get away with it, and now this seal thing to boot

it's weird to realise that we in the States have at last come out of eight years in the Bush dungeon, while you up North who many of us looked to in our darkest night are still stuck with Bush Jr.!

edit: "prorogue" is the technical term for Bush Jr. Harper's slippery suspension of Parliament; "Pro Rogue" is his Delta Tau Chi name. :P

And yes, I know that the GG is supposed to stay above the political fray -- but she was our last hope... :(

[time_has_come]

54. And like I wrote...doing that was the right decision too. n/t

[MisterP]

52. maintain your rage, folks (a la Australia)

I always laugh at the new "travel Canada" ads because they prominently feature seals as a major attraction to interact with prospective newcomers (of course, the ads couldn't have been written by REAL Canadians: "leave well enough alone" is clearly the foundation of all cultural imperialism!)