Recovering Rights: Bowhead Whales and Inuvialuit Subsistence in the Western Canadian Arctic

In 1991, the Inuvialuit community celebrated a successful bowhead whale hunt, the first to occur locally for more than a half century. This book focuses on two aspects of the whale hunt: it describes events prior to, during, and after the hunt, and documents the basis of Inuvialuit interest in the bowhead, the relationship between subsistence and cultural identity, and the re-emergence of Inuvialuit traditions. In Recovering Rights, ‘rights’ relates to the population recovery of the Western Arctic Stock of the Greenland right whales (bowheads), and to the recognition of the rights of aboriginal people to harvest local resources essential to their needs.