Fishing, Cranberry picking... Oh and narwhal

I finally got around to eating whale meat: skin and blubber from a narwhal. The day that led to that was one of many new experiences, starting with fishing.

I've been fishing before, and I've also been ice fishing. I hadn't been ice fishing on a lake with quite as much ice as this one before. I went with my roommate and some of her fellow teachers by snowmobile. It was a fairly long trip- right around an hour and a half each way. When we arrived on the lake, one of the teachers pulled out this auger:

I've never seen such a tall auger before. It required two people to operate (could be done with one, but it would be difficult!), and the extra length was necessary. The lake ice was 5-6 feet thick. They drilled four holes, but we didn't actually try that hard to catch fish; I spent most of my time with one of the teacher's sons while he looked for interesting rocks. While he looked for rocks, I found a plant with small red berries on it. So I picked one and ate it to see if it was edible (I know it's ironic, but poisonous berries normally taste bitter and can be bitten and spit out safely). Keeping in mind that it was -30 with wind chill yesterday, and it hasn't been above -15 since October, imagine my surprise when I found the berry still ripe, and not frozen! Maxine told me that they were Arctic Cranberries, also called partridgeberries, and they ripen after the first few snowfalls. I can't explain why they weren't frozen though.

Getting ready to go- Maxine and her snowmobile with qamutik (sled) attached.

 

Selfie out at the lake.

A picture Maxine took of me to send to my mother.

View from the snowmobile on the way home.

Our path on the way to and from the lake. Blue is my house, red is the lake, and the red 'x' is the location of a distinct hill visible from my house. The hill has a deep 'slice' in it that Inuit call (in English) the area between a dog's eyes where the fur comes together. I don't know the Inuktitut word.

When we got back home, Maxine dropped the snowmobile off at her son's house, and he gave her some seal stew to bring back, and she gave some of it to me. I've been hoping to try seal prepared by someone other than myself, but it was still not my favourite meat. It had a very distinctive, strong flavour that is not like anything else I've eaten, and it was a very dark meat.

I also learned today that what I had tried before and thought was seal was actually muktuk (maqtaak), the Inuktitut word for whale blubber with skin. Maxine told me that I didn't eat it correctly, which makes sense since I was following instructions for seal meat. People here eat whale blubber raw in small pieces, and often dipped in soy sauce. It had an interesting flavour, similar to seal but much less strong. The skin and blubber were both soft with a chewy divide between them. The soy sauce drew out the flavour a bit more, and it was actually quite nice.

The muktuk that I ate yesterday was from a narwhal, one of the commonly hunted whales up here.

Little bit of muktuk with soy sauce.

It was a day of many interesting new experiences- things I never expected to try before I moved here.

- Aliya