A Canadian curator hopes to further uncover the history of Canadian Inuit ancestors this summer by excavating Thule houses near Resolute, Nunavut.
With the help of International Polar Year funding, Robert McGhee, an curator of Arctic archeology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and McGill University archeology doctoral student Sarah Hazell plan to excavate two Thule-era houses about four kilometres west of the community, starting in late June.
(Courtesy Robert McGhee) McGhee, whose books include The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic, has been excavating and restoring three of the area's 800- to 1,000-year-old winter houses that belonged to the Thule Inuit, the ancestors of present-day Canadian Inuit.
To help in their latest effort, McGhee said he is looking to hire four local high school students this summer. "I hope that they will develop a greater interest in the Inuit past," he said. "It will give them a better sense of where their people came from, what kind of people they are and how they fit into the larger world."
One of the reconstructed houses, which have become tourist attractions, has a roof made of large whale bones. While McGhee cautioned that there won't be a similar reconstruction this summer, due to a lack of whale bones, he hopes the new work will continue to educate and entertain Resolute residents and visitors.
For more, see this article on the CBC website.
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