Headed for Home
‘Headed for Home’ by Tommy Novakeel – Inuit Art – Pangnirtung 1977 print collection presented by DaVic Gallery of Native Canadian Arts.
Condition: No condition to report.
Description by Artist: No description by artist found.
Notes from DaVic Gallery: Inuit hunters were successful in hunting, retrieving, and butchering bowhead whales, the largest animals in the Arctic that provided villages with meat, blubber, and bones for tools for winter. They would quietly near a whale from their umiak, powered by a skilled team of paddlers, harpoon the whale which would immediately swim down and the hunters would give chase and keep harpooning each time the whale would come for air attaching each time seal floaters. The whale would eventually tire and exhaust at which point the crew would give kill to the whale. Later modern powered foreign whaling vessels and modern tools are used for more efficient and higher volume hunt of whale and with this in 1864, Norwegian Svend Foyn, modified existing tools and invented the modern harpoon gun. It consisted of a cannon that fired a barbed explosive head harpoon. Aimed and fired, the harpoon barb would hook into the whale. A moment later an explosive charge in the head of the harpoon would inflict a mortal wound. Then the whale was retrieved by a winch. Once alongside the whaling vessel, the whale was pumped full of air to keep it afloat, as the whale was moved to the location of processing.