Twenty-Seven

Ak&ungirtarvik

According to Tuinnaq Kanayuk Bruce of Coral Harbour, Aivilingmiut tried to make sure their daughters married within their own group, avoiding, in particular, Nattilingmiut men. One of the ways Inuit facilitated such liaisons was for culturally related people from far and wide to gather on occasion. Parents could then negotiate arranged marriages for their children, sometimes shortly after birth.

In the spring, often, there was a large such gathering of Aivilingmiut from afar at Ak&ungirtarvik,* on the north side of Ukkusiksalik. In 1996, Octave Sivaniqtoq, seventy-two at the time, recalled gatherings there during his youth and remembered hearing stories of people coming together there for many years before his time: “Not all one clan — some were from Ukkusiksalik and other parts of Aivilik, and even some from Nattilik. A lot of people used to come here because there is an abundance of young seal in the spring, so they would hunt them here. People from far away, from Pelly Bay and Gjoa Haven, from that area, and some of the original Aivilik people, told me about this. This area was mainly used in the spring for camping. If they had enough hunters, they would catch more seals. For that reason they would have these celebrations in springtime, when they had more people in camp. The main idea was hunting for food. That’s how they got to meet each other most times.”

It was principally for the seal hunt that they gathered at Ak&ungirtarvik, but they took advantage of the assembly to hold games and dances. Sivaniqtoq recalled what he heard happened at this site in generations before his. “Somewhere here they used to hold drum dances in a big tent, a qaggiq. Inuit knew when to get together in one place by word of mouth, others telling others where to gather. I guess they planned to meet in one area for games and competitions. That’s the only way they knew when to get here, and other areas of good hunting used as gathering places for Inuit, for food and survival.”

Demonstrating how the ak&ungirtarvik is used.

The dominant feature at Ak&ungirtarvik consists of two rock pillars, the largest pieces of which are presumably glacial erratics deposited here as the ice retreated seven thousand years ago. Many of the other boulders, it appears, were rolled into position by humans. As Sivaniqtoq explained, “Many of them from different clans, they first started making this by rolling rocks together. I’m telling what I have heard. Then they started challenging each other. It was our ancestors that were using it for a contest among themselves. They were from different camps and each had competition on their minds to find out who was best at these games.” In order to hold a contest among the men, a rope made from bearded-seal skin was stretched across the top of the rock pillars to create a sort of “high bar,” to spin around as used in modern gymnastics, called an ak&ungirtarvik.[1]

According to Sivaniqtoq, “They had different games on the rope back then. Sometimes they would sharpen a snow knife and tie it to the rope. Then a man would get on the rope and go around it, and if his arms loosened he could kill himself. When different people from other communities would get together, they would compete that way.”

Another elder, Felix Kopak, recalled witnessing the game when he was young. “I once watched a man named Aarulaaq. The rope was very tight. He was asked to demonstrate the game once when he was passing through our camp. He said he might not be able to do it now, but he tried, anyway. He put on Uqtuqsi’s wife’s amautiq [woman’s parka] and got up onto the rope. When he got ready to play the game, he straightened right up and started twirling around. The hood and the back end of the amautiq were just straight out because he was going so fast. He said he was going to qariqtaq (spin around, like on a high bar), so he straightened his legs and arms and did gymnastics. He repeated this a few times back and forth. It was so amazing. He was even funny with the amautiq he was wearing.”

Later, Kopak added, “When I was younger, we tried this, not tied to rocks, but inside an iglu. My step-parents and the Puujuutit and Anaqtuunik families used to live in one big iglu with a high ceiling. We put a rope across the ceiling and made a hole on each side of the iglu when it iced up in the winter, and put each end of the rope through the holes and put pieces of wood to hold the rope from the outside. We tightened it and put a reinforced rope again in between and tightened that equally on both sides by shortening the ropes. That’s what I remember.”

All around Ak&ungirtarvik are scattered nearly a hundred tent rings, which housed the assembled families. Some of them have walls a metre high, built of very substantial boulders, which Inuit today suggest are the oldest. There are at least sixty old caches, where the hunters once stored the meat they caught. Plus there are a few graves. This was clearly a large and active community at times. There is one very large ring of stones, which marks the location of the qaggiq, the large skin tent used for communal gatherings: feasts, games, and dances. This was, after all, a time of celebration and plenty.

Kopak explaining where women went to give birth, at Ak&ungirtarvik, 1996.

There is one curious little tent ring which is little understood today. It is so small it looks like it might have been a grave, but that is not the case, as Kopak explained. It was the place where a woman went to give birth, a small compartment on the south side of the tent ring. She gave birth alone in there, then stayed in there with the baby for five days, being handed food and water by the midwife through the small opening on the east side. After that, she could return to the family tent with her husband.

Ak&ungirtarvik is certainly the most unusual archaeological site yet discovered in Ukkusiksalik, evoking memories of the way people lived many decades, possibly centuries, ago.