Valter Botelho-Resendes, owner of Aaliak Consulting, in collaboration with the Department of Healthy Living in Cambridge Bay put on a workshop that ran from Feb. 17 to 21.
This program was open to all who wanted to participate and all materials are provided by the department. The number of participants varied due to the blizzards.
The instructors for the program are Cambridge Bay residents Allen Kanayok and Steven Pagnana.
Participants created the traditional knife called the ulu. Uluit come in a variety of shapes and sizes depending on the different regions of the circumpolar North. This tool is traditionally used for tasks, such as skinning and cleaning of animals, preparing food, cutting of a child’s hair, scraping of skins and in modern day the slicing and dicing of fruits and vegetables.
“Participants were eager to be making their own uluit,” said Botelho-Resendes.
The group will now be working on traditional fishing tools.
Rita Pigalak, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunavut News
