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THE LARGEST CARIBOU DRIVE EVER MAPPED IN NUNAVUT
THE LARGEST CARIBOU DRIVE EVER MAPPED IN NUNAVUT
At Iqaluktuuq, near Cambridge Bay, is a huge caribou drive stretching for over 3 kilometers.
It contains over 1500 inuksuit (stone cairns) to direct the movements of the caribou, and over 70 taluit, or shooting pits, from which hunters armed with bows and arrows shot the caribou.
The drive was used for at least 2,000 years by Inuit and earlier Tuniit people, and was probably still being used as late as a hundred years ago.
Using a survey pole to map a talu, used by ancient Inuinnait to hunt caribou.
In this air photo of one part of the caribou drive, the white lines are just beside rows of inuksuit, and three taluit are marked with a “T”. Caribou would be driven into the V-shaped arrangement of inuksuit towards hunters waiting in taluit.
Tommy Kilaudluk stands next to one of the oldest sections of the caribou drive.
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