Fishing

1973
Stonecut print and stencil on paper 34/50
Image: 9 1/2 × 18 1/2 in.

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College: Gift of Jane and Raphael Bernstein; 2011.64.3

Fish from streams, lakes, ponds, rivers, and the sea provide an important food source for Inuit communities all over the Arctic. This print by Inuit artist Luke Anguhadluq (Ahng-goo-AHD-luck) illustrates a technique for catching fish in the springtime.

explore the object

Canadian (Inuit), fishing spear or leister, 19th century, collected 1920–30. Wood, caribou bone, and leather. length: 18 1/4 in. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College: Gift of Robert O. Fernald, Class of 1936; 158.25.14219.

A group of men and boys have built a circle of stones to one side of a river in order to divert salmon into a small pond, or weir. As this print shows, boys learn fishing and hunting techniques by observing and participating alongside fathers, uncles, and grandfathers. The men are using a tool called a kakivak, or leister, to spear the salmon. A kakivak uses three prongs to impale and secure a fish.

For hundreds of years, hunters carved abstract drawings of figures like these into pieces of ivory, a technique called scrimshaw. Luke Anguhadluq may have chosen this style because it connects the fishing traditions of today to those of the past.

Meet the Artist

For most of his life, Luke Anguhadluq was a camp leader in the Back River area north of Qamanittuaq (Baker Lake) in Central Canada. He was a skillful hunter who lived a traditional way of life on the land. The abstract, primal quality of his figures and Anguhadluq’s practice of leaving much of the paper empty lends a timeless, almost dreamlike effect to his images. He did not begin drawing on paper until he was 73.

learn more

In this video, Inuit scholar Heather Igloliorte discusses this work.

Search the Hood’s Native American collection database using the keyword fish to see other images of fishing, fishing equipment, and objects made with fish skin.