HTO Community Feast

The local Hunters & Trappers Organization (HTO) organized a community feast on January 13 to welcome the new year.  I attended because I hadn’t been to a feast in a while, and I wanted a few pieces of country food to take home.

The entire community hall was booked for the event.  Large clear tarps were taped together and placed on the floor.  Many pieces of frozen country food were placed on the tarps.  In Nunavut, country food means Arctic animals and plants.  The country food on the menu was Arctic char, seal, narwhal, and caribou.  They were available frozen and cooked.  The frozen pieces lay on the tarps while the cooked pieces were in large grey pots on stage.  Also on stage were juice boxes and apples.  To right of the stage were a coffee & tea station, and a few tables offering cookies & Bannock.  A few tables with chairs were set up in front of the stage for Elders.

The feast began at 5:30pm with speeches from the HTO & mayor of Arctic Bay.  The food was blessed by an Elder and then permission was given for everyone to begin eating.  I stood back and watched everyone stand up and jump into the middle of the hall, armed with plastic bags, Ziploc bags, and flattened pieces of cardboard.  They quickly searched & picked the “best” pieces of country food in their eyes and put them in bags.  The people with cardboard immediately began eating their selections, the cardboard functioning as their plates.  Elders cut open a seal on a tarp and shared pieces.  Others lined up for the cooked food on stage.  Several HTO members were on stage for help & direction. 

When the crowd dispersed from the tarps, I stepped up, only looking for small pieces.  I took one piece of char & caribou and placed them in Ziploc bags.  I then got in line, made it onto the stage, grabbed a paper plate, and placed piece of cooked seal & caribou, and some vegetables on it.  I walked off the stage and went over to the Bannock table and took two pieces.  No cookies were left.  I returned to my seat at the back of the hall and ate my dinner.  It was delicious. 

There was very little food left on stage & on the tarps when I left.  That’s good to see because the cost of living is a lot higher than before, so any free food is welcome.  A lot of people went home with warm full stomachs.  Big thanks to HTO for putting on the feast!