M Y JOU RN E Y
Caitlyn at home during Christmas 2014
Caitlyn Baikie
On Inuit culture, the Franklin expedition, and growing up in a remote northern community
AUTHOR LINDSAY VERMEULEN
PHOTOS CAITLYN BAIKIE
C
aitlyn Baikie was twelve years old
when she went on her first polar
bear hunt. Her group of hunters
travelled twelve hours over sea ice to her
grandmother’s hometown. They stayed
five days in the abandoned community, in
simple fishing shacks that are left there for
public use. When I tell her I’ve never been
hunting, she’s shocked.
“I grew up eating way more wild food
than chicken. It’s expensive to buy those
meats [in remote northern communities],
and they’re not always the best quality, either.”
Her family relies on hunting for sustenance,
stocking three huge freezers with ptarmigan,
Forager 2 Fall 2015
polar bear, seal, duck, and other game to
feed their family throughout the year. They
are residents of Nain, the northernmost
community in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“People lived farther north than Nain
in the past,” Baikie explains, “but in 1959
the government forced them farther south,
so people got relocated. My family was
among those that got relocated south.”
Just two hours below the treeline by snowmobile, Nain is home to roughly 1,200
permanent residents. It is accessible only
by flights starting around $2,000 CAD, or
by travelling over the sea ice (or by ship in
the summer) from the nearest community.
Early Years
As a child, Baikie stayed busy despite the
remoteness of her community. “I grew up
hunting, fishing, travelling on the land,
and learning about my grandmother’s
hometown,” she says, however, “I did feel
isolated growing up, like there was so
much more in the world to discover.” In
high school, her curiosity about what else
the world had to offer increased. “I became
interested in learning how the land I grew
up in fit into the rest of the world.”
She pursued an undergraduate degree
at Memorial University in St. John’s,
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