Darrell Nasogaluak can look at a kayak and know it’s from his region in the western Arctic.
“It’s unique to this area and there’s no other area that used them that had the same horn,” he said, pointing to curved tips at the bow and stern of the kayak he’s seeing in a photo on a laptop in Inuvik, N.W.T.
“So you can identify one from a distance. When you saw people coming and you saw the kayak, you could tell it was the Inuvialuit.” That was before settlements were established over a century ago.
The one in the photo has been sitting at the Vatican Museums now for 100 years.
“So it’s really well used. I mean, look at the oil stains, yeah, it’s … wow. It’s an original.”
Now, this kayak is being repatriated to the Inuvialuit — and the years-long negotiations to bring it back led to a historic return of items this week from the Vatican’s vast archives.
In total, 62 sacred and cultural objects from Inuit, First Nations and Métis communities that have been held in vaults thousands of kilometres away in the Vatican Museums are being flown to Montreal arriving Saturday.
‘Long, slender, fast’
Nasogaluak is from Tuktoyuktuk, N.W.T., the area where it’s believed this kayak is from.
“Everything you needed, we had right here,” Nasogaluak says of the Mackenzie Delta along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. “Our people were really in a naturally rich area, so they had a lot of time to build culture.”
Like the kayak, a type of watercraft invented by Inuit.
“The craftsmanship was second to none.”
His grandfather taught him how to build them and now he teaches the craft to youth in schools with the help of elders and women who still know how to sew the waterproof stitch.
Nasogaluak says the Inuvialuit used this style of kayak to chase beluga whales in the Mackenzie Delta. He’s been told stories by his wife’s grandfather how at one time, up to 250 kayaks would be in the water at once, before a pandemic hit that killed many Inuvialuit.
“It was extremely lightweight. You know, with today’s carbon-fibre technology, they can probably finally make a kayak as light as ours was. Long, slender, fast.”
The kayak was custom fit down to the seat, depending on the hunter’s build, its length measured to his reach to handle a harpoon. The frame, made out of driftwood collected from the shores. Baleen for ties. And covered with sealskin, sewn together with sinew.
It started with the kayak
The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) says there are only a handful of original Inuvialuit kayaks that survived this long. Others are sitting in museums around the world, but this one became a mission for the IRC to get back.
“It’s a part of our history, our culture and what it means to the Inuvialuit,” said Duane Smith, IRC chair and chief executive officer, has been leading the efforts from Inuvik on behalf of the Inuvialuit.
Smith says the kayak comes from an area known as Kitigaaryuit, recognized by Canada as a national historic site.
“To identify the significance of this part of Canada and the contribution that the Inuvialuit have made to the identity of what makes up Canada today.”
The IRC has been working with the federal government, the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, the national Inuit organization.
ITK says negotiations between Inuit and the Vatican to repatriate the kayak began in 2022 just before the historic visit to Rome by Indigenous delegates from Canada.
There, they met with Pope Francis and joined a private tour of the Vatican museum where they saw the kayak on display.
Smith says getting the kayak back from the Vatican shows they understand past wrongdoings in “their approach to Indigenous cultures in the past.”
“They’re trying to reconcile and together we have, under our discussions, we have come to this process as one form of reconciliation together,” Smith said.
But the IRC’s work to bring the kayak home grew into something much bigger.
Initially, the negotiation was specifically for the kayak, according to ITK.
When the Vatican agreed, ITK says the Holy See also wanted to include 60 other cultural objects from Inuit and First Nations origins. The CCCB insisted a cultural object from Métis origin must be included.
The partnership grew to include the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council.
And in November, the Vatican, along with the CCCB, released a joint statement stating the Pope “desires that this gift represent a concrete sign of dialog, respect and fraternity.”
Gifted or stolen?
But how did the kayak get there in the first place?
In 1925, Roman Catholic Missionaries sent it to the Vatican, along with approximately 100,000 cultural items from around the world, for an exhibition they say was a way to show the church was open to all cultures and to show what daily life was like for Indigenous people in Canada where the missionaries lived.
But it’s not clear if they were sent as gifts or stolen.
Smith says, because the kayak’s main purpose was to harvest beluga whales, he can’t see this kayak being given away.
“To give your most valuable tool away during the most crucial time would not allow you to harvest your beluga to feed your family and community throughout the cold winter.”
Smith continues, “Our tradition was if a person passed away, the male especially, they would be buried with all of their tools so that they can use it in their next life. So the kayak, the harpoon, the bow and arrow would all be placed on the ground above them.
“So that might have been one of the ways these kayaks were obtained, and probably other artifacts. So who’s to say?”
For Darrell Nasogaluak, he says he thinks it’s a good thing the Vatican has been looking after it the past one hundred years.
“We’re going to have an opportunity to finally own one again. It may spark a revival of the use of them.”
“Very few of them, other than in collections, none survived in the North. I’ve seen fragments of them. And you know, the one that’s coming back is likely about the same age as the fragments I saw on the shore.”
First Nations and Métis
According to the Vatican’s catalogue, the 62 pieces being returned include 14 cultural objects belonging to Inuit, one to the Métis and the rest to First Nations.
A century-old Inuvialuit kayak once used for beluga and whale hunts, and 61 other cultural items from First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, have been held for decades in Vatican Museums vaults. But now the items will return to Canada on Dec. 6 after Pope Leo XIV gifted them to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, according to a joint statement from the Vatican and the CCCB.
Métis National Council President Victoria Pruden says she is thankful for the work the IRC has done on the repatriation, even though only one Métis item is returning.
“I was disappointed that in terms of identification that there was only one item,” Pruden said.
But she called it “a delightful piece” that they hope to learn more about with their experts.
The Métis hope to develop their own relationship with the Vatican to bring back more pieces, she said.
Smith says a lot of the heavy-lifting involved filing out permits from every point the precious cargo will travel through on the journey home.
Earlier this week, they left the Vatican for Frankfurt by truck. A flight donated by Air Canada will be flying the items to Montreal, arriving Saturday.
“It’s hard to put in words. I guess it’s heartwarming,” Smith said.
Coming home
Representatives from the IRC and the Assembly of First Nations are travelling with the cultural objects back to Canada.
They will go to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., for examination.
It’s where Inuit, First Nations and Métis leaders will get their first look at the cultural objects and decide on their final destination.
For the kayak, it’s not heading home just yet. There is no facility in the Inuvialuit region so for now, it will stay at the Canadian Museum of History.
“We want to make sure that it’s preserved to the extent that it should be so that it’s not further damaged,” Smith said.
“We want some of our elders and people that continue to have a lot of knowledge with kayaks and some have built them. We want them to have access to look at the traditional methods that were used.”
Nasogaluak is excited for this time in Inuvialuit history.
“We need a proper facility that can house it, yes, absolutely. I mean, it’s been gone 100 years, I can’t wait to see it.”
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