Saber Rider

It's Jamboree time in Inuvik. A chance for people to show their skills at skinning muskrats, tea boiling (includes starting a fire in the snow), harpoon throwing and dog sledding to name a few events. Most of the contests are open the public. Do I have the innate ability to skin and debone a muskrat? Magic 8 ball says - it's unlikely.

Here it is - Muktuk. If you missed the previous post where I mentioned this Northern delicacy I'll bring you up to speed - muktuk is raw beluga blubber. Whenever I mention this stuff to people the first question I get is "did you try it?" Up until tonight the answer was no. What does it taste like you ask? Let's start with what it smells and feels like. Muktuk does not smell like fish; it smells worse (if such a thing is possible). Sadly, beyond making a rather coarse comparison I can think of no way to describe the smell. The texture is equally unpleasant. No matter how hard I tried I could not puncture my little piece of muktuk with my plastic fork. This was a bad sign. Daunted, but determined, I pushed the blubber on my fork and, after a moment's hesitation, put it in my mouth. It tasted exactly like it smelled. My entire body felt like it was rebelling against what I had just done but I tried to keep my cool. The taste was so unpleasant that I thought it prudent to hold off on chewing until I had a chance to adapt (or at least not throw up). Chewing however, proved to be my undoing. Muktuk's texture is rather like an erasure - squishy yet surprisingly resilient. This tactile sensation sent my gag response into full gear and the muktuk found its way back on my plate, looking just as it had before I chewed it. My supervisor laughed at my reaction for 5 minutes.

I took this photo on my way home from the community feast at around 9:20pm. We'll have twenty-four hours of sunlight by Victoria Day weekend.