Canada

The diet includes a variety of country foods

Average annual indigenous subsistence production in Arctic Canada. Dietary studies support the picture of a high reliance on subsistence production. Even if store-bought foods are also common, country foods contribute a significant portion of the daily nutrient intake.

The traditional diets are more balanced than a diet of foods imported from southern Canada, which have higher levels of sugar and more saturated fats. Country foods are more economical than purchasing food in the store, which becomes especially important in communities where many people are not employed or have incomes below the poverty line. Country foods are also important for reinforcing social relationships that are central to culture and the subsistence economy.

The diet varies between communities and between families, but detailed studies provide some examples of what people eat. In Aklavik in the Northwest Territories, more than half of the Inuit households consumed caribou, beluga, hare, muskrat, whitefish, cisco, burbot, inconnu, Arctic char, ducks, geese, cloud berries, cranberries, and blueberries. Caribou was the most common food.

The types of food eaten also depend the time of year. In Aklavik, fall is the season for hunting caribou, Dall sheep, and moose, as well as ducks and geese. Winter brings trapping of small fur bearers and fishing. When the ice breaks up in April, muskrat are caught for their pelts as well as their meat. The waterfowl return, and are used as food until they begin to nest. Fishing resumes after ice breakup. Spring is the time for gathering roots. Summer is whaling time, and people travel out to the Yukon coast to hunt beluga. Willow tops, bird eggs, and wild rhubarb supplement the diet. As fall approaches again, it is time to dry fish and caribou meat and to pick berries.

Among the Dene, a few diet studies have been done specifically to be able to estimate the load of contaminants. These surveys show, for example, that women in Fort Good Hope eat moose in summer, barrenland caribou in winter, and ducks in the spring. Other important foods are inconnu, whitefish, cisco, and blueberries. In the winter, moose, rabbit, whitefish, and loche were part of the diet, and in the spring woodland caribou. Men had similar eating habits, but with less seasonal variation.

Another studied community is Colville Lake. Women reported eating large quantities of whitefish, barrenland caribou, and ducks in the summer. Trout, barrenland caribou, duck, and loche were the typical spring foods. The Colville residents ate a much higher proportion of country foods than at Fort Good Hope. In general, men ate more country foods than women, and older people more than younger.

A third study, of the communities of Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, showed that people ate country foods six times per week and that animals from the land made up one-third of the diet.
Four Yukon First Nation communities have been studied extensively to look at what people eat: Haines Junction in the traditional territory of the Champagne-Aishihik First Nation, Old Crow, which is a remote community on the Porcupine River relying heavily on the caribou herds that migrate through their land, Teslin at Teslin Lake, and Whitehorse, which is the territorial capital with a more diverse population.

Virtually all households in the survey used moose and salmon, as well as berries and other plant foods. Many also used caribou, hare, ground squirrel, beaver, ducks, grouse, chinook salmon, sockeye salmon, coho salmon, whitefish, lake trout, and Labrador tea. In total, mammals accounted for about half of the traditional food, fish for one fifth, berries for one-fifth, other plants for one-tenth and birds for one-twentieth. People got most of their food from hunting and fishing.