Know Your Inuit Quiz: Answers
Created | Updated Dec 4, 2016
Know Your Inuit Quiz - Answers
If you stumbled upon this page by accident, it won’t make a lot of sense. Take the quiz first!
If you arrived here from the quiz, then here are the answers, with the trademark irreverent commentary.
1. a) An aglu is a breathing-hole in the ice, made by a seal. As the old Inuit proverb goes: Don’t build your igloo on an aglu.
2. h) Piblokto is the condition affecting the Inuit peoples in winter, characterized by an episode of wild excitement and irrational behaviour followed by a period of stupor or unconsciousness. And you wondered who voted for Donald Trump?
3. e) The komatik is a Labradorian dog-sledge, although we don’t think it’s powered by labradors.
4. j) The ulu is the crescent-shaped knife used to flench hide from blubber. According to National Geographic, some Eskimo women want their favourite ulu to be buried with them.
5. d) Kamik is the long sealskin boot. In RE Peary’s North Pole (1910), he reports that the boots are soled with the heavier skin of the square-slippered seal. In case you were wondering.
6. c) Up there, a non-Inuit person like me is affectionately known as a kabloona. Well, I assume it’s affectionate. Maybe we’ll add it to the profanity filter, just in case.
7. i) A peak of rock that is covered by ice but remains distinguishable is a pingo, not to be confused with Pingu, the geographically-challenged cartoon penguin.
8. f) Muktuk is the skin and outer blubber of a whale. According to Star Weekly of Toronto, ‘the Eskimos love muktuk and eat it raw. It's rather rubbery but doesn't taste bad at all—a bit like hazel nut’.
9. b) The structure of rough stones stacked in the form of a human figure is an inukshuk. Anhaga once wrote an Edited Guide Entry about them.
10. g) The owl-shaped doll is known as Ookpik — an item which may one day replace Monty Python’s lumberjack as the defining symbol of Canada.
