Inupiat whalers, whose villages lay along the bowhead's annual migration route off the North Slope, have hunted the whale for thousands of years. As a member of the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho, I grew up on a reservation and participated in tribal hunting and fishing activities. So it wasn't hard to appreciate the relationship between the Inupiat and the bowhead whale. The hunt is an essential part of Inupiat culture, not only for the important subsistence food it can bring, but also because of its significance and symbolism. It fosters teamwork and leadership.
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The whale hunt provides a rite of passage and acceptance, and an acknowledgment of one's place in the community. The gift of the whale itself to the hunters is part of the interrelationship between man and nature. In the 1970s, however, the International Whaling Commission, fearing the species was gravely endangered, banned the hunting of bowheads. That threatened a key cultural tradition of the Inupiat, who were convinced that bowheads were abundant, based on their traditional knowledge of the species and its habitats. The last complete whale census, conducted in 1993, reconfirmed the Inupiat beliefs, estimating that there were about 8,200 bowheads and that the population was increasing at a rate of about 3 percent per year.