The Daily UbuntuThread 04 · Climate and Our Relationship to the Land · September 16, 2026
The community freezer
In Nunavik, nearly eight in ten people experience food insecurity. Yet almost everyone gives or receives food: here, game is shared before it is sold.
1 · The scene
In a grocery store, a man holds a litre of milk and rereads a text he received the day before. A friend in Kuujjuaq sent him a photo of a shelf, with the prices. He does the math, twice.
Further down in the message, another photo: a big white freezer, open, full of wrapped fish and caribou. "This is free," she wrote, followed by a heart. He stays in the aisle for a moment, milk in hand, wondering what wealth really is.
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
Sharing to hold on
According to the Qanuilirpitaa? 2017 health survey, conducted by the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services and the INSPQ, 78% of Nunavimmiut aged 16 and over experienced food insecurity. And 35% said they had run out of food at home in the previous month, compared with 22% in 2004. In these villages, reachable mostly by plane, the price of food weighs heavily.
But the same survey shows a remarkable strength: 97% of respondents had given or received food in the past year, and 82% had used a community freezer, where hunters and fishers leave game and fish for the village's families.
Statistics Canada's 2022 Indigenous Peoples Survey puts food insecurity at nearly 60% among Inuit in Quebec, according to Nunatsiaq News. The two surveys do not use the same measure, hence the gap, but the finding remains serious. Since 2022, the federal Nutrition North Canada program has also supported hunting and sharing through a Harvesters Support Grant: a recognition that food from the land is part of the solution.
3 · The voice
“Both of these food insecurity rates are unacceptable.”
4 · The question
If one hunter's game feeds the whole village, what would be the equivalent of a community freezer for us?
Sources
- Qanuilirpitaa? 2017, Food security, infographic (NRBHSS and INSPQ, French version) nrbhss.ca
- Qanuilirpitaa? 2017, Food security, summary (NRBHSS and INSPQ, French version) nrbhss.ca
- Nearly 60 per cent of Quebec Inuit feel food insecure (Nunatsiaq News, 2024) nunatsiaq.com
- Improvements to food security programs in the North (Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, 2022, French version) www.canada.ca
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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