THE ICEFJORD CENTRE

PAGE BY PAGE GUIDE – THE BOOK CREATOR BOOK “LIFE AS A HUNTER”

The students meet the Icefjord Centre in two pictures, showing summer and winter respectively.

In class you can talk about:

• What the Icefjord Centre is.
• What the surroundings around the Centre look like.
• The difference between summer and winter.
• How summer and winter differ where you live.

Look at the map and talk about where Ilulissat is situated. Talk about how many people live in Ilulissat. Also talk about how many people live in the town or the settlement where you live.

The students see part of a world map.

The task now is to move the red marker down into the map in order to show where each student lives.

The marker is found in the white box and can be drawn into the map.

In class you can talk about:

• Differences and similarities between Ilulissat and your own town or settlement.

On page 12 the students see a picture from 1925 that shows fishing at the ice edge.

In class you can talk about what you see in the picture. Let the students go into details. For example:

• How many people are there?
• What are the men doing and what are the women doing?
• How is the catch brought home?
• A mother is carrying a child on her arm. Where is she in the picture?
• Two dogs at a dinghy. Where are they in the picture?

On page 13 the students see two pictures showing how fishing is done nowadays.

In class you can talk about the significant differences between fishing at the Icefjord then and now.

It would be a good idea to write the keywords, that you talk about, on the board.

On both pages there is a facts box. Here the students are to write the keywords that you talk about in class. The students can make use of the facts boxes in the task My reference book on pages 22-23.

Now it is time for the students to listen to the podcast Life as a Hunter. They find the podcast by clicking on the picture on page 14.

Before listening to the podcast, you can give a short introduction to the contents of the podcast.

The contents of the podcast

Mikkel tells:

• that he was born in 1940 and grew up in a hunting and fishing family in Ilulissat.
• that since he was 12 years old, he has worked as a fisherman and therefore he has a special connection to the Icefjord.
• that his father was both hunter and fisherman and that there was no doubt that Mikkel also would be a hunter or fisherman or both. These were his only options.
• that the dogs, who in those days moved around freely, were the most important. From the age of 10, he looked after the family’s dogs in the summer.
• about being close to his father and about how his father taught him and his brothers that life as a fisherman on the Icefjord can be dangerous. His father also taught him how to fish by hand, remove the entrails and cut out the fish.
• about the ice that in all kinds of weather slowly moves out towards the sea. At full moon, where the current is stronger, the ice moves faster.
• about how the fishermen used to estimate how far the ice on the Icefjord moved per day. This is called the “movement” of the ice.
• about the importance of keeping an eye on the “movement”, so that they can remove their equipment (hunting and fishing gear) in time, before the current took it.
• about the Ilulissat fjord (the Icefjord) having a deep place in his heart.

It is recommended that the students listen in pairs or small groups.

Let the students spend a few minutes discussing what they have heard in the podcast.

On page 15 the students are to make small sound recordings where they tell about the podcast. The pictures on the page will help them remember what they have heard.

Sound recording, see instruction 1 here.

The recording will now be represented by a small sound icon. This icon can be placed wherever you wish on the page. You can listen to the recording over and over again.

Review in class

We recommend that you have a joint discussion in class when the work with pages 14-15 is finished.

In class you could talk about:

• the picture or pictures that they chose for their audio story and the reason why they chose it/them.
• concepts and keywords the students have encountered in the podcast.

In the text below you can find inspiration for the class discussion.

In the Book Creator book there are tasks working with some of the concepts.

You can add more pages for other topics, concepts and keywords that you discuss.

Concepts and keywords

• Hunter/fisherman – a hunter/fisherman is a person who makes a living hunting and fishing in Greenland. They both hunt and fish. Mostly they fish and they especially fish a certain species, the Greenland halibut. In the podcast Mikkel tells about growing up in a hunting and fishing family. Find inspiration here. Choose English by clicking on the Danish flag.

There was no doubt that when Mikkel grew up, he would become a hunter/fisherman. Why?

How old was he when he started fishing together with his father and brothers?

What fish did they especially catch?

• The dogs – when getting out to the fishing grounds and bringing home the catch, the sledge dogs were the most important. Nowadays all the dogs are tethered and their fodder is often ready-made dry feed, but in Mikkel’s childhood the dogs moved around freely and were fed with fresh fish at the harbour. 

Where and with what kind of fodder were Mikkel’s sledge dogs fed?

Since 1954 the dogs has to be tethered. Why?

• Calving – when blocks of ice break off the glacier front and fall into the sea because of gravitation, it is called calving. You could say that the glacier is “giving birth” to icebergs and ice floes. When Semeq Kujalleq calves and the ice is pressed out into the Icefjord the fishermen must take special precautions.

Which precautions must the fishermen take, especially at full moon?

• Full moon – there is a full moon approximately once a month. The Moon’s phases are determined from the Moon’s position between the Earth and the Sun. When the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon, the Moon is fully illuminated by the Sun. Then you say that the moon is At full moon the tide is especially strong and therefore there is a stronger current that makes the icebergs drift out to the sea more quickly.

What is the opposite of a full moon?

Now it is time to have a closer look at the job that Mikkel had all of his life.

Together with the students you are now to clean and cut out a fish. Let the students take pictures of the process. The pictures are to be inserted in the book.

Afterwards the students record small audio files where they tell about the process.

The students read the following text on page 18:

    When you have dogs, you are also responsible for taking care of them and making sure that they are well and doing fine. The dogs need a lot of food to be able to work and pull the sledge and at the same time stay warm in the arctic climate. In the summer the dogs need food to recover from the injuries of the winter and to shed old fur and grow new fur.

The students are also to read pages 38 and 39 in Qimmeq. They can choose to get the pages read out loud by clicking read it for me. They open the book by clicking on the Book Creator icon.

On page 19 the students answer the questions in the speech balloons. You might let the students answer orally. Write the answers on the board and let the students write them down or record them as audio files in the book.

Now the students are to imagine what it is like for Mikkel and his family to live as hunters and fishermen. They make a drawing of Mikkel fishing in the Icefjord together with his father and brothers.

The students take a picture of their drawing and insert it in the frame.

Subsequently they record an audio file where they tell about their drawing.

Sound recording and insertion of pictures, see instruction 2 og 3 here. 

On the pages the students make sentences or small stories using the concepts and keywords that you have gone through. They can write them, record them as an audio file or make a drawing and insert the picture.

Sound recording and insertion of pictures, see instruction 2 og 3 here. 

In his story the students hear that Mikkel has always dreamt of becoming a fisherman/hunter.

As a conclusion the students are now to tell about their own dreams. They are to tell about what they dream of working with, when they grow up.

The students find pictures or make drawings of their dreams here on the page.

Subsequently they record audio files where they tell about their dreams.

Sound recording and insertion of pictures, see instruction 2 og 3 here.

The students show their products to the class. 

Make sure that the framework for feedback is positive criticism.The students should be supported in assessing what is good – and what might be done better. Find more inspiration here.

Not specifically with a view to making new products, but foremost to let the students discover and work with this kind of constructive and positive criticism.

If you intend to work with some of the other podcasts from the Icefjord Centre, it might make sense to save the students’ Book Creator book, so the work they have done with it, can be used again.

If you wish to let the students make use of the feedback, they have received from the class, you could reserve time for them to continue their work with their products. So that they can use the feedback they have received from each other to change things in their product.

The podcast Life as a Hunter has been created by the Icefjord Centre in Ilulissat.

The teaching material for the podcast Life as a Hunter has been developed by Lotte Brinkmann and Daniella Maria Manuel, Anholt Læringsværksted with feedback from Leg med IT.

The student’s book in Book Creator has been developed by Rikke Falkenberg Kofoed from Leg med IT.

The Qimmeq project has been developed by Ilisimatusarfik and the University of Copenhagen. The children’s non-fiction book “Qimmeq – kalaallit qimmiat qimuttoq – the Greenland sled dog” was produced by Anne Katrine Gjerløff, Ilisimatusarfik and the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

The teaching material Life as a Hunter is published under a Creative Commons crediting licence CC:BY.

The texts, assignments and pictures can be shared, reproduced and adapted, with the proviso that “Life as a Hunter by The Icefjord Centre Ilulissat” is credited as the source.