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Qajartalik (pronounced k-eye-yar-tal-ick, meaning “where there is a kayak” in Inuktitut) is the largest and most well-studied site containing evidence of petroglyphs in the Canadian Arctic. Petroglyphs are a type of rock art made by carving directly into a rock panel. Qajartalik is one of only four known sites in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland with petroglyphs. All these petroglyph sites are located on the northeastern coast of the Ungava Peninsula. Based on the artistic style of the carved images, archaeologists believe the Dorset people, also known as the Tuniit in Inuit oral histories, from the latter third of their cultural period made them. This would mean the petroglyphs are roughly 700 to 1,500 years old. Given the large number of petroglyphs, at least 180, Qajartalik was likely an important site to the Dorset people and is one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Arctic.
Qajartalik Geography
Qajartalik is located on the easternmost peninsula of Qikertaaluk Island (meaning “great island” in Inuktitut), Nunavut, roughly 5 km off the coast of mainland Nunavik (Arctic Quebec). The archaeological site, which contains several steatite rock formations, is spread along an approximately 130 m-long rift.
Qajartalik can be separated into four areas of activity. In the first sector, at the easternmost portion of the site, there is a small rock shelter habitation but no evidence of petroglyphs or steatite quarrying. This means that, at least at some points, people have lived directly at the site rather than just visiting it temporarily. The second sector, roughly 30 m northwest of Sector 1, has a large steatite outcrop with over 100 individual petroglyphs. Over 40 extraction marks were left when people quarried the steatite to make vessels, lamps, or portable carvings. Based on the size and shape of the extraction marks, archaeologists think the Dorset people made most of these marks, but early Inuit groups produced a few at a later time period. The third sector, roughly 15 m west, has another large steatite outcrop that has over 80 petroglyphs, approximately 12 steatite extraction marks made by the Dorset and early Inuit hundreds of years ago, and even some more modern quarrying marks made in the last few decades. Finally, roughly 80 m northwest of the third sector, the fourth sector has a relatively small steatite outcrop with four petroglyphs.
Did you know?
There is currently no method to directly date petroglyphs of this age, making it impossible to know during which Dorset period (ca. 500 BCE to 1300 CE) these petroglyphs were initially made or if different petroglyphs were made at different time periods. However, the style of the majority of the petroglyphs most closely resembles imagery from artifacts created in the later Dorset period.
What Were the Petroglyphs Made Of?
Along the 130 m-long rift at Qajartalik, several outcrops of steatite (sometimes called soapstone) exist. Steatite is a relatively soft type of stone that can be easily carved, which made it sought after by the Dorset and Inuit for making oil lamps, cooking vessels and portable artistic carvings. Steatite is uncommon, meaning outcrops of the material generally have a long history of repeated human activity. There are many archaeological sites in the surrounding area of Qajartalik, suggesting people would have lived in the area during both the warm and cold seasons.
What Do the Petroglyphs Look Like?
The petroglyphs at Qajartalik depict mostly front-facing human faces. A smaller number of images might be interpreted as animal-like faces, while some of them combine human and animal features. Most individual petroglyphs measure 10 to 25 cm. The petroglyphs were carved into the bedrock using a mixture of pecking and grooving. All the petroglyphs have clearly defined foreheads, cheeks, chins, eyes, noses, and mouths but do not have ears, hair, necks, or other body parts. A few petroglyphs have lines extending downwards at the chin, which archaeologists have interpreted as beards or breath marks coming out of the petroglyphs’ mouths. The general shapes of the faces come in a small number of forms, from oval or rectangular to “shield” or “pitcher” shaped (i.e., flat foreheads with rounded cheeks and chins). Most faces are found in clusters of ten or more.
Several petroglyphs at Qajartalik are located around areas of known early Inuit activity and are stylistically distinct from most of the Dorset-carved images. This suggests that these might have been carved by early Inuit groups rather than the Dorset.
Unanswered Questions
A few aspects of Qajartalik and the other Nunavik petroglyph sites remain unknown. First, it is not known why the Dorset created these petroglyphs. Since the faces share similarities with the style of the faces depicted on portable carved objects made by the Dorset, many archaeologists think there is a link between these petroglyphs and the sociocultural beliefs and practices of the Dorset. Inuit oral histories sometimes reference some of these practices of the Tuniit (Dorset) but do not directly reference the petroglyphs. Second, it is unclear why there are no other Dorset petroglyph sites outside of this area of the Arctic. The Dorset used other known steatite quarries throughout the Arctic, but only Qajartalik and the three other sites in Nunavik have petroglyphs. Carved art objects became increasingly more common throughout the Dorset period, which makes it odd that petroglyphs were seemingly only created in a small subregion of where the Dorset lived. Despite the questions about the site that remain unanswered, given how petroglyphs are unknown outside of this region, Qajartalik and the other petroglyph sites must have been incredibly significant for the Dorset.
Conservation and Protection of the Site
The petroglyphs of Qajartalik and their importance have been known to nearby Inuit communities since their ancestors first arrived in the region roughly 800 years ago. While the first academically-trained archaeologists visited the site in the 1960s, it has only been intensively studied since the 1990s. Inuit Elders and community members of the nearby village of Kangiqsujuaq, as well as archaeologists, have noted that erosion on the petroglyph rock panels, caused by a range of natural and climate change-related phenomena, has noticeably increased since the 2000s. Furthermore, increasing tourism in Arctic regions has meant that intentional and unintentional damage by tourists and non-local visitors increasingly threatens remote sites like Qajartalik.
Efforts were initiated in the late 1990s to register the site as a National Historic Site (NHS) but were stalled for more than a decade due to jurisdictional disputes of Qikertaaluk Island between Nunavut and Quebec. This land dispute was settled in 2008 with the NHS application being resubmitted, but Qajartalik is still not officially designated as a National Historic Site of Canada. However, in 2018, Qajartalik was placed by the federal government on Canada’s tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. While this does not officially safeguard the site yet, it is a crucial step in achieving that protection.
Despite the bureaucratic challenges with getting the site officially protected, Inuit community members, Elders, knowledge keepers, along with archaeologists (notably from the Avataq Cultural Institute and the Canadian Museum of History) continue to visit Qajartalik and the surrounding archaeological sites to monitor its condition and make efforts to digitally record the petroglyphs.
