In winter, when the sea retreats far enough, Inuit in Kangiqsujuaq in northern Quebec cut a hole through the sea ice, climb down into the hollow beneath and walk across the exposed seabed to gather blue mussels. Above them hangs a roof of ice; ahead of them, the tide is already on its way back. The scene was filmed for the BBC series Human Planet, and it remains one of the most remarkable food harvests on Earth.
Kangiqsujuaq, “the large bay” in Nunavik
Kangiqsujuaq is an Inuit village of 837 people (2021 census) in Nunavik, the Arctic region of Quebec. Its name means “the large bay” in Inuktitut, and it was once known as Wakeham Bay. The village sits in a mountain valley on the south-eastern shore of Wakeham Bay, about 10 km from Hudson Strait.
For about eight months of the year the bay is locked under ice and snow. Through the winter, residents hunt seal and caribou and fish for Arctic char through the ice. There are no roads to the south: the community is reached by air through the small Kangiqsujuaq Airport, served by Air Inuit.
How the under-ice mussel harvest works
The harvest depends on the very large tides of this coast. Around Ungava Bay and Hudson Strait, the sea rises and falls enormously; Makivvik, the organisation representing Nunavik Inuit, reported in 2025 that measurements at Leaf Basin near Tasiujaq again exceeded those of Canada’s famous Bay of Fundy.
During the lowest winter tides, the water drains out from under the shore-fast ice, leaving air-filled hollows between the frozen ceiling and the sea floor. Harvesters time their trip to the local tidal pattern, cut a hole through the ice at low tide, lower themselves into the cavity and walk the exposed sea floor collecting mussels. Then they climb back out before the returning sea floods the space.
The practice has been handed down through generations. It turns a frozen, apparently lifeless shore into a source of fresh seafood in the middle of the Arctic winter.
Sea ice, tides and local knowledge
What makes the harvest possible is knowledge, built over lifetimes, of exactly how this particular bay behaves: which tides drain far enough, where the hollows open up and how much time each low water gives. That expertise is part of a wider Inuit understanding of sea ice as a working landscape, used for travel, hunting and food gathering. Leave the under-ice harvest to the people who know it: on a tidal coast, the sea comes back quickly and without warning.
Sea ice is vital to wildlife as well. Compare why polar bears depend on sea ice, then read the distinction between sea ice and an ice shelf.
Visiting Kangiqsujuaq and Pingualuit
Kangiqsujuaq is the nearest community to Pingualuit National Park, about 100 km to the south-west, created in 2004 around one of the world’s most striking impact craters. The Pingualuit crater is 3.44 km across and about 400 m deep, formed around 1.4 million years ago, and holds a lake of exceptionally clear water 267 m deep.
Closer to the village, Nunavik’s tourism association highlights Douglas Harbour, a double fjord with steep rock walls, and Qikertaaluk Island near Qajartalik, about 15 km to the south-east, where petroglyph faces carved by the Dorset culture about 1,200 years ago survive alongside the remains of semi-subterranean houses built by Thule-period Inuit about 800 years ago.
Related reading
- Captain Quinn’s Winter Challenge: A 2014 Internet Trend
- Apetor’s Norwegian Winter Films: Comedy in an Icy Setting
- why polar bears depend on sea ice
- the distinction between sea ice and an ice shelf
Sources
- Eye on the Arctic (RCI): Inuit mussel harvest under sea ice
- Kangiqsujuaq (Wikipedia)
- Makivvik: Kangiqsujuaq
- Air Inuit: Kangiqsujuaq
- Arctic Today / The New York Times: Below luminous ice, a bounty of mussels
- Makivvik: Leaf Bay tide research project
- Pingualuit National Park (Wikipedia)
- Pingualuit crater (Wikipedia)
- Image: still from footage filmed for BBC Human Planet.
No comments