An Inuit-Run Qiviut Fiber Industry

Qiviut fiber–the ultra-warm winter undercoat of Arctic muskoxen–is a rare and high-performing natural fiber representing a source of possible income for Inuvialuit (Inuit) communities in the Western Canadian Arctic, yet the current qiviut industry is run almost entirely by non-Indigenous businesses. Our initiative is motivated by the stark contrast between the enormously high market value of qiviut fiber–worth at least twice the price of cashmere–and the economic marginalization widely experienced in Inuvialuit communities. While any qiviut market is useful for Inuvialuit harvesters, who can earn income by selling hides from muskoxen harvested as part of the local food system, there remains a lack of Indigenous ownership and participation in the qiviut industry–as in the North American ‘fibershed’ movement more broadly. Given the severe lack of employment opportunities in our home communities, we see a need to ensure that fiber industries based on Indigenous knowledge are operating with greater involvement, control, and benefit by Indigenous people.

Qiviut Inc. is the only Indigenous-owned qiviut company operating in North America. Though facing significant barriers as a small Indigenous-owned business outside of our home territory, we are working a) to expand the market for qiviut by educating the public about the remarkable properties of this rare fiber, and b) to create an Indigenous-owned and -operated qiviut industry that builds local capacity and culturally relevant employment opportunities, both in Inuvialuit communities and for diasporic Inuit in southern urban centers. 

In 2019, we purchased a second-mill fiber mill, learned to use the machines, and set up operations in Nisku, Alberta, where we can more easily access infrastructure, affordable shipping rates, and markets for our qiviut yarn, knitwear, and biodegradable hand warmers–while still employing urban Inuvialuit in the mill. Our fiber is sourced from muskoxen harvested for food in Sachs Harbour and Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, and we currently are able to provide some income for hunters and skilled hide workers, who stretch and dry the hides before they are shipped south to our mill. We are now preparing to shift a significant portion of the hide processing–the combing of the qiviut and shearing of the guard hairs–to workers within the northern communities, with plans to provide further training in fiber processing (spinning yarn, knitting, etc).

We build on our people’s traditional knowledge of this remarkable fiber, which has been used for generations to provide exceptional insulation in extreme temperatures. Using forks and other hand tools, we comb out the qiviut fiber from the hides, pick out guard hairs by hand, and then run the fiber through our mill machines in small batches. In this way, we are able to produce both high-end yarns and knitwear and also more broadly accessible qiviut hand warmers, which are not only uniquely effective but also entirely washable, reusable, and biodegradable. Now that we are established, we are ready to grow our product line and to build a larger processing team that includes  more opportunities for skilled workers in our home communities. In this way, we aim to secure a place for Inuit in this industry based on our traditional knowledge.

For a demonstration of our Nuna Heat hand warmers, please see this video.

Our home communities–located over a thousand miles north of the agricultural zone, with groceries having to be shipped by air or sea at extremely high prices–deal with high rates of food insecurity, a lack of local employment opportunities, and other social challenges in the wake of a century of colonialism. Although the harvesting of traditional foods continues, the market for hides and fur products–which provides a small income that allows hunters to continue feeding their families in this way–remains negligible due to decades of anti-hunting activism. At Qiviut Inc., we work to educate the public about the beauty and importance of the Inuvialuit relationship with muskoxen–and so to grow this sustainable source of income for our communities. 

We are also prioritizing the creation of local employment opportunities based on traditional skills (hunting, hidework, qiviut processing) as well as further training opportunities in marketable fiber and textile practices like spinning, knitting, and eventually, felting. Currently, our community members can apply for only a small number of entry-level jobs, with higher-paying positions largely staffed by people from outside of the communities who have had access to higher education and training. The current qiviut industry has also been impacted by the globalization of the textile industry and the resulting loss of local North American fibershed skills and infrastructure; as a result, most yarn and textile work is still outsourced, whether to non-Indigenous processors in the south–or overseas. We would like to see employment opportunities based on our traditional qiviut fiber being made available to Inuvialuit themselves. Having already established an Inuvialuit-owned and -operated mill in Alberta, we are now focusing on building capacity through employment-sharing with our home communities.

We founded Qiviut Inc. in order to benefit our own people: Inuvialuit living both in the Northwest Territories and in the southern urban center of Edmonton, Alberta. We are aware of the current lack of northern employment opportunities because of our own experience growing up and later working in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region; because of the ongoing experience of our relatives living in the communities; and because of what we hear from the hunters with whom we collaborate. As harvester David Kuptana from Ulukhaktok told CBC News this year, "...it's a small town. We have about 400 people in our community, there's not too much jobs around, so some people go out hunting muskox for their income.”

As we seek to create further qiviut-related job opportunities in Sachs Harbour and Ulukhaktok, we continue to take direction from the hunters and families with whom we already have relationships; we also have formed an arrangement with the Government of the Northwest Territories’ department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment, which oversees the purchase of muskoxen hides from hunters and is interested in supporting us as an Inuvialuit-owned qiviut business. We are also in contact with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (our home territory’s government) and will be consulting with municipal governments in Sachs Harbour and Ulukhaktok. This new phase of our small business will also mean that we can prioritize travelling home to the north (despite airfare approaching USD $3,000 per person) in order to set up expanded community-based branches of Qiviut Inc., as well as to offer training in hide processing and textile work. These workshops will also allow us to consult face-to-face with our relatives and other community members about their needs and preferences.

As urban Inuvialuit now living in Alberta, where there is greater access to training and other opportunities, we are committed to maintaining relationships with our home territory while also taking care of other diasporic Inuvialuit, who have a long history of living in Edmonton (beginning with the mid-20th century tuberculosis epidemics that saw large numbers of Inuvialuit relocated to southern ‘Indian hospitals’). With urban Inuit today facing many of the same social barriers as other local Indigenous people, we are proud to provide training, mentorship, and employment at our Alberta mill.

Our business is 100% Inuvialuit-owned, having been founded in 2019 by Tanis ‘Akutuq’ Simpson and her brother Bradley ‘Oukpak’ Carpenter–both Inuvialuit originally from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories (the northernmost community in the Northwest Territories). Tanis, the head operator at the mill, was raised in Sachs Harbour and also in the larger Inuvialuit community of Inuvik, in the Mackenzie Delta region. Her grandfather was Frank Carpenter, an Inuvialuk trapper, and her grandmother was Florence Ross, a Gwich’in (Dene/First Nations) language speaker who lived her adult life in Inuvialuit territory. Tanis Simpson earned a teaching degree in Whitehorse, Yukon, and later taught in Sachs Harbour; her brother Bradley, meanwhile, served in communities across the Northwest Territories as a member of the RCMP (police) before transitioning to entrepreneurship.

As Inuvialuit, we are accountable to our many relatives living in the Settlement Region, our home territory. Although air travel to the Arctic is hugely expensive, we travel north whenever possible to see family and to connect with our business partners. Our founding of this business, as well as our plan to expand the employment opportunities that we offer in our home communities, is based on the conditions that we see for ourselves and have heard about consistently from hunters and relatives: that there is a shortage of employment, particularly employment that allows people to build upon and continue traditional land-based skills (which themselves are supportive of language revitalization, healthy family relationships, and other decolonial benefits). In pursuing this initiative, we will continue to seek direction from hunters and hide workers and to liaise with northern governments at the municipal, territorial, and Inuvialuit regional levels.

We are a small but growing business aiming to increase our capacity to meet the demand for our product--and to achieve a position as primary processor of muskoxen hides harvested in our home region. Having entered the industry in 2019, we have worked to create a place for ourselves alongside much larger and more established non-Indigenous competitors, most of whom are milling their yarn and textiles elsewhere, likely at a lower cost. In order to take up the opportunity to secure a larger portion of the industry, we need to expand our workforce, develop new processes and products, and reach new markets.

In addition to the everyday challenges of running a business, we face a series of specific challenges that would benefit from the support of the Solve network. These include: a) anti-hunting bias that casts wild-hunted muskoxen qiviut as ‘less civilized’ than fiber originating from agricultural settings, b) a narrow definition of ‘innovation’ in many granting programs, which often excludes Indigenous entrepreneurs re-making and adapting sustainable heritage skills, like hidework and textile practices c) lack of fibershed infrastructure that would assist us in overcoming production challenges, like de-hairing (a significant bottleneck in our current process). As urban Inuit, furthermore, we sometimes fall through the cracks of the funding structures, ineligible both for supports available in our home territory and for entrepreneurs indigenous to the region of our southern headquarters.

In applying to Solve, we are interested not only in building our profile and applying for any available funding but also in accessing mentorship opportunities and connecting with Indigenous problem-solvers–whom we know are facing related challenges while also innovating solutions that prioritize community and relationship.

Tanis Simpson is Inuvialuk, raised in Sachs Harbour and Inuvik in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. While operating a business in Alberta, she remains connected to her home territory through her many relatives, through the cultural practice of her daily work with muskoxen hides, and through Qiviut Inc's relationship with muskoxen harvesters.

'Innovation' signifies 'newness'--and although this priority is to some degree based on Enlightenment principles, it also resonates with us as Inuit problem solvers whose people have always adapted creatively to new challenges. Our particular brand of innovation therefore involves taking up and making new old technologies: hidework, fiber processing, spinning, knitting, felting. Our innovation is network-building--a process of connecting the practices of our ancestors with useful incoming textile traditions. Our innovation is in creative problem solving--for example, how to adapt a milling process developed for agricultural textiles like sheep's wool to accommodate our very different wild-sourced fiber.

While Indigenous ownership of industries derived from Indigenous culture has its own merits, we also bring longstanding, intergenerational knowledge of the muskoxen herds and their fiber. This, along with our focus on heritage methods and small-batch processing, allows us to create products of the highest quality. For example, companies processing large numbers of hides in distant locations may be shearing their qiviut, which can result in a loss of fiber staple length. By sticking with our grandparents' hand-methods, though laborious, we ensure the removal of the entire, un-cut qiviut fiber.

The most significant impact that we may have on the market is in the area of who controls and benefits from the market. As more and more consumers are interested in supporting Indigenous-owned enterprises in the name of economic reconciliation, we hope to be part of a global shift toward equity and justice in sustainable industries.

Goal 1: Ensure a long-term, viable place for Inuit in the qiviut industry. In order to hold onto/grow our share of the market as Indigenous entrepreneurs, we are seeking to educate the public about the ethical sourcing of qiviut and the unique nature of our business, with its in-house processing by mostly Inuvialuit staff. We work to accomplish this through public presentations, mill tours, social media, and collaborations.

Goal 2: Create culturally relevant employment opportunities in our home communities. With few job opportunities available, and with severe social challenges produced by colonialism, our communities deserve to participate more fully in the industry based on our traditional relationship with muskoxen. In order to accomplish this, we will travel north for consultation and to provide training; hire local coordinators; build a network of workers capable of exercising greater agency within the industry.

1. We must achieve some profit that can be reinvested back into the business and our communities.

2. We must hire local coordinators to help us establish community-based branches of Qiviut Inc.

3. The majority of staff members must be Inuit, with Inuit ownership of the company remaining at 100%.

4. We must offer employment opportunities that are culturally relevant and that encourage the relaying of traditional, land-based skills.

5. We must prioritize the sustainable management of the muskoxen herds (which is already under the authority of the Inuvialuit government).

6. Materials originating from wildlife with whom we have ancient relationships must be treated in ways that adhere to our culture (respect, avoiding waste, sharing).

7. We must continue to educate the public about the importance of muskoxen as part of the local, sustainable food system--and as offering a high-performance, re-usable, and biodegradable fiber that can both reduce economic reliance on fossil fuels and on petroleum-derived synthetics.

Our theory of change begins with observing the impact of working with muskoxen hides--a traditional practice that we had uneven access to in our younger hears--in our own lives and in the lives of our staff. As social work scholar Michael Yellowbird has argued, embodied practices that are culturally relevant have tremendous healing practices and regulatory effects on nervous systems impacted by intergenerational trauma and daily life under settler-colonialism and white supremacy.

Our theory, then, is that creating work based on muskoxen hides will have a transformative effect on community members whose ancestors' lives were shaped by their relationship with muskoxen herds and other wildlife. This resonates with Indigenous scholars Glen Coulthard and Leanne Simpson's concept of grounded normativity--a set of land-based practices that re-establish long-term relationships with place, homeland, culture, kin.

There are many kinds of work, and all paths to basic income can seem justifiable in the face of poverty born from economic exclusion. But work that re-connects communities impacted by a century of epidemics and residential schooling to culture, language, land, and family relationships; that is necessarily protective of wildlife and habitat; and that fosters community pride and autonomy is work that feeds us on many levels, beyond only the basic needs.

Qiviut is an exceptionally vibrant thing: originating from ice-age megafauna who perfected its insulating capabilities over 90,000 years, it is startlingly compelling, even to people whose ancestors never encountered it. Warming swiftly to the touch while being impossibly lightweight, buoying itself in water; and astonishing new users with its ultra-soft texture, qiviut is the more sublime example of the benefits of ongoing human harvesting relationships with animals. Our theory is that qiviut is good for us--all of us--for anyone who seeks warmth; for those who want long-term, sustainable economies;  for those who eschew waste; for those who seek more in-depth and reciprocal relationships with Indigenous lands; and for those of us who have been kept alive by it for thousands of years.

Our core technology is the qiviut itself--a warming technology of animal origin (which alerts us to the resilience, brilliance, and innovation of the muskoxen themselves).

On the human side, we adapt fiber processing technologies that were developed for agricultural fibers like sheep's wool. After combing out, washing, and de-hairing our qiviut fiber by hand, we work with a carding machine, a pin-drafter, and a spinning machine, and while we manage to accomplish beautiful and high-quality yarns, we also see daily evidence of the ways in which these machines don't entirely suit our delicate fiber and its unique relationship to static electricity. We are therefore constantly in a research phase, seeking out adaptations or hacks that will help us meet the demand for our products more efficiently.

As a small business, we also mobilize e-commerce technologies and social media: we make sales through a Shopify online store and a Square system for in-person sales; we share our work via social media (including sales channels); and we are working to build an email marketing strategy.

As an Indigenous-owned, woman-led small business employing a majority of Indigenous staff members, we believe that EDI is central to our workplace culture. We are family-run and -oriented, and we seek to make it possible for our staff to be able to access work alongside family responsibiliites and other challenges or commitments. This means being flexible and child-friendly--and also fostering a culture of mutual care and sharing (as with rides, food, and other resources).

Diversity: we prioritize the hiring of Inuit and other Indigenous workers.

Equity: Aware of the ways in which intergenerational trauma and also family obligations can sometimes make work challenging, we create a strong foundation of relationships, flexible work, and appropriate accommodations to ensure continued access to employment.

Inclusion: With a foundation of expansive chosen-family relationships, we maintain an egalitarian workplace that celebrates Indigenous culture, gender and sexual diversity, and diverse expressions of ability.

Our business model is structured around the production of qiviut yarn, knitwear, and hand warmers--and also Inuit-made items that we sell for artists by consignment. The rationale for this model is based on the status of qiviut as the world's most precious fiber: with exceptional softness and warmth, it makes products of unparalleled quality.

A key component of our business model is also public education: given widespread confusion in the market about the source of qiviut (with an erroneous story in circulation about the fiber being gathered by hand from the tundra), and given ongoing anti-Indigenous bias that imagines agricultural frameworks to be culturally superior to the harvesting of wild foods and materials, we provide education about the ethics of Inuit harvesting through mill tours, public speaking, and social media. As the only Indigenous-owned qiviut company operating in North America, we are in a unique position to educate consumers.

Essential to our business model is the careful sourcing of our fiber from Inuvialuit muskoxen harvesters: in this way, we are able to provide some income and therefore support the continuation of a local, sustainable, traditional food system.

We would like to also note here that we are currently undergoing some business re-modeling: we are just beginning a collaboration with two local university Business Analysis classes (whom we connected with via the Riipen platform), who are analyzing our operations and assisting us in streamlining our processes and plans for future growth.

With the business established but also needing to grow--and to streamline some elements of our process--in order to meet demand and fulfill orders more efficiently, we have sought out grant funding, primarily for wage subsidies. This has allowed us to hire two additional millworkers. We have also been entering other funding competitions, particularly as we seek to add a key piece of equipment (a fiber separator or de-hairing machine) to our process. In order to raise capital, we have been pursuing larger wholesale orders--and also working to expand beyond the fiber/craft market to include the outdoor recreation market. We have been working in-house to streamline our website and to build a committed customer base through social media and other public relations efforts. Our current goals for meeting the costs of expansion also include greater investment in marketing, such as around a subscription model, which will help to insulate the business against seasonal fluctuations. We are also working to develop a broader range of products, including local wool-blend yarns and eventually felted boot-liners that are more accessible to the bulk market. We have also recently secured a government partnership that facilitates our access to the supply of muskoxen hides.

The initial building of the business was facilitated by investment from a partner company, Territorial Investments. Since then, we have gradually increased our annual revenue--and are currently undergoing some intensive planning around growth in collaboration with MacEwan University's Business Analysis students. After having been included in Indigenous Box, a local subscription-based business featuring Indigenous-made items, we were selected to be featured in a directory of Northern and Indigenous businesses by the Trade Commissioner Service, which is aimed at increasing access to international markets. We have also been assigned an Industrial Technology Advisor by the federal Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP): this relationship will give us access to a network of industrial enterprises, with some access to funding and mentorship as well. We are members of the Edmonton Regional Innovation Network, a local 'entrepreneurial ecosystem.' We were also recently successful in a federal grant competition: the Canada Summer Jobs wage subsidy program, which we will be using this summer to hire an additional millworker. Following our partnership with the Business Analysis classes, we will make decisions about ways to access further capital, whether through the pursuit of investors or by accessing targeted business loan programs (for example, through Futurpreneur or the Businesses Development Corporation). With a trained grantwriter on staff, we apply for funding and mentorship opportunities continually and are always building our network.