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Arctic Yearbook 2014
from the hunt, these parts are given to those having ordered them. This occurs without
monetary exchange, but payment occurs through other goods and services (Field notes April
2013).
Apart from the meat of the seals, it is especially the furs which are of interest for small-scale
users in Newfoundland. As shown above, the skill to make seal boots has been historically
embedded in the settlement of the Northern Peninsula where now the skill has been revived
(Bock 1991: 58-63) and seal skin products can also now be ordered through the internet. But
apart from the small business approach of the Northern Peninsula, also on the Avalon
Peninsula, in the south-east of the island of Newfoundland, seal product processing can be
found – both large-scale processing in the last processing plant in South Dildo, Carino Processing
Ltd., whose workers are significantly affected by anti-sealing sentiments (Sellheim, in press) and
home-based handicraft.
In the seal processing plant
where waste products such
as damaged and therefore
unsellable
skins
are
generated, these products
do not go to waste and are
used for further processing
by
private
individuals.
Hand-made hats, mittens or
bags are then either sold in
convenient stores in the
vicinity of the plant or by
private citizens who point to
their products with selfmade road signs. Interview
Seal skin mittens. Photo: Nikolas Sellheim, 2014.
partners revealed that the
skill to make these products has been in their families for generations and that the style of
making mittens, for instance, is the same as three generations ago (Field notes November 2013).
Apart from the utilization of furs, seal meat is a common good to be found all over the island.
While pickled or brined seal heart is a delicacy in seal hunting communities and constitutes a
commodity arising out of generations-old tradition (Field notes April 2013), also other forms of
seal meat for private consumption and commercial sale are commonly found in Newfoundland:
Shortly after the sealing season when seal flippers are either directly given to the people waiting
on shore or later on sold to the public in the central squares of the communities or in the centre
of Newfou