Between the trees and the tides

This chapter provides an account of how three generations of Inuit conceptualize the environment in a spatial sense, and explores the extent to which this is bound up with Inuit belief systems. The discussions on Inuit notions of space are based on fieldwork and interviews that have been carried out with the Inuit of Kangiqsualujjuaq, a coastal community in Nunavik, Northern Quebec. With the support of illustrations and a spatial lexicon, I present how these Inuit conveyed to me the ways in which they discern, describe and discriminate features within and upon the land and coastal environment.