Polar Bear

This polar bear carving comes from a small island in the Arctic, from the province of Nunavut in Canada. Few people live there in the vast, empty, icy wastes. But this is home to the Inuit (a name that means ‘the people’) who depend on the animals around them for clothes, food and tools. The same animals appear in their art.

Polar bears swim well, but rely on the floating Arctic ice to carry them in their hunt for food. They mainly eat seals, which are also hunted by the Inuit. The Inuit are skilled carvers in stone, bone and walrus ivory.