Vestnorden Arts & Crafts 2004

North West Territories

The region called the North West Territories is the northern part of Canada beetween Nunavut, Yukon and Alaska. It is more than a million squarekilometers but sparsely populated, the inhabitants are only forty thousand, half of them natives.

Detailed beadwork on moccasins and other wearable works of art, knitted fur garments, all-natural birchbark baskets adorned with coloured porcupine quills, moosehair tuftings delicately fashioned into floral arrangements on smoked moosehide, soapstone carvings depicting life in the Arctic, these are among the exquisite traditional and contemporary crafts of Canada's Northwest Territories. Using locally harvested materials, these fine crafts exemplify the natives artisans' fine craftsmanship and their cultures' deep connection with and respect for the land

Back