A sea rant

This girl on my friends list on Facebook posting something recently that didn't sit too well with me. Her status update read, "Can you get worms from eating raw seal heart?" Her friends comments are what irked me. One replied, "I hope so!" while others re-iterated what had been said about the gov. gen. Michaëlle Jean. Last week she went to Native ceremony in Nunavet and was offered the heart of a seal they had hunted for the feast. Usually the heart is reserved for the Elders since it is considered a delicacy--the best part. Had she declined, she would have been disrespecting the ceremony.

In the past few years, the world has grown soft for the seals of Canada. Now it is unfashionable, or unfathomable to use any type of seal product. Being a member of western civilization, it's quite easy to avoid wearing seal skin coats, eating seal meat, or using seal fat as oil for my lamps. However, there are thousands of Inuits and first nations who rely on hunting seals just to survive. They aren't out there on the ice clubbing baby seals to death like in the propaganda photos Peta peddles. They use the entire seal and thank the creator for allowing them to live another day by providing said seal.

Celebrities like Pamela Anderson and Morrisey have openly said they will boycott Canada until the seal hunt stops. I'm not saying I'm for the seal hunt that goes on every year, but for Canadians to start turning their back on the First nations because they are using seals, and have been using seals, as a way to survive. What about the impact that the celebrities are making on the world? Does Pamela Anderson thing that her SUV and Mansions are powered by a magical concoction that has no repercussions on the environment? What about all the "bling" she wears? I'm sure she's one of those people who subscribes to the idea of "Ice Diamonds" as opposed to "Blood Diamonds." Blood diamonds come from africa where women and children lost their lives just to mine them. Ice diamonds apparently are guilt free since they come from Canada and no one was harmed in harvesting them. Are you kidding me! Diamond companies de-water lakes, re-route communities, destroy migration paths just to get at these stupid rocks.

So some people might say, "So what, why do they have to hunt these seals? It's the 21st century. Can't they just eat pizza pops like the rest of us?" Yeah, because the 21st century is so amazing. Our generation, our culture is so great, right? Our economy is sliding further and further every day and there's nothing we can do about it. A plague is looming above our heads. Weapons of mass destruction threaten our entire way of living, and all we can think about is how many GB our iphone has, what character should be kicked off our favorite show, and what to wear that won't make us look fat. Why would you want to be part of this society if you didn't have to be? Seal meat is high in vitamin B. Vitamin B makes your blood thicker so if you're living in -40 degree weather, you're not going to drop dead from hyperthermia, which has happened in communities where western powers took over and overpriced convenience stores were all the people had access to. Not only is that disgusting, but when the native people started showing signs of hyperthermia, the police mistook them for being drunk and shrugged it off without helping them.

I guess what I'm getting at is that Canadians shouldn't be afraid of the seal. It's not only cute to look at, it's also a great source of food, clothing, and oil. And I don't wish worms on the Elders of the native communities. As Michaëlle Jean said, "Vegetarians make a choice in their life. I haven't made this choice. When I eat lamb, I know that I am eating a lamb. When I eat veal, I know that I am eating a veal. Those, too, are very cute animals."