This research-creation project explores the cultural, creative, and ecological dimensions of qiviut—the wool of muskoxen—as both a material and a medium of relation. Rooted in collaborations with Inuit organizations and makers in Nunavik, and extending through emerging partnerships across the circumpolar North, the project engages with diverse communities who share a deep connection to muskoxen and their fibre.

Our work responds to locally identified interests in qiviut and supports craft-based models of sustainable and culturally grounded economic development. At the same time, we are extending this work in southern Canada by engaging Inuit living in urban centers such as Toronto and Montréal, where qiviut workshops create spaces for reconnecting with northern materials and for intergenerational, intercultural knowledge exchange.

Working across this pan-Arctic and north–south continuum invites reflection on how knowledge, materials, and relationships travel: how the tactile, affective act of crafting with qiviut can link people, places, and more-than-human beings separated by distance. As southern-based researchers, we ask what it means to engage ethically and responsively with Arctic fibres and with the communities for whom they hold deep cultural significance.

Through making, reflection, and collaboration, the project illuminates multiple forms of experiential knowing—sensory, affective, imaginative, and land-based—that emerge in craft practices. It shows how creative engagement can sustain cultural continuity, foster community well-being, and generate new pathways for environmental and social resilience grounded in both northern and urban Inuit experience.

This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2025-2027).