RANKIN INLET, Nunavut -
On the first day of her trip to the Arctic, Michaelle Jean gutted a freshly slaughtered seal, pulled out its raw heart, and ate it.
Hundreds of Inuit at a community festival gathered around as the Governor General made a gesture of solidarity with the country's beleaguered seal hunters.
Jean knelt above a pair of carcasses and used a traditional blade to slice the meat off the skin.
After repeated, vigorous cuts through the flesh, the Queen's representative turned to the woman beside her and asked enthusiastically: "Could I try the heart?"
Within seconds Jean was holding a crimson chuck of seal-ticker, she tucked it into her mouth, swallowed it, and turned to her daughter to say it tasted good.
Afterward Jean grabbed a tissue to wipe her blood-soaked fingers, and explained her gesture of solidarity with the region's Inuit hunters.
She expressed her dismay that anyone would call their eons-old, traditional hunting practices inhumane.
She gestured to the hundreds of people in a packed arena and noted that they would all be fed by the meat laid out on a tarp on the floor.
The European Union voted earlier this month to impose a ban on seal products.
Locals here warn it will be one more shock to a region that already suffers from chronic economic woes and a staggering array of social problems.
Jean called the practice an ancient cultural ritual that, she said, is practised humanely.
She also lauded the taste and nutritional quality of her snack.
"It's like sushi," she said.
"And it's very rich in protein."
The locals expressed their wish more outsiders would see things that way.
They explained that they don't use the hooked hakapiks that have faced such bitter criticism from environmentalists.
They said they use guns or harpoons, and can't understand why their industry is considered less humane than cattle farming.
