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On July 25, 2021, Pedro Huertas, an American doctor attempting to cross from Canada to the United States at the Highgate Springs border crossing in Vermont, told a border guard that he was carrying a valuable stone statue valued at $2,000. .
He was lying.
A search of his vehicle revealed nine bubble-wrapped packages of various sizes, one of them long and thin, others small, according to a criminal complaint filed in a US court. When border guards asked Huertas what was inside, he and his wife did not answer his questions.
American authorities later learned that three of the statues were carved from sperm whale teeth and another was made from a walrus tusk. The border guards captured them.
CITES, which restricts the sale of products made from protected species, and other country-specific laws, make it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to leave Canada with products made from whales, walruses and seals, even if They are carvings made of animals. hunted legally by the Inuit or from bones that have been on the tundra or on the coast for years.
US officials found these three tupilaks carved with sperm whale teeth in Pedro Huertas’ vehicle when he attempted to cross the border in July 2021. (United States Attorney’s Office, District of Vermont)
Huertas wanted the statues back and, a few days later, presented authorities with documents, including official certificates of authenticity, that purported to show that the items were decades old, a fact that, if true, could have allowed him to keep them. and avoid charges.
It was not true. According to an account in U.S. District Court documents, they were produced at Huertas’ request by the art gallery where he had purchased the carvings: Images Boréales, a prominent Inuit art gallery in Old Montreal.
Huertas was accused in the United States of knowingly importing parts of an endangered species without proper permits. The owner and an employee of Images Boréales are also facing charges here in Canada for alleged forgery of documents and possession of sperm whale teeth.
The laws that Huertas and Images Boréales are accused of violating exist to prevent the sale and export of products from endangered species. Some conservationists celebrate them, even as Inuit artists criticize them as too restrictive. Some Inuit art enthusiasts abroad are willing to go to great lengths to acquire pieces made from whale bone and walrus ivory.
US officials found this carving, made from a walrus tusk, in Pedro Huertas’ vehicle. (United States Attorney’s Office, District of Vermont)
At Images Boréales, on St-Paul Street in the heart of Old Montreal, a busy tourist area, soapstone carvings sit on glass shelves near sculptures made of whale bone and walrus ivory.
But selling those items, particularly to Americans and tourists from outside Canada, is complicated.
A necessary inconvenience
Some animal conservationists say that while many Inuit art enthusiasts may find the rules on importation onerous or harsh, they are necessary to ensure that animals are not killed for their tusks and bones.
Barry Kent Mackay, director of the Animal Alliance of Canada, said treaties like CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) are necessary.
Laws are there to protect animals even if they make people uncomfortable, “including a carver in the Far North, or an art gallery in Montreal or an American who wants an ornament on his coffee table,” because they help ensure that animals are not gratuitously killed for the price of their body parts.
“The greater the demand, the greater the incentive to remove these animals,” Kent said. “The only way to ensure that artisans have something they can carve is to protect the walrus and prevent it from becoming extinct.”
featured videoRuben Anton Komangapik says artists who sculpt bones or ivory from whales, walruses and narwhals do not pose a threat to those species, and argues that export restrictions on their art are unnecessarily strict.
Working with deliberate precision in his studio in Belleville, Ontario, Ruben Anton Komangapik, an Inuk hunter and artist, uses hand tools to carve a trench into a piece of whale bone.
The huge mammal died decades ago. Fresh whale bone is saturated with oil and cannot be carved. Artists often work with bones that have lain on the beach for years, exposed to the elements, sometimes for more than a century, victims of whalers who hunted the animals for their oil.
But Komangapik says he will have difficulty selling the finished sculpture emerging from the whale bone due to export restrictions.
“It’s really difficult because, being an artist, you pretty much live in a piece-by-piece situation,” she said.
SEE | Why work with whale bone?
Theresie Tungilik, an Inuk artist and president and spokesperson for CARFAC, a union representing the interests of Canadian artists, has advocated against the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), a US law that restricts the importation of products made from whales, seals and walruses, among other animals.
He recently circulated a petition, signed by other artists, calling for changes to the MMPA to allow Inuit artists to sell their works in the American market. The restrictions hurt Inuit artists’ ability to sell their work and make money, he said.
“We hunt the animal not just for its bones and ivory, we hunt them because we need food to eat,” he said, “and it’s a huge advantage when a walrus has a tusk and it can be turned into art.”
Komangapik said Inuit carvers sometimes face pressure from artists’ cooperatives to use other materials and avoid using bone or ivory because those items are harder to sell.
Sculptures made from different types of stone sit in the window of Images Boréales, an Inuit art gallery in Old Montreal. (Dave St-Amant/CBC)
But that never stopped him. Working with whale bones reminds him of his grandfather, who was also a carver, he said.
“Every time I carve it,” he says, “the smell and the touch and everything associated with it, I feel like I’m visiting it.”
‘They can’t buy it’
Sculptures made of whale bone and walrus ivory have piled up in warehouses in southern Canada, bought by cooperatives that sell art carved by Northern artists to markets around the world.
Since pieces made from marine mammals generally cannot be exported, they end up on shelves and in storage.
RJ Ramrattan, CEO of Canadian Arctic Producers (CAP), a cooperative that pays Inuit artists for their work, promotes it and sells it around the world, describes the sale of art made from whale bone and ivory as a ” nightmare”.
Some export permits require details about how the animal was killed, which are difficult (or impossible) to obtain for some of the pieces Inuit artists carve.
RJ Ramrattan, CEO of Canadian Arctic Producers, an Inuit art wholesaler, stands next to a sculpture made of whale bone that cannot be sold to customers in the US. (CBC)
For example, in the case of a decades-old sculpture carved from a piece of whale bone that has been out since the early 20th century, it would be difficult to prove where and how an animal was killed, and how the artist acquired it. especially if the artist is dead.
“I have a lot of clients from the United States who come to the galleries,” Ramrattan said. “They love bone, they love whale bone, they love walrus ivory… but they can’t buy it.”
Despite the headaches that often come with trying to sell and export a piece of Inuit art made of bone or ivory, some art dealers see the need for the restrictions.
“I get the idea. The idea is to protect,” said John Houston, owner and director of the Houston North Gallery, which sells Inuit art, and an Arctic filmmaker. “If someone says, ‘Wow, I’m going to carve a bunch of walrus ivory, which means I’m going to kill a whole ton of walrus,’ well, we don’t want that.”
But when a gallery skirts export restrictions, it could lead to additional scrutiny of the entire sector, he said, and ultimately hurt the industry.
“What benefit will this bring? Either things remain as they are and someone gets a fine or, quite possibly, [the authorities] I end up saying ‘we’re going to have to adjust all this.’”
Sculptures like these, carved from whale bones and other parts of marine mammals, cannot be exported to the United States without permits, which artists and dealers say are nearly impossible to obtain. (Christopher Langenzarde/CBC)
Houston said he would love to gain access to the American market, where Inuit art enthusiasts are willing to pay top dollar for sculptures made from whale bone and walrus ivory. But the obstacles posed by export restrictions are too restrictive.
Meanwhile, Huertas pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor charge of knowingly importing parts of an endangered species into the United States and, after a plea deal that kept him out of prison, agreed to pay a $50,000 fine. . The court also ordered the confiscation of the four ivory carvings.
Now, Matthew Namour, owner of Images Boréales, and one of his employees, Imene Mansour, will appear in a Montreal court on December 4 to answer charges of violating the Regulation and Protection of Wild Plants and Animals under International Law. and Interprovincial Commerce Law. They have not yet pleaded guilty.
Mansour, Namour and the gallery have been accused of possessing sperm whale teeth, which are part of an endangered species, with the intent to sell or distribute them, and Mansour and the gallery are accused of presenting false documents to The authorities. If guilty, they face a minimum fine of $5,000 or a maximum of six months in jail, or both.
Through a lawyer, they declined to answer questions, saying it was still early in the process. The criminal complaint against Huertas in the United States alleges that Mansour falsified documents on Huertas’ behalf. These allegations have yet to be proven in criminal proceedings in Canada.