These muskox-wool hats are the warmest tuques you can find — and they help support a whole community

For many Canadians, wool is wool. You've got your cashmere, your merino wools, and a bunch of wool blends with varying levels of itchiness.

But for fibre enthusiasts, qiviut — or muskox wool — is one of the best wools around, and a woman from the Northwest Territories' Beaufort Delta is spinning out yards of the stuff at her fibre mill in Alberta.

"It's like having a cloud in your hand — it's such a lightweight fibre," said Tanis Simpson, who owns Qiviut Inc. in Nisku, Alta.

"It's like a little piece of heaven on your skin."

Simpson and her brother, Bradley Carpenter, started Qiviut Inc. around mid-2019, but she's been around the soft, gray-brown material all her life. She was born in Inuvik, N.W.T., and her family is from Sachs Harbour, which she considers her home.

Sachs Harbour, an Inuvialuit community of about 100 people, sits on the southwest tip of Banks Island in an area rife with muskox. The shaggy creatures have thick, coarse coats on the outside and oodles of cuddly qiviut deep underneath.

"Traditionally, my grandparents would just kind of stuff it into our mitts and boots, and that's how we would generally use it," Simpson said. 

"My grandmother made my brother a parka that had qiviut stuffing in it, for hunting. So we've been using this fibre for generations to help combat the cold in the North."

Though the fibre mill for Qiviut Inc. is in Alberta, that northern tie has stayed strong: the hides that Simpson's team scrapes qiviut out of come from hunters in the N.W.T.

David Kuptana is one of those hunters. He said for harvesters there, polar bear, caribou and muskox are the main sources of food. Selling muskox hides means money for gas, equipment and food in a place where all of those can be pricey. The meat feeds the community — elders, non-hunters and anyone who needs it — and the horns can be used for art.

Born and raised in Ulukhaktok, N.W.T., Kuptana has hunted muskox all his life. He said it's part of the economy there, with hides fetching several hundred dollars depending on size.

"It's very important, because … it's a small town. We have about 400 people in our community, there's not too much jobs around, so some people go out hunting muskox for their income," he said.

"We don't waste the muskox meat and hides — we use everything. We even use it for beds, so mattresses for when you go out hunting, and they're very warm because there's a lot of qiviut in them."

Simpson said buying from people in the North is a "must" for her business.