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The East Channel of the Mackenzie River supported two of the most populous groups of hunter-gatherers in the Canadian Arctic. These groups, the Kuukpangmiut and Kittegaryumiut, specialized in hunting beluga whales, which aggregate in large numbers in the East Channel during the summer months. Beluga abundance indices (AIs) calculated for a chronological sequence of sites spanning the period ca. 1200–1600 AD indicate that the relative frequencies of beluga whale bones may have fluctuated drastically. A suite of options are considered to explain these indicated shifts in foraging efficiency, including: (1) issues surrounding the calculation of AI values in instances where the encounter rates of less highly ranked taxa are changing; (2) aspects of beluga whale behaviour, demographics, and distribution, including adaptations to environmental change and human predation; and (3) issues relating to the social, demographic, economic, and territorial organization of the Inuit groups occupying the East Channel.

This paper presents the analysis and interpretation of one instance of hunter–gatherer economic intensification, based on three sites in the Mackenzie River Delta, Northwest Territories, Arctic Canada. Quantification of the very well-preserved archaeofaunas from these sites allows a particularly high-resolution analysis of intensification, because faunal resources represent nearly 100% of all food consumed in the region. Exploratory multivariate statistics are applied to the samples, in order to assess the degree to which they vary, and the degree to which faunal variability coincides with chronological relationships among the contexts. The archaeofaunas are then assessed in relation to three component strategies of intensification [after Morrison, K., 1994. The intensification of production: archaeological approaches. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 1 (2), 111–159]: “specialization,” the economic focus on a narrow range of resources; “diversification,” the increasing reliance on a broader range of resources; and “investment,” the development of new technologies and procurement strategies. Results indicate that in the Mackenzie Delta case, the economy remained specialized throughout the sequence, but diversification and investment increased during later periods.