I've got a buddy who has in-laws who are Inuit.
Seems things like the 17HMR are in real demand these days, they like em for seals, and his BIL even took a caribou with this caliber.
His big gun was a 25'06, he gave it away because it was too big and ruined the pelts.
They are living to a totally different standard up there, they value their critters from every aspect, utilize every piece of them too, bones for tools, and fishing gear, hides for clothing or for sale, meat to eat etc. etc. they like small calibers because it doesn't ruin too much of what us white guys would just scrap.
With some exceptions, you are dreaming for Alaska's Inupiat, in my experience. YMMV with Canadian Inuit.
The .223 and .22-250 were the favorite Inupiat calibers in the 4 years I lived in Pt. Hope, 30 years ago. Probably the same now, but can't say- I've been gone awhile.
They shoot flat, and accurate- good for whacking seals in the heads out in the ice-leads, or hauled out on the floes, pan-ice or shore-bound ice. Unless cleanly head-shot, the bastid will dive back down their ice-holes and be lost. (These folks are still culturally seal/whale oriented- tho most of their meat now days comes from caribou or whales) The .22 CF are not so good for caribou at longer ranges- I and hunting partners (white and Inupiat both) shot a number of caribou that had been wounded numerous times beforehand with these inadequate for the range/purpose guns.
They regularly take polar bears with them, at short ranges, and no one's been eaten in years.... It's all about range, bullet placement, and bullet performance... Luck doesn't hurt any either.
My .25-06 did indeed leave some impressive exit wounds on those 20 plus 'bou I shot with it up there- but then, I only used the skins for freeze-dried winter-camping sleeping pads... wasn't an issue - it did produce impressive bang-flops to beyond 500 yards. A .22 CF just doesn't do that.
It was illegal for me to shoot seals with it, me being a white-eyes...... so I of course technically don't know how it stacked up against a .22-250 for that purpose. (It shot MOA, 5 shot groups, factory standard rifle). But my Inupiat hunting partner (read Arctic Mentor- he was 20 years older than me) was impressed. On caribou, at least. Given a seal's head size, it just don't make that much difference.
I've never learned so much from anyone else in such a short space of time as i did from Henry...
.
I like to think I taught him one or two things in return. He died of cancer some years ago, but he once shot (before I met him) a large polar bear at 6 feet, from the hip, with a .243, at the end of an ice ridge where they met as Henry was racing to cut off the bear after having spotted him from some distance off.. He'd slightly miscalculated the bear's travel rate.... Luckily for Henry, it was a bang-flop.
Henry also appeared in a National Geographic photo, dragging a seal across the ice. NG needed a good photo, so Henry went out on his lunch hour from his Job at Tikigaq (Pt. Hope) School to accommodate the photographer....
I really miss Henry....
