nunavut
Kuujjuaq spreads out on a riverbank some fifty kilometres inland from the Ungava Bay, and Nain sits at the head of a saltwater inlet in a semi-circle of bold cliffs. Igloolik in May is blinding, surrounded by flat and endless sea ice and land overwhelmed with snow of a whiteness that would be the envy of any detergent advertiser. I pulled into the tiny airport just as the Global Warming 101 expedition was leaving. It had brought Richard Branson on the last leg of a dogsled journey across Baffin Island to persuade the world that, unless reduced, greenhouse gas emissions would obliterate Inuit culture. But what I found in Igloolik was a community not well-disposed to notions of climate change.
As a site of human occupancy, this hamlet goes back some 4,000 years, and it remains singularly mindful of the past. Of all Inuit communities around the circumpolar north, it stands out in the determination of its elders to preserve traditional knowledge, as they know it and in their particular locality. This they have done by means of the Igloolik Oral History Project. A key figure in this venture is John MacDonald, a non-Inuk who has lived in the community for years, is thoroughly versed in the language, and knows something of what moves Inuit elders — the survival of traditional knowledge, in all its diversity, throughout the Inuit world. MacDonald quotes the testimony of Nathan Qamaniq (recorded in 2002): “Now they navigate only by following trails. This slows down learning and makes it more difficult to acquire knowledge about the things that need to be known. . . . We get everything so easy now and do not need to work hard.” So there are trails as in Nunavik, but now as a matter for lament.
Igloolik is further north, and the effects of climate change are less evident than in Nunavik where, for example, the summer boating season is considerably lengthier. In response to a question as to whether climate change might be injurious to the hunting culture of Inuit, Nathan Qamaniq says only that the spring seems colder than before. In a similar vein, as to whether hunting was now more dangerous in the autumn, the answer is merely that the freeze-up was delayed the last few years. Others agree that danger is nothing special and is inherent to hunting — the parkas of the men who have died over the years on the ice of nearby Fury and Hecla Strait would probably stretch from one side to the other.
In his simple constituency office facing the ice-covered shore, Louis Tapardjuk, minister of culture, language, elders, and youth for the government of Nunavut, said there was talk of climate change, but it originated with the southern media. The elders believed on the whole that the climate was never the same. They “weren’t overly concerned.” As he put it, “Change is normal.” And it tends to be “cyclical.” Asked if he himself was concerned about climate change, he replied, “Not at all.” Instead, he was extremely troubled by the erosion and loss of Inuit culture and skills. To strengthen the traditional way of life and the pride and dignity that went with it, he is trying to establish an adult-education Inuit Cultural School that would teach survival skills at several different campuses.
For some in Nunavut, human-caused climate change is part of a media-driven southern agenda that risks sidetracking Inuit from their first priority — cultural survival and self-reliance. A different variant on the same theme was supplied by Leah Otak, who prepares texts at the Oral History Project. Whereas in her view a warmer climate was slow to develop, Inuit culture and language could be lost “in twenty years . . . the way it’s going.” Which reminds me.
Before leaving Igloolik for Arctic Bay, I was told of something that had happened at nearby Hall Beach, one of the original dew Line sites. In the course of modernizing the line in the 1990s, Canada’s Department of National Defence sought to dismantle the old structure, including a couple of steel towers that can be seen for miles. Inuit objected mightily, saying they wanted the twin towers for ease of navigation. They stand there today as a humongous military-industrial inukshuk for a people whose ancient way of life is fast disappearing.
Arctic Bay offers the most dramatic situation of all the villages I visited. A community of about 700 on a bay surrounded by distant mountains, nearby rolling hills, and butte-like bluffs, Arctic Bay is just southwest Passage. Things were very quiet here — a fine young man had committed suicide just before my arrival, and the community was in grief.
More exposed to oceanic influences than Igloolik, those I met in Arctic Bay seemed more inclined to recognize climate changes, if not climate change. Consider the findings that emerged in separate conversations I had with Isaac Shooyook, a full-time hunter, and David Kalluk, a teacher and part-time hunter who was chosen to assist a Japanese biker on a trek to the North Pole in 1985.
In his bustling house, Shooyook told me through an interpreter that “climate change is not abrupt here, where it is still very cold.” Nevertheless, the sea ice had changed. It was thinner, more dangerous. Sea water was less salty, and the soap lathered more easily. According to Kalluk, multi-year ice is less evident in the bay, owing to changes in the prevailing winds, and nearby mountain glaciers are receding rapidly. As to whether these are indications of enduring change, both men ventured that in previous times the climate had been warm enough to permit the growth of forests in the Arctic. Pressed further on whether recent variation in sea ice, glacier, and related conditions might serve as indications of climate change, both reserved judgment. As well, they expressed faith in the ability of Inuit to adapt, whatever the situation. So did the mayor of Arctic Bay, Darlene Willie, who was more receptive to the notion of climate change.
