Sachs Harbour
The multi-year sea-ice is smaller and now drifts far from the community in the summer, taking with it the seals upon which the community relies for food. In the winter the sea-ice is thin and broken, making travel dangerous for even the most experienced hunters. In the fall, storms have become frequent and severe. New species of birds such as barn swallows and robins are arriving on the island. In the nearby waters, salmon have been caught for the first time. On the land, an influx of flies and mosquitoes are making life difficult for humans and animals. The traditional migration around the island has become more difficult in recent years as the earlier spring thaw saturates the ground with water, making skidoo travel difficult. Warmer weather has also resulted in the earlier breakup of many rivers over which the local people must travel. The risk of being stranded by open water is significant. As the warmer weather continues to alter the look and shape of what has always been familiar to them, the residents of Sachs Harbour wonder if they will be able to maintain their way of life. Rosemarie Kuptana puts it this way:“Who we are as Inuit are defined by a number of characteristics. Your culture, your language, your oral tradition, your geography, your laws, and when one of those traditional characteristics such as the ice going away and not coming back in the summertime, it affects what you eat. It affects your soul as a people. How can we pre- pare ourselves for such unpredictability? What will happen to us if we can no longer rely on our instincts and traditional wisdom?”
John Keogak, a longtime resident relates his concern:“I’d say 1987 we started noticing these mudslides, like pretty bad. Before it used to be a little sloughing from the snow left on the side of the banks. But now it’s the permafrost that’s coming down.And the ground being disturbed and more of the permafrost being exposed to the sun and the heat and the wind, now there’s more rain and the sun is shining all the time, warmer summer, earlier springs. Once this starts I don’t know what’s going to stop it. It doesn’t look good — for the community anyway. I think we’ll have to evacuate the community. Move somewhere else.” The signs of climate change are indeed all around, bearing out the sci- entific prediction that the Earth would warm more rapidly at the poles. Roger Kuptana, a local guide has seen it:“The freeze-ups are later. Like last year it must have been about a month and a half to two months later, freeze up.The winds are a lot stronger in the fall, like gale force winds.There is some thunderstorms, but I haven’t seen any this year. Last year there might have been one or two.There are a few thunder- storms.They are quite unusual for up here.You’re out on the land and you hear the thunder and the muskox would jump and they wouldn’t know which way to go. Each time you hear a thunder they will run one way and then run back.They just don’t know what to do.”
John Keogak inspecting coastal permafrost melting
For more information please see: http://www.iisd.org/climate/arctic/ sachs_harbour.asp
Graham Ashford is an Associate with the International Institute for Sustainable Development where he is responsible for helping com- munities to develop innovative and sustainable responses to natural resource management issues. He has led projects to understand and communicate the impacts of climate change in Canada’s Arctic, integrate aboriginal values into land use deci- sions in Manitoba, and assist poor farmers to rehabilitate watersheds in southern India.
On Site review 11
13
Spring 2004
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