Wild Traditions

Reflections on a Changing Climate

By Julia Prinselaar

As I write this on an evening in early February, one of the coldest nights of the year is approaching. The City of Thunder Bay is under an “Extreme Cold Warning,” bringing windchill values to minus 40°C overnight. The risk of frostbite and hypothermia is palpable.

As most people prepare to stay indoors and keep warm during the cold snap, I think about the creatures who inhabit the boreal forest. The thick skins and coats of fox, beaver, moose and deer enable them to survive the harshness of winter through to the longer days and warming temperatures that lie ahead.

At this time of year, in early February, morning temperatures can hover around minus 20°C—exciting times if you’re a hide tanner. Cold weather is favorable for thinning the hide of a thick-skinned animal like a moose to prepare it for tanning at a later stage.

Skins can be thinned throughout the year, but many tanners in northern climates prefer to scrape the hide while frozen. A moose’s hide can be a quarter-inch thick in some areas, so when the skin is frozen, sharp tools are able to shave the skin more easily.

But such a task requires consistently cold temperatures and I have been eagerly awaiting a period of cold weather that lasts a week or more. Instead, early January brought mild and inconsistent temperatures that even climbed above freezing—not nearly cold enough for frost scraping.

My relationship to winter and the personal excitement it brings reminds me of a memoir written by Sheila Watt-Cloutier titled, The Right to Be Cold. For more than 25 years, Watt-Cloutier has committed her life to speaking publicly about the effects of climate change on the Arctic environment and advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples in the far north. Through her own experience as an Inuk woman, she documents the loss of traditional skills and knowledge that, in some cases, has occurred in the course of a single generation.

The Inuit are a hunting culture. As Watt-Cloutier explains in her book, values such as patience, endurance, courage and good judgment are all taught through the skills of successful hunting.

“It is the wisdom of our hunters and elders that allowed us not only to live but also to thrive. As you are taught how to read the weather and ice conditions and how to become a great hunter…you learn how to become focused and meticulous, for your family depends on these skills for survival. This is the wisdom our hunters and elders have shared with our children for generations, and this holistic approach to learning is an essential part of Inuit culture,” she writes.

“But this important traditional knowledge has begun to lose its value as a result of dramatic changes to our environment. This wisdom, which comes from a hunting culture dependent on ice and snow, is as threatened as the ice itself.”

In the Arctic and indeed all over the world, the land is inextricably linked to a people’s cultural identity. What happens when their environment is on the brink of irreversible change?

On the Canadian east coast, data from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans shows that the sea surrounding coastal Labrador is warming at an unprecedented rate. Winter is on average six weeks shorter than it was historically, and the region’s sea ice is about a third smaller than it was a decade ago.

For the people of Rigolet, Canada’s southernmost Inuit community, vanishing ice and unpredictable seasons means they are being forced to adapt in ways they never have before. Shrinking ice packs and

A relevant book to read on a cold winter’s day, activist Sheila Watt Cloutier advocates for Indigenous climate justice in

her memoir, The Right to Be Cold. | JULIA PRINSELAAR