INTERNATIONAL FEATURE nearly four times as fast as the global average between 1979 and 2021 – far faster than the two or three times the global average usually cited. Separate modeling by experts in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States shows that as soon as 2035, Arctic sea ice might drop below 1 million square kilometers during the summer. Scientists recorded this year’s sea ice minimum on 18 September, which was tied for the tenth lowest on record. The Inuit are practical when it comes to new technology. They use GPS but still teach their children how the prevailing winds cause the snowbanks to lean and point the way home if the device’s batteries die. Skidoos, also known as snowmobiles, have mostly replaced dog sleds and have compressed week-long hunts into day trips. Rifles have replaced harpoons. SmartICE is another tool. And so, with a black-and-red Skidoo, a rifle, and an electromagnetic sensor, Holwell offers a vision of survival that joins the old and the new. “We have to adapt to climate change,” he says. “We’re going to need more tools like SmartICE.” REX HOLWELL, 47, RIDES A SKIDOO DURING A WEEKLY SMARTKAMUTIK RUN TOWARDS NAIN BAY, A POPULAR FISHING SPOT FOR COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN NAIN, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR, CANADA, APRIL 21, 2022. THE SMARTKAMUTIK USES ELECTROMAGNETIC SENSORS TO MEASURE THE SEA ICE THICKNESS AND GIVE NORTHERN COMMUNITIES REAL-TIME MEASUREMENTS OF SEA THICKNESS ALONG THEIR ICE “HIGHWAYS” THROUGH A WEBSITE, DOWNLOADABLE PHONE APP OR FACEBOOK. “WE’RE THE FIRST PEOPLE TO BE SEEING THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE, BUT ON THE FLIP SIDE, WE’RE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE LEAST TO DO WITH IT”, SAYS HOLWELL. “WE HAVE TO ADAPT.” REUTERS/MELISSA RENWICK CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS THE INUIT DO WHAT THEY’VE ALWAYS DONE: ADAPT BY MELISSA RENWICK REX HOLWELL HAS SPENT HIS LIFE on the sea ice that forms each winter off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in eastern Canada. Like other Inuit, he learned to hunt seals and fish from his father and other men. They would skim over the sea ice, first on dog sleds and then, by the time Holwell started accompanying them, on gasoline-powered Skidoos. Holwell wants this life – and freedom – for his children. Climate change is about to upend it all. “It’s going to be a loss of culture,” says Holwell. “They’ll identify as Inuit and so will their children, but they won’t have the same experiences.” As droughts last longer and heat waves, flooding, and storms intensify in an ever-warmer world, the Inuit are doing what they have always done: adapt. For the past three years, Holwell, 47, has helped run a sea ice monitoring program for the Inuit. Unlike other climate data efforts, this one is completely focused on the needs of the local community. The program is called SmartICE and pairs traditional Inuit knowledge with data collection buoys and electromagnetic sensors to give northern communities real-time measurements of sea ice thickness along their ice “highways” through a website, downloadable phone app, or Facebook. It highlights areas with thicker ice and those with thinner ice. SmartICE is used by more than 30 Inuit communities. The idea is to use the technology to fill in where climate change has made traditional knowledge less reliable or created conditions the Inuit haven’t faced before. Holwell believes tools like SmartICE can extend the time the Inuit have left on the sea ice before it disappears. A new analysis published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment in August showed that the Arctic warmed FOOD AND FREEDOM If the weather is good, a 19-passenger Twin Otter plane flies to Holwell’s hometown of Nain. No carry-ons are allowed. If a bag weighs more than 50 pounds (23 kilograms), it might be left behind for the next flight, or the flight after that if the planes are overweight. There is no de-icer in Nain - or any of the coastal Inuit communities in Labrador - so the planes are often grounded. An elderly couple who was stuck in Goose Bay in mid-April says the longest they’ve waited for a flight was three weeks. The delays are especially bad in the spring when the fog can be thick and unpredictable, they say. In Nain, cars and trucks sit in front yards mounded with snow, while Skidoos zoom along the slushy streets picking children up from school and bringing adults to work. There is only one hotel in town – the Atsanik Hotel – which is also the only restaurant in town. Toilet paper, which comes in bundles of 30 rolls, costs C$40 ($29). More than Nain itself, it’s the landscape around it that is home, says Jim Anderson. “That’s one thing people don’t understand,” says Anderson, 70. “We get culture shock as soon as we go out. We get lost. (We’re) not used to when you can see all the houses – houses end-on-end with no open spaces.” For C$60 in gas, a hunter can kill a seal and feed a family for three or four days, plus make mittens, boots, and other clothing out of the animal’s skin. Shipping in an equivalent amount of store-bought food costs C$300 and clothing isn’t included. The sea ice makes life more affordable. The sea ice also means freedom. Most people can’t afford a boat so in the summer their world literally shrinks and becomes hostile with bugs. But in winter and spring, when the sea ice is frozen, people can fish, hunt, get wood and visit their cabins. Maria Merkuratsuk, who was raised in a cabin north of Nain, says she feels “tingly” when she is out on the ice. “I feel at peace, I can breathe … if I have a lot on my mind, my body can take over … I (can) just drive and drive and drive and think about things,” she says. Isaac Kohlmeister, one of the last two people in Nain to run a dog sled team, says being out on the ice has helped ground him. “When the dogs are running, you can feel everything,” he said. “You can feel the fish under the ice, even.” The Inuit communities Holwell is working with for SmartICE have started compiling their own lists of Inuktitut 6 DENVER VOICE November 2022
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