Climate change impacts on Canadian Western Arctic: the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour

Published: February 9, 2010, 12:47 pm

Updated: August 3, 2012, 12:58 am

Topics:

Environmental & Resource Management (main) Environmental Law & Policy (main) Climate Change (main)

This is Section 12.3.1 of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Lead Author: Mark Nuttall; Contributing Authors: Fikret Berkes, Bruce Forbes, Gary Kofinas,Tatiana Vlassova, George Wenzel

Sachs Harbour has been studied and reported on intensively through the Inuit Observations of Climate Change project, undertaken jointly by the Community of Sachs Harbour and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The Inuvialuit (the Inuit of the Canadian western Arctic) themselves initiated the study because they wanted the documentation of the severe and disturbing environmental changes that they were witnessing. The project was undertaken with several objectives:

• to produce a video on how climate change is affecting the people;
• to disseminate Inuit observations to the world;
• to document local knowledge of climate change; and to explore the potential contributions of traditional knowledge to climate change research.

The project was planned and carried out using participatory research methods. Results are based on a 12-month study of Sachs Harbour covering all four seasons in 1999/ 2000, with follow-up visits for verification and project evaluation. Inuvialuit perceptions shaped the study from the very beginning; the project started with a planning workshop which asked the people of Sachs Harbour their objectives and what they considered important for the project to focus on. Video documentation plans, research questions, and the overall process were all defined jointly by the study team and the community.

The community of Sachs Harbour is located on Banks Island in the Canadian western Arctic. It is a tiny community of some 30 households, and the smallest of the six Inuvialuit communities in the region covered by the comprehensive native land claims agreement; the Inuvialuit Final Agreement of 1984. Sachs Harbour, a permanent settlement only since 1956, is an outgrowth of the white fox trade beginning in the 1920s. Many of the current residents have relations in the Mackenzie Delta area. Some are descendants of the Copper Eskimo of Victoria Island to the east; many are related to the Iñupiat (Alaska Inuit) who had earlier moved to the Delta.

There are no previous studies about how climate change may have affected resource use in the past on Banks Island. Major changes in resource use concern the development of the white fox trade and its subsequent collapse with the disappearance of the European fur market in the 1980s, and the dramatic changes in muskox and caribou numbers on the island. Muskox were present in extremely low numbers in the early 1900s, but populations increased in the latter half of the 20th century, giving Banks Island the largest muskox population in the world. In the meantime, however, caribou numbers have declined. There is no consensus on the question of whether the caribou decline is related to muskox increase. Nor is there agreement regarding the impact of climate change on these two species, but a number of potential negative impacts are possible, including those related to extreme weather events.

Although Sachs Harbour, as the permanent village, only dates from the 1950s, local observations, as captured by the Inuit Observations of Climate Change project, go back to the 1930s. Perceptions of Sachs Harbour hunters and fishers are consistent in indicating that changes observed in the 1990s are without precedent and outside the range of variation that the Inuvialuit consider normal. Before addressing the observations of change and how the people have coped with them, it is necessary to review patterns of subsistence.

Patterns of subsistence and the impact of climate change (12.3.1.1)

Some 20 species of terrestrial and marine mammals, fish, and birds were taken in 1999/2000 at Sachs Harbour. During the winter, people hunted muskox and, to a lesser extent, caribou, Arctic fox, wolf, polar bear, and ringed seals. Small game included ptarmigan (Lagopus spp.) and Arctic hare. As the weather began to warm in March and April, people headed out to numerous inland lakes to ice-fish for lake trout and Arctic char.

In May, fishing slowed down as the snow goose season approached. Banks Island supports a large breeding colony of snow geese. Goose hunting and egg-collecting were important community activities. Family groups camped at rivers and inland lakes, and the entire community harvested and processed geese, some of it for inter-community trade. The goose hunt was over by mid-June, as people returned to lakes to fish where there still was ice. They also fished for Arctic cod on sea ice and went sealing. With ice break-up in June and July, people hunted mainly for ringed seals, and some bearded seals, off the ice floes and from boats in open water. July through early September, people set gillnets for char, Arctic cod, and least cisco (Coregonus sardinella), and some did rod-and-reel fishing in lakes. In September, people turned to muskox and caribou.

In some years, including 1999/2000, the muskox hunt is a commercial harvest that employs almost the entire community throughout November. Guiding and outfitting for sport hunting for polar bears and muskox also provide employment and cash income. These commercial activities complement the subsistence harvest, and are a major source of cash income for the community.

The cycle of hunting and fishing varies from year to year, but the usual pattern has been affected by environmental changes being observed by the people of Sachs Harbour. These changes, as documented by IISD, Riedlinger and Berkes, and Jolly et al., may be summarized under five headings: physical environmental change; predictability of the environment; travel safety on land and ice; access to resources; and changes in animal distributions and condition (see Table 12.1).

Table 12.1. Examples of environmental changes impacting upon subsistence activities.

Physical Environmental Change Multi-year sea ice no longer comes close to Sachs Harbour in summer Less sea ice in summer means that water is rougher Open water is now closer to land in winter More rain in summer and autumn makes travel difficult Permafrost is no longer solid in places Lakes draining into the sea from ground thawing and slumping Loose, soft snow (as opposed to hard-packed snow) makes it harder to travel

Predictability of the environment It has become difficult to tell when ice is going to break-up on rivers Arrival of spring has become unpredictable Difficult to predict weather and storms There are "wrong" winds sometimes More snow, blowing snow, and whiteouts

Travel safety on the land and ice Too much broken ice in winter makes travel dangerous Unpredictable sea-ice conditions make travel dangerous Less multi-year ice means traveling on first-year ice all winter, which is less safe Less sea-ice cover in summer means rougher, more dangerous storms at sea

Access to resources It is more difficult to hunt seals because of a lack of mult-year sea ice In winter, cannot go out as far when hunting because of a lack of firm sea-ice cover Harder to hunt geese because the spring melt occurs so fast Warmer summers and more rain mean more vegetation and food for animals

Changes in animal distributions and condition Less fat on seals Observe fish and bird species never before seen Increase in biting flies; never had mosquitoes before Seeing fewer polar bears in the autumn because of a lack of sea ice More least cisco caught now

Source: Adapted from

Physical environmental change is most readily observable in terms of reduced sea-ice cover and lack of old (or multi-year) sea ice around the community in summer, and the thawing of permafrost. These changes challenge Inuvialuit knowledge and understanding of the environment, and make prediction, travel safety, and resource access more difficult. The Inuvialuit, like most indigenous groups who live off the land, rely on their ability to predict environmental phenomena such as snow and ice conditions, the weather, and the timing of wildlife migrations. Seasons have become less consistent, and weather events have now become less predictable.

Travel safety is closely related to physical environmental change and loss of ability to predict the environment. For example, sea ice near the community is used for travel, ice-fishing, and seal and polar bear hunting. Sound knowledge of the sea ice and the ability to monitor and predict changes are critical to hunting success and safety. In the 1990s, people in Sachs Harbour observed increased ice movement in winter and spring, changes in the distribution of leads, cracks, and pressure ridges, as well as overall thinning of the ice. People say that in the past they rarely had to worry about the ice the way they do now; one has to be more cautious than ever before when traveling on ice.

Access to resources is often related to travel access and safety. For example, changes in the rate of spring melt and increased variability associated with spring weather conditions have affected access to hunting and fishing camps. When families go out to camps at lakes for ice fishing and goose hunting in May, they travel by snowmobile, pulling a qamutik (sled), staying on snow-covered areas or using coastal sea ice and frozen rivers. However, warmer springs have resulted in earlier, faster snow melt and river break-up, making access difficult. The availability of some species has changed due to the inability of people to hunt them under changing environmental conditions. For example, less summer ice means that ringed seals are harder to spot and hunt.

However, not all changes in species availability are related to access. Changes in animal distributions have also occurred, with respect to birds (many new mainland species never before seen on Banks Island), fish (two species of Pacific salmon), and insects. Some of the changes may operate through ecological mechanisms. Sachs Harbour hunters discuss and speculate on the impacts of environmental change on species distributions and availability. For example, warmer temperatures and higher rainfall may have increased summer forage for caribou and muskox. But these changes may also increase the risk of extreme weather events such as freezing rain in autumn that may cover the ground with a layer of ice, making forage unavailable.

Short-term and long-term responses to change (12.3.1.2)

The Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour draw on accumulated knowledge and experience in dealing with change. They recognize that they have always adapted to change – social, political, and economic change, as well as environmental change. When asked about the impact of environmental change on subsistence activities, most people are quick to point out that they always find some way to deal with changes. Change is a fact of life for indigenous peoples, and they have a rich heritage of cultural adaptations to deal with change. Many of the short-term (or coping) responses appear to be based on this tradition of flexibility and innovation.

Environmental changes observed in Sachs Harbour are not trivial, and these are having an impact on subsistence activities. However, many of the impacts have been absorbed through the flexibility of the seasonal cycle and the Inuvialuit way of life. Inuvialuit coping strategies mostly relate to adjusting subsistence activity patterns: modifying timing of harvest activity; modifying location of harvest activity; modifying method of harvest activity; adjusting the mix of species harvested; and minimizing risk and uncertainty. Table 12.2 provides examples of each.

Table 12.2. Short-term or coping responses to environmental change in Sachs Harbour: changing when, where, or how hunting and fishing takes place.

Modifying the timing of harvest activity Warmer temperatures and unpredictable sea-ice conditions mean hunters go out earlier for polar bear Shorter springs and an increased rate of snow melt have reduced the time spent on the land; people return to the community after the goose hunt, instead of proceeding to lakes for ice fishing

Modifying the location of harvest activity Erosion and slumping at one fishing lake near the community has necessitated fishing at other lakes instead More bare ground and unreliable snow conditions mean families travel over coastal sea ice rather than along inland routes

Adjusting how harvesting is done Use of all terrain vehicles instead of snowmobiles to travel to spring camps when there is not enough snow Hunters take seals from boats in open water, necessitated by the lack of summer sea ice on which seals normally haul out

Adjusting the mix of species harvested More qaaqtaq (least cisco) caught in nets at the mouth of the Sachs River Hunters are taking different kinds of mainland ducks previously rare in the area

Minimizing risk and uncertainty River- and sea-ice conditions monitored more closely Only the more experienced hunters travel on certain types of sea ice

Source: adapted from

Modifying the timing of harvest activity is often related to increased seasonal variability. Hunters adjust their seasonal calendars to deal with change. Since change is unpredictable, hunters also use waiting as a coping strategy; people wait for the geese to arrive, for the weather to improve, and so on. Modifying the location of harvest activity is often necessitated by physical changes. Changes related to sea ice require hunters to stay close to the community because of safety concerns. The thawing of permafrost in many areas has left travelers to make new trails to avoid slumps and mudslides. Also, hunters have had to use different modes of transport to adjust how they harvest animals.

A major coping strategy is switching species. Reduced fishing opportunity in one area (e.g., spring ice-fishing in lakes) may be compensated for by an increase in another (least cisco). Climate change has brought new potential resources through range extensions. Pintail (Anas acuta) and mallard ducks (A. platyrhynchos), both mainland species, and white-fronted goose or "yellow legs" (Anser albifrons) and tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus), both historically rare on Banks Island, have been observed in increasingly larger numbers.

Hunters have adopted a number of strategies to minimize risk and uncertainty. In response to increased variability and unpredictability associated with the weather and other environmental phenomena, they monitor ice conditions more closely and take fewer chances. Hunters say that "you really need to have experience to travel on the sea ice now", and describe being more careful when they travel.

The short-term coping strategies summarized in Table 12.2 are ultimately based on cultural adaptations. Berkes and Jolly compiled from various sources a list of cultural practices which are considered to be adaptive responses to arctic ecosystems: (1) mobility and group size flexibility; (2) flexibility of seasonal cycles of harvest; (3) detailed local environmental knowledge; (4) sharing mechanisms and social networks; and (5) inter-community trade.

Table 12.3 provides a summary of these adaptive mechanisms and evidence from Sachs Harbour as to whether they are still viable. The first of these adaptive mechanisms is no longer operative owing to settlement of people into permanent villages, but the other four seem viable.

Table 12.3. Cultural practices which may be considered adaptive responses to changes in the arctic environment, and evidence of their viability in Sachs Harbour.
Cultural practice	Viability–evidence from Sachs Harbour
Mobility of hunting groups; seasonal settlements; group size flexibility with grouping and regrouping of self-supporting economic units	No longer operative owing to permanent settlements; compensated for by the use of mechanized transport to increase mobility of family groups and all-male hunting groups
Flexibility of seasonal cycles of harvest and resource use, backed up by oral traditions to provide group memory	Source of major short-term coping strategies, aided by rapid transport and communication technology to monitor animal population movements
Detailed local environmental knowledge (traditional knowledge) and related skill sets for harvesting, navigating, and food processing	Underpins ability to change when, where, or how subsistence harvesting occurs; loss of universality of some skills; loss of some knowledge and skills compensated for by new knowledge and skills
Sharing mechanisms and social networks for mutual support and risk minimization; high social value attached to sharing and generosity	Sharing of food and associated social values still important, especially within extended family units; special considerations for elders; new forms of reciprocity involving cash
Inter-community trade along networks and trading partnerships, to deal with regional differences in resource availability	Active inter-community networks, especially within Inuvialuit region; more extensive than practiced by previous generations; norms of generosity and generalized reciprocity still alive
Source: adapted from

The flexibility of seasonal cycles and the creativity with which hunters take advantage of harvesting potentials are backed up by oral traditions and by Inuvialuit cultural values that emphasize the appropriateness of harvesting what is available and acting opportunistically.

Regarding local environmental knowledge (traditional or indigenous knowledge) and related skill sets, some have obviously been lost, and some are being transmitted incompletely. Certain kinds of skills that were once universal in Inuvialuit society have become restricted to relatively few families who are active on the land. For example, almost all teenage boys in Sachs Harbour can use guns, but not many can build snow houses. The nature of people’s practical engagement with the environment has changed; skill sets and land-based knowledge have also changed. For example, hunters use GPS units for navigation and safety, a very recent skill. The use of snowmobiles since the 1970s, also a new skill, has necessitated a greater knowledge of ice conditions because sled dogs can sense dangerous ice while snowmobiles cannot.

Sharing mechanisms for food and social networks for mutual support are still very much in evidence in Sachs Harbour, especially within extended family units and in providing for elders. A relatively small number of hunters account for most of the harvest; thus, relatively few people are providing for the families of occasional hunters and non-hunters. The imbalance is addressed by new forms of reciprocity whereby food-rich members of extended families share with cash-rich members, thus bringing wage income into the realm of sharing relationships. Inter-community trade is extensive. Sharing between communities does not seem to have declined but rather increased in importance. Sachs Harbour has an abundance of snow geese and muskox, and these are exported to other communities, in return for caribou and beluga whale products. These exchanges use the norms of generosity (giving without asking), sharing and generalized reciprocity, and not the Western rules of economic exchange involving cash exchange.

In sum, the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour have coped with the effects of recent climatic changes by modifying when, where, and how hunting and fishing are carried out. These coping strategies borrow from traditions of flexible resource use, and dynamic traditional environmental knowledge and skills. Also important among adaptive strategies is food sharing through intra-community social networks and inter-community trade. All these cultural practices are still largely intact in Sachs Harbour and the Canadian western Arctic in general. All these strategies provide considerable buffering capacity to deal with climate change, or with any other kind of social or environmental perturbation.

Climate change and social and ecological relations (12.3.1.3)

There is no evidence that climate change, as observed in the 1990s, has altered the ecological relations between the people of Sachs Harbour and their resources, or altered social relations within the community. It has not resulted in increased or decreased pressures on any of the major resources. However, it has had some consequences for the local perceptions of the environment and local cultural understandings of resources. For example, the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour are concerned about the impact of the lack of sea ice in the summer on ringed seal pups. Some of them are also concerned about the risk of extreme events to animal populations, such as the potential impact of freezing rain on caribou forage.

One major impact of climate on the local perception of the environment concerns the issue of loss of predictability. Land-based livelihoods in the Arctic depend on the peoples’ ability to predict the weather (is the storm breaking so I can get out?), read the ice (should I cross the river?), judge the snow conditions (could I get back to the community before nightfall?), and predict animal movements and distributions. A hunter who cannot predict the weather or read the ice would be limited in mobility; one who cannot decide what to hunt and where cannot bring back much food.

Climate change has the potential to impact on indigenous environmental knowledge and predictive ability, thus damaging the self-confidence of local populations in making a living from their resources. Such changes may ultimately leave them as strangers on their own land. Arctic peoples are experts at adapting to conditions that outsiders consider difficult. However, climate change impacts raise the issues of speed and magnitude of change, as compared to how fast people can learn and adapt. The evidence from Sachs Harbour hunters indicates that current environmental change is beginning to stress their ability to adapt. Rapid change requires rapid learning, and unpredictability superimposed on change interferes with the ability to learn. Predictability is affected by extreme weather events and higher variability, and appears to be an area of climate change research that deserves consideration in its own right.

Even though this case study focuses on impacts and adaptations associated with harvests and subsistence, climate change also has other economic and cultural consequences. For example, in addition to harvesting implications the lack of sea ice also makes some people "lonely for the ice", as the ice is a central feature of Inuvialuit life. Other environmental changes that are permafrost-related (e.g., thaw slumps, soil erosion) may not be a major threat to subsistence, but may have direct impacts on other aspects of community life, such as the maintenance of buildings and roads.

Climate change impacts in context (12.3.1.4)

Inuvialuit society in Sachs Harbour has been affected by many social and environmental changes over recent decades. Major changes in subsistence and other resource use patterns have been caused by changes in global fur [[market]s] (white fox), commercialization of muskox (early 1900s depletions), and their subsequent protection followed by population recovery. These changes, plus government policies, have resulted in major social and economic transformations in Inuvialuit society, turning these migratory hunting peoples into village-dwellers who use mechanized transport to go out on the land. Further changes in recent years have seen the introduction of commercial muskox hunts, and sport hunting based on muskox and polar bears.

Compared to these major changes, the impact of climate change is relatively minor, at least so far, and it is not beyond the ability of the community to adapt. However, climate change is a relatively recent event, and the ability of Sachs Harbour Inuvialuit to respond to and cope with it, mainly by adjusting subsistence activities, may not be a reliable indication of the community’s ability to adapt in the future. How much change can be accommodated by the Inuvialuit and their resource use systems? Elsewhere, recent publications have focused on the resilience, or the amount of perturbation that the Sachs Harbour hunting system can absorb and adapt to by learning and self-organization (e.g., ). The question of resilience is important because little is known about building adaptive capacity in the face of climate change.

Evolving co-management institutions in the area create additional opportunities to increase resilience and the ability to deal with change. New governance mechanisms through the Inuvialuit Final Agreement of 1984 seem to be helping the people of Sachs Harbour to negotiate and manage the impacts of change. There are five co-management bodies established through the Agreement that make it possible for the Inuvialuit communities in the area to communicate with the regional, territorial, and federal governments, and eventually with the Arctic Council.

Co-management has created linkages that were not possible only a few years ago. For example, indigenous hunters have been interacting with scientists in meetings such as the Beaufort Sea 2000 Conference, organized by one of the co-management agencies, the Fisheries Joint Management Committee. Co-management bodies, connecting local-level institutions with government agencies, provide vertical linkages across levels of organization and horizontal linkages across geographic areas. Berkes and Jolly hypothesized that such governance mechanisms have the potential to contribute to learning and to self-organization, and hence to build adaptive capacity to deal with change.

Chapter 12. Hunting, herding, fishing, and gathering: indigenous peoples and renewable resource use in the Arctic
12.1 Introduction (Climate change impacts on Canadian Western Arctic: the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour)
12.2 Present uses of living marine and terrestrial resources
12.2.1 Indigenous peoples, animals, and climate in the Arctic
12.2.2 Mixed economies
12.2.3 Renewable resource use, resource development, and global processes
12.2.4 Renewable resource use and climate change
12.2.5 Responding to climate change
12.3 Understanding climate change impacts through case studies
12.3.1 Canadian Western Arctic: the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour
12.3.2 Canadian Inuit in Nunavut
12.3.3 The Yamal Nenets of northwest Siberia
12.3.4 Indigenous peoples of the Russian North
12.3.5 Indigenous caribou systems of North America

References

Citation

Committee, I. (2012). Climate change impacts on Canadian Western Arctic: the Inuvialuit of Sachs Harbour. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Climate_change_impacts_on_Canadian_Western_Arctic:_the_Inuvialuit_of_Sachs_Harbour