close your eyes and hope for the best

Drummer, Arctic Bay, Nunavut Canada (click image to enlarge)

My Father sent me with a one-way plane ticket to work on Baffin Island at the tender age of 16 - not too happy about it then…

Canada’s Arctic has been part of my life for many years. I started reading about it when I was 14 - R.M Patterson’s classic - The Dangerous River; a story about the South Nahanni River quickly comes to mind. My Father sent me with a one-way plane ticket to work on Baffin Island at the tender age of 16 - not too happy about it then (made enough money to get home - true story) but the seed was planted. I have returned many times to live, work and more recently to explore the landscape with my camera.

Crocker Bay, Devon Island, Nunavut Canada (click image to enlarge)

This past fall - I returned once again but it was a photo assignment that brought me there, to document life in the High Arctic and Western Greenland for a film.

Landing in Resolute Bay at 74 degree’s latitude, a small community perched on the archipelago of islands in Canada’s high Arctic gives the visitor an introduction to being above the tree line. You are still almost 1600 kilometres from the North Pole but have travelled 5 hours by commercial jet from Ottawa to get there. Gives you an idea how big this country is. This is Nunavut (translated from Inuktituk means our land) - Canada’s third territory and self-governed by the Inuit.

That all being said - the Arctic is changing and rapidly. This part of Canada (Nunavut) is far removed from the cities in the south - an area of two million square kilometres and a population of 26,000 people of which 85% are Inuit. I travelled by ship across the eastern part of the Northwest Passage in mid September. There was no ice, not even the start of winter ice. This is the first time since 1978 when satellite imagery was introduced that the passage was ice-free.

A bit of pack ice blocked our passage to Baffin Bay out of Lancaster Sound but for the most part we were witness to one of the great changes our planet is going through in recorded history. The ice pack is melting faster than anyone imagined. Some of the scientific models indicate an ice free summer season in the High Arctic by 2030 while the latest findings indicate 2012. We are talking about the North Pole, a region traditionally icebound for 12 months of the year.

Canada is now building its first deep water port at Nanisivik to take advantage of this. This port looks like a Burtynsky photograph - containers, heavy equipment and large drops of cargo give the visitor a hint that something big is happening here. A new commercial airport is being built - all to be ready for that eventual day the passage is open for large-scale shipping. Imagine what Sir John Franklin would think if he were alive today to witness this. The shipping companies in Europe can cut 5000 kilometres off their Asian routes by going through the Northwest Passage. To add another number into the equation-scientists indicate 25% of the planet’s oil and gas reserves could be in the High Arctic.

Anna Quanaq, Arctic Bay, Nunavut Canada (click image to enlarge)

But more than that are the Inuit people who live on this land and have done so for thousands of years. They adapted to its harsh climate and are once again dealing or about to deal with change. This is a culture that battles constantly with the merging of old and new. Most do not travel outside of their remote communities except to other similar places within the Arctic. Hi-speed Internet is available to them providing young and old alike with a portal to a world to which they rarely get. Elders try desperately to hold onto a vanishing way of life but the youth are enthralled with a world of technology and a plethora of “toys” the Internet can provide.

Arctic Bay, a small town, close to Nanisivik (a place we visited for a few short hours) is about to experience the change as work crews arrive to build the new port. With the arrival of these new industries, our civilization’s pitfalls generally follow close behind. The Inuit all across the Arctic will be pushed into a new way of life and some may embrace it. For the most part, they won’t be able to escape it. Living in southern cities is not an option for most. We are now witnessing a change never seen before in this lifetime - cultural change for the Inuit and the changing of the Arctic landscape because of Global Warming.

© Rob Stimpson

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Rob Stimpson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.