With the impacts on the ice and land in the Arctic, Inuit are vulnerable to accidental injury or death while hunting or travelling on the land.  

Traditional knowledge and cultural transmission about the ice and the land, and ensuring current information about changes in the biodiversity, land and ice is vital to be resilient in the changing environment.

VULNERABILITY

Nunavummiut who hunt or travel by land or water are vulnerable because of the following factors:

• Land skills are not being transmitted to youth
• Hunting technology is altering human environment relationships
• Rapidly changing conditions make conditions difficult to predict
• Due to poverty and inequality, some community members are unable to afford safety equipment such as GPS, helmets, life jackets

RESILIENCY

In order to strengthen resiliency, researchers and community members say more knowledge and training is required for youth on:

• Learning survival skills with the changing environmental conditions
• Learn knowledge of trail safety and dangers
• Understanding weather patterns
• Communication of risks to others (eg. SPOT, GPS and technologies)
• Strengthening local search and rescue capacity
• Development of safety programming to support cultural values of food sharing and equipment sharing
• Development of community freezers to decrease the need to hunt in unsafe conditions

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As a community accessible program in Iqaluit, floatation gear and SPOT devices are available at the RCMP Detachment and at selected locations like the Baffin Gas Bar in the summer, for loan to community members free of charge. This helps ensure that everyone can enjoy the land with the required safety equipment.