MONTREAL – As Canada’s northernmost communities face the impact of global warming, a researcher is suggesting that the Quebec Inuit should try switching back from snowmobiles to dogsleds.
Sled-pulling dogs are more adept at spotting where the ice is more dangerous, said Martin Tremblay, a geographer and environmental researcher based in Kuujjuaq, near Ungava Bay. “Dogs will sense more thinner, more unstable ice,” he said. “If the sled falls through, the dogs will pull the sled out of water.”
The idea is part of a report on the impact of warmer weather on Quebec’s Inuit that a team of researchers will present to northern communities this fall.
“We’re conscious that having dogs is a lot of work,” Tremblay said. “You have to feed them, and you have to feed them in the summer, so it’s not the easiest of tools. But it has interesting potential.”
The report was prepared as part of an ice-monitoring project for the Kativik Regional Government, the public administration responsible for most of Quebec north of the 55th parallel.
“People are preoccupied because the traditional life up north, the traditional diet, are very important here,” Tremblay said from the Kativik offices. Supplementing the diet with fish and wild game, such as ptarmigan, caribou or seal, is crucial in northern communities because food flown in from the south is expensive and of poor quality, he said.
With trail conditions more difficult to assess, Tremblay said there is virtue in using more traditional transport methods. Older hunters told the researchers that, in the past, rescue parties didn’t have to be dispatched right away when travelers were late to show up. It was assumed that their sled dogs would help them find their way.
Through monitoring stations and interviews with local hunters, the project also wants to develop mathematical models that will predict when the ice on the rivers and sea is thick enough for safe travel. Already, weekly ice trail information is posted online.
The team is also recording tips from experienced hunters, who have learned to assess the safety and characteristics of the ice, the proximity of river mouths or the salinity of the water. Hunters, for example, related how they picked at ice floes with a harpoon to test for thickness. They explained how ice floes from salted sea water can bounce under one’s feet like rubber, although it remains safe.
They described how melting ice floes will alternately appear to have white, blue, black or brownish hues, noting that black colors in the first phase of the spring thaw means that the ice is safe but not in the final phase.
Tremblay said the team hoped to compile wisdom on interactive CD-ROMs so that younger Inuit, who spend more time in the classroom than on the hunting trail, can learn from their elders.
“They are people that are resourceful,” he said. “People who have always faced change and they adapted themselves to it.”
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