IK-ADAPT Regional Leader, find Sherilee Harper, treatment was recently featured in a CBC North news article and interviewed for CBC North Television about her work on climate change, weather patterns, and stomach illness as part of the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) project.  As excerpted from the article:

A survey looking at the impact of climate change on the health of residents of Iqaluit will enter its second phase this spring. Last fall, surveyors visited more than 500 homes in the city. Sherilee Harper, with the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change Project, says the study began in Labrador where they found changes in weather patterns could be linked to stomach illness.

To read the complete article, click here.

On Tuesday, find March 26, malady researchers, diagnosis policy makers, government representatives, and health professionals gathered at the Munk Centre of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto for a one-day Symposium and working group on the future needs and priorities of Circumpolar health systems.

Organized and hosted by Susan Chatwood, Director of the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research and an IK-ADAPT Regional Manager, this Symposium drew speakers and participants from across the Canadian North, Alaska, Norway, Iceland, and Greenland to share ideas, debate issues, and discuss recommendations and priorities. IK-ADAPT Coordinator, Ashlee Cunsolo Willox and IK-ADAPT Regional Manager, Sherilee Harper, were also in attendance.

This Symposium was hosted by the Institute for Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, with funding from the IK-ADAPT project and the Canadian Institutes for Circumpolar Health Research.

We are excited to share a new video about the Nunamin Illihakvia program in Ulukhaktok, help NWT! This program, buy  funded by Health Canada’s Climate Change and Health Adaptation in Northern First Nations and Inuit Communities program and administered by the Ulukhaktok Community Corporation, was a one year pilot that sought to revive participation in winter seal hunting and traditional sealskin sewing in Ulukhaktok to strengthen health and food security during a time of rapid environmental and societal change. In total, more than 60 participants took part in sealskin sewing, equipment making, and organized trips out on the sea ice. Check out the video:

Nunamin Illihakvia is one of several community-driven adaptation initiatives the IK-ADAPT team has partnered with to date, both to pilot evaluation processes for community adaptation programs and to investigate how such programs can contribute to adaptive capacity. IK-ADAPT co-investigator Dr. Tristan Pearce and coordinator Ellie Stephenson worked with the Ulukhatok Community Corporation and program coordinators to complete research and evaluation components of the program, and Lesya Nakoneczny partnered with local filmmakers and photographers to produce the above documentary. To learn more about the research results, including impacts of the program and recommendations for improvement, please see the final activity report for the Nunamin Illihakvia program.

Koana (thank you!) to all of the participants, instructors, Elders, and coordinators who has made this program a success!

Drumming at Jacks Bay, viagra Ulukhaktok

Each year the community of Ulukhaktok marks the migration of the Eider duck, seek known locally as kingaliks (male) and mitiinnaq (female). These birds, both nutritionally and culturally rich, are an important component of a northern diet. Each spring the birds migrate following open water leads and pass directly by the shores of the community. This migration route is normally predictable and brings them near enough to the edge of the ice where they become more easily accessible to hunters. This can be a bountiful season for many hunters, some harvesting as many as 100 ducks to last the year. It also elicits fond memories of spring times spent with family at key hunting locations near Mashuyak. Ulukhaktok celebrates the joy and thankfulness for the migration each year at the Kingalik Jamboree.

The first time I visited Ulukhaktok in 2012 I missed the Jamboree by a week but heard all about the cookouts, games, and celebrations. Given the excitement and pride with which people shared their jamboree stories, I knew that it was something I wanted to experience one day! This year, on my second trip to Ulukhaktok, I was there for the return of the Kingaliks and got the full jamboree experience. Food was a central part of this experience with meals like musk ox stir-fry, caribou quak (frozen meat delicacy), piffy (a dried char treat), and every combination in between.

Plucking contest at the Ulukhaktok Jamboree

What stood out as much as, if not more than, the food itself was the level of participation and cooperation that made these meals (serving 400 people) successful. Throughout the entire jamboree period, women of all generations could be seen chopping, stirring, frying, or cleaning so that there was always pan sizzling over the fires or someone mixing a stir-fry or flipping bannock. I joined in by picking up an ulu to slice, dice, chop, and mince ingredients destined for one of the many frying pans. The cooking process fascinated me and the food was delicious. Everyone took great pride in their dishes and their country food from the land and, as I was someone from out of town, they made sure that I had a taste of everything.

What struck me about these games was the way they promoted cross-generational interactions and learning.

The games were another fun part of the jamboree and included a fishing derby, a duck hunting competition, plucking feathers from a Kingalik or Mitiinnaq, and skinning a seal. What struck me about these games was the way they promoted cross-generational interactions and learning. For example, teams often consisted of Elders and youth who worked together to be the first to complete a task. It also quickly became apparent to me that these were more than just games; they were lessons and channels for cultural continuity and skills transmission. I watched as Elders guided their young teammates to shoot with precision, pull feathers in the proper direction, and flesh a sealskin to make it soft. The games were played with an impressive spirit of gamesmanship and integrity with focus on collective success. In addition to these team games there was an assortment of laughter inducing games such as ‘best goggle tan’, egg races, and karaoke.

The jamboree festivities demonstrated the strong community culture I experienced throughout my entire stay in Ulukhaktok. I learned that community collaboration and cooperation are important elements of life in Ulukhaktok. For example, those hunters who managed to harvest nearly 100 ducks would regularly share with their extended family or neighbours. Not every weekend in Ulukhaktok was as jam-packed as Jamboree weekend, but it was an excellent introductory course into the Ulukhaktok way of doing things.

James Ford and Phylicia Kagyut at the Poster Presentation session.

Arctic Change 2014 was a busy and enriching conference for IK-ADAPT team members. IK-ADAPT researchers chaired two sessions, cialis gave nine session presentations and four poster presentations. The film “Lament for the Land”, and a collaboration between Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo Willox and the five communities Nunatsiavut, was screened at the conference and followed by a Q & A session. IK-ADAPT also held a one day meeting parallel to the conference to discuss project updates as well as the commonalities and differences between the different community-based initiatives. This meeting was attended by all the project leads, community partners, IK-ADAPT researchers and students. The meeting yielded great discussions about final project outputs and reflections as IK-ADAPT approaches the end of its final year.

Click to enlarge: IK-ADAPT posters detailing the different projects.

Additionally, our team was very active at the conference, and their work received some awards. In particular, Inez Shiwak presented five times and participated in the Q & A for “Lament for the Land”. She also won the Arctic Change Northern Travel Award to support her participation in the conference, and was nominated for the Inuit Recognition Award at Arctic Change 2014. Congratulations Inez! Kate Bishop, a PhD student at the University of Guelph in the Department of Population Medicine, was awarded the second place prize ($600) in the Social and Health Science category at the Arctic Change 2014 Conference. Her poster was titled “Seasonal Changes in Prevalence of Acute Gastrointestinal Illness in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada” and was co-presented with Inez Shiwak. Congratulations!

In numbers:

• 2 chaired sessions
• 9 session presentations
• 4 poster presentations
• 1 film screening
• 1 full day IK-ADAPT meeting
• 2 awards

Photo: Kaitlyn Finner

This week Masters student Kaitlyn Finner and community-based researchers Inez Shiwak and Lisa Palliser-Bennett are meeting with community members in Rigolet, try Nunatsiavut to hear their perspectives on food inventories and photo card interviews that were conducted over the course of a year, from May 2013 to 2014.

The participatory methods were adapted for the Rigolet based project and the research team is working to better understand how the methods can be further adapted for future food related research in Rigolet, and other communities that may be interested.

It’s been a great week so far with lots of interviews and amazing weather, but the real highlight is set to take place this weekend when the 2015 Winter Sports Meet is held at Northern Lights Academy in Rigolet for school teams from along the Northern coast of Labrador!

A big congratulations to Joanna Petrasek MacDonald, troche whose MA thesis “From the minds of youth: exploring Inuit youth resilience within a changing climate and applications for climate change adaptation in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada” has been accepted. Joanna would like to thank the community members, academic peers and funding agencies for their collaboration and support that made this thesis possible. Joanna is currently the project coordinator for IK-ADAPT, and you can find her bio here: http://www.jamesford.ca/about#joanna

Abstract: The Canadian North is experiencing rapid social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental change that have direct impacts on the lives of Inuit living in this region, as well as serious implications for the future of the Inuit youth. Essential to facing this challenging context is a resilient youth population with the adaptive capacities and coping skills to respond to multiple stressors and pressures. This thesis considers the question of how to foster youth resilience and support youth protective factors that enhance youth well-being and can help young people deal with change, specifically climate change. To answer this question, a systematic literature review, a community-based, youth-led, cross-cultural participatory video project, and a regional community-based study were undertaken to explore youth-identified protective factors and examine challenges to these factors from youth perspectives and experiences. Specifically, this thesis characterizes the protective factors that influence Circumpolar Indigenous youth mental health resilience to climate change; explores participatory video as a process that can foster protective factors thereby demonstrating potential to be used in adaptation as a way to enhance youth resilience; documents youth-identified protective factors that support mental health and well-being amidst change (i.e. social, cultural, economic, or environmental); and examines how climatic changes and related environmental impacts challenge these factors throughout the region of Nunatsiavut from a youth perspective. The findings from this work highlight the importance of youth voices, perspectives, and involvement within research and practitioner communities, and contributes to the growing body of research on Circumpolar Indigenous youth resilience that can inform climate change adaptation efforts.

IK-ADAPT student, ailment Joanna Petrasek MacDonald (MA Student in the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group at McGill University), generic spent a week in Rigolet this past March for an initial community visit to discuss her upcoming community-based participatory video project.

Engaging youth in Grades 7 to 12 in Rigolet, tadalafil the project will provide an opportunity for youth to create, film, and edit a short film about the impacts of changes in snow, ice, animals, and vegetation on the lives of young people and how they can respond, or perhaps are responding, to these changes.

Joanna met with students and staff at the Northern Lights Academy (the elementary and secondary school in Rigolet) to introduce the project, do some preliminary brainstorming for the film, and give the students a chance to work with some of the filming equipment.

This project received strong support from the community and the principal and staff of the Northern Lights Academy, as well as great interest from students who are excited to begin filming.

Joanna is working in partnership with the IK-ADAPT and Inuit Mental Health and Adaptation to Climate Change projects, and will be collaborating with two young Inuit filmmakers, Jordan and Curtis Konek, from Arviat, Nunavut. Working through a model of ‘training by Inuit youth for Inuit youth’, the Koneks will be supporting the youth in Rigolet by bringing their expertise and experience in videography to lead the training in filming and editing with the students, and by providing mentorship to youth interested in film and digital media. This partnership also provides the exciting opportunity to develop netowrks and relationships between youth in Nunavut and Nunatsiavut.

The participatory video aspect of the project will take place at the end of April and beginning of May.

The Nunamin Illihakvia: Learning from the Land project was featured in the magazine Tusaayaksat, purchase whose motto is: “Celebrating Inuvialuit People, treat Culture and Heritage.”

"Nunamin Illihakvia: Learning from the Land" in Tusaayaksat Magazine

“It is November, and Ulukhaktok is on blizzard warning tonight. Visibility is low as we trudge against winds up to 70km/hr and hard bits of snow whips into our eyes, we arrive at the youth center where Nunamin Illihakvia: Learning from the Land sewing classes are held. The door opens onto a scene that warms our heart immediately – there is laughter in the room, and elder Margaret Notaina is sitting on the floor with young mothers Susie Nigiyok and Denise Okheena, between them a sewing machine and a scatter of wolfskins. Avery, Denise’s two year old daughter is imitating the elder and her mother, using her hands to press gently down the hairs on a wolf pelt for the amaruq that Denise is making. An amaruq is the sunburst wolf fur trim on the hood of an Inuvialuit parka, and Denise is looking forward to making her first one for her baby.

Annie Inuktalik, instructor and elder known for her exquisite sewing dips a straight teeth comb into water, gently taming the strands of wolf fur that are astray. “You comb it like this, to make sure that the length of the hairs are even,” she shares.

“The amaruq is made of 3 layers of fur, with a canvas base. We use wolf furs with dark tips on the outside layer, the middle layer is lighter, and the back layer too. If the skin is not straight but it’s already dry we need to scrape it so it’s easier to work with. We fold the wolfskin right down the middle. We cut the long hair right by the edges and use that. We use a measuring piece to cut little pieces of the same size, and we cut off the ends so it should be all even. You can make two ruffs with one skin.”

In the room, there are other young mothers, most of them learning this skill for the first time.

Continue reading here.

Posted here with permission.