Mother Earth Journal

Indigenous Perspectives on Snow and Ice

All things are connected…………

In indigenous cultures, it is understood that ecosystems are chaotic, complex, organic, in a constant state of flux, and filled with diversity.  No one part of an ecosystem is considered more important than another part and all parts have synergistic roles to play.  Indigenous communities say that “all things are connected” – the land to the air and water, the earth to the sky, the plants to the animals, the people to the spirit.

Indigenous ways of knowing have evolved over thousands of years and can generally be characterized as being non-linear, qualitative, holistic, organic in character, and based on a spiritual worldview.  Wisdom, knowledge and information are passed down through the generations in oral traditions, and they are modified by personal experiences and collective observations.  Traditional ways of knowing are not used to manage the natural environment, but to help indigenous communities adapt to the existing and emerging environmental realities, whatever they may be.

Western based science systems, for the most part, are not equipped to validate traditional knowledge observations and conclusions about the natural world, thus unwittingly marginalizing indigenous peoples, world views, ways of knowing, and an invaluable source of information and guidance.

Observations of Change

The Arctic may be seen as geographically isolated from the rest of the world, yet the Inuit hunter who falls through the thinning sea ice is connected to melting glaciers in the Andes and the Himalayas, and to the flooding of low-lying and small island states. What happens in foreign capitals and in temperate and tropical countries affects us dramatically here in the North. Many of the economic and environmental challenges facing Inuit result from activities well to the south our homelands, and what is happening in the far North will affect what is happening in the South.  If the Greenland ice sheet melts (as it is doing now), not only do world water levels rise, but scientists speculate that dumping such massive quantities of cold water into the Atlantic may very well affect what is popularly known as the Conveyer Belt.   This circularly moving body of cold and warm waters regulate climate in much of the Northern Hemisphere. We are all connected on this planet and the Arctic plays an important role.

Indigenous Elder Perspective – Caleb Pungowiyi, Kotzebue, Alaska:

“Since the late 1970’s, communities along the coast of the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas have noticed substantial changes in the ocean and the animals that live there.  While we are used to changes from year-to-year in weather, hunting conditions, ice patterns, and animal populations, the past two decades have seen clear trends in many environmental factors.  If these trends continue, we can expect major, perhaps irreversible, impacts to our communities.

Beginning in the late 1970’s the patterns of wind, temperature, ice and currents in the Bering and Chukchi Seas have changed.  The winds are stronger, commonly 15-25 mph, and there are fewer calm days.  The wind may shift in direction, but remains strong for long periods.  In spring, the winds change the distribution of the sea ice and combine with warm temperatures to speed up the melting of ice and snow.  When the ice melts or moves away early, many marine mammals go with it, taking them too far away to hunt.  Near some villages, depending on the geography of the coast, the wind may force the pack ice into shore, making it impossible to get boats to open water to go hunting or to move boats through if they are already out.  The high winds also make it difficult to travel in boats for hunting (even winds of 10-12 mph from the wrong direction can create waves 2-3 feet high, stopping small boats), reducing the number of days that hunters can go out.  For all these reasons, access to animals during the spring hunting period is lower now than it was before.

From mid-July to September, there has been more wind from the south, making for a wetter season.  With less sea ice and more open water, fall storms have become more destructive to the coastline.  Erosion has increased in many areas, including the locations of some villages, threatening houses and perhaps the entire community.  Wave action has changed some sandy beaches into rocky ones as the sand washes away.

The formation of sea ice in fall has been late in many recent years, due largely to warmer winters, though winds play a role as well.  In such years, the ice, when it does form, is thinner than usual, which contributes to early break-up in spring.  Another aspect of late freeze-up is the way in which sea ice forms.  Under normal conditions, the water is cold in fall and permafrost under the water and near the shoreline helps create ice crystals on the sea floor.  When they are large enough, these crystals float to the top, bringing with them sediments.  The sediments have nutrients used by algae growing in the ice, thus stimulating the food chain in and near the ice.  When the ice melts in spring, the sediments are released, providing nutrients in the melt water.  In years with warm summers and late freeze-up, on the other hand, the water is warm and freezes first from the top as it is cooled by cold winds in late fall or early winter.  Less ice is brought up from the bottom and fewer nutrients are available in the ice and in the melt water the following spring, and overall productivity is lower.

Precipitation patterns have also changed.  In the past few years, there has been little snow in fall and most of the winter, but substantial snowfall in late winter and early spring.  The lack of snow makes it difficult for polar bears and ringed seals to make dens for giving birth, or in the case of male polar bears, to seek protection from the weather.  The lack of ringed seal dens may affect the numbers and condition of polar bears, which prey on ringed seals and often seek out the dens.  Hungry polar bears may be more likely to approach villages and encounter people.

Other marine mammals have been affected to greater or lesser degrees by the changes in sea ice, wind and temperature.  The physical condition of walrus was generally poor in 1996-98 as the animals were skinny and their productivity was low.  One cause was the reduced sea ice which forced the walrus to swim farther between feeding areas in relatively shallow water and resting areas on the distant ice.  Due to wave action and sedimentation, the productivity of the sea bed may have declined too, making it harder for walrus to find food.  In the spring of 1999, however, the walrus were in good condition following a cold winter with good ice formation in the Bering Sea.  When the winter ice forms late and is too thin, walrus cannot haul out and rest the way they need to and they will be in poor condition the following spring.  There are many other biological changes and effects occurring as well.

There is no record of this type of extended change.  In the late 1880s during the time of the Great Famine in western Alaska, there were very cold winters for a long period.  The main factor in the famine was the decimation of walrus and whale populations due to the commercial harvest by Yankee whalers, but lots of ice and the long, cold winters did not make things easier.

As we think about the future and where these trends may lead us, we wonder what alternatives are available to Native villages in Alaska and elsewhere in the Arctic.  If marine mammal populations are no longer available or accessible to our communities, what can replace them?  In the Great Famine, there were no alternatives to the food provided by hunting and fishing.  Today, there are stores with food and other resources that can be harvested.  A gradual change might give us time to adjust, but a sudden shift might catch us unprepared and cause great hardship.  We need to think about the overall effects on marine mammals and other resources.  Some may adjust, but others will not.  Our ancestors taught us that the Arctic environment is not constant, and that some years are harder than others.  But they taught us that hard years are followed by times of greater abundance and celebration.  As we have found with other aspects of our culture’s ancestral wisdom, modern changes, not of our doing, make us wonder when the good years will return.”