New insects arriving: A sign of a warming world
Zach and I have been editing like madmen. It's quite a process: surfing the footage, finding the pithy quotes, and translating them from Inuktitut to Qallunaatitut. We often have to debate the specific nuances of what is being said to ensure that we communicate concepts properly in English. It's fascinating to work across cultural worlds in this way.
We're subtitling some of the video excerpts now so that you'll be able to see and hear elders and hunters speak for themselve about climate change. In the interim, I'm still posting text-based quotes, and today's is from Peter Kanayuk, a local Pangnirtung hunter. Peter told us - while motioning towards his throat - how new insects are arriving from the south and said:
"Caribou are starting to have nostril fly eggs in their throats, when we've never seen this before. They're growing near the throat. It's similar to the insects that we've already observed laying eggs in the caribou back fat. We're seeing these nostril flies more and more now. This is new to us, although regions further south have always had it"
This is a perfect example of how local knowledge works in praxis. Hunters have observed these insects, which are normally further south, in their Arctic animals. It's a telltale sign of a warming world. We are very privileged to be able to hear these important stories and we want to share this opportunity.
Importantly, we'll soon be inviting YOU, our online viewers, into the Igloolik editing suite so you can check out how we do all this. Soon we'll be posting a schedule of our live editing sessions that we'll be streaming here on IsumaTV. We'll have a skype address made available and you'll be able to interactively communicate with us about what we're doing in real-time. Stay tuned for more details.
