Vanishing world of the last Arctic hunters

An Inughuit woman, Greenland. Photo / Nick Russill.

Melting sea ice threatens the way of life of Greenland's Inughuit people, who hunt whale and seal by kayak and dog sled.

Living in the most northern permanently inhabited settlements in the world, the Inughuit people, or Polar Eskimos as they are often known, have eked out an existence in this Arctic desert in the northwest corner of Greenland for centuries.

The Inughuit are one of the smallest indigenous groups in the world with a population of just 800 people spread across the four settlements that make up the Thule region. Eighteen hundred kms away from the capital, Nuuk, and occupying an unfeasibly remote corner of our world, the Inughuit enjoy their own distinct subculture based on the hunting of marine mammals.

Unlike other Inuit populations across the Arctic, the Inughuit have maintained where possible their ancient way of life, using kayaks and harpoons to hunt narwhal and travelling by dog-sled in the winter.

This unique way of life is now under threat.

A tiny society whose basis is just a half dozen families, some of whom are descendants of the polar explorers Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, say they are being "squeezed" out of existence.

Draconian hunting quotas have been imposed by politicians in the south, many of whom have never ventured this far north. The hunting restrictions have pushed up the cost of sea mammals and some Inughuit are switching to a western diet of imported food.

Even if they can afford to eat their traditional diet, certain environmental groups advise them not to do so. The levels of mercury in some marine mammals are thought to pose a health hazard, and the risks of radioactive contamination from the nearby nuclear accident in 1968 when a US Air Force B-52 crash-landed with four hydrogen bombs on board are still not known.

The one-price policy that used to operate across Greenland, effectively subsidising the more remote settlements, has also been abolished, and the cost of living has rocketed.

Local people believe the Government, which has self-rule within Denmark's small commonwealth, has a hidden agenda to force out the people living in the most remote communities, creating three or four urban centres in Greenland and thus reducing the burdensome cost of servicing such isolated settlements.

My journey to Greenland took me through pretty, picture-postcard Ilulissat in the south. Small amphitheatres of ice collect dirt before sinking into oblivion. Skirting the ice sheet, heading northwards, it seemed grey and thinning.

Lakes appeared all over the ice, a tragic testament of the all too rapidly changing natural environment. It is a picture of transition and a disturbing one at that: it speaks dislocation and a sense of foreboding.

The Inughuit, however, are already a people in exile.

Qaanaaq, by far the largest Inughuit settlement, was established in 1953, when the Inughuit people were given three days to leave their ancient homeland in Uummannaq, 150km to the south, to make way for the controversial US air base at Thule.

But now these displaced people face a new and unprecedented threat to their culture: global warming.

A local woman who has spent nearly all her life living in Qaanaaq stands in my green prefabricated wooden hut, on the vast polar bear and musk-oxen skins that cover the floor. Dried, pungent blubber sits on the racks outside.

Looking out across Ingelfield Bay and the whale-shaped Herbert Island, towards the exploding icebergs that sit like vast lumps of polystyrene in the Murchison Sound, there is a sadness in her eyes: "Twenty years ago, my children used to go skating on the ice at this time of the year. Just 15 years ago, the sea ice in the bay was up to 3m thick. Last year the ice was so thin that a young hunter and his dog team of 12 fell through the thin ice to their early deaths. If the sea ice goes completely, there will be no need for the dogs [huskies] and our culture will disappear."

It is late September in the High Arctic, the outside temperature is -3C and there is little hope of the sea ice forming any time soon. Local hunters tell me they know it is warmer than it used to be because the dogs' breath used to be more dense in the cold.

While global warming may be toasted in southern Greenland, where farmers see many benefits, it is unequivocally bad news for this tiny indigenous group. Not only has global warming made hunting considerably more dangerous, it has also halved the hunting season.

In the summer months the Inughuit hunt narwhal deep within Ingelfield Bay, using kayaks and harpoons. The narwhal leave the bay in September. The Inughuit used to start hunting seal with dog-sled at this time of the year, but that is no longer possible as the sea has not yet frozen over. A couple of years ago, the sea ice did not form at all until December and was gone again in March.

In the months of October, November and December, when the settlement is plunged into 24-hour darkness, there are few options for the hunters. The narwhal do not arrive until May, but by then the sea ice is long gone.

Like many Inughuit, this woman has relatives in the Canadian Arctic, where the Inughuit are originally from: "Previously, we used to travel across the Smith Sound to Canada on dog-sled [a distance of 40km]. Now that journey is impossible because the sea ice has disappeared."

To visit their Canadian relatives, these people would now have to fly to Copenhagen 4000km away and then across the Atlantic to Montreal and up from there. Air travel is prohibitively expensive in Greenland and such a journey would cost several thousand dollars - a price very few can afford.

Historically, the Inughuit people were semi-nomadic, moving between the different settlements at certain times of the year for hunting purposes and to visit family.

The disappearing ice has meant it is now too dangerous to visit the outer settlements on dog-sled, but what ice remains means that travel by boat is not an option either. Often, the only alternative is a very expensive helicopter trip.

The sense of shrinking space is almost tangible.

The threat of global warming to their traditional hunting life, alongside a host of political factors, has left the Inughuit believing their current settlements will not be here in 15 years' time, that people will relocate southwards, and they will assimilate into a broader Inuit culture.

Young people, recognising that their parents are no longer able to make a living from hunting alone, are leaving the community to live a very different life in modern flats in Nuuk.

Last week Moriusaq, the smallest of the Inughuit settlements, was finally closed and the other settlements are looking increasingly endangered. If the Inughuit are forced to leave their ancient homeland, it is likely the language of these Arctic hunters will disappear. With it, their already endangered ancient spoken traditions - a rich depository of indigenous cultural knowledge about how they relate to the land, sea and ice, bound up in stories, myths and folklore - will also be lost.

The Inughuit are immensely proud of their language, Inuktun. Working with the last handful of storytellers, I have come here to document their stories and narratives in the old Inuktun language and hope that this will act as a record of this unique and endangered culture.

Dr Stephen Leonard is an anthropological linguist at the Scott Polar Research Institute and research fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He will be living with the Inughuit people for 12 months. His research is funded by the British Academy and the World Oral Literature Project in Cambridge.


Five endangered languages

Jeru
(or Great Andamanese) is spoken by fewer than 20 people on the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean and is thought to predate the Neolithic era.

Yuchi
Spoken in Oklahoma, US, by just five people all aged over 75. Unusually, the nouns of the language have 10 genders.

Oro Win
The Oro Win people in Rondonia, Brazil, were first contacted by outsiders in 1963, but after attacks now number just 50, only five of whom speak the language.

Kusunda
Until recently it was thought this language of hunter-gatherers from Nepal was extinct, but in 2004 scholars located eight people who still speak it.

Guugu Yimidhirr
An Australian Aboriginal language spoken at Hopevale in northern Queensland by around 200 people and gave us the word "kangaroo".

The languages were chosen by Professor Peter Austin of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London

Speaking the language: Some Inuktun words and phrases:

qilalugaq qirniqtaq - narwhal (a small arctic whale)

puihi - seal

hila - weather, consciousness, mind

hikuqihuq - the sea is frozen over

qamutik - sledge

anurhaataitsiaqtuq - there is not much wind

taarileqihuq - it is getting dark

kapirlaktuq - the dark season begins

mannighariaqturnialuktuq - goes out to gather eggs

kinnguhaaqtuq - practise capsizing in a kayak

uqautsit - words, language

kaavikuluuq - Greenlandic polka

hagdunngitsorruanga - I am not joking

pinaloqatauhinnarialinga? - may I come hunting with you?

Inuktun is not a written language and therefore the spelling of words varies

- Observer