Empowering Our Communities to Map Rough Ice and Slush for Safer Sea-ice Travel in Inuit Nunangat

The challenge

Sea-ice roughness, thickness and slush are key characteristics that determine safe and efficient ice travel for Inuit. The changing climate is negatively affecting these characteristics, impacting mental health, food security and cultural practices.

For Inuit, sea ice is a hunting platform, a travel highway, and part of our culture and identity. Changing climate is negatively affecting sea-ice characteristics that determine safe and efficient travel for Inuit, such as roughness, thickness, and slush. Consequently, there are increased travel incidents, search-and-rescue incidents, and impacts on mental health, food security, and cultural practices.

Expected impact

• To combine satellite data (optical and micro-wave frequencies), state-of-the-art uncrewed airborne vehicles (UAVs, or drones), and most importantly Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit knowledge, values, and worldview) to co-produce new information on sea-ice roughness, snow roughness, and slush for SmartICE’s Sikumik Qaujimajjuti (community ice travel safety maps).
• To produce maps for piloting in our partner communities and eventually expand across Inuit Nunangat.
• To ground the work in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and include a co-designed Inuit training program for UAV-based sea-ice monitoring to augment the mature environmental data collection developed by SmartICE.
• With our Arctic Eider Society partner, to enable Inuit Nunangat communities to access in near real-time these new map products through the Indigenous Knowledge Social Network platform.

Funding details

CINUK: Canada-Inuit Nunangat-United Kingdom Arctic Research Programme

Project team

Principal Investigator – Andrew Arreak and Michel Tsamados

Project coordinators and co-applicants:

• Becky Segal
• Carl Thibault
• Constanza Sofía Salvó
• Eldred Allen
• Emily Best
• Emma Dalton
• Emma Nicholson
• Gillian Davidge
• Grant MacDonald
• Ilan Kelman
• Jimmy Poulin
• Katherine Wilson
• Leanne Beaulieu
• Lynn Moorman
• Mark Croke
• Monique Bernier
• Randy Scharien
• Rex Holwell
• Robert Briggs
• Saeid Homayouni
• Shawna Dicker
• Thomas Newman
• Tom Johnson
• Trevor Bell
• William Aglukkaq

More information

• The Indigenous Knowledge Social Network
• Sikuttiaq – Sea ice travel safety, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, sea ice monitoring

Image: Baffin Island sea and land ice. Photography by Ilan Kelman