Seasonal Activities

The ice pressure ridge remind us that agency is not a property that is possessed by individual readers, researchers and authors. Our ways of becoming knowledgeable always correspond intra-dependently with many other agential forces, both human and non-human.

Springtime is always a busy season in the Arctic.

After the cold, dark winter, this is the season in which people start initiating community activities like fishing derbies and other competitions again. In Coral Harbour it is also the season in which the sea ice breaks up, and certain travel routes become unpassable, until the ice starts building up again.

During my first week back in Coral Harbour much of Leonards attention went to the building of an extra large qamutiq that could carry a cabin and be pulled by multiple skidoos towards Qaquutaaq - a landmark spot for good arctic char fishing.

Dependence

As two weeks pass, it becomes increasingly clear that Leonard will have little time to work with me on the wayfaring ideas.

He has family responsibilities that play out within limited seasonal windows and he is simultaneously dealing with health related issues that require him to expend his energy carefully.

Attempts to connect with other people in the community are furthermore somewhat restrained due to how the communication lines with organizations like the hamlet and the Coral Harbour Hunter's and Trapper's Organization have been established to flow through Leonard.

As the ice and snow conditions were changing rapidly, and you have much time to think, you start appreciating the intra-dependent relationship between seasonal change, planning, and research to a new degree.

Landmark: Seasonal Changes

A Visit Cut Short

I end up staying in Coral Harbour a little over three weeks this trip.

Although I was able to visit Leonard several times over this time, I decided I would not pressure him with the more formal procedures of interviews or other forms of data-collection.

Besides, I had started to suspect by this moment that my research question did not so much require the collection of data as it required methods of attentive presence, and meaningful practice.

Accepting that staying any longer would strain the research budget unduly, I head back South.

Without a clear co-designed plan for the final workshop in Coral Harbour at the end of the year, but with many impressions of visiting both communities over spring.

This ice-pressure ridge, will not allow us to get back on to our previous track. You have to find a new one, to continue your way along the BearWatch project.

Detour: Find a new track along cut 3