Latest revision as of 15:26, 16 August 2025

Estimated time to follow this cut without detours: 20 minutes (excluding 20 minutes animated graphic documentary.)

"We want our “Voices of Thunder” to echo everywhere. We want everyone to know what happened to us. We seek acknowledgment and apologies for suffering the consequences of the quota regulations; a loss of culture and knowledge, as well as increased danger due to the rising number of polar bears around our communities. Inuit knowledge in terms of accuracy and inherent value needs to be recognized and better acknowledged. We want better integration of Inuit knowledge in survey research, like for example accounting for seasonal changes. Scientific monitoring surveys have limitations, we ask that researchers will recognize and take Inuit observations more seriously".

Gjoa Haven HTA (2021)

Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven)[edit]

This is a view across Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven), Nunavut. Most of the events along this cut take place in this community.

Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven) filmed by Peiwen Li (2021)

Uqshuqtuuq is pronounciated: [uq.suq.tuːq], meaning "lots of fat" in Inuktitut (the language spoken by Inuit), referring to an abundance of marine animals like seals. Its English name, "Gjoa Haven" is pronounced : [Joe.ha.ven] and was given by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen during his expedition to find the Northwest passage. Gjoa Haven was named after his wooden ship "Gjoa". It is the only hamlet on King William Island, located in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Canada. Its current population is estimated around 1400 people.

My name is Saskia de Wildt, and I visited Gjoa Haven for the first time in 2021- during the second year of my PhD research.

By then, however, I already knew quite a bit about the history of polar bear hunting restriction in Gjoa Haven.

"Keep Going" to read what I had learnt before I ever came to the community.

Or,

Take a "Detour" to read an abstract of this cut

Detour: Abstract

Inuit and Polar Bears[edit]

Polar bears and humans share an important relationship in Inuit culture.

Within Inuit ways of knowing and being, polar bears are to be respected as powerful predators, and appreciated for being a source of sustenance.

In Canada, Inuit have a right to hunt polar bears. Such hunting takes place under "harvesting quota" regulations, and are managed per Polar Bear Management Unit (PBMU). Hunters from Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak share the M’Clintock Channel (MC) PBMU.

Fgure 1: Map of the M’Clintock Channel Polar Bear Management Unit area (Vongraven and Peacock, 2011). Adapted with permission to include the locations of Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak, who each hunt within this area.

Polar Bear Quota Reductions[edit]

At the start of this century, however, polar bears seemed to be declining in numbers, and the hunting quota in the MC PBMU was severely reduced.

Between 2001 and 2004 the MC PBMU was subjected to a three-year polar bear moratorium (a full suspension of hunting).

And in 2005 Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU^[1]) with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) for alternating quotas of one and two tags per year until 2015, while Taloyoak did not receive any tags from the MC management unit between 2001 and 2015.

↑ Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (2005, 8 March) Polar Bear Management Memorandum of Understanding for the management of the ‘M’Clintock Channel’ polar bear population. [Memorandum of Understanding]. Cambridge Bay

Impacts for Gjoa Haven[edit]

Both Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay- unlike the residents of Gjoa Haven- however, also have traditional hunting grounds outside of the MC PBMU. So, when the quota was so drastically reduced, the community of Gjoa Haven was disproportionately impacted.

No other community in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories has experienced such a (near) moratorium over such an extended period of time.

Signing the MoU (illustration by Danny Aaluk, 2021)

Seeking Recognition[edit]

After two generations of hardly being able to hunt polar bears, the Gjoa Haven hunters and Trappers Association have asked the researchers of the BearWatch project to help them gain recognition for the impacts such quota-decisions have had in terms of lost income, loss of culture, and loss of intergenerational knowledge transfer.

Notice, that you have stumbled upon a Vista. This Vista is a viewpoint, it will help you orient. This one is called "The Ethical Space of Engagement".

"Check out the Vista"

Or,

"Keep Going" to learn more about my PhD research in the BearWatch project, sought to assist in sharing the impacts of these quota reductions across multiple audiences.

Vista: The Ethical Space of Engagement

Joining the BearWatch Project[edit]

My PhD research is part of a larger project: ‘Bearwatch: Monitoring Impacts of Arctic Climate Change using Polar Bears, Genomics and Traditional Ecological Knowledge’.

In the summer of 2019, just before I joined the project in the fall, two workshops were co-organized to discuss and document community testimonies on the multiple impacts of the polar bear quota reductions on Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members.

The recordings of these workshops and its accompanying notes were transferred to me in 2020. I was requested to translate Gjoa Haven’s experiences into an academic publication, as to share them with a larger academic audience.

This "assignment" made me feel uneasy however;

"Who was I to convey the lived experiences of people who I had never even met, and provide context to a situation that I had no connection to?"

What would you do?

The most straightforward solution to these questions seems to be to organize a call with the Gjoa Haven HTA, and have a conversation about what they expect from such a publication. The Principle Investigators of the project are supportive and are willing to organize such a meeting.

"Keep going" to find out what happens after setting-up this call.

Or,

First gather more information on the workshops that were conducted in 2019. "Detour to Cut 3".

Or,

"Stay with the Trouble", to explore some of the complexities underlying such a project.

Stay with the trouble: The Politics of Recognition

Detour to Cut 3: Workshops Summer 2019

Ongoing Conversations[edit]

With support of my supervisors a special meeting with the Gjoa Haven HTA was organized to discuss how they wanted their testimonies to be shared. A total of five separate meetings took place between the Gjoa Haven HTA, myself, and three BearWatch PI’s In 2020 and 2021 - each lasting about three hours.

Among multiple other insights, this led to a clear articulation of the main objectives of Gjoa Haven HTA representatives for publishing their experiences;

We realized that additional avenues of knowledge creation were needed in parallel to academic publishing, if we were to pursue such a broad spectrum of recognition.

You have run into an "Ice-Pressure Ridge".

It's 2020 and we are in the middle of a Covid-pandemic.

Feel your way across the Ice-Pressure Ridge to understand how this work with the Gjoa Haven HTA was subjected to conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ice-pressure ridge: Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts

[1] Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (2005, 8 March) Polar Bear Management Memorandum of Understanding for the management of the ‘M’Clintock Channel’ polar bear population. [Memorandum of Understanding]. Cambridge Bay

[1]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=Point of beginning=
+<small>Estimated time to follow this cut without detours: 20 minutes (excluding 20 minutes animated graphic documentary.)</small>
-This manuscript/cut and its related work emerges from five years of ongoing conversations between representatives of the Gjoa Haven’s Hunters and Trappers Association (HTA) in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut (figure 1) and Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario researchers. It is based on a series of community-based workshops conducted in the summer of 2019 for a ‘Genome Canada’ sponsored large-scale polar bear monitoring project entitled “BEARWATCH: Monitoring Impacts of Arctic Climate Change using Polar Bears, Genomics and Traditional Ecological Knowledge” – hereafter, simply, BW.
+''"We want our “Voices of Thunder” to echo everywhere. We want everyone to know what happened to us. We seek acknowledgment and apologies for suffering the consequences of the quota regulations; a loss of culture and knowledge, as well as increased danger due to the rising number of polar bears around our communities. Inuit knowledge in terms of accuracy and inherent value needs to be recognized and better acknowledged. We want better integration of Inuit knowledge in survey research, like for example accounting for seasonal changes. Scientific monitoring surveys have limitations, we ask that researchers will recognize and take Inuit observations more seriously".''
-[[File:(color) Figure 1 Map of the MC PBMU..jpg|thumb|Map of the M’Clintock Channel Polar Bear Management Unit area (Vongraven and Peacock, 2011). Adapted with permission to include the locations of Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak, who each hunt within this area.]]
+Gjoa Haven HTA (2021)
-Several Inuit communities across Inuit Nunangat (homeland of Inuit of Canada’, ITK, 2018)  have collaborated with the BW project to combine Inuit Knowledge with western science in developing a community-based, non-invasive, genomics-based toolkit for the monitoring and management of polar bears. One of these collaborating communities is Gjoa Haven, whose Hunters and Trappers Association (HTA) representatives have a research relationship with BW co-PI Peter Van Coeverden De Groot that has stretched across more than 20 years. Over the years, one issue that was brought up repeatedly by Gjoa Haven HTA representatives and other community members, concerned the effects of severe polar bear hunting quota reductions introduced to the community in 2001.
+=Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven)=
-The M’Clintock Channel (MC) Polar Bear Management Unit (PBMU) used by hunters from Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak (see figure 1), was in 2001 subjected to a three-year polar bear moratorium (a full suspension of hunting). In 2005, the moratorium was lifted and Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) for alternating quotas of one and two tags per year, while Taloyoak did not sign the MOU at all, and therefore did not receive any tags from the MC management unit between 2001 and 2015. Both Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay- unlike the residents of Gjoa Haven- however, also have traditional hunting grounds outside of the MC PBMU. So, when the quota in MC PBMU was significantly reduced from an average of 33 bears annually before 2000 (US FWS, 2001), to only 3 bears annually (NWMB, 2005), the community of Gjoa Haven was disproportionately impacted. No other community in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories has experienced such a (near) moratorium over such an extended period of time. Despite a more recent rise in tags in 2022, these impacts continue to be felt today. Hunting polar bears is an important part of Inuit culture. It facilitates inter-generational knowledge transmission of on-the-land skills, and provides a significant source of income within Inuit mixed-economies (Dowsley, 2008; Wenzel, 2011). After two generations of hardly being able to hunt polar bears, Gjoa Haven hunters still seek recognition for the impacts such quota-decisions have had in terms of lost income, loss of culture, and loss of intergenerational knowledge transfer.
+This is a view across Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven), Nunavut. Most of the events along this cut take place in this community.
-This work invites you to accept testimony to these ongoing impacts of such severe quota reductions through the recorded experiences of Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members. Such accepting testimony, however, isn’t limited to a ‘passive reading’ of the quota impacts on the community. You are instead invited to explore your own positioning- as a reader, a scientist, and collaborative meaning-maker responsively, alongside several other agential forces. What does it mean to ethically engage with these narratives? What responsibilities do we bear as readers? How are we implicated? What does it mean in the thick moment/um of reconciliation to share or accept testimony in accordance with the guiding principles of the [[Ethical Space of Engagement]] (Ermine, 2007)?
+[[File:GjoaHaven2021Aug25_1_1.mp4|border|centre|600px|Uqshuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven) filmed by Peiwen Li (2021)]]
-'''''Text will be added here - see google doc'''''
+Uqshuqtuuq is pronounciated: [uq.suq.tuːq], meaning "lots of fat" in Inuktitut (the language spoken by Inuit), referring to an abundance of marine animals like seals. Its English name, "Gjoa Haven" is pronounced : [Joe.ha.ven] and was given by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen during his expedition to find the Northwest passage. Gjoa Haven was named after his wooden ship "Gjoa". It is the only hamlet on King William Island, located in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, Canada. Its current population is estimated around 1400 people.
+My name is Saskia de Wildt, and I visited Gjoa Haven for the first time in 2021- during the second year of my PhD research.
-=<span id="purveyor of voices"></span>From purveying voices towards accepting testimony.=
+By then, however, I already knew quite a bit about the history of polar bear hunting restriction in Gjoa Haven.
-In the summer of 2019, two [[Workshops Summer 2019|workshops]] were co-organized to discuss and document testimonies on the multiple impacts of the polar bear quota reductions on Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members. The recordings of these workshops and its accompanying notes became the primary materials which were transferred to me, as a new PhD student on the BW project in 2020, to be described in an academic publication, and presented to a larger academic audience.
+<div class="next_choice">'''"Keep Going"''' to read what I had learnt before I ever came to the community.
-As a researcher who had not yet set foot in the community of Gjoa Haven, such an "assignment" made me feel uneasy; Who was I to write an academic paper that conveyed the lived experiences of people who I had never even met? Viewing the writing on such a sensitive topic as polar bear quota reductions, as a mere descriptive practice- disconnected from the wider research landscape within which they emerged- did not only strike me as unethical, it also seemed impossible. It is hard to separate the practices of a research project like BW, that is directly focussed on the methodologies of polar bear monitoring, from the subject of harvest quota- considering that quotas are set, at least partially, based on the insights derived from such monitoring efforts. As such, it seemed particularly important to proceed with caution and with a sensitivity to how the BW project, and its non-Inuit researchers, are entangled with the larger legacy of scientific polar bear monitoring surveys and management processes that contributed to the impacts as shared in the workshop. Most crucial to such an approach became the extended conversations between the Gjoa Haven HTA representatives, myself and university-based BW PI’s.
+Or,
-==Ongoing conversations==
+Take a '''"Detour"''' to read an abstract of this cut</div>
-The choice to continue close collaboration between Gjoa Haven representatives and BW researchers when it came to the processing, interpretation and presentation of the workshop recordings was crucial. Not in the least, to discuss the purposes to which the community had requested the workshops, -the recording, and the sharing of these experiences? And what role university-based researchers should play in achieving such purposes?
+<span class="detour link" data-page-title="Cut 1 Abstract" data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Cut 1 Abstract|Detour: Abstract]]</span>
+=Inuit and Polar Bears=
+Polar bears and humans share an important relationship in Inuit culture.
-==<span id="output"></span>Voices of Thunder; Testimonies of polar bear quota reduction impacts in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut==
+Within Inuit ways of knowing and being, polar bears are to be respected as powerful predators, and appreciated for being a source of sustenance.
+In Canada, Inuit have a right to hunt polar bears. Such hunting takes place under "harvesting quota" regulations, and are managed per Polar Bear Management Unit (PBMU). Hunters from Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak share the M’Clintock Channel (MC) PBMU.
+[[File:(color) Figure 1 Map of the MC PBMU..jpg|thumb|500px|Fgure 1: Map of the M’Clintock Channel Polar Bear Management Unit area (Vongraven and Peacock, 2011). Adapted with permission to include the locations of Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Taloyoak, who each hunt within this area.]]
+=Polar Bear Quota Reductions=
-==Voices of Thunder impacts paper==
+At the start of this century, however, polar bears seemed to be declining in numbers, and the hunting quota in the MC PBMU was severely reduced.
-==Voices of Thunder Motion Graphic Documentary==
+Between 2001 and 2004 the MC PBMU was subjected to a three-year polar bear moratorium (a full suspension of hunting).
+And in 2005 Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU<ref>Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (2005, 8 March) Polar Bear Management Memorandum of Understanding for the management of the ‘M’Clintock Channel’ polar bear population. [Memorandum of Understanding]. Cambridge Bay</ref>) with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB) for alternating quotas of one and two tags per year until 2015, while Taloyoak did not receive any tags from the MC management unit between 2001 and 2015.
+<small><references /></small>
+=Impacts for Gjoa Haven=
+Both Taloyoak and Cambridge Bay- unlike the residents of Gjoa Haven- however, also have traditional hunting grounds outside of the MC PBMU. So, when the quota was so drastically reduced, the community of Gjoa Haven was disproportionately impacted.
+No other community in Nunavut or the Northwest Territories has experienced such a (near) moratorium over such an extended period of time.
+[[File:Signing MoU (drawing by Danny Aaluk, 2021).png|thumb|Signing the MoU (illustration by Danny Aaluk, 2021)]]
+=Seeking Recognition=
+After two generations of hardly being able to hunt polar bears, the Gjoa Haven hunters and Trappers Association have asked the researchers of the BearWatch project to help them gain recognition for the impacts such quota-decisions have had in terms of lost income, loss of culture, and loss of intergenerational knowledge transfer.
+<div class="next_choice"> Notice, that you have stumbled upon a Vista. This Vista is a viewpoint, it will help you orient. This one is called "The Ethical Space of Engagement".
+'''"Check out the Vista"'''
+Or,
+'''"Keep Going"''' to learn more about my PhD research in the BearWatch project, sought to assist in sharing the impacts of these quota reductions across multiple audiences.
+</div>
+<span class="pop-up vista link" data-page-title="Ethical_Space_of_Engagement">[[Ethical Space of Engagement|Vista: The Ethical Space of Engagement]]</span>
+=Joining the BearWatch Project=
+My PhD research is part of a larger project: ‘Bearwatch: Monitoring Impacts of Arctic Climate Change using Polar Bears, Genomics and Traditional Ecological Knowledge’.
+In the summer of 2019, just before I joined the project in the fall, two workshops were co-organized to discuss and document community testimonies on the multiple impacts of the polar bear quota reductions on Gjoa Haven hunters and other community members.
+The recordings of these workshops and its accompanying notes were transferred to me in 2020. I was requested to translate Gjoa Haven’s experiences into an academic publication, as to share them with a larger academic audience.
+This "assignment" made me feel uneasy however;
+'''"Who was I to convey the lived experiences of people who I had never even met, and provide context to a situation that I had no connection to?"'''
+<div class="next_choice"> What would you do?
+The most straightforward solution to these questions seems to be to organize a call with the Gjoa Haven HTA, and have a conversation about what they expect from such a publication. The Principle Investigators of the project are supportive and are willing to organize such a meeting.
+'''"Keep going"''' to find out what happens after setting-up this call.
+Or,
+First gather more information on the workshops that were conducted in 2019. '''"Detour to Cut 3".'''
+Or,
+'''"Stay with the Trouble"''', to explore some of the complexities underlying such a project.
+</div>
+<span class="pop-up stay-with-the-trouble link" data-page-title=" Politics_of_Recognition " data-encounter-type="Stay-with-the-trouble">[[Politics of Recognition|Stay with the trouble: The Politics of Recognition]]</span>
+<span class="detour to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring the BearWatch Project" data-section-id="10" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Wayfaring the BearWatch Project#Going on the Record|Detour to Cut 3: Workshops Summer 2019]]</span>
+=Ongoing Conversations=
+With support of my supervisors a special meeting with the Gjoa Haven HTA was organized to discuss how they wanted their testimonies to be shared. A total of five separate meetings took place between the Gjoa Haven HTA, myself, and three BearWatch PI’s In 2020 and 2021 - each lasting about three hours.
+Among multiple other insights, this led to a clear articulation of the main objectives of Gjoa Haven HTA representatives for publishing their experiences;
+[[File:Gjoa Haven's Appeal.mp3|thumb]]
+We realized that additional avenues of knowledge creation were needed in parallel to academic publishing, if we were to pursue such a broad spectrum of recognition.
+<div class="next_choice">You have run into an '''"Ice-Pressure Ridge"'''.
+It's 2020 and we are in the middle of a Covid-pandemic.
+Feel your way across the Ice-Pressure Ridge to understand how this work with the Gjoa Haven HTA was subjected to conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic.</div>
+<span class="redirective ice-pressure_ridge link" data-page-title=" Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts " data-section-id="0" data-encounter-type="ice-pressure_ridge">[[Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts|Ice-pressure ridge: Covid 19 Personal Whereabouts]]</span>