The people of the ice

Written by Zoe Compton, Natural Sciences Programme Officer at the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and Jacqueline Winters, Inuit Research Coordinator with Dalhousie University

There’s something about Jacqueline Winters that stuck with me. Whether it’s her Inuit way of life, so profoundly different from mine, or because within the first hour of meeting, we experienced a rare solar eclipse together. Whatever it is, I knew from the start that I’d have a lot to learn from her.  

She told me over the phone, “My favourite thing to do is go out on the land because it makes me feel connected to who I am as an Inuk.  I have three kids and I’m raising them to do the same.” I then asked her about her connection to the ocean. 

She responded, “[To the Inuit] the ocean is literally who we are.”  

Jacqueline on the sea ice in her atigik/parka made by her mother. © Dillon Shiwak

This is the story of Jacqueline—an Inuk woman whose voice is rooted in the ancestral lands of her people—and how she carried her narrative to the global stage, showing that the power of storytelling is as vital to the climate crisis as the science itself.  

In my role as the Natural Sciences Programme Officer at the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, I coordinate a working group for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Our group believes that Indigenous peoples and their knowledge systems are key to achieving, not the “ocean we want,” which is part of the Decade’s slogan, but the ocean we need.  

Indigenous knowledge systems are holistic bodies of knowledge, practices and beliefs that Indigenous peoples develop through long-term interactions with their landscapes. Passed down through generations, they are deeply rooted in cultural traditions and spirituality, and they are responsive to changing conditions and community needs [1].  

Promoting Indigenous-led ocean science was our mission at the 2024 UN Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona. Aware of our mission, a UNESCO representative contacted me and offered funding for Indigenous participation from the Arctic.  

* 

Through contacts, I learned of Jacqueline Winters, a young researcher from a remote, coastal community of 327 people called Rigolet in Nunatsiavut, Labrador. Nunatsiavut, meaning "our beautiful land" in Inuktitut, is a self-governing Inuit region in northern Canada. Its geography includes coastal barrens, tundra, and pristine rivers, and it is the site of a proposed new National Marine Conservation Area. The land supports the Labrador Inuit, who have lived there for time immemorial. The Nunatsiavut Government represents over 7,000 beneficiaries of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement, working to preserve their culture, language, and traditions. 

Demonstrating the connections between cultural heritage and modern science, Jacqueline had given a seal-skin cleaning workshop for an educational sea expedition for youth participants led by the Students on Ice Foundation.

Jacqueline hunting an adult-ringed seal. © Dillon Shiwak

Jacqueline is the Inuit Research Coordinator with Dalhousie University, overseeing a project in Rigolet entitled Sustainable Nunatsiavut Futures (SNF), which “…aims to do research in a collaborative way between academics, government and the community […] The project is contributing towards the development of long-term data sets in the region to provide support for decisions made by the self-governing Inuit region of Nunatsiavut.” [2] 

Jacqueline uses advanced tools to study the ocean’s changing conditions and survey local seabirds while honouring traditional Inuit practices like seal hunting and fishing. Her work reminds us that preserving the planet’s biodiversity also means respecting and safeguarding the cultural knowledge that has emerged from it. For non-Indigenous people, the practice of seal hunting may seem controversial, but for the Inuit people, it is life itself: a way to nourish families, a source of materials for clothing and tools, and a ritual that has bound generations to the rhythms of the land and sea for millennia.  

Indigenous voices are too often tokenized or excluded from global decision-making altogether.

Joining the efforts of many organizations working to address this, Jacqueline’s participation at the UN Ocean Decade Conference sought to challenge this norm, ensuring that Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of life are genuinely valued in shaping the future of Ocean science. 

* 

Jacqueline and I planned our travel to Barcelona so that we’d meet in Montreal en route. Her journey consisted of four flights, and on the day of departure, her first plane out of Rigolet couldn’t fly due to unsuitable weather conditions. In the casual manner of someone who is conditioned for the unexpected, Jacqueline texted me a picture of her snowmobile with the words, “leaving now!” as she set off for the regional centre of Goose Bay to catch her second flight.  

View of the ocean in Jacqueline’s community of Rigolet, captured out of her window. © Jacqueline Winters

We met in Montreal on the 8th of April, which happened to be a day that eastern North America experienced a rare and spectacular total solar eclipse. This phenomenon happens when the moon completely covers the face of the sun and only the sun’s corona is visible. While they occur every 18 months or so, you must be somewhere within the narrow path of its totality to have the full experience.  

For me and Jacqueline, that happened to be in Montreal.  

There we were: me and Jacqueline, meeting for the first time to share this strange moment in time. The total eclipse lasted a minute and 27 seconds. The sky went completely dark, temperatures fell, and birds and animals went quiet.  

It brought me to tears. The sky and the sea are the biggest, most mysterious things we will ever encounter in our lives – and I couldn’t help but think of the parallels between the vastness of the cosmos and the vastness of the oceans that Jacqueline experiences every day.

This unforgettable experience made me feel a unique bond with her – I felt incredibly lucky to share it with this amazing woman, en route to share her story of the ocean on a global stage.  

* 

On the plane to Barcelona, I pressed Jacqueline with questions about her life up north. She told me about growing up in a land where the ocean and ice are central to identity and survival. “If I’m ever having a bad day, going out on the ocean makes me feel instantly better. The ocean and ice feel like home. Not only is being on the ocean good for the soul, but my grandmother also taught me how to use the ocean for resources too – she’s known for making really good pitsik (dried fish),” she told me.

“I consider Inuit people to be people of the ice, and the ocean brings us the ice.” But the oceans are changing.  

“There are traditions that I love to do that are becoming challenging because of climate change. For instance, every spring we go seal hunting up on the Bay, but we didn’t hunt any seals there last year because a lot of the young seals we saw weren’t surviving. There wasn’t enough snow for their moms to make dens when seal pups were born, meaning they were freezing and being eaten by predators.” 

“I often think about how things were in my grandmother’s time. Mail used to be delivered by dog teams. Even though we do not use dog teams the same way today, they used to be a part of our survival and necessity. Today we mostly use them for enjoyment, which includes annual races, but in recent years races have often been cancelled because of the poor ice conditions. Upkeeping a dog team during the summer months or off-season is difficult. When races are cancelled it can be discouraging for people. It makes you question if keeping dogs are worth it, and I fear that it is a tradition that could be lost if the winter seasons continue getting shorter.” 

Acrylic painting by Jacqueline's sister Jessica Winters. Titled "Mom Splitting Fish". Our mother's hands are preparing fish for pitsik/dried fish. © Jessica Winters

“Hearing my grandmother’s stories about when she was young and what her world looked like makes me wish I could have lived in her time, when the ice freeze was more predictable, and climate change wasn’t such a big issue. Even though things were much more challenging back then, her face lights up when she talks about her childhood and things she used to do with her family. If you ask an elder about their favourite memories, usually they’ll talk about things long ago.” 

My grandmother’s pitsik/dried fish. © Jacqueline Winters

Beyond being part of Jacqueline’s community’s cultural traditions, hunting and fishing are key to Inuit food security. Resources that cannot be provided by the land are delivered by boat or by plane in the summer, and in the winter, only by plane.  

“Not only is living in the north crazy expensive for groceries, but it’s also challenging when what we need is not available. Usually by the time produce reaches Rigolet, its shelf life is only a couple of days. But if you have the knowledge to go out on the land and go hunting, it’s a steady food source, and it’s healthier. The land, ocean and ice are so important.”  

I asked Jacqueline about her fears for the future.  

Jacqueline and her son with a young seal pup in spring. © Dillon Shiwak

“I’m afraid of rising water temperatures which could affect the animals that we rely on. And I’m worried about the ice eventually not being safe to travel on anymore. While the ice is still semi-reliable now, I fear that when [my kids] are older the ice situation will have gotten worse, and an accident could be more likely to happen. It’s hard having to wait longer every year to utilize the sea ice. We need a reliable ice season.”  

* 

On the last day of the conference, Jacqueline shared her story at a reception, moving people to tears.  

Her research is more than data collection; it’s a fight to preserve her community’s way of life against the relentless impacts of climate change, while empowering her community to conduct their own ocean science. She told me, “We know the land best and what concerns us the most, so we know what should be focused on in our communities.”   

The Inuit have lived in Arctic landscapes for thousands of years – their knowledges come from a deep connection to the land and have evolved as landscapes have changed. “Living in an unpredictable environment, Inuit knowledge is vital to our ways of life and self-sufficiency.”  

Jacqueline has profoundly shaped how I view the ocean and she makes me feel a deeper appreciation for it, even while living in a land-locked urban centre.  

Stories are central to Indigenous ways of knowing and teaching. They have a unique power to reach people on an emotional level, transcending statistics and policy jargon to reveal the human stakes of the climate crisis. By sharing her personal connection to the ocean and her cultural heritage, Jacqueline not only highlights the urgency of the crisis but also invites others to examine their own connections to the environment and to see themselves as part of the solution.  

Her resilience in the face of rising temperatures, unpredictable ice, and food insecurity demonstrates her strength and the critical role of Indigenous voices in global discussions. I’m grateful for what I’ve learned from Jacqueline, a person of the ice.  

References

[1] CCUNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit (to be published in April 2025) 

[2] Dalhousie research coordinator from Nunatsiavut to speak at Ocean Decade Conference