Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Aug 08/05) - The weather is always a topic of discussion in Nunavut, and now, the federal government is spending $2.4 million to find out what elders know about it at Nunavut's three national parks.

The ecological integrity project is designed to collect and archive traditional knowledge about weather at Auyuittuq, Sirmilik and Ukkusiksalik national parks.

The project is expected to deliver annual state of the park reports, a description of each park's resources, databases of the collected oral knowledge and a marine ecosystem monitoring project.

Researchers from the University of Manitoba, Universite de Quebec and Memorial University will be overseen by groups made up of members of Inuit organizations, the government of Nunavut and Parks Canada.

By blending the traditional knowledge with science, the project is designed to blend the two schools of thought, while creating a database of the elders traditional oral knowledge.