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IQALUIT - With the mercury pushing far past 20 C and into record-breaking territory, the Planning for Climate Change Symposium in Iqaluit took on added significance.

Peter Irniq from Naujaat fields questions from one of the 180 Planning for Climate Change symposium attendees, Monday in Iqaluit. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

The July 20-23 event was held to share how climate change is affecting the North, and for city planners, scientists, elders and politicians to discuss successes and concerns, share stories and build upon initiatives to slow down climate change.

Sunday's keynote speaker Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, has worked for the last 12 years as an Inuit rights advocate and has linked climate change to human rights.

Watt-Cloutier told a room of more than 180 attendees from around Canada and the circumpolar world that Northerners have a role in influencing the global policy debate to slow down or reverse climate change.

"We must lend the voices of our indigenous peoples - the human face of climate change - to the negotiations," she said, adding stories like theirs are what move climate change conventions and treaties ahead.

"It is so important that we continue to come together like this and share our experiences, because those kinds of experiences really help to influence the global change, whether we think it does or not," she said.

She added that since Northerners are the "best and closest observers" of the land and "the global barometer of environmental health," it will be the Arctic and Northern communities' observations that will determine the success or failure of initiatives to combat climate change.

"Science is catching up to what our elders and our seasoned hunters have been saying for so many years," said Watt-Cloutier.

She pointed to what is already happening in the North: coastal erosion, melting permafrost, slumping beaches, sea ice retreating, fall coming later and spring earlier, and the invasion of southern insects, animals and birds.

"Our environment and climate are becoming much more unpredictable," said Watt-Cloutier, adding, because of this, traditional knowledge and skills are becoming more difficult to pass down to young people.

On the land, she said, Inuit are automatically taught to be patient, courageous at the right time, persistent and not to be impulsive.

"These skills are so very important, and transferable to the modern world," she said.

"Our hunting culture is tied to the land and that's why, to us, climate change is very much is an issue of our right and our ability to exist as an indigenous people.

"Culture is not trivial, nor is it window dressing."

On Monday, the temperature hit 27 C - a record high - and four elders told attendees about the changes they are seeing in their communities.

"We're not just hearing about changes in the climate, we're experiencing them," said John Kaunak of Naujaat.

He said the sea ice used to be seven-feet deep when he went seal hunting as a young man. Today, it is only around four.

"It's very thin now," he said. "It melts faster."

Kaunak said seal have less fat on them and their skins are much thinner now.

Peter Irniq from Naujaat said the Inuit way of life is dependent on harvesting from the land. Warming has reduced habitat for animals such as polar bears, and later freeze-ups are interfering with caribou crossings.

He added that freeze-up used to occur in October in his community. Now it is happening in December.

Andre Tautu from Chesterfield Inlet said elders can no longer predict the weather as they used to.

"Now we see elders even falling through the ice, because they don't know what condition it is in," he said.

He added that marine animals that live in cold water will keep migrating North to colder habitat, and away from communities.

Tautu said the youth today think the world has always been like this, but they need to understand that it has not.

"Us elders aren't going to be here forever," he said. "We need to make sure we hand this information to the youth."

Tautu said Inuit values need to be translated into government policy to take care of the land and seas.

Irniq told symposium attendees they had a very important job.

"You will be able to pass on to the rest of the world what you have learned from the Inuit, the observers of climate change and global warming in Nunavut," he said.

The symposium was hosted by the city of Iqaluit, in partnership with Canadian Institute of Planners and the Alberta chapter of the group with funding from the Government of Nunavut and Natural Resources Canada.