Program bridges the gap between North and South
Pond Inlet residents contribute to prize-winning community project
Myles Dolphin
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 23, 2013
MITTIMATALIK/POND INLET
An inspiring partnership between the Vancouver Aquarium and residents of Pond Inlet has yielded an award-winning program, soon to be implemented in four more Nunavut communities.
The Ikaarvik: Barriers to Bridges multidisciplinary team, consisting of members from the Vancouver Aquarium, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and ArctiConnexion, was one of three recipients of a $325,000 prize awarded during the ninth annual ArcticNet Scientific Meeting in Halifax, N.S., on Dec. 11.
The award recognizes the work completed in 2011 when Ikaarvik partnered with Pond Inlet Arctic College instructor Shelly Elverum to bring a dozen students south to meet with government agencies and work with staff at the aquarium.
Students from the college's Environmental Technology Program (ETP) met with researchers in Ottawa first, and then at Laval University, to build a stronger bond with the scientists, who spend time near Pond Inlet.
The students also had the opportunity to voice their concerns directly to important policy makers, and to get a better understanding of how they operate in the North.
Finally, the students spent time at the Vancouver Aquarium helping staff review exhibits, programs and workshops and educating visitors on traditional values and Northern living.
Ikaarvik team leader Eric Solomon, who is also director of Arctic Programs at the aquarium, said the purpose of the program is to help up and coming leaders to better understand science and how they could use it to help their community meet its needs.
"We also wanted them to help out at the aquarium, which communicates to millions of southern Canadians about the Arctic. We wanted their help to do it more accurately and with a more Northern perspective."
Solomon said it was also a great way to convey important Northern issues to a southern audience who might not otherwise be aware.
"If we really want to see improvements in issues that are important, the Canadian public needs to understand these issues better in order to effectively participate in being part of the solution," he said.
"Most of what we hear in the south are sound bytes and headlines. This changed the way the aquarium approached communication about the North to its audiences."
The prize money will be used to expand the successful program to Kugluktuk, Gjoa Haven, Cambridge Bay and Pangnirtung over the next year.
Pond Inlet will be involved as a mentor community, with participants of the 2011 trip helping to prepare residents of those communities for their trips.
Four new Canadian zoos and aquariums have been chosen to take part in the next phase of the project - the Toronto Zoo, the Ecomuseum Zoo, the Assiniboine Park Zoo, and the Aquarium du Quebec.
"The goal is for them to go through a similar kind of transformation and to gain better northern perspectives and understanding," Solomon said.
Students from the four communities will prepare for their trips by identifying the issues and priorities they have in their areas which science might be able to assist with.
Once they've identified them, they can be matched up with researchers who can best help them address their needs.
Trevor Aariak, one of the Pond Inlet mentors, said the Environmental Technology Program has given him a greater sense of balance that will provide tools to let concerns of the Inuit to be heard.
"It prepared us for the National Energy Board's proposal on the Baffin Bay seismic testing and to have more baseline studies of Bylot Island," he said.
"We know that the environment involves everything around us, so it is best that we get prepared for the scientific era, where science is a methodology that involves many things. As they say, fight fire with fire by using science."
Shelly Elverum, the Environmental Technology Program instructor and Northern co-ordinator for the ongoing project, said the pilot program was so successful its participants petitioned to make it last another year.
The program ran for 25 years based in Iqaluit but the involvement with Pond Inlet was the first time it took place outside the capital.
"It was intended to be for a year but there was so much success in the program, the students petitioned to have it for a second year," she said.
"The college didn't have any funding for it but fortunately Baffinland Iron Mines stepped in to provide funding for the second year."
She said most students who took the program ended up flooded with job requests upon graduating last year.
"When you're dealing with mining, oil and gas, and research up here, there's such a desire for southern-based institutions to work with Inuit but they don't always know where to find them," Elverum added.
"Trevor is a symbol of everything the program is intended to do. You take a generation of people who might not be on council or with the HTO, who have a really strong dedication to ensuring Inuit have a voice in science. It's taking the ability to work between science and traditional knowledge."
Elverum said she doesn't know how many of the participants will be able to take part in the next phase of the project, but added it was one of their goals upon graduation.
"The beautiful thing is they're recognizing the need for this around the territory and want to be a part of the solution."
