When on the ice and land — Polynya Consulting Group

By Lucas Ittulak

Edited by Agata Durkalec

Published in March 2012 in Fuse Magazine, issue 35-2 NORTH. Citation: Ittulak, L. 2012, March. When on the ice and land. A. Durkalec, Ed. Fuse Magazine, 35(2): 6-7.

Inosimmut piujuk ippigusutsiagasuatluni kamagitlugulu Kanuk sikuk ilanganiammangât kamgitlugulu Kanullu sikusimappat sikuk Kupisimappat Kupisimappat naki anugganiammangât ulitsuangalu tinitsuapat ulitsuapattâkkua kamagigiaKammângit KuppaKappat siku kitâni tinitsualuni anugganiappalonnet aullasongummat una aullasongummat Kuppanga anugi Kainiammat sivulliutluni tânna sikuk auljasok sollu anugiuniattu anuginiattumik auljasongummat Kupitluni tamanna kamagitsiagasuagialik.

1. One of the best things in life

There’s a lot of freedom when you go out on the land, especially by yourself, without nobody telling you what to do or what not to do, especially if you know the land and you’re on your own. You know the routes and which places to camp out in. That is one of the best things in life, as long as you know the land, the routes and especially if you are good in health. Trying to be healthy while you’re gone is the most important thing. Keeping away from things that make you sick — that’s one of the biggest parts of freedom in a person’s life, in an Inuk’s life. As long as you know the land, if you’ve been gone for a few days all by your own, you know the land and you feel so free. As long as there’s no sickness involved that’s the best part of life, right?

One of the healthiest things I can think of is being out on the land, especially if you are gone for a few days. It’s healthy to be away from town for awhile, especially when there’s a lot of, where there’s a lot of bad drinking going on. Being out on the land is what makes you healthy. And nothing to worry about when you’re gone off, as long as your family back home is alright. That’s one of the bad things I’m concerned about, being in a community where there’s so much drinking. To me that’s not healthy. Being out on the land is healthy, without no drinking involved. Without nothing to think about, to worry about.

2. Watching the ice and weather and finding your way on the land

One of the things that the Elder people of the past told the younger generation is to really look at the clouds. When you’re going out on the boat you have to be very careful and look at the skies all the time. When they are really dark, in the clouds, you are not supposed to go to a far distance because storms come when you see dark, dark clouds. You really have to look, always look at the clouds no matter if it’s spring, summer or winter of the year, you have to look at the clouds.

When there’s a storm on and there is a lot of snow and the snow is not so hard, one way you can find your way back to the land where you’re going to is you dig under the soft snow and you keep digging until you find tracks. The tracks already harden on the bottom and you feel the tracks to feel which way they were coming from or which way they were going. That was one of the ways that we were taught, like if we were come through a whiteout and the snow is very soft, you dig under the soft snow till you find the old hardened places where people have travelled. Just by feeling you know which way to go, or which way to go back, or the place where you’re going.

These years, the sea ice is getting worse and worse, especially in the spring of the year. Especially when you are travelling by night, it’s very hard to tell which ice is good and which is not. Especially when it’s been snowing, the good ice and the bad ice, they all look the same. So especially when you are travelling in the night, you always have to check out which part of the ice is darker than the other. The darker the ice is the better you can go, that’s a good way to travel. The white part is always going to be soft, you can sink in right away. Especially in the night you really have to watch where you’re going. Always try to go by the darker ice than the light ice because light ice is normally covered in snow.

There can be pot of water in the sea ice, when it’s just icing over. When there’s a crack in the sea ice, the high tide drifts a part of it away. While it was drifting away, it makes a pot of water, and then it would snow, and that bit of open water would be snowed over, and then later on it would ice over little bit, a thick layer of ice over it. And then it would be snowed over again. You can notice that, you have to be really careful about that kind of a situation in the sea ice, because this piece of open water covered over with snow and newly formed ice is whiter than the main, solid part, and it’s unsafe. You have to be really careful to travel over those because if you weren’t aware of that being a bowl of water, you might fall in.

3. Ippigusutsianik

One time, while I was out on the sea ice, there was crack on the sea ice. With my skidoo, I started drifting away from the main sea ice, the solid sea ice that was safe for me to be on. Because of the open water in the crack, the tide controlled what was happening, and this crack in the sea ice widened and the ice drifted away, and I was drifted away from the safe ice. In this type of situation, I always need to be prepared and be aware of what could happen by watching, no matter what situation or what condition.

That has happened to me twice when I was away on the skidoo. One time, when this happened to me, that this part of the sea ice was drifting away, I was with two young people. There were two skidoos on this piece of ice, over here, my skidoo and the other skidoo. Just when we became aware that the piece of the ice was starting to drift away, the other skidoo went really fast and full throttle across, and went over onto the safe ice, and when that happened I was on the drifting ice, the ice pan I was on drifted away. I told those two young men to stick a harpoon on the harbour ice, tie a rope on it, and I tied the rope onto my skidoo, and when the ice pan was just turning away, full throttle I went across to the safe ice.

So I have to be ippigusutsianik, I have to be conscious of what might happen, I have to be aware of what might happen, I have to be prepared. If there’s a crack in the sea ice, I would know from experience that I could easily drift away from the main sea ice. It can drift. I have to be really conscious of what could happen, and have the knowledge that even though this crack in the sea ice was small in the beginning, it can easily widen and I can find myself drifting away, and so I need to be ippigusutsianik — aware of what could happen.

4. How to survive

Whether you’re out in the sea ice or whether you’re out on land, in ponds or lakes, it’s the same, it can be unsafe. One time, around the Kiglapait Mountains when I was travelling in February, I fell in through the ice, down under the lake ice. So whether it’s on land, lake or pond, it’s the same as being out in the sea ice. I was travelling where a river flows into a lake or the pond, and it had snowed over, and so I fell in. If a river is feeding water into a lake or pond, it’s moving, it’s flowing down, and the current underneath eats away at the ice.

When I fell in through the ice, the snow I fell through was high as a house. It was during the month of February, it was really windy, really drifting snow and all that. The wind was about 100 miles an hour. Down in the bottom it was thin ice, so I fell into the water. Under the thin ice, there was about an inch of air between the water and the snow up on top. Using my fingernails on the bottom of the ice, I was able to hold on and take little breaths, and when the others heard me shouting, they threw ropes down and were able to save me. When I was being hauled out of that water, I tied the rope up around my waist, and I also had a rope in my mouth.

When that happens to you, you don’t think you should be afraid, there’s nothing to be scared of. You’re just living through it, and come out safely from it. Some people might panic and be afraid of what’s going to happen. But real hunters and travellers have to be always be conscious, be aware of what could happen and be prepared for it. That way they survive.

5. Times are changing fast

I feel that the times are changing so fast lately; it wasn’t like this before. It’s very difficult these days, even for an experienced hunter. The conditions these days on the sea ice are so very unpredictable. Very, very unpredictable. Just for example, I used to go to my wooding place just outside of Nain, and I was there last year, and the ice was already bad. That was the middle of winter. The place I’m talking about is over at Itilialuk, north of here. That’s where I used to go wooding before. And just a couple of years ago, two people went through the ice and perished. That path is no longer safe, even in winter. I was with a bunch of people coming back from North, coming to Nain, and we were the ones who saw the person floating and that one of the hardest things that I went through in my lifetime, to see a person just floating and the other could not be found. A few years back, the place that I’m talking about was always safe in the middle of winter, the thickness of the ice was so deep, even though the tides there are very strong, but this year it’s very unstable.

Our young people these days have to have an understanding of how the ice patterns are changing. One of the safest ways for people travelling that way is test the ice first with an axe. If it goes through, it’s not safe to go on the ice. I always check the ice before I go on it to see what the thickness is like. And now in the spring of the year, the ice that we have now is going to melt through from the bottom. Instead of on top, it’s going to melt from the bottom up. So you have to check to see the thickness of the ice.

Just a few years back, we’d go way outside on the outer islands to do the hunting, either by skidoo or by dogsled. When all of the bays here were already open, outside was all solid ice. It’s not like that anymore. I haven’t been there now for many years because of the changing. This force — you might call it global warming — is going to continue, it’s going to be worse. That’s Inuit knowledge.

Editor’s Note —
As part of a research project on the relationship between sea ice and community health in Nain, Nunatsiavut, I had the privilege of meeting with Elder Lucas Ittulak several times. The narratives here are excerpts from the English translation of some of our interviews and meetings, with my awkward questions and the back-and-forth of translation removed to focus the attention on Ittulak’s stories. The last paragraph of piece 2, and pieces 3 and 4 were recorded on 20 July, 2010, with translation from Inuttitut — the Labrador Inuit dialect of Inuktitut — by K. Naeme Merkuratsuk. Pieces 1, 2 and 5 were recorded on 29 March, 2011, with translation by Wilson Jararuse. As Ittulak said at the end of our last meeting, “this research, as a translation of participants’ stories, represents the traditional Inuit knowledge of land and sea ice, the Inuit traditional way of life, and these things are not to be erased anymore.” –A. Durkalec

About Lucas Ittulak

Lucas Ittulak was born in Ikigasakittuk, Northern Quebec on April 9, 1940 to parents Joshua and Maggie Ittulak. After his mom passed away at the age of six his family moved to Northern Labrador and his father remarried to Lily Ittulak. He does not remember moving from Northern Quebec, but remembers the land Ramah. When they first moved to Labrador Lucas attended school for three years in Nain and remembers only being taught in Inuttitut and when he tried to speak in English he would get spanked. Most of Lucas’ life was spent out on the land hunting, and to this day he still hunts and traps at the age of 71.

Lucas Ittulak inolisimajuk Ikigasakittumi, taggâni Quebec-imi Aprel 9, 1941–nami angajukKânut Joshua ammalu Maggie Ittulâkkonut, anânanga inogunnai- niammat nolautsima- jut sâksinik jâriKatluni Taggânut Labrador- imut. Atâtanga aippatâgiallaniatluni Lillu Ittulâmut. IkKaumangituk noniammat Taggânit Quebecimit, tâvatuak ikKaumajuk nunamik taijaumik Ramah. Sivullimi Labradoriliagami Lucas ilinniaviliasi- majuk pingasunik jârinik, ammalu kisianni Inuttitut ilinniatitautluni ammalu uKasimajuk uKâvigogasuagami Kallunâtitut âniuttatauKattasima- juk patittauKattatlu- nillu. Lucas inosinga iniKaluasimajuk nunatsuami, ammalu ullumimut pinasuaKattajuk mikigianiaKattatlunillu 71-nanik jâriKajuk ullumi.