Five Elders from Sachs Harbour came on board with 2 journalists for a tour of the icebreaker and the SOB students gave presentations on their perspectives of this week’s experience. The Chief Scientist and the Captain also presented about their work on the ship. The day ended with a workshop on merging traditional knowledge and western science on the topic of climate change. We discussed about how science was previously done in the North with scientists not communicating their work and resulted in adversities in communities towards scientific research. CFL and other programs such as NCP have been very successful in communicating research results to local communities and have established a good relationship between scientists and local residents. It is of utmost importance to transmit the message to the general public that climate change is indeed happening and exploitation of the environment in the South has caused tremendous change in the North which has not benefited from this unsustainable exploitation.


Explaining the use of air samplers for persistent organic pollutants for Elders' tour (Photo courtesy of Vincent Ho, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra)