February 12th- Aurora Borealis and Traditional Hunting Tools

Another thing on the bucket list.. See the Aurora Borealis, or more commonly referred to as the Northern Lights!

The presenter started off the day with describing what the Northern Lights are. They are lights of green, purple, pink and white that dance in the icy skies on the North. There are many legends and myths behind these lights as signals of changing weather and signals of impending doom. There was a long held belief that sunlight was being reflected off of the polar ice caps to create the Aurora Borealis but actually, energized particles entering earth's magnetic fields from the North and South Poles make up the aurora. The best time to see these astounding acts of nature are between 10pm-3am daily, and they are best seen in late fall, winter and early spring. 

I truly hope to be able to see these in person someday. I find it so amazing and surreal that the Earth that I am apart of is capable of such beauty 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcfWsj9OnsI

A beautiful time-lapse video of the Northern Lights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc3FxNXjBs0

The Northern Lights in Finland.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/northernlights

So beautiful!

Joe was the second presenter of the day and chose to do his topic on Traditional Hunting Techniques and Tools in the Arctic. Hunting and trapping techniques throughout the region have remained quite similar. Trapping became very extensive during fur trade, especially for the Arctic Fox. To catch one, the traditional Inuit would build an igloo structure out of rocks and leave a hole at the top, and once baited, this would become the trap. When hunting for wolves, the Inuit would take a knife and cover it in layers of frozen seal blood and this would cause the wolf to bleed to its death. Caribou were a vital part of their hunting and they would use everything from their skins, bones, antlers and meat. When fishing, the lure was the most prominent tool used. The Inuit would craft many different lures using various bones, shells and antlers. Seal Hunting was the largest and most important aspect of the Inuit diet. The hunters would use their dogs to track down seals through their breathing holes. Once the seal resurfaced to these holes, they would would spear it to death with a tool called a "unaq". 

Joe raised two good discussion questions. He asked "What are the positive and negative aspects of the traditional techniques?" and "Does the invention of the rifle and new techniques help or kill the Inuit culture?". I feel that there are many positive aspect of the traditional techniques, including the fact that the Inuit can live so close off of the land. They aren't using anything high-tech to catch these animals and that definitely makes it a lot cheaper for them to hunt. The negative aspect of the traditional techniques could be that it takes quite a bit longer to catch the food than it would be to use a rifle, or a modern-day tool. I do worry that the invention of the rifle is helping to "put a nail in the coffin" of the Inuit culture. The Inuits need to continue to implement both modern day and traditional techniques so that the older techniques are not lost. 

http://naindians.forsyth.wikispaces.net/Inuit

An "Unaq"

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_male_arctic_char.jpg

One of the most common types of fish fished for, the Arctic Char

I hope that you have enjoyed reading up on these two presentations! I could of posted a thousand videos of the Aurora Borealis and would never get sick of looking at all that beauty! 

But until next time..

Janelle

February 5th - Food Relationships & The Dovekie

The first presentation of the day was on Food Relationships and was the presentation that I chose to blog about. Food symbols play a vital role in social, political and cultural aspects of lives. It is a great way of connecting families and bringing communities together. The presenter then discussed the lack of suitable land to grow food on in the North and how expensive food is northern communities compared to a grocery store down here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz0YYkvG_Lg

This video is a more comical look at the extreme prices of food in the North.

The presenter raised a good point when saying that animals are on a great majority of Canadian coins. The term "buck" which derivers from the Hudson Bay Company's price of a beaver. I found this point to be interesting because I honestly though a "buck" was just a nickname that we had given to the loonie. The presenter also pointed out that we have animals on 4 of our 7 coins that are currently in circulation, which is another fact that I have really never paid a lot of close attention to.

http://coins.about.com/od/worldcoins/ig/World-Coins-Gallery-Index/Canadian-Money---Coins.--0Q.htm

Lastly, the presenter played a video on nourishment and posed the question of "What does nourish mean to you?". To me, nourishment represents the idea of being full from food with proper nutrients. I think nourishment is often something that is forgotten about, we eat because we need to, when we should be eating healthy because we enjoy it. 

So I pose the question to you.... What do nourish mean to you? What foods do you feel nourished by?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvIcUdBzyI0

Until next time,

Janelle

January 31st- The Wolverine and Climate Change (Impact on Subsistence in the North)

The wolverine, also known scientifically as the "Gulo Gulo", are from the weasel family, range between 66-68 cm in height and weight about 17-40 pounds. They live very solitary lives and are very shy animals. They wolverine is also well-suited for the cold, as they have dense fur and a very thick padding on their feet. The wolverine is a carnivorous animal, and are capable of taking down animals much bigger than them. The presenter raised the question of how to prevent wolverines climate from changing. Honestly, in the short-term, there is nothing that we can do to prevent their climate changing, there is only long-term fixes such as attempting to slow global warming by changing our habits. With the snow-melthing, we need to start to attempt to slow global warming now, as the wolverines may soon lose their habitat as well. 

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids/animal-facts/wolverine.asp

The range of the Wolverine in the North.

The last presentation of the day was a presentation on Climate Change and the Impact that it has on the subsistence in the North. 

The presenter focused on the key subsistence issues faced by a small community called Sachs Harbour. I found it interesting specifically how the Inuit people of these community have modified their coping strategies to adapt to the subsisitence resource issues. They have to change their timing, location, method (to an ATV) which can leader to soaring prices, and hunting different species. There are cultural limits to this adaptability to as the traditional Inuit didn't use tools such as ATVs but with increasing modernization, this can also be seen as a good thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOZ5LLA-SKg

A documentary showcasing climate change in Sachs Harbour.

It has been another interesting day of presentations and I can't wait to hear more!

Janelle

Igloo Building

The day that I have been looking forward to all has semester has come and gone. This was by far the best experience I've ever had so far in a university class! I didn't really know anyone in the class going into the Igloo Building Day, but once you spend the better part of 12 hours with them, you really get to know your classmates! I think this is an exciting aspect of the class, with it being a smaller class size, it is a little more personal of an interaction between your fellow students and professor.

You would think that living in Manitoba, I would own all of the essentials for spending a day outside.. Wrong! As I packed up my things the night before I realized that I was not at all prepared for the cold that I was about to face the next day. I had forgotten my winter jacket at my boyfriend's place in Saskatchewan, I had left my winter boots at my parent's home in Brandon and my mitts were nowhere to be found. After borrowing all these essentials from my roommates I was set for a day out at Lyncrest Airport. 

I made sure to leave quite early (around 7:15 am), as I had no idea where the airport was and somehow I managed to the first student there! Once more students arrived, we got right into cutting blocks in the snow drifts. This was not as easy as I expected.. Courtny and I worked together cutting blocks, but man.. were those things ever heavy! It took the two of us to carefully move each block away after cutting them. Once enough blocks were stockpiled, all the groups started building their igloo. I mainly helped with packing snow between the cracks, as we mostly let the boys do the heavy lifting. 

 (Photo Courtesy of Courtny Becker)

 (Photo Courtesy of Courtny Becker)

Around lunch time, we took a break from Igloo Building to eat and enjoy a presentation. A Search & Rescue Pilot taught us the do's and don'ts of signalling to an aircraft if you were to get lost in the wilderness. We then went back outside and put these tools use, and tried signalling to an airplane above us. After a few attempts, we were successful! Our signal consisted of the class sitting around in a circle, waving our arms, with a tarp being waved around in the middle of the circle also. We also had mirrors and cell phone lights that we used to aim at the cockpit of the plane. Apparently, that type of light can fill up the whole cockpit in a search and rescue plane. After telling my parent's about this experience, I learned that the man giving the presentation works for the same company as my Dad and I. 

Next, we had a skijoring presentation. Skijoring is a winter sport in which a human is pulled by an animal, typically either a horse and or a dog. In the case of the presentation, the skijorers were being pulled my their own dogs and I was amazed by the amount of discipline displayed by these dogs. 

This is a video of CBC Manitoba Meteorologist John Sauder, skijoring at the Forks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CSKmSrumw0

Once back inside, we were settling in to eating snacks and I couldn't help but notice that there was a beaver in a bag underneath a table in the middle of the room. We then had a presentation on trapping and skinning by a man named Richard. I have nothing against trapping, because they obviously take great care in what the are doing and aren't looking to harm any animals but I found it very hard to sit through this presentation as I have a very weak stomach. I did however find it interesting that Richard hunts mainly pest beavers, as I thought hunters mainly hunted hunted for personal reasons. I also liked that Richard mentioned that there is a healthy amount of beavers and by trapping them, hunters aren't in any way dwindling the beaver populations. 

I took this photo of the beaver almost ready to be skinned. 

After dinner, is when I had the most fun of the day! Our professor Jill and her husband Rick brought in various clothing from the North that they had collected during their time up there. Jill explained to us in detail what each piece was meant for and what animal it was made from. I even got to model one of the pieces myself! My jacket had a big hood on it, which was meant for carrying small children in and shelter them from the cold. 

The last major event of the day that I partaked in was the Inuit Games. I have never laughed so hard and had so much fun before! The first game we played was a trust game, where we got down on our knees in a circle and had the person in the middle "trust" us and keep them in an upright position while pushing them around the circle. For the next game, the whole class formed two lines and linked arms with the people beside us. A classmate would bounced along by the motion of arms until the very end. I couldn't stop laughing during this game and we almost ended up dropping our professor and husband on the floor during this game! Thank goodness we didn't! We also played a few more games, one which included the Head Pull Game, where a piece of fabric was put two peoples heads and they had to try to pull it off the other person's head by using the strength of their head. I ended up beating Courtny in this game so it was pretty fun! 

Alas, the end of the day came and it was time for the people were staying the night to set up their igloos. I opted not to sleep in the Igloo as I had been battling a cold for most of the week so it was time to head home for me!

This experience has been nothing short of a blessing. I learned so many new things and I feel like this day has really strengthened me in my university degree. It will be something that I will remember for a very long time! I am looking forward to see what the rest of the semester has in store for this class.

Until next time,

Janelle

January 15th- Snow Ecology and Storytellling

Today marked the very first day of presentations! It was fascinating to see the two topics that the presenters ended up choosing, which were Snow Ecology and Storytelling. The first one on Snow Ecology really captured my attention and filled me in on details I didn't otherwise know so I chose to blog about this topic. The presentation was full of information on snow, including environmental aspects, the importance of snow to different cultures as well as the importance of snow to animals. Although I found this presentation to be overwhelmingly full of information, the presenter kept my attention, which was good. I definitely felt like I learnt a lot from this topic. 

I have included a few short videos that reiterate the points the the presenter went over in class.

The Formation of Snowflakes 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYrF3sFBY20

Sometimes the most interesting videos are the most basic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GT1QsJpDx8

Overall, two important points I took away from this presentation were:

1. No two snowflakes are alike.

                      &

2. Snowflakes aren't as pretty as we think they are.

Both of these are points I didn't know before the presentation so I'm very glad that the presenter chose this topic. I am now also looking forward to Thursday's presentations! I'm definitely enjoying this class so far!

Until next time,

Janelle

Introduction

Hello! 

My name is Janelle Harper and I'm in my fourth year of university at the University of Manitoba. I am currently working towards an Environmental Studies degree, but have applied to the Faculty of Architecture for Fall 2013 and hope to head that direction in the fall. I have always had a great interest in the environment so when my roommates told me about this class I thought it would be a perfect fit. I mean what could make a university class more fun than getting to build an igloo for a day (and for participation marks)!

The learning objectives for this class include exploring the cultural adaptations of Aboriginal peoples to the Arctic environment. I wanted to learn more about Northern Environments and that is the main reason that I signed up for this class. I also wanted to get to experience a smaller class within the faculty and this class will give me the opportunity to do so. I'm honestly just super excited to see what this class is all about! The professor seems great so far and I really enjoy the style of active learning employed in this class. 

Can't wait for the rest of the semester to unfold!

Janelle