For over 30 years, Reuben Flowers has been documenting the changes unfolding in the North.
The Inuk life skills teacher from Hopedale has spent decades jotting down daily observations of the weather conditions and ice levels in the capital of Nunatsiavut.
And his journals are proof that the climate is changing.
“The ice is definitely thinning,” Flowers, 57, told Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild. “When I was a child, it was much thicker then.”
For many communities in the North, ice is present for six to nine months of the year, and is an integral part of the landscape.
During the winter, when the ferries stop and flights could be disrupted, ice connects communities. They become roads for people to traverse and hunt for food and materials such as arctic char, seal and firewood.
Climate change, says Flowers, disrupts the land and ice that have sustained Inuit people physically, …