Saying permafrost may sound like science, like melting and warming. A news story on television. But there is a community where permafrost is equivalent to saying soil, because the foundations, the houses, the schools are based on it. Stopping this drama is the fight of Inuit activists like Jennifer Kilabuk, 32, who arrived in Madrid from the Eskimo lands of Iqaluit, Nunavut (Canada) to collect the prize that the Spanish Geographic Society has awarded to Siila Watt Cloutiera prominent Canadian environmentalist who has given a voice to this community and who was unable to travel for health reasons.
Ask. You observe climate change from your backyard. What exactly do you see?
Answer. I see how ice, snow and permafrost thaw and how that impacts our homes, infrastructure, our health, food. Houses are cracking, foundations are breaking, pipes too. And mold takes over the walls.
Q. Has she always seen it or has it accelerated?
R. It is increasing, more and more people need more resources to deal with the effects in their homes. Because we don’t want to leave, it is our community, our home. We have lived there for thousands of years and we want to continue for thousands more years. Until I was 18 I thought it was normal, I didn’t know that our grandparents and parents had seen a different environment, but when you get older you start to value what elders tell you and you learn what has changed. The seasons have changed. The melting has accelerated. We have more open water. This impacts our food, access to land, our activities. Cultural continuity will not be the same.
Q. How does your diet change?
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R. Animals that depend on snow are struggling to survive, but the land is becoming dry, the hydrology is changing, new bacteria are being introduced, and they are having a harder time. The caribou, for example, can’t get food, they are dying. And people depend on hunting, which also has spiritual value. For us it is a question of identity.
Q. What is climate change for you?
R. It is the continuation of colonization. First they took the indigenous children away from their land and now it is the land that is moving away from its children. Our access to it is more difficult. Those who are lucky and have good hunting equipment and traditional knowledge can practice survival. Because it’s a matter of survival. Others don’t.
Q. What do you hunt?
R. Birds, ptarmigans, small birds to eat. I learned thanks to my grandparents.
Q. He defends living in the cold as a right. Because?
R. The cold is our identity. Without snow, without ice, who are we? It’s our culture. It defines what we are.
Q. You work at Makeway Foundation and you also make films. What does each thing mean?
R. Our motto in the organization is to help communities and nature grow together. We try to promote professions related to sustainable living and I am proud of what we do. But I’m also loving being an actress. As children and as Inuit we never saw ourselves represented in cinema, but now we do. The two films in which I have acted (The Grizzlies and The throat song) They have meant great steps, strides in the industry. Now we can see ourselves represented in films, produce, direct, act. We are blazing a trail and using our indigenous ways to change the paradigm of the industry. To tell our stories how we want to tell them. Before it was a foreign narrative, a foreign way of perceiving ourselves, but it is our turn. It’s our turn. Everything that others have done we can do. We have the ability and the right to tell our own stories.
Q. Have you seen the last season of True detective, pure polar night. Did you like her?
R. Yeah! I have friends on that shoot and I loved it. It presents our reality, our feelings about governments that poison our people and hide the truth. It is really interesting to see those Inuit women, their empowerment, their way of stirring, of working together. I felt great pride.
Q. Many complained about excess female power. A sexist hate campaign was unleashed. What did you think?
R. In my community I didn’t hear anything like that. We all watched it with enthusiasm. Women have been silenced for so long, especially indigenous women, that it is time for us to take our space, our voices to be heard. It is our turn, it is our time to speak and for the world to listen to us.
Q. Can we stop climate change?
R. Even if we stop it, the impact will continue to increase. I have a five-year-old daughter, she sits with me at the computer sometimes in meetings, she listens and repeats: “climate change is bad” (her voice breaks and tears come to her eyes). I’m afraid of what he’ll have to overcome to maintain our culture. We are very resilient, adaptable people and I know that humanity will somehow survive, but I hope that their lives are not too hard. Hopefully there is some mitigation, hopefully future generations will see the earth return to what it should be.
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