“I wish that what fell onto the sea ice and onto puddles could be studied. It feels greasy.”

“In the 1990s the ice caps really start to melt, which makes rock more visible. Certainly, the ice caps are melting on Devon Island. The trail we used to go to Eureka is also melting and many rocks are on the surface now.”

“Grizzlies seem to be more numerous. Cached caribou would normally not be disturbed. But some people cached at Aberdeen and they had 20 caches and every single one was emptied.”

“From the time that I was growing up to now I have been eating caribou. I know what to expect in meat and the health of caribou. Compared to years ago the percentage of caribou caught is more often unhealthy. In many ways, sores on their limbs, usually identifiable sicknesses—pus on the limbs or sores on the joints. [This] seems to occur more now then in the past.”

“When you have this packed snow it is very hard, and I think that the caribou are not eating right as they used to as they must dig to get their food. It would result in caribou not eating well enough.”

“Traditionally the hunters knew that during June and July—during the hot months—the further up inland you go the temperature is much hotter, and the animals are not very healthy. They are running around bothered by the bugs and they are not eating right. They are too hot and sometimes they are just skin and bones. The experienced hunters used to go down into the channels where traditionally the caribou there have big fat on them just like ukialiit [fall caribou]. Now you go down there to hunt looking for healthy caribou and they are not as healthy as they used to be.

“When I was growing up my father used to tagjaq (go inland) and have to cross those rivers and creeks. Now these places have dried up. We went up there a few years ago to a place where my father used to frequent as a hunting area. We were once able to put our canoe with a maximum load with all our dogs and everything, but now it has dried up.”

“Years ago the ice used to get really thick and they had to have really long ice chisels. We would use up the whole length of the ice chisel. Now we have much shorter ice chisels and we still manage to reach the water. It seems that the overall ice thickness has lessened. Also the thickness of the ice is an indication of how cold the weather is. If it has been cold it will be thick. If it has good snow coverage it is likely to be thinner, but overall it follows the climate.”

“Another thing we miss now is the qapiq, it is not happening anymore. Is it because we just don’t notice it? It is a very thin ice layer on the surface of the snow. We used to use it for a trap. We would cut an oval of snow and scrape it. This cover was used to keep it together.”

“There are lots of things that we have noticed such as there are hardly any clear skies now. There are clouds, or haze. It is always white out (qaqurnaqtuq) when you can hardly see the ground. We don’t get those clear skies anymore with very good visibility. The traditional word for it is pujurattuq—there is a lot of this now. It is not ihiriaqtuq (smoke from a fire) and there is a lot of that today. Even during clear skies. There is a lot of this [pujurattuq] now even during clear skies.