Unusual incidents are being reported across the Arctic Inuit families going off on snowmobiles to prepare their summer hunting camps have found themselves cut off from home by a sea of mud, following early thaws there are reports of igloos losing their insulting properties as the snow drips and refreezes of lakes draining into the sea as permafrost melts and sea ice breaking up earlier than usual carrying seals beyond the reach of hunters. Climate change may still be a rather abstract idea to most of us but in the Arctic it is already having dramatic effects the Arctic Ocean could soon become virtually ice free in summer the knock on effects are likely to include more warning cloudier skies increased and higher sea levels scientists are increasingly keen to find out what’s going on because they consider the Arctic the canary in the mine for global warming a warming in store for the rest of the world.For the Inuit the problem is urgent they live in precarious balance with one of the toughest environments on earth. Climate change whatever its causes is a direct threat to their way of life. Nobody knows the Arctic as well as locals which is why they are not content simply to stand back and let outside experts tell them what’s happening in Canada where the Inuit people are jealously guarding their hard won autonomy in the changing environmental lies in combining their ancestral knowledge with the best of modern science this is a challenge in itself.The Canadian Arctic is a vast treeless polar desert that’s covered with snow for most of the year. Venture into this terrain and you get some idea of the hardships facing anyone who calls this home. Farming is out of the question and nature offers meager pickings. Humans first settled in the Arctic a mere 4,500 years ago surviving by exploiting sea mammals and fish. The environment tested them to the limits sometimes the colonists were successful sometimes they failed and vanished but around a thousand years ago one group emerged that was uniquely well adapted to cope with the Arctic environment these thule people moved in from Alaska bringing sleds dogs pottery and iron tools. They are the ancestors of today’s Inuit people.Life for the descendants of the tudle people is still harsh Nunavut is 1.9 million square kilometers of rock and ice and a handful of islands around the North Pole. Its currently home to 2,500 people all but handful of them indigenous Inuit over the past 40 years most have abandoned their nomadic ways and settled in the territory’s 28 isolated communities but they still rely heavily on nature to provide food and clothing.Provisions available in local shops have to be flown into Nunavut on one of the most costly air networks in the world or brought by supply ship during the few ice free weeks of summers. It would cost a family around 7,000 years to replace meat they obtained themselves through hunting with meat Economic opportunities are scarce, and for many people state benefits are their only income.While the Inuit may not actually starve if hunting and trapping are curtailed by climate change there has certainly been an impact on people’s health. Heart diseases and diabetes are beginning to appear in a people for whom those have never before been problems there has been a crisis of identity as the traditional skills of hunting trapping and preparing skins have begun to disappear in Nunavut’s igloo and email society where adults who were born in igloos have children who may never have been out on the land there a high incidence of depression.With so much at stake the Inuit are determined to play a key role in teasing out the mysteries of climate change in the Arctic having survived there for centuries they believe their wealth of traditional knowledge is vital to the task and western scientists are starting to draw on this wisdom increasingly referred to as Inuit.Qaujimajatuqangit in the early days scientists ignored us when they came up here to study anything they just figured these people do not know very much so we was not ask them says John Amagoalik an Inuit leader and politician but in an recent year IQ had much more credibility and weight In fact it is now requirement for anyone hoping to get permission to do research that they consult the communities who are helping to set the research agenda to reflect their most important concerns they can turn down applications from scientists they believe will work against their interests or research projects that will impinge too much on their daily lives and traditional activities.