Inuit Are Embedding Sensors in the Ice Because It’s Getting Dangerously Thin

Inuit communities in Canada’s North have lived on the ice for centuries, and rely on it for hunting, transportation, and a way of life. Now, because of climate change, the ice is turning to slush. In many places, it’s becoming unsafe. So two Arctic communities are installing high-tech sea ice monitors that can track changes in the ice.

“We’re not trying to replace traditional knowledge,” said Trevor Bell of the Memorial University of Newfoundland, a collaborator on SmartICE, which is being piloted around Nain, Labrador, and Pond Inlet, Nunavut. “We’re trying to augment traditional knowledge, with new technology.”

Nunatsiavut, the self-governing Inuit region of Labrador that includes Nain, has lost 73 percent of its sea ice cover in the past four decades. In a survey of Inuit living there after the 2009/10 winter season, which was unusually warm and rainy, one-in-twelve said they’d fallen through the ice. Two-thirds of Inuit reported feeling frightened when travelling over it.