Museum exhibit showcases Inuit knowledge of the land

Aqqaluk Lynge, president of Greenland's Inuit Circumpolar Council, is on a mission to promote and protect the Inuit concept of sila, or weather.

On March 25 his efforts were recognized when Greenland awarded ICC its top environmental prize, the Nature Award, for a project on climate change, called Sila.

The prize carries a $10,000 cash award.

The Sila project is collecting videotaped interviews with Greenland hunters to compile data on climate change.

It focuses on four species, from four regions of Greenland: polar bear in Avanersuaq in northwest Greenland, muskox in northeast Greenland, seal in southwest Greenland and Arctic char along Greenland's central western coast.

ICC, in collaboration with the University of Greenland, plans to release three books based on the Sila project.

Lynge also wrote about sila as part of a new exhibit on climate change, called "Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions within a Changing Environment," which is on display at Dartmouth University's Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire.

"Our sila sustains us and we are resolved to keep it that way for millennia to come," Lynge writes in the exhibition's catalogue. "As our sea ice thins, and as our ice caps melt, Inuit will pursue solutions to those challenges through partnerships with those who perceive sila differently from us. We are in this together, and it is that knowledge that will guide us."

The catalogue urges northern people, scientists and policymakers to find solutions to stop the planet from being "truly on thin ice."

The exhibition, which opened in January 27, is part of the International Polar Year's outreach in the United States.

The exhibition's section on "knowing when" explains how a hunter knows it is time to travel. It displays snow goggles and miniature kayaks from the Eastern Arctic, Alaska and Greenland.

Another section describes how Inuit traditionally hunted. It displays harpoons, an ice scratcher, fish hooks, fish lures, as well as prints and animal masks, from Dartmouth University's large collection of Arctic materials.

Also on display are ulus, scrapers, sewing kits, a qulliq, and even a two-thumbed mitt from Greenland designed to keep thumbs dry.

Another exhibit at the Hood Museum includes 60 works of Inuit art from the Government of Nunavut's collection, called "Our Land: Contemporary Art from the Arctic," which opened last week and will continue until May 20.