I am an Inuk person, who hunted seals to feed my family, I live on the 72nd Degree North Latitude and see first hand the effects of global warming and Arctic Propaganda AMA.

Thanks for doing this! Way to represent Canada's North :) A few questions for you:

What is the biggest impact climate change has had on your day to day life (as well as your friends and family)?

What do think are the biggest misconceptions that Southern Canadians have about Northern Canadians?

You referenced Arctic Propaganda in your title. What kind of propaganda do you mean?

Thanks again!

seal propaganda, narwhal ivory tusk propaganda, now polar bears..need more?

So with this propoganda, I'm guessing you did this AMA cause of the Aldworth AMA. If sealing were banned in Canada, how do you think enforcement would work out in more remote areas?

Yes I did, it will never be banned in Canada, we just have zealots like aldworth not fully understanding the ramifications of her actions. In EU, the propaganda over there about seals is out of control, they do now know the impacts of their actions. we used to hunt seals to feed our families, and the skin, back then would fetch $50 each. 3 seals would feed a family for a couple days, and the skin would be sold to purchase gas and supplies to hunt again, no difference with working for a living, but instead of sitting in an office to earn money, we sold the seal skins.

Nobody hates the fact that natives are hunting seals. The problem is other people come up on ships and hunt seals to bring them back to sell for ridiculous prices. It's horrible exploitation.

that, in one sentence is the history of the Hudson's Bay Company and its entire 500 year history in the arctic!

Thanks for your answers! More questions now, haha.

1. Do you need to apply for a sealing license in Canada or are people allowed to kill seals for food without a license?

2. Would possible alternatives to Aldworth's work be putting restrictions on commercial sealing (like age, seal hunting sites, etc) or governing slaughtering practices be better instead of banning it outright?

EDIT: some words

as an inuk and a land claims beneficiary, I am free to travel around Nunavut and harvest any animal I would like to, bears and narhwals needs tags. if I had a bear tag, I would be able to hunt one locally. I do need a firearms possession and acquisition licence though. bears and narwhals are the only ones I need to get permits for. There are not many alternatives to Alsworths work, no matter what happens, it affects us. the only way to get it back to the way it was is for the US to repeal the MMPA and the EU to stop the ban on seal products, but that will not happen any time soon, I hope it will happen in my lifetime though. There is a quiet war over the Arctic, and it's natural resources, I have had used the term we are kept "in a perpetual welfare state" there are people out there that do not want the inuit to benefit from their land, or get rich, there's a much larger picture that most people do not see.

oh shit, you might not want to mention your narhwal hunting here

I pulled one out during the big cull, and have a 5 minute video of about 30 whales at one hole, and it wont be making it to youtube.

Do you mind answering my other two questions? I'm really interested how climate change impacts your day to day life :) Thanks!

does not impact day to day, season to season more so, but harder to predict weather using traditional knowledge by our elders and observation.

give me a sec here, meeting, i will answer your question in a few moments.

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press your refresh button more often, been at it now couple hours.

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and I thank you for the reminder, while answering other questions, I forgot that one.

Stop sippin' on the haterade

huh? I said thank you didn't I? LOL

Bizzare, this is the second time I get to ask this question today...

What does seal taste like?

it's hard to explain, sorry, it does not taste like crustacean or like fish. the closest I have ever been able to compare it to, in richness and greasiness, is lamb chops. funny eh. it's tender, very dark meat due to high iron content, I have yet to eat anything in the south that tastes like it. Hares up here DO taste like chicken, but they are tough meat. geese taste like wild turkey, Arctic Char taste a little like salmon, caribou tastes great! better than venison.

Thank you, that sounds delicious! For some reason Rebecca Aldworth, or someone in her thread, downvoted me for asking that.

when it's boiled it is very tender, stringy like a rack of ribs, not heavy on the flavour side, but with bbq sauce it's very good, its very rich. the oils it has actually raises the inuit person core temperature when they are digesting it, my wife always starts sweating after eating seal meat and char, it get my blood flowing too.

Oh my god, this is the first time I've ever been hungry for seal....your descriptions...

seal has been proven to be able to sustain 100% of a persons dietary needs to sustain life if we only had to eat one animal.

I had a few choice words for that thread too!

How about whale?

how about them?

I think perhaps the question was, how does whale taste?

I've had whale skin, or muktaak, yes, its different, tough, oily hard to explain the taste.

I live in Maine, and I start to go shithouse in the winter with such short days. How do you not go insane when the sun never comes up?

actually, the 24 hour sunlight gets on my nerves more than the darkness. when you wake up at 3 am and it's bright outside, your brain is screaming at you to get up, the sun is up, while your body is screaming get the hell back to bed!

Never even thought about that side of the coin. Probably really hard to get to sleep too. At $20 a pack, is cigarette smoking pretty rare?

no, I use those roll yer own and buy it by the pouch, cheaper, more than 1 smoker in the house and I aint paying 40 bucks a day for smokes!

heh, i lived in alaska for a bit and yeah the long daylight period was terrible, and the "dark" period was a very nice constant...dusk kinda feel made you feel like there was all the time in the world cause it constantly felt like morning.

yeah, I get that too! I like the darkness, easy to get used to.

What are your thoughts about Greenland? :)

great neighboors! nice and quiet!

What are the most obvious effects you have noticed? How does this impact you, your family, and culture?

The suns radiance is hotter than the south, air temperature reads 10C but it feels like 25C because of the heat on the skin, it's more radiant. People tan up here very fast because of of the radiance and being on the sea ice in the spring. the Seal Hunt has been a disaster, now the polar bears are being attacked with propaganda.

Are polar bears not in danger? Everything I have ever read shows proof of their population being in rapid decline?

the original polar bear studies indicating decline were based on bears in Alaska, not in Canada, and people just ran with it, some of our own government workers had to backtrack and take back things they've said in the media when they found out the bears were healthy.

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no, but cataracts are more prevalent.

Apologies if I sound ignorant, because I am but I'm curious:

1. Were you born in the High Arctic?
2. How modern is your life? I'm imagining igloos, huskies pulling sleds, and you hunting seals using clubs and harpoons. How accurate is that depiction?
3. How large is the community you live in? What's the demographic like? Do all of you live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle or is there a modern economy where people have 9-5 jobs, etc?
4. Do you have plans on moving into a modern city, south and further away from the effects of global warming? How difficult do you think adapting will be, and what would be the greatest barrier to adaptation?

Thanks for doing this AMA!

I was actually born in the south while my parents were on holidays, i was a preemie, 2 months early. We don't live in igloo's have not for over 50 years, but they can still be used by hunters and for emergency purposes. we have vehicles, cars trucks, boats, atv, mean mode of transportation is the ATV and snowmobile. community i live in is 1500 people. demographics is tough, more than 50% of our population is under 25 years of age. lots of modern jobs, about 20% of our population still subsides on sustenance hunting to feed their familes. No plans on moving to the big city, from where i live, a full fare return ticket to Ottawa, closes major city, is over $5,000. tough to save up when you live in some of the most expensive places on earth, gallon of milk is $14 and a pack of cigarettes are just over $20.00.

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ha, I think its still there.

Fucking thank you. My dad's from a little town in Newfoundland and they don't hunt baby seals they hunt adult seals and then they eat them. They aren't evil nor do they revel in the pain of weaker beings they just utilise all of their food sources. They've all always been dirt poor and they still barter with each other to keep a full pantry.

sad when we're living in 3rd world conditions in a first class country!

Thank you for doing an AMA. I'd love to learn more about how people in Nunavut live. I support Inuit seal trade as opposed to commercial seal trade, but most people only see cute baby seals being killed and think it's bad.

Are you witnessing the ice melting, and is it affecting the people of Nunavut's way of life?

we have noticed glaciers melting alot faster than previous years. Bylot Island's glaciers are melting faster than they used to. in the span of 30 years, we have 1 month less ice season, meaning winter comes 2 weeks later and spring comes 2 weeks sooner than in previous years.

Hi, thank you for answering some questions. I know that Indigenous rights movements have been constant and occurring in Canada for many, many years (long before the Idle No More movement and protests). In your opinion, as someone who self-identifies as Inuk, do you feel like other Inuk people (you, people in your community, or even people in the North) share the same struggles more southern Indigenous people face in Canada? The territories have a different relationship with the Federal government (politically, historically) than the provinces do, in relation to Indigenous policy and governance involving Indigenous people. Yet, do you feel that there are any major differences in the way the Federal government approaches and/or treats Inuk and other Northern Indigenous peoples in comparison to more southern Indigenous people/groups?

Hope my questions made sense! Thanks again!

all questions make sense. Yes, the feds do treat us differently, our challenges are not the same to southerners. Nunavut relies on transfer payments from the feds that equal over 1B annually. sometimes our struggles deal with more day to day stuff, food on the plate, infrastructure, housing, but we do deal with other issues too. but the ones that create the most ire to the day to day inuk is the international interferrance in our affairs, polar bears, whales, seals, etc. The federal gov admitted that they brought the inuit into communities because they had to, if they did not, other arctic countries would have challenged Canada's assertion over arctic sovereignty. The natural resources in Nunavut rival those across the rest of the country. gold, iron, diamonds, natural gas, oil, everything we have it all up here, sapphires, precious stones and minerals. that's the only reason why we are here, and are treated this way. we are taxpayers too.

What percentage of the time are you COLD! over the course of a year?

it's cold from October to April, our sea ice is finally moving away from town over the last week, we'll have open water until October. i'm cold about 8 to 9 months of the year, we joke we have 2 seasons, "winter" and "almost winter"

I wondering who your ISP is, what your speeds are and what you pay. I live in Yellowknife where NorthwesTel is the only true option (they re-sell to others who have to charge much more to profit). Also, does Pond Inlet have cellular service?

I imagine you're satellite-serviced for everything.

yeah sorry, we got cell, NWTel of course, and 2G service, bought a BlackBerry and get free long distance cross the country for 60 a month, not too bad.

HA! SSI is our service provider, I just bought this modem and pay 85 a month for 10 gigs.

Hi there! I was wondering, since you hunt seals, if you know about the myth/legend of the Selkie? I'm writing a thesis about those and other mythical creatures. Maybe you know it as Sealskin Soulskin.

we do have mythical creatures, we have a "Sedna" the woman of the seas, who created all the sea animals. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/inuit-myth-and-legend

Are elders or criminals put on packs of ice and left to float away? Sorry, this is a serious question, and it was sparked by an episode of SouthPark

no, but it was not uncommon hundreds of years ago for it to happen. when an elder was too old to even care for themselves, they have been left behind. in a winter camp, if an elder was too old to take care of, occasionally even at their own request to not be a burden to the group, they would seal the igloo shut and let them die. the camp would then move and leave the elder behind.

Icedice asked about the clubbing or harpooning... It went unanswered and I was also curious. It would seem you would have to do those things, otherwise if you just shot them they could just slip back through the ice...

traditionally, inuit used harpoons to hunt seals, which mean hours of standing by a seal hole, waiting. today, some people still use harpoons, but most are caught now using guns and seal hooks or a "niksik". we will still wait at a hole, but in the spring, when the snow is melted off the ice and the seal holes are visible, we use seal hooks, which is a large hook on the end of a stick. usually 5-6ft in length. we hook the seal, bring it up out of the hole and immediately club it. quick. guns are used in the winter when we have to wait at a hole, usually large caliber, to make sure the round goes through snow and ice to hit the catch, then the seal is harpooned or hooked so it does not sink, and the hole is made larger in case the seal cannot fit through. this is because in winter, the seal only maintains a small hole at the top of the ice, just enough to breath, while the ice beneath the last inch tapers enough to fit the seal. my longest wait time was 3 hours without moving my feet to try and catch a seal, I didn't get one

rifles are used now at long distance too, from several hundred yards.

How do the seals " maintain" a hole? How do they get the hole started in the first place? This is all very interesting, thank you for your time. Also, here in Maine they put 10% ethanol in our gas, which wreaks havoc on our watercraft/snowmachines. Do you have this plaguing you also?

seals maintain a hole by going to them, once they stop going to them, they freeze over. as the ice thickens, they use their front claws to maintain them, scraping the walls to keep it wide enough, and they have to maintain several holes in a small vicinity. Seals usually will have 10-15 holes within a square mile or so and use them all winter. it gives them the freedom to hunt fish and other food. if they only keep their noses above the water line, the top hole is small and barely visible, hard to find. once the snow is about a foot or so above he ice, they make a den by widening the opening and burrowing around the hole to make a den. .to be continued

as well, in the spring, you can tell if a hole is used by looking to the bottom of the hole, if there is ice at the bottom, it is not used. seals have very strong front flippers, if you hook a seal, and while you're pullin it out, if it gets his claws hooked on the edge of the hole, there is nothing you can do to pull it any further and will have to let it go if you are alone, as they are impossible to pull up once they do.

Thanks for the interesting AMA! How deep does the hook go in? Is it just a couple of inches under the blubber or does it go in deep? If you have to let a seal go, will it survive or die from internal injuries caused by the hook?

the hook only punctures the skin, not very deep. it would be like getting a hook stuck in your arm, we dont' use barbed hooks, so there's no flesh tearing, and should a seal unhook, it's a minor flesh wound, until we get it on the ice, I've only lost one seal by an unhook, out of many.

hands full, give me a few minutes to answer.

Question about global warming since you mentioned it in your title. Melting ice caps and rising sea levels? How has that actually affected your home, your food supply and your community?

no huge massive effect yet, but our beachline appears to be shorter over the last 20 years, plus the unusual high tides we get once in ablue moon has reached doorsteps on some houses on near the beach.

What are your religious beliefs and the Inuit religious beliefs as a whole?

Do you take offense to the term 'eskimo'? What about others in your community?

Thanks for doing this AMA, friend.

religion and beliefs are global, ever person has the freedom to believe what they wish, in my opinion.

Describe your dream date.

my wife!

• Do you take your seals to a butcher or do you prepare the meat yourself?

• Is the meat just cut into filets? Any seal sausage or ribs or anything?

• What's your favorite seal recipe?

seals are butchered on the ice, when caught, or in town prior to eating, they do not let them sit very long before they are. seals are cut up to cook them, they are not huge animals, the ones we mainly catch here are ring seals. it's not like caribou, venison, cow etc where we do steaks, its mostly consumed in one seating, if not 2. all of it can be eaten raw, cept the intestines, gallbladder needs to be thrown out and not punctured on butchering. I like my seal boiled with veggies and perhaps some tomato vegetable soup., great like that.

welcome to reddit, cool AMA! i totally respect the indigenous peoples of northern canada and your culture, my question is, how do you guys feel about paul macartney? because of his outspoken views regarding baby seal hunting?

we joke that when we see beatles, we step on em. I do know the beatles and their contribution to the music world, they are a part of history and always will be. Paul could use his powers for other benefits, he really could, but who will listen to us? I do respect him as a musician, but for a spokesperson, I wish he'd pick a different cause, and not try and keep that weathered face in the media by jumping on causes the get media attention and put him in the spotlight.

wow, good answer, thanks dafoofoo!

no problem the_fart_whisperer, I appreciate the opportunity to provide insight and a different view to things. good question!

• How much is a bag of milk up there?

• What do you do for fun?

• Is depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and prostitution/promiscuity a serious problem where you live? What about elsewhere (Iqaluit)?

• Do you plan on moving southward (eg: to Ottawa, which has a large Inuit community)?

• Have you enjoyed other benefits that also come with your NTI card (eg: free college/university education, free dental/eye care)? Correct me if I'm wrong about whether you can receive these benefits.

• Do you vote? Do you think the Nunavut government represents you fairly?

• Do you notice whether fewer people understand Inuktitut (verbal, spoken, written) than earlier in the past?

As an Inuk that lives outside of "up north" I'm mostly oblivious to these things, so I'm very interested in the answers to these questions!

14 bucks a gallon as it is all around Canada and other communities abuse is everywhere. no, not moving south eye glasses every 2 years, have not gotten any in 5 no benefits directly to me from NTI, there is free education, such as grants they have in the south, very basic health care, no community doctor, one comes every 4 months or so, no resident dentist. education not totally free yes I vote, is anyone ever really happy with their governments? yes, less inuktittut, but more prevalent in the western arctic.

I am currently studying criminology, and am working as a caseworker. I would love to move up North and work up there. I've lived in Ottawa my whole life, and I'm tired of the city people. How hard is it to live so far up North? Thanks for doing an AMA! This is awesome!

not hard to live here, but there is some adjustment, you'd prolly wind up in Iqaluit, there, or working on the circuit going to communities for the provided usual appointed lawyer stuff. it's getting into the workforce here is the harder part, plus rent and housing is effen expensive up here.

How many tribes are there at Arctic Canada? How do you organise hunts, and determine where one tribe can and can't hunt? Did anyone ever try to get to the North Pole? Do you eat vegetables, and how do you solve the low-fiber problem? Do Canada offer any help or something? Also, how do you perform weddings, borth ceremonies, funerals, etc?

Inuit are not classed as tribes and we dont' really see ourselves as first nations, but more as habitants and guardians of the arctic. we get fresh produce on the planes every week, anything perishable is flown up, non perishables are brought up via cargoship once a year, or anything that has a shelf life of a year or more. dry goods etc. veggies, frozen foods, and milks and stuff are flown up weekly.

The animals that you are allowed to hunt, are they at risk of going extinct because of the hunting?

no, we've been maintaining quotas on animals of concern for decades, narwhal and polarbears being those animals, all others are not going extinct.

What are the women like there up north? :)

great lovers!

What do seal eyeballs taste like? It's supposed to be a delicacy or treat is it not?

I have a buddy that works for APTN in Iqaluit and some of the pictures of food prices I see on his facebook page are absolutely insane. One would think the cost of transport would have somewhat of an impact on prices but not to that extent. 20.00 bucks for orange juice. What do you think really effects these prices? Is it just price gouging?

I've had seal eyeball once, bout 20 years ago, and I don't really remember what it tastes like, but if it's been that long, I'm guessing I didn't like it. a lot of people got rich on the creation of Nunavut, and continue to do so. price gauging? not wholeheartedly, as all business have hire O+M costs vs southern ones, so that's part of it too.

I fully support indigenous rights to hunt marine mammals in keeping with tradition and what not. What is your opinion of commercial whaling by nations such as Japan and Norway?

Also, how much of your diet (and/or the traditional Inuk diet) consists of gathered plant materials during from the thaw?

plant materials played a role in traditional life, there are several plants that were harvested naturally, bluberry, some roots and "qunguliq" a sort of wild rhubarb tasting plant that is sweet and tart, plus other plants, so we did have veggies back then too.

Seal oil seems to be a very useful and important drink. Is there anything else that has comparable effects, either man made or naturally found?

Seal oil was primarily used for heating the igloo, or sod house. and for light.. A hunter back in the day needed to catch a minimum of 1 seal a day in order to provide enough oil to keep the lamp lit. a seal oil lamp is called a qudliq, spelled differently qulliq, kudlik etc. seal oil is as well a good topical ointment, good for ear infections, topical cuts, rashes, etc.. a drop in the ear was good for infections. diaper rash too.. it does have its traditional medicinal purposes still, but we don't use it as much as they used to.

Do you ever considering moving South? It is somewhat amazing to a southerner (relatively South anyways) that people can survive and thrive and STAY there with basically only a few animals, rock and ice.

that question has been asked many times, I deal with international visitors, I have a regular office job, someone from Germany asked me why do people live up here? why don't they move south?? this is our home, it would be just like asking someone from the South, why don't you live in the Arctic? it's our home.

The north is a great place to live if you can adjust, it's Defs not for everyone.

*lived in NWT Nunavut and traveled all over the north in Canada.

very true! not all people can adjust to the lifestyle up here, you really need to be opened minded, and leave any pre-misconceptions at home. People who come up open minded, love it up here, and usually stay. but those are few and far between, I have travelled all over Canada too, just missing NFLD and Labrador. been everywhere else though. have travelled north America too, i'm a well travelled inuk person.

Does the canadian government really buy all inuk families a brand new snowmobile every year?

no,, if I want a skidoo, I gotta spend about 15k for one.

What is your opinion on the term Eskimo? Is it considered an offensive term amongst the Inuk people? Thanks for the AMA.

Eskimo is a Native American word for "eaters of raw meat" which many cultures around the world do. up here, we use it to describe the more traditional inuit, tongue in cheek of course.

How do you have internet?

we live in houses, like the south, igloo's are so pache and so yesterday.

Eskimo jokes- do they piss you or your peers off or do you consider them racist?

I do, just wondering what the general consensus is to the Inuit population?

I laugh at them. we can laugh at ourselves, if you can't, who then can you really laugh at?

Have you seen the Top Gear episode where they race from Resolute to the North Pole?

no

Do you think the tensions between the east and west will lead to a second cold war?

we dont' care.

plus we deal with enough cold. consensus is like, they are over there, we are over here, lets keep it that way. no turf wars up here, nothing huge anyway.

I'm a military historian, I've read quite a bit about the Cold War.

Actually a Cold War over the Arctic will be a net win for people in the Canadian North and rural Alaska because with increased tension comes increased government spending on infrastructure and communication, meaning the overall cost of living in those areas falls due to easier access to transportation.

Rural Alaska in the Aleutians and along the west coast of Alaska took a big hit in the cost of fuel, goods and transportation price spikes when the US military started shutting radar stations, naval air stations and listening posts.

Having the US Coast Guard pushing assets to the Aleutians and even North Slope of Alaska may have a direct benefit to the local populations.

lets just say..on the façade, yes we do benefit, but others do more so than we do. we don't get rich off our land, we get jobs, but the profits flow elsewhere.

back in the day when the DEW line was set up, we needed that exactly. I don't foresee the massive spending like they used to, everything now is done my unmanned vehicles and satellites. if you really think about it, it benefits southerners many times before it benefits northerners, other than the media attention. where are all these materials bough? in the south. who ships, them, southerners. who builds them? mostly southerners. who cleans them up? we do,, as we are doing now with the old radar sites.. we get publicity, but the monetary benefits go elsewhere.

Is this still going? I hope so :P!

I have a quick question. The other week, I decided to learn Inuktitut. I love how the language is made, the letters etc. Only issue is that I was only able to find the alphabet, and not much on actual words/phrases in Inuktitut. You wouldn't happen to have any suggestions as to where I can learn more than just the alphabet, do you :)?

Edit: I also feel like I should mention that I live in Australia, so it's a little bit hard for me to get stuff here :P

you can look up and purchase an inuktittut dictionary, they are available somewhere.

What's the best and worst things about being an Inuk?

the land and the freedom, worst? not sure, as compared to what?

Here's my question to you: You're incredibly adapted to living in the very challenging Arctic Circle. Your body's systems - respiratory, metabolic, skeletal, and even your cellular machinery - has adapted for 25,000+ years to live in that testing climate.

Here are my questions to you: 1. When you come to "more normal latitudes" - like the American South - is that dangerous for your people? If I moved there, it'd be very dangerous for me! 2. Also, what kind of clothes do you wear, and what brands do you endorse? I'm under the impression that you guys DON'T wear Marmot, NorhtFace, or Columbia sports wear.

I was in NY during the heat waves in 1995. our metabolisms do run differently than yours. a test was done on an Inuk man and a non native man with body temperatures. they were hooked up to temp measuring equipment and submerged a hand in ice water. the core temp of the non native man went down and fluctuated when it tried to send blood to the hand to warm it up, risking core temperature.. the inuk mans hand got cold, and stayed cold longer after it was taken out, but his core temperature did not change, the body did not risk core heat to save the hand. you'd think we'd have many more lost fingers if we did do that, but we don't we've used our traditional animals, seals as a primary mainstay, to stay alive up here. I could not handle the heat down there at the time. we did not leave our hotel rooms for long, and stayed there in the air conditions units vs going outside. I can't take too much heat, under some conditions, I go nuts, especially when im trying to sleep.

Canada Goose winter parka,s usually, nothing man made can be as warm as caribou fur. naturally, they would be in their birthday suits, with one layer of caribou fur inside and outer layer fur outside, kept you warm during -50 temps. keeps you afloat too if you should fall into water, as the fur is hollow to trap heat and sunlight.

Where will your children go to school if they don't already?

of course they do, they can complete high school up here, but would have to leave town for post secondary.

Do you ever go out seal-hunting with your best friend Tarka?

not lately no.

I know little about about these issues. Can you tell me what the "propaganda" is and how to argue intelligently against it?

read earlier comment. need more truth in the media about the arctic. why are not other parts of the world scrutinized and publicized globally? there are parts of the world where animals are going extinct at a rate of one an hour, they are not in the arctic, why are those not exploited? because they are not as media friendly as some bears are, same for panda bears too. what about the ugly animals around the world.

Do you maintain any traditional Inuk religious beliefs. If so, could you please elaborate on them. Thank you for doing this AMA.

traditional respect for wildlife and the land is always upheld, religion has taken over from shamanism though.

What's your favorite (meat I can't find at the supermarket) recipe?

steak, ribeye, medium rare with bbq sauce, sautéed onions and mushrooms on the side.

What is the coldest weather you have ever experienced? Have you ever had a near death experience due to the cold?

-55C in Yellowknife NWT, and I have had concerns about my welfare during some times in the cold, but nothing I would consider NDE compared to other people I know

What do you use as fuel for fire?

naptha, or traditionally, a plant called heather in the summer time. wild cotton was used as a wick in seal oil lamps.

What's it like hunting seal?

fun! the chase and catch, rewarding knowing you're feeding people

No q's now but just wanna say hi from another Inuk! Born in the NWT, but in bc now.

howdy! great to see a fellow inuk on reddit.

I've lived in small towns and big cities (mostly in southern Canada), but living in your town must be totally different from a small town in the south, in the winter in particular. How isolated does it feel to you? or is it more like a refuge from the rest of the world? what are your thoughts?

not too many differences, we have our small town quirks too, its' the isolation that will get to you if you think about it too much. I can only fly out of Pond, and its super expensive to move South. I like it here. I have lived in the South too, my father is Irish. I miss the conveniences, like coffee shops, good restaraunts, licenced bars, (none up here closest is 1200KM's away). I do miss southern things, but my children live here, this is their home, more than mine.

What kind of guns do you use to hunt, if any? Do you use ear plugs? How's your hearing?

I remember reading a long, long time ago that the quiet of winter punctuated by the loud gunshot causes severe hearing loss, and I wanted to know if that was a myth.

I do have a little hearing loss, probably from loud music from my youth too. yes, from gunshots too.

Of the game you listed, which are your favorite to eat? For some reason, I think seal would taste delicious.

I live in Midwest US, so we have (some) different wildlife native to the region. I grew up eating game like deer, rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, wild turkey, geese, duck, ect. Of the ones I mentioned, rabbit and squirrel are my favorites. Venison is good, but harder to prepare in a flavorful way. I'm not a big fan of wild foul.

i'd have to say caribou, cause it's like steak, only 100 natural without hormones and other injections , no factory farms.

Hey Inuk person. I'd like your opinion on why we hear more about melting ice caps when its the hottest part of summer.

Also, what do you think of the hydrogen economy and fuel cell powered cars? I can't wait for the world to get off their nasty ass oil addiction.

it's not necessarily the air temperature as per say that is affecting the land, it's the radiance of the sun that is when it heats up the land. we have a thinning of the ozone up here too but they dont' discuss it much.

oil is one of the key necessities that run the global economy, as is steel and precious metals, it's not going away any time soon. its a necessary evil.

Do you say "don't ya know?" a lot?

I say eh? more than that. I even type it in emails lol

are you quite happy being an inuk. or do you think you could adapt to a western society?

we have adapted, from being nomadic people back in the 1940's to running our own Government, the Government of Nunavut today 60 years span from nomadic to government, i'd say we've adjusted.

You're not very clever, are you?

more clever than someone who uses a alasnackbar as a username.