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Pauloosie Kilabuk

The thermometer shows 27 degrees Celsius below zero, but with the wind chill factor, the real temperature is minus 33 degrees Celsius. And during the night, the wind will blow harder. The temperature will then be around minus 38, with a possibility to go under minus 40.

One could think that the 59-year-old Inuit Pauloosie Kilabuk would have liked it to be a little warmer. But this is not the case. In fact, Pauloosie Kilabuk, like thousands of other Inuit, is worried about the future, and especially about how our common world behaves.

Since the late 80s, he feels that the climate is becoming warmer, the ice is getting thinner, and the hunting on the sea ice is becoming more dangerous; the reindeer population is getting smaller and the polar bear season is becoming shorter.

The small man wears thick homemade trousers made of polar bear skin and boots made of the skin of dogs. He does not think it is cold here in Northern Canada even if he often stays in his small humble homemade hut far out in the wilderness. He would like that the rest of the World would show a little more respect for the Earth; he would like humans to stop sending out into the atmosphere greenhouse gases from big luxury cars, air conditionning and smoking power plants. Greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming especially in the Arctic where the temperature has already increased by about 3 degrees over the last 20 – 30 years.

When Pauloosie Kilabuk was born on 28th November 1944 the World looked quite different.

At that time, the hunting culture was almost untouched by the development in the rest of the World. The young Inuit was born iton an isolated hunting society about 75 kilometres away from Iqaluit. There were seven children in the family. His father was a hunter and sealer. His mother cared for the house and the children; she cooked and sewed clothes made of polar bears, wolves, reindeers, seals and other wild animals skins. It was a hard life with high costs: one sister became sick and died because there was no doctor nearby. Later a brother disappeared without trace while he was canoeing. Two other brothers of Pauloosie Kilabuk died very unluckily by committing suicide.

Nowadays, suicide is one of the major problems for the Inuit culture. The suicide rate of the Inuit people is amongst the highest in the whole of North America. Together with alcohol and drug consumption, suicide is a bigger problem for the Inuit compared to the North American Indians who also have difficulties to manage the transition from their original culture to the so-called modern civilisation.

In 1955 the Kilabuk family moved to the town of Iqaluit. “They said that it was because we could go to school so that we could get a proper job when we get older” Pauloosie Kilabuk tells.

The school did not take up so much time. Pauloosie Kilabuk thought it was much more interesting to go hunting. He dropped out of school as did many others youngsters without learning much. This is still a problem in Iqaluit where many are abandoning school.

In the town, his father turned from being a hunter to a "dish washer" and chauffeur in the American Army.

But in the winter 1961-62 something happened that changed the Inuit culture. The first snowmobile arrived to this Arctic town!

At that time, Pauloosie Kilabuk was a young man with a great appetite for life. Especially the life of the hunter.

“I was young and wanted to enjoy myself. Therefore I went hunting with the snowmobile as soon as I had a chance. And I continued also after I had a job first on the local power plant, and later when I was employed by the health service and by the wildlife administration” Pauloosie Kilabuk tells while he is showing us around his humble self made hut.
 
 

	Inuit hut

Inside the hut, one hour away from Iqaluit by snowmobile, the temperature rises very quickly. Minus 33 degrees Celsius is changed to sauna like temperatures of plus 30 – 35 degrees with the help of the little kerosene burner and the open fire on the middle of the floor. Today, the snowmobile is almost indispensable for the Inuit in Iqaluit, and in the rest of Nunavut here in Northern Canada.

Outside most houses there is at least one snowmobile, and very often several are parked together with at least a couple of old worn-out snowmobiles used for spare parts. Unlike Greenland, where the dog sledge is still the preferred means of transport in the wilderness, here, the snowmobile has completely taken over.

When Pauloosie was young he had his own sledge with dogs for one winter. But the dogs were frightened, so he chose to leave them on a desolated island and has never seen them again. Whether they died or learned to cope for themselves does not bother Pauloosie Kilabuk. The man thinks that nature takes care of such problems, and he tries to live by nature's law whenever it is possible. Today, almost none of the Inuit in the area have a dog sledge. This kind of thing have been overtaken completely by the noisy speed monsters called 'skidoo' by local people.

Like most of the young ones, Pauloosie Kilabuk married and had children, seven of his own as well as two adopted ones. The Inuit have a special tradition of adopting each other’s children. In every family there are adopted children. Sometimes the explanation is that the parents do not have the possibility to care for their own children – either because of social problems, economic situation, or because they live too far away from school. Kids are the most important element for the survival of the Inuit culture.

"My grandchildren are not able to speak our own language, Inuttitut. Instead, they speak English. My children speak and read our own language. But I don’t think we can continue to live as we did in the old days. We no longer have dog sledges and the people no longer wear clothes made of animal fur. Many are not able to build an igloo anymore," Pauloosie Kilabuk explains. He does not have a clear answer to the question as to whether it is good or bad that things have changed.

He is, however, worried that many young Inuit really don’t know how a real Inuit lives. At school teachers try to teach traditional hunting, how to build an igloo etc. to the pupils, but an increasing number of youngsters do not wish to live out in nature.

Historically the Inuit are known to be extraordinarily good at adapting. It is thought that climate change forced the Inuit to migrate slowly from Siberia to North America via the Bering Straits, some 18,000 years ago. When the animals migrated towards the East, the Inuit followed.

Therefore, hunting is the basis for the whole culture. And Pauloosie Kilabuk, during his life, has hunted mostly during his free time. So far he has shot five polar bears and five wolves.

"I could have shot more polar bears, but when I had the chance to shoot my sixth polar bear, I decided to give it to my ten-year-old son. I passed him my rifle whereupon he got his first polar bear. It is very important for us to shoot the wild animals and to eat their meat. My veins would shrink if I no longer ate wild meat," Pauloosie Kilabuk explains while he takes a big lump of raw fish.

The hunters can get up to 7,000 Euro for good polar bear fur, while the price for the fur of a wolf is about 3,000 Euro.

The 6,000 inhabitants in Iqaluit have a permit to shoot 18 polar bears per year, while they are allowed to shoot as many wolves as they want. Hunting reindeer has no restrictions. If the hunters are lucky, they can catch walrus and white whales.

"We would like to shoot the small polar bears because the meat is better and they have more fat on their body. But the sport hunters prefer a big bear of 3 or 4 metres", says Pauloosie Kilabuk.

His small hut is a good distance out of the fjord on a piece of state-owned land. It costs him nothing. If instead he had chosen land belonging to the Inuit local government he would have paid a duty.

Out here in a weather beaten environment, the Inuit live in harmony with nature. This differs from those who live in town, where the electric lights and the warmth of stoves come from the power plant, and where one family owns several cars.

Nevertheless, out here in the wilderness there are strong links with the modern world. Outside the hut, several empty kerosene barrels are lying around. And during the wintertime, the only way to come here is with the snowmobile. No one in Iqaluit goes skiing. In summertime, when the ice breaks up in July, boats are the preferred means of transport. The small 59-year-old man, with his well-trained body without one gram of excessive fat, spends a lot of time in the wilderness with his wife and with a tent "because it is too hot inside the hut" according to Pauloosie Kilabuk.

"The wind direction has also shifted. Before it came mostly from the North, but now it has shifted to North East. This is a contributing factor to the late formation of ice on the fjord, and for the earlier break-up of the ice. In general, the ice has become much thinner, and this has caused more accidents for the hunters. At the same time, it has also changed the polar bear season because the polar bears now have difficulty hunting.”

Although, according to scientists, the eastern part of Canada is not the Arctic area that will be hit the hardest by the global warming, every year the border of the open sea is moving closer to Iqaluit. Here, at the border of the open sea, you can really feel the cold. Open sea in the middle of winter is not normal at these latitudes. Again the Inuit are talking about another local result of global warming.

At the end of March the temperature outside the little primitive hut is usually below minus 30 degrees Celsius. But for the real Inuit, it is better than last summer's temperature, when the thermometer reached plus 30 degrees!
 
 

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