Welcome to Inuvik – the place where people meet

By Dan Slavik, Arctic Conservation Adviser, WWF
My fiancée Brenda and I drove the Dempster Highway, the northern most highway in Canada, from Edmonton to Inuvik, seeing several porcupines, black bears and even one Panda along the way.  We arrived in Inuvik just in time for the Great Northern Arts Festival – an annual event that brings together artists from all three territories together for a colourful week of performances, workshops, and stories.


Inuvik (“the place of people”) is a town of roughly 3,500 people, the majority of whom are Inuvialuit and Gwich’in – the two Indigenous groups with comprehensive land claim agreements to their traditional territories.  It is a town built on community values, traditional lifestyles, and determination to brave through the ups and downs that the weather and the economy provide them. Regardless of its size and unique geographical location (68° N, 133° W, on the northern edge of the tree-line and eastern banks of the Mackenzie delta), it is one of the more metropolitan and multi-cultural communities I’ve been to, with very active groups ranging from the traditional qayaaq club to the Midnight Sun Mosque.
A bit about me: My background is in Environmental Conservation Sciences and Native Studies, with degrees from the University of Alberta. Throughout university I soaked up everything I could learn about the North – from wildlife to oil and gas, and from traditional knowledge to sustainable development.
Before joining WWF this spring, I had spent the four years conducting research in the western Arctic on local knowledge of Nannuq (Polar Bears, Ursus maritimus). I also had international research experience in the community-based monitoring of seabirds (Puffinus griseus) by the Māori of Southern New Zealand. These experiences have given me a diverse understanding of both “sustainability” through the eyes of subsistence harvesters and socio-cultural resilience in the face of ecological change and modernization.  It also equipped me with a broad set of skills anchored in both western science and traditional knowledge, which I hope will contribute to WWF’s work in the Western Arctic.
The Western Arctic is held as an internationally recognized model of co-management (collaborative management of wildlife, lands, and resources between indigenous peoples, government and other stakeholders). It is this culture of collaboration that inspired WWF to set up an office in Inuvik, and contribute our energy, expertise and circum-Arctic knowledge to the Beaufort Sea Partnership, a partnership of government leaders, indigenous groups, industry, and research and conservation groups.
I’m excited to be in Inuvik and setting up the new WWF office so that we can understand the needs and realities of Northern communities, and work to make sure that we contribute in a positive way to sustainable development and conservation.
So if you’re ever in town, please stop by and visit our igloo, I mean office, located in the new and hi-tech Aurora Research Institute, a cutting edge Northern research facility.  We will be having our first open house on Tuesday, September 13, 2011.  Check back next week to see how it goes!