James Kuptana grew up in Ottawa, Ontario with strong links to his family's home of Sachs Harbour, located in the Beaufort Sea on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories. This is a small community of 120 people in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region that has a unique mix of Eastern, Western and Central Inuit traditions. Growing up outside the north means that James had limited contact with his culture and Inuvialuktun language. Fortunately, Ottawa has a large southern Inuit population with a close knit community feel. He identifies himself through Inuvialuk culture, the music and drumming, the stories heard sitting with his Nanauk having tea and bannock.

James Kuptana sees that there is a great need to look at both traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge when discussing the issue of Arctic climate change. It is a pressing issue that demands a combination of international, scientific and local community attention. James can see that we can benefit from both the northern and southern perspectives since he experiences both the lifestyle of southern formal education and the traditional Inuvialuk lifestyle that involves spending time on the land, hunting and learning from community elders. James knows that this important link between youth and elders has to be enhanced and maintained. This is not only because youth will be the elders of tomorrow but because they have a role to play right now, on a daily basis, for the environment and for the younger community members.

There is an array of opportunities available to help mitigate climate change from assisting with community based monitoring and research; to increasing awareness through community education. James does his part by working with the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Canada as a junior researcher and working towards becoming part of the next generation of scientists, who have their feet planted in both the scientific and traditional knowledge bases.         

James appreciates that a southern upbringing came with opportunities to educate others about Inuvialuit, as well as a schooling experience he can apply to his future career in the North. While studying at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario in Indigenous Environmental Studies, a professor, Dr. Chris Furgal, introduced James to the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study (CFL) which is a Canadian project of the International Polar Year. This project is part of the CCGS Amundsen icebreaker which travels in the Beaufort Sea and has a vast array of studies happening on board, from physical oceanography, atrophic levels and food webs, to gas fluxes and environmental contaminants.

James was on the ship in July 2008. He participated under the science outreach program called Schools on Board as part of the Circumpolar Inuit Field Program, a pilot program, the first to be exclusively Inuit students, that included Inuit from Alaska, Greenland, Russia and the Northern regions of Canada. Since each participant had the opportunity to conduct local environmental knowledge interviews and present their findings to the scientists on board, James learned that Inuit across the Arctic are facing similar challenges. He learned there are changes in animal distribution and population that ice has thinned and decreased in abundance, not to mention that weather is altering quickly, making it unpredictable.

James was also able to learn about the ways Inuit are actively adjusting to the impacts of climate change; changes in hunting schedules, different hunting techniques and relying on community sharing.  This brought up associated concerns for James, questions about the future of energy production and Arctic food security.  

The research assignment James undertook informed the scientific work happening on the ship as James had the opportunity to present his findings to the scientists on board. It was also an opportunity for James to put his formal education into real world practice. He also emphasized that he benefited personally from this experience since it strengthened his family, community and cultural connections in Sachs Harbour.

James felt that speaking with elders was the highlight of his experience at it stresses the importance of community knowledge. With the elders in mind, James has recognized a need to learn his Inuvialuit language since knowledge is most eloquently and accurately expressed in its language of origin as it already contains the culture's perspective and worldview.

He now works with the CFL Team 10, which is guided by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Canada, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and other regional organizations. The team's goal is to implement "two ways of knowing".  The project conducts traditional knowledge research focusing on the impacts of environmental change on people and the adaptations that have already taken place.

With this experience and exposure on board the CCGS Amundsen to science and his culture, James has been inspired to go into Arctic marine biology in the future and to continue to live an Inuvialuk lifestyle. James is certainly a youth leader. In his own words, a northern leader is "well spoken and well read and educated about the current regional and international challenges that the circumpolar regions are facing, but their education also comes from the experience of living in the north and working with the people there."

By Jessica Kotierk.