Original subtitles

He's looking at me, that bugger!

The ice that had formed this winter allows this to happen.

He's not looking at us as a food source, whereas

some years, for example four years ago

I was dragged around by one of these, trying to kill me.

We're no higher than the polar bear.

The polar bear is on top of the food chain.

We're just equivalent.

With the sea ice diminishing

the whole food chain is affected right up to the top.

We had been doing wildlife management

prior to European influence coming to this part of the world.

And if the world looked after the environment

as most aboriginal cultures have been doing

then the world would be so much further ahead.

The Inuk today, the young Inuk,

doesn't fare as well as the old Inuk

in the hardy environment that you have to live in.

We're quite removed from the initial close relationship.

And at one point there was no boundary.

They had been going back and forth, back and forth.

Canadians going this way, Greenlanders going the other way.

This was the relationship between Greenland and Canada.

The hunting is similar.

Walrus, bearded seal, ringed seal, narwhal, beluga and caribou,

and fish.

Everything is very similar, meaning that at one point

they all came from one peoples.

So the relationship was quite close, if you really look at that.

Today the ice is not forming anymore,

separating our bloodlines,

separating the rich culture that we might be sharing.

Igloolik, 1938.

Hall beach, 1959.

Qaanaaq, 1950.

The governments said, "you now live here."

They had to live there.

So it's not by choice

that they started living in these communities.

I was literally taken from the grasp of my mother by a priest

and dragged off to residential school for seven years.

Abuses were being done to the students.

Physical,

mental,

and at sometimes sexual.

If a shorter route opens up,

we want to know about it.

What happens on the land affects what happens in the sea.

What happens in the sea affects what happens on the land.

It's all very intricately interconnected.

In a sense we're just trying to gain back what we have lost...

the continuation of life

in the Arctic as it has always been known,

and how it should be.

Does it get worse when you are under stress?

It does.

When I feel confident enough I don't really notice it as much,

so I don't think about it.

We are being misrepresented in the territorial council.

And our organization, if it's regional

will have more understanding of what goes on in our communities.

We'll probably get more problems with more cruise ships.

I do believe the narwhal return to that polynya.

Polar bears, they come to the communities more often now...

...contracted trichinosis

from fat that was infected...

...learn from each other what it's like on the other side.

The Pikialasorsuaq Commission's mandate

is for Inuit in Nunavut and Greenland to aim for, together,

to take control of an area divided into two by state borders.

It's a matter of survival. Physical, cultural, and mental.

We lived here before the states existed.

And the so-called conflict

on whether it belongs to Canada or Denmark,

I would say, leave it to us Inuit.

It belongs to us together anyway.

We welcome the return of the sun.

We actually celebrate the returning of the sun.

The sun had been under the horizon

since the end of November.

And it resurfaces in mid-January.

It now gives us day light to get out and about.

The same as it has always been doing.

The continuation of life as we know it.