Smartice safety
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND NEW TECHNOLOGY ARE MAKING ICE TRAVEL IN LABRADOR LESS DANGEROUS
a new project is combining the ice expertise of Inuit hunters with sophisticated technology to take some of the guesswork out of ice travel. For Inuit, the sea ice is a highway, a vital link to hunting areas where they obtain much of their traditional food. In Nunatsiavut, the Inuit region of Labrador, people also travel over ice to collect firewood for heating their homes. They use routes their ancestors established, and that have stood the test of time — until recently. “The ice is thinner, it forms later and it breaks up earlier than before,” says Trevor Bell, a geography professor at Newfoundland’s Memorial University. “Ice travel can be more dangerous because local knowledge of traditional routes, based on past climatic conditions, is less reliable.” The winter of 2009 was a wake-up call for Nunatsiavut. Rain in February (when normal temperatures are around -30 C) caused snowmobiles to become stuck and people to fall through the ice. Hunters couldn’t travel, and open water and fog prevented aircraft from bringing in fresh supplies. Families ran short of food and firewood, some burning their furniture and front steps to try to keep their houses warm. Many in Nain saw that winter as a window into the future, so they teamed up with Memorial University, the Nunatsiavut government and other organizations to look for ways to adapt. “Our goal,” says Bell, “was to find a simple and affordable method the community could use to identify where the thin ice is, so people don’t have to travel on it to find out.” The result is a pilot project called Smartice. Smartice uses sensors sealed in floating plastic tubes, placed in locations local hunters consider potentially dangerous. “They freeze into the ice in the fall and monitor ice thickness by measuring the difference in temperature between the air above the ice and the water below it,” explains Bell. Measurements are relayed directly to a data portal where they’re retrieved by Joey Angnatok, a Nain-based Inuit ice specialist. Another sensor, meanwhile, is mounted on a (an Inuit-style sled) so measurements can be taken as it travels over the ice. Smartice is in the prototype stage, but the goal is to produce weekly sea ice hazard maps that Inuit can use to plan their travel routes, integrating the sensor data, satellite imagery and local knowledge. Other Arctic communities are interested. Smartice is soon to be tested in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, where local research coordinator Andrew Arreak is being trained by Angnatok. “We’re aiming to reach communities across the North,” says Bell. “And the knowledge needed to operate [the program], rather than arriving from the south, will be passed by Inuit from one community to the next.”