The whine of snowmobiles fades as Annie Iqaluk and her family arrive at their traditional ice cellar, carved deep into the permafrost near Igloolik, Nunavut. For generations, these natural freezers—known locally as “silaqquat“—have preserved caribou, seal, and whale meat through the brief Arctic summers. Today, Annie discovers what she feared: melting walls, pooling water, and the unmistakable smell of spoiling food.
“My grandmother taught me how to prepare and store our country food here,” Annie tells me, her breath visible in the cold air. “Now the ground that never thawed is becoming unstable. Our food security isn’t just about having enough to eat—it’s about maintaining who we are.”
This scene, witnessed during my reporting trip last summer, illustrates a profound crisis facing Inuit communities across Canada’s North. As global temperatures rise at twice the global average in the Arctic, the permafrost—permanently frozen ground that has preserved traditional food sources for millennia—is rapidly thawing.
The consequences extend far beyond spoiled meat. For Inuit communities, country food—hunted, fished, and gathered from the land and sea—represents cultural continuity, nutritional security, and sovereignty in regions where store-bought alternatives can cost three to four times what southerners pay.
“When we lose reliable food storage, we lose part of our food system,” explains Dr. Shirley Tagalik, an Inuit education specialist who’s documented traditional knowledge for decades. “These aren’t just calories—these foods connect our young people to cultural practices, language, and community bonds formed through harvesting and sharing.”
The Canadian North faces a perfect storm of climate-related challenges. Changing ice conditions make traditional hunting routes dangerous or impassable. Wildlife migration patterns shift unpredictably. And now, the very infrastructure that preserved surplus harvests through seasonal cycles is literally melting away.
Health researchers at the University of Guelph have documented how this disruption affects nutritional outcomes. “Country foods like seal and caribou provide essential nutrients that are difficult to replace with imported alternatives,” says nutrition researcher Tiff-Annie Kenny. Her 2018 study in the Journal of Nutrition found that days when Inuit adults consumed traditional foods showed significantly higher intake of protein, iron, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids compared to days with primarily market foods.
The Canadian government has acknowledged these challenges in its 2019 Arctic and Northern Policy Framework, which emphasizes food security and climate adaptation. However, many community members I spoke with expressed frustration with the pace of practical solutions reaching their communities.
In Arviat, along Hudson Bay’s western shore, I met Gordie Kidlapik, who showed me a community-led response to these challenges. Using modified shipping containers equipped with solar-powered cooling systems, his community has created a hybrid approach to food preservation that combines traditional knowledge with climate-resilient technology.
“We’re not giving up our food traditions,” Kidlapik explains, helping a younger hunter unload freshly harvested caribou into the community freezer. “But we need to adapt how we preserve them for future generations.”
The initiative represents a promising direction, but scaling such solutions across remote communities presents logistical and financial hurdles. The federal Nutrition North program, designed to subsidize food costs in remote communities, has faced criticism for failing to adequately support country food harvesting and storage needs.
Some communities are documenting their food traditions before they’re lost. In Cambridge Bay, elders work with youth to record food preparation methods, preservation techniques, and the Inuktitut terminology that might otherwise disappear with changing practices.
“Our language contains knowledge about the land, animals, and weather that’s evolved over thousands of years,” explains elder Martha Ataataluk. “When young people can’t participate in traditional food practices, they lose this specialized vocabulary and the wisdom it contains.”
The climate crisis in the North reveals interconnections between environment, culture, and health that can be difficult for southern Canadians to fully comprehend. For communities like Igloolik, adaptation isn’t simply about finding new ways to keep food cold—it’s about maintaining identity and knowledge systems developed over centuries of Arctic living.
Research from Health Canada indicates that country food access correlates strongly with physical and mental health outcomes in northern communities. Communities with stronger ties to traditional food systems report lower rates of diabetes, heart disease, and food insecurity than those more dependent on market foods.
Standing beside Annie’s thawing ice cellar, I ask what solutions she hopes for. Her answer reveals both pragmatism and deep connection to place.
“We need support for community freezers that work even as the ground changes,” she says. “But we also need climate action that respects our right to maintain our relationship with this land. My grandchildren deserve to know the taste of properly aged igunaq (fermented walrus) prepared the way our ancestors taught us.”
As we walk back toward the community, Annie points out plants emerging in areas that were once permanently frozen. “We are adaptable people,” she observes. “We survived colonization, residential schools, and forced relocation. But this change is happening so quickly.”
The story of thawing permafrost and threatened food traditions represents a climate justice issue that connects directly to Canada’s reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples. As the North continues warming, the knowledge preserved in ice cellars—along with the foods they contain—risks being lost forever unless communities receive the support needed to adapt while maintaining cultural continuity.
For Annie and thousands of others across the Canadian Arctic, the fight to preserve traditional food systems isn’t just about adapting to climate change—it’s about maintaining a way of life that has sustained communities in one of Earth’s most challenging environments for countless generations.
The sun dips toward the horizon as we reach the community, where hunters are returning with the day’s catch. Despite the challenges, the cycle of harvesting, preparing, and sharing food continues—adapting as it must to a rapidly changing North.
