Presenter: Shannon Ferry
Family and Human Services
Poster Presentation
C4
Climate change in North America is a topic often spoken about but rarely understood. Even more rarely understood are the different types of detection and attribution of climate-related events over time for different cultures. While Western society often views detection and attribution of climate-related events in a purely scientific way, there is much to be said for the means of detection and attribution in indigenous cultures through means of oral traditions and stories. In this essay, the oral stories of glacier movement and sea ice of the Inuit tribes in Northwest Canada and Alaska will be examined in conjunction with scientific studies in an attempt to synthesize the climate changes of the late Little Ice Age and after with the changing oral traditions of tribes at that time. With this synthesis, it is hoped that insight into climate change over time, effects of climate on indigenous groups, and different kinds of detection and attribution will be better understood for use in today’s modern society.