Keyword Community

Winter is central to the Canadian prairie identity. It’s the defining season for a people whose common enemy is also their strength. The long cold snowy winter is also important to economies and ecosystems. And that winter is changing. Set to the backdrop of the Nestaweya River Trail, one of Canada’s longest skating trails, resilient settlers and newcomers alike talk about adapting to a world where the joys of the season are shrinking and what that will mean for future generations.

AVAILABLE WITH DESCRIPTIVE AUDIO: https://youtu.be/vUDsjqmQWu4 People with disabilities are the world's largest minority group and are disproportionately affected by climate change. As disability justice and climate issues collide, Cripping Climate Adaptation lays bare the often disastrous consequences of overlooking people with disabilities and illustrates the need to consider the unique needs of people with disabilities and include them in climate adaptation. Set to a lively visual backdrop of dance, music, and activism, this documentary defines the incredible toolkit on adaptation from the disability community, one that adds depth, texture and creativity to get beyond traditional ways of how the environment is used. Let's not miss out on this tool kit of ways of seeing.

What can you do when everyday you wake up and don’t know what the future will look like? When everything around you is already falling apart. When your generation's future is having to deal with the climate crisis. Youth activists talk about connecting and organising with other young people as a way to channel climate anxiety and despair. Hope is active and lies in the community.

With “boots on the ground” along the Seine River that flows through Winnipeg, the Manitoba Métis Federation’s water quality program supports Métis citizen scientists to conduct research and monitoring related to climate change and pollution. As the “eyes and ears of the environment,” Métis citizens are collecting data, documenting change, and spreading the word around the importance of preparing for the future.

In March 2020, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) held its first National Climate Gathering on the traditional territory of the Ta’an Kwächän and the Kwanlin Dün in Whitehorse, YK. Over 300 First Nations experts, leaders, youth, women, knowledge keepers, and professionals gathered to discuss the urgent crisis of climate change. In 2019, the AFN passed a resolution declaring a First Nations Climate Emergency, and this Gathering was designed to bring together First Nations’ perspectives on climate impacts, risks, and opportunities.

For decades Inuit have been leading the conversation on climate change in Canada. Inuit writer and advocate Siila Watt-Cloutier has been at the helm of this work. “As Inuit, we rely on the cold, the ice, the snow. That is our life force,” she says. For her people, the cold and sea ice are at the center of culture, transportation, safety, health, and education. Climate change is impacting the Inuit way of life.

“Tariuq Takujannik - The Ocean From My Eye” explores youth perspectives of climate change through the lens of pinhole photography and participatory video. Students from Attagoyuk High School in Pangnirtung, Nunavut participated in a weeklong workshop about oceans, climate change, and photography. Building cameras from recycled materials, students took to the shoreline to create photographs, guided by the question: why are imaq (sea water) and siku (sea ice) important to youth? By engaging youth in creative, hands-on processes, we can share knowledge and find solutions for complex issues like climate change.

Joanasie Karpik is one of Nunavut’s most respected Elders on climate change. In 2017, youth and Elders gathered together at Sannirut, a popular camping spot near the community of Pangnirtung, for a video and storytelling workshop. Joanasie shares, “I’ve lived two worlds now”, speaking to the changes he has seen to the weather pattern over nearly 80 years of observation in Cumberland Sound. These unprecedented changes are outside of local knowledges of Elders and Joanasie shares, “today, because of climate change, we can’t use their knowledge in the same way.” We must work together to rise to the challenge of this new weather system.

Montana First Nation is located in what was once rich oil and gas country in central Alberta. But as the oil wells began to dry up, the small community was faced with the enormous challenge of finding new employment for many of their members who landed out of work.