The effects of environmental change on fish availability in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region

• Main Author: Chila, Alexander Kaleb Einar
• Other Authors: Lantz, Trevor Charles
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Fishing; Climate Change; Environmental Change; Arctic; Canada; Ifo; Northwest Territories; Pacific; Climate change; Inuvialuit; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/13407

Rapid climate change is altering Arctic ecosystems and affecting the lifeways of Arctic Indigenous peoples. For the six Inuvialuit communities in the Canadian Arctic, access to fish is an important source of food and cultural connection. In my MSc research, I analyzed two distinct but interconnected effects of environmental change on fish availability throughout the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (ISR) in the Northwest Territories, Canada. In the first part of my thesis, I investigated changes in Pacific salmon harvest. I conducted 54 interviews with Inuvialuit fishers about this harvest and concurrent changes to local environments and fish species. I found that historic, incidental salmon harvest in the ISR ranged from infrequent to common among Delta communities but was rare or unprecedented among Outer communities. Salmon are now frequently caught in each community, a change that is concerning to many Inuvialuit fishers. Participants attributed the increase in salmon harvest to environmental change, but explained that there are many other effects of environmental change on fishing. Notably, interview participants described how worsening summer weather is negatively affecting peoples’ access to fishing. In the second part of my thesis, I explored this further and quantified the effects of weather on access to fishing from 1979 to 2019. To do so, I paired questionnaires completed by fishers in each community and ERA-5 climate reanalysis data to create the Index of Fishing Opportunity (IFO). This index showed high inter-annual and seasonal variation in access to fishing. Windspeed and direction had the highest impact on fishing conditions, followed by sea-ice, temperature, then rain. Long-term trends varied among locations, but were not representative of the experiences of Inuvialuit fishers. This suggests the index is suitable for comparing relative access to fishing between seasons, years, and communities, but lacks the precision required to represent long-term trends. By partially quantifying the influence of ...