The right to be cold

It’s not every day at the staid Law Society of Upper Canada @LawSocietyLSUC that you see the lighting of the kudlik, the traditional #Inuit lamp made of soapstone and typically powered with whale oil or blubber.

In Inuit tradition, the kudlik provided light for the tent or igloo and heat for cooking.

Last evening at the Law Society, it opened a presentation on the right to be cold by Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier.

Watt-Cloutier, who was born in Northern Quebec, is among other things a former international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council representing Inuit from Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia.

As an Inuit activist (and author of a recent memoir), Watt-Cloutier has drawn attention to the impact of climate change on the North and its peoples. Climate change, she told the Law Society, is not only an environmental story but a human rights one also.

Many people in the south know more about the polar bear than the Inuit and their attention is often focused on “protecting the furry animal,” she told the audience of lawyers, law students and members of the public.

The right to be cold is key to the ability of the Inuit to maintain a way of life. “We are the people of the ice. We don’t just survive it. We thrive in it. We love where we live. It’s home and there’s a warmth there that connects us to each other.”

The skills learned on the ice are key to building character, she explained – dealing with stressful situations, developing judgment and wisdom and controlling the impulse to act precipitously.

There has been much attention on the high suicide rate in the north, Watt-Cloutier noted, but issues tend to be considered in silos, without their interconnectedness being drawn out.

To some extent, she suggested, suicide is an impulsive act, and the skills learned as a hunter can help someone deal with that the destructive urge to act impulsively.

Ultimately, all of humanity has a stake in the fate of the Inuit. Nobody is more on the frontlines of climate change than the Inuit hunter, she said. “The hunters are the sentinels for our planet.”