Project News
Marie-Pierre presented on our Food Security work in Iqaluit last Friday at the IPY 2012 conference.
Marie-Pierre’s work was recently profiled in Above and Beyond, First Air’s inflight magazine. You can view the original version the article by Tim Lougheed on the magazine’s website.
For centuries, European explorers seeking the Northwest Passage ate poorly, often paying the ultimate price for not knowing how to sustain themselves in the harsh environment of Canada’s North. At the same time, the indigenous people of this region ate well, having mastered the essential skills to wrest a balanced diet from this same unforgiving environment.
Today the dining tables are turned, as many Inuit find themselves facing their own set of nutritional challenges. In some cases, the difficulty stems from changes that were once welcomed, such as the replacement of dog teams with snowmobiles or traditional qajaqs with powerboats. These technological enhancements are expensive to acquire and operate, which drastically reduces the number of people who can hunt or fish. Continue Reading
Maude Beaumier’s work on food security among women in Arviat was recently profiled in Nunatsiaq News. Read the original story by Sarah Rogers here.
Sarah Curley and Hilda Panigonak clutch their notes tightly.
The two young women from Arviat are at a conference presenting a research project on access to nutritious food among local women.
It’s nerve-wracking, but the women know they have a captive audience.
Statistics tell part of their story: Arviat, one of the largest communities in Nunavut, has the highest birth rate in the territory. Continue Reading
Read the full interview on SciencePoles, the scientific website of the International Polar Foundation.
Food security (when food is available, accessible and of sufficient quality) is a major issue for the Inuit of northern Canada. Climate change is making it increasingly more difficult for hunters to access traditional hunting routes and changing animals’ natural distribution areas. On top of this, traditional hunting knowledge is not being passed from one generation to the next as easily as it used to, and the cost of living in the Canadian Arctic is exorbitant.
In the following interview, Marie-Pierre Lardeau of McGill University in Montréal discusses food security issues Inuit in many parts of Canada are facing as well as some of the projects she and her colleagues including are working on with Dr James Ford to document the current situation.
An interview with Elisapi Davidee-Aningmiuq, the program coordinator at the Iqaluit Tukisigarivik centre. The drop in center is open every weekday, and provides a breakfast program, free country food, and land skills training to the community of Iqaluit, Nunavut.
The center is one of three community organizations in Iqaluit which our research group has partnered with on the project, “Feeding the family during times of stress: Food security, climate change and globalization in the Canadian North (2009 – 2011).”
To watch this video in HD, click here.
Press Release: McGill Researchers: Aboriginal Canadians need better health support in face of climate change
Download the release here (pdf).
“Climate change has been identified as potentially the biggest health threat of the 21st century,” says a study by researchers from McGill, Trent, and the University of Alberta which examines the vulnerability of Aboriginal health systems in the face of climatic change. “Intervention is needed to prevent, prepare for, and manage climate change effects on Aboriginal health but is constrained by a limited understanding of vulnerability and its determinants.”
Food insecurity among Inuit females exacerbated by socio-economic stresses and climate change
Beaumier, M., and Ford, J. Canadian Journal of Public Health 101(3), 196-201. Find PDF.
Objectives: To identify and characterize the determinants of food insecurity among Inuit women.
Methods: A community-based study in Igloolik, Nunavut, using semi-structured interviews (n=36) and focus groups (n=5) with Inuit women, and key informants interviews with health professionals (n=13). Continue Reading
This presentation was given to guests at a dinner hosted by the CIHR and IAPH in Iqaluit, May 11, 2010.
Read the original article here.
A Montreal researcher is studying the true value of food banks and soup kitchens in fast-growing northern centres such as Iqaluit, where more people are using the services.
An average of 70 people a day used the Iqaluit food bank on food-delivery days last year, up from an average of 39 people in 2007. Meanwhile, the number of people using the Iqaluit soup kitchen has doubled since it opened in a new, central building last fall.
“Down at the old soup kitchen, 30 to 35 people would be a full load for the day,” said Jerry Peet, a longtime volunteer at the soup kitchen. “Here, we’re getting anywhere between 55 and 70 people everyday.”
Marie-Pierre Lardeau, a doctoral student with McGill University, said she is interviewing people who use the soup kitchen, food bank and the Tukisigiarvik centre, a first stop for people seeking social services in the city of about 6,200.
“We’re trying to understand who is using these services in Iqaluit,” Lardeau told CBC News.
SSHRC Dialogue: Preserving health and well-being in the North: Arctic researchers help northern communities adapt to climate change
Read the original article from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council here.
When James Ford speaks of climate change, he talks far more about the people it affects than about the environmental phenomena it entails.
One of the world’s foremost researchers into the effects of climate change on Arctic populations, the McGill University geographer has discovered that up to two-thirds of the Inuit population in remote northern regions suffer from food insecurity.
Recently awarded a SSHRC Northern Communities research grant to build on these preliminary findings, Ford is studying the food systems of three Inuit communities to uncover how climate change affects the security of traditional food sourcing as well as access to store-bought food.
Food security is a critical issue in the Arctic. Twenty to 50 per cent of food consumed by Inuit is derived from the land, mostly from hunted animals. Store-bought food prices are high and little fresh food is available, making a traditional diet essential to overall health.