By Ammu Ashok
All alone, I navigate along the frozen shoreline,
recollecting harrowing past memories of my family.
Abandoned, nomadic, discriminated, hunting life,
with people who ignore my Inuit culture.
No more ice to connect my community,
no trips to remote cabins, oops cutting me off from hunting lands.
Shorter winter, unreliable frozen lifelines open dangerous thaws
Disruption to my hundred years of traditional knowledge
None knows the horrific tales of Qallupilluk
No overnight igloos are built, no dogsled
Tupalik is no more an excitement
All turned an artefact in the history.
Traditions of ancestors grow harder for young
A real hunter, I passed generations of knowledge
I can’t cross the nearby lake, travel up-down the coast,
wind whipping, blinding snowstorms, losing my snowmobile trails.
No, I can’t trust the ice anymore,
no more sharing of arctic char with my seniors,
no Lamellar amour worn by me, seals disappear,
no butchering of walruses and vanishing polar bears.
Sun shining, stunting spruce trees with pine needles
Unbearable strange understanding of living like a refugee
I unzip my coat to struggle with the warming world
Ice didn’t freeze up yet, I feel stuck, in this wild season
Still, a cold wind whispers in ears the word “adapt.”
By Ammu Ashok
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