NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area, North Slave Region

Tags: social sciences, climate change, socio-economics, winter road, travel

Objective(s): To evaluate how citizens of two communities, Wekweeti and Aklavik, view the vulnerability of the winter roads serving each community to climate warming and how these impacts may affect community well being with respect to socio-economics and culture.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.4952. The overall goal of this research project is to evaluate how citizens of two Northwest Territory communities, Wekweeti and Aklavik, view the vulnerability of the winter roads serving each community to climate warming and how these impacts may affect community well being with respect to socio-economics and culture. Over recent years climate warming has reduced the period of time winter roads have been safe to travel on. Generally the problem stems from early deterioration of the snowpack on land portages but timing of snowfall coupled with temporal air temperature patterns can slow the formation of black ice on lakes, in essence reducing its strength. In conversations with residents of both communities they have talked about later ice formation and earlier breakup. Typically it is late in the winter season when the ice roads on lakes have reached a thickness deemed safe for fuel tankers to travel on. With climate forecasts for this part of Canada where warming is 2-3 times that of most parts of the world there is concern that conditions ideal for winter road safety may be an issue in the future. Of prime concern economically is how the annual resupply of fuel and other goods and services to communities, dependent upon winter roads, will be impacted as the climate continues to warm. The two communities picked for this project are Wekweeti and Aklavik, chosen as the nature of the winter road each depends on is very different. The Wekweeti road has a number of land portages while the Aklavik road is entirely on river ice. Specifically The objectives of this project are to: 1. Understand winter road changes for Wekweeti and Aklavik under projected climate scenarios; 2. Undertake a vulnerability assessment for Wekweeti and a vulnerability inventory for Aklavik; 3. Develop a vulnerability assessment framework that can be applied in NWT communities (this project will develop the framework based on the Wekweeti portion of the research) serviced by winter roads to assess community vulnerabilities (socioeconomic, health and wellbeing, public safety, cultural), recognizing that different communities may have unique challenges; and, 4. Provide Indigenous and community governments, GNWT departments and other partners and stakeholders with information, tools and resources to understand the community vulnerabilities associated with the winter roads under various climate change scenarios. The research team will rely upon members of the Hunters and Trappers Committee and Environmental Impact Screening Committee to suggest participants from the community which would include elders, ‘government’ officials, those that hunt and trap and a reasonable cross section of the community considering age and gender. Hard copies of the survey will be provided by the community organizers who will encourage survey participants to participate in group discussions. Participants for group discussions and person-person interviews in Wekweeti have already been identified during the earlier survey in December 2020. Two community organizers will assist in Wekweeti to organize the group discussions. These meetings will be held in the Tlicho office in Wekweeti where an internet communication platform system already exists. In both communities, due to restrictions of travel and the coronavirus issue, meetings between investigators and community members will take place over the internet communications platform TEAMS which is more secure than ZOOM. Person-person interviews may be held using TEAMS or telephone. The community organizers in both villages will orchestrate meeting logistics and ensure that coronavirus protocol is followed regardless if community members have had either one or both vaccine shots. In both Aklavik and Wekweeti group discussions will consist of three stages: 1) The first stage will be an open discussion about the winter road, observations participants have regarding recent history of the winter road and any issues compromising safety and use; 2) The second stage will focus on the growth of ice in either lakes or rivers and how climate projections by Environment Canada and Climate Change (using results from CanESM2 for RPC 2.6, 4.5 and 8.0) will potentially impact this important process. Discussion will focus on how simple freezing degree day models can assist in understanding how ice growth can change in the future as the winters warm and how changes in snowfall at different times of the ice formation period can impact the strength of the ice. Changing water levels during the period of ice formation can influence the safety of the winter road particularly relevant for Aklavik. As well discussion will focus on the snow portages which are important for the Wekweeti winter road; and, 3) Stage 3 will examine a visual model of the future changes to the winter road of each community looking ahead over the next 1 to 4 decades and discuss how these climate scenarios may impact duration and safety of the ice road and how these forecasts may impact the communities and the lives of individuals. In both Aklavik and Wekweeti discussions will be held with local government officials regarding their views on the future of the ice road. The scenarios of climate changes and potential impacts on their winter road will be summarized for these administrators for comment and serve to initiate conversation about the socio-economic and cultural impact of reduced winter road access and increased safety issues in the future. Similar conversations will be held with GNWT people who are involved both in winter road ‘construction’ and socio-economic and cultural community issues. Aklavik: The results of the survey, group discussions and person-person interview will be tabulated and a draft report circulated to participants for comment in April. A TEAMS meeting will be held to verbally present the draft report and to hear comments after those interested have had a chance to read it. A final community report on the survey will be available (hard copy and on-line) sometime in early May. Wekweeti: The results of the Wekweeti survey have been tabulated (under the project run by the Tlicho government). A draft of this report is almost complete and will be circulated for comment in Wekweeti in mid February. A TEAMS meeting will be held to present the draft report to the community. The results of group discussions and person-person interviews will be tabulated and a draft report circulated for comment in April and a final report will be made available sometime in early May. A draft overview of this study of both communities will be submitted to Environment and Natural Resources-GNWT by 31 March 2021. The final report will be submitted in May 2021. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from March 10, 2021 to April 30, 2021.