Tuktoyaktuk (Tuktuyaaqtuuq)
Tuktoyaktuk (English), or Tuktuyaaqtuuq (“looks like a caribou” in Inuvialuit), is an Inuvialuit hamlet located near the Mackenzie River delta in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, at the northern terminus of the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway.
Notes from our 2024 planning retreat in Anchorage
Current activities
Northern Contaminants Program — works to reduce and eliminate contaminants in traditionally harvested foods, while providing information that assists informed decision making in food use.
Nuna Project — The Nuna (Inuvialuktun for ‘land,’ ‘country,’ and ‘soil’) Project draws together a diverse and interdisciplinary team that will co-produce with communities regionally appropriate new tools and solutions to prevent, mitigate, and adapt to their prioritised impacts.
Sea Ice Monitoring and Information Inc. (SmartICE) — A community-based Work Integrated Social Enterprise (WISE) offering climate change adaptation tools to integrate Indigenous knowledge of ice with advanced data acquisition, remote monitoring and satellite mapping for ice travel safety.
Tuktoyaktuk Climate Change Resiliency Program — engages community members to collect data on environmental conditions such as permafrost evolution, sea ice formation and breakup, lake turbidity, and plant bloom in Tuktoyaktuk and the surrounding area.
Successes
Community-driven capacity building (SmartICE, Nuna, etc.), including climate monitoring, using qualitative research methods, and long-standing research relationships. We also have community informed research and youth engagement.
Collaborations with ACTION or other communities
We’d like to learn how other communities are adapting to climate change, whether by adapting in place or by relocation.