Kimberly Kivvaq Pikok

How you connect with nature is how you treat nature and its lifeforms in processes like policymaking, research, etc. Growing up with my grandparents, who loved to go camping, fishing, and subsistence hunting, I was taught that everything has a story—from rocks to mountains, plants and animals, the oceans and rivers, and us. For me, knowing ocean and land conditions and understanding animal movements is personal and important to our communities because this is knowledge we need in order to have food on our tables, give back to the communities, and teach our children.

In science, we are told to keep personal biases away from research, but, as I have learned, you cannot separate people from the environment. For when you do, you disregard the knowledge that was learned and passed down through the generations of our elders to our people today.

By bridging my different worldviews from both Western science learned at university and Indigenous science from my forebears, I use various methods of storytelling to connect people to wildlife species and environmental issues to better inform nonlocals and researchers about what is happening in (and even what is) the Arctic. My work centers and empowers our hunters’ knowledge, stories, and voices in science and management spaces to do what is best for our people, future generations, the environment, and a future in a more equitable and Inuit-led wildlife management and food security decision-making process.

Everything in nature is an open book; you just need to allow yourself to read, understand, observe, and listen to what nature is trying to tell you.