A new mapping project in Clyde River, Nunavut, is bringing generations of Inuit knowledge and decades of science together at the click of a mouse. 

Clyde River’s Ittaq Heritage and Research Centre is creating an interactive atlas with help from the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre at Carleton University. The atlas provides easy access to information that was previously hard to find or simply hadn’t been recorded, including scientific studies from the area and local knowledge about the environment and wildlife habitat, history and place names. 

Over the centuries, Inuit have overlaid their land and sea-ice with thousands of place names, most of which do not appear on any map. Knowing those place names can be the key to survival in an emergency such as a snowmobile breakdown in an isolated spot. 

“We use GPS and other devices,” says Mike Jaypoody, a researcher and IT technician at Ittaq, “but if they fail, you need to be able to radio your location to the community. Once they know the name of the place the experts can tell you where to find shelter, where to find game and so on — and they know where to find you if you need to be rescued.”