New dawn for Arctic’s first people: the Inuit plan to reclaim their sea

The remains of sea ice on the shore. Climate change is drastically shortening winters on the Nunatsiavut coastline, where Canada’s Arctic really begins Photograph: Eldred Allen

A plume of red erupts in the grey-blue waters and Martin Shiwak accelerates his boat to grab the seal he has shot before the animal sinks out of sight. Shiwak has hunted for years in the waters of Lake Melville, by the Inuit community of Rigolet in Nunatsiavut.

As he hauls the ringed seal into the vessel, he says he counts himself lucky to have found one so quickly. “Sometimes you have to drive around here in the boat nearly all day to find a seal,” Shiwak says. “Nowadays you can’t even afford to – C$60 only gets you five gallons of gas.”