North

My contact with the North is mainly a contact with the Nunavik’s Inuit and the peculiar relationship they have with their magnificent environment. As a visual anthropologist, I have learned, with much time spent among Inuit people, to look at the tundra as a rich place where life can be fulfilling. That is, I have learned to see the abundance where there seems to be nothing at first sight, and to appreciate the food offered by the northern land. For millions of years, Inuit have survived in this environment which qallunaat (long eyebrows: white people) have most often found harsh and not welcoming. It is throughout Inuit culture that I have understood and loved the North. To me, Inuit are people with great strength, continuously adjusting to the changing days and seasons.

Over the last 50 years, Inuit have seen their living environment turned upside down through sedentarization, and climate change. Young Inuit's ways of living does not seem to have much in common with how elders have learned to survive in their times. Moreover, the everyday lives of all Inuit is clearly influenced by ours: pollution of the northern waters and global warming are quickly changing the environment in which Inuit evolve. This often leads us in wondering about the future of our northern neighbours. As Inuit say: “the environment has always been changing. For example, there has been hunger and people have died. In fact, these changes have always been part of our daily lives.” However, we, people from the south, tend to forget how depending we are on the environment.

South

From Nunavik to Antarctica there is a world’s difference. Apart from the scientists, no one lives in Antarctica. During my overwintering year in Antarctica, I wondered why there was nobody living of the land as Inuit do. That is, why does nobody live from the fearless Weddell Seal or from the million of curious penguins which run toward you when you walk on the shore? Overwintering in the Antarctic peninsula made me realize that the rocked land hiding underneath the melting glaciers seemed to hide very few living resources. Coming to think of it, in the lasts couple of hundred years only the wailers have had been here, and they let the whale populations has we know them today.

The magnificent environment around sub Antarctic islands made me feel as if I did not have enough of two eyes to see all of its beauties.
Human beings are very few here and do not seem to feel very secure to explore the territory. That may be the reason why animals seem very unaware that everywhere else on Earth, most of them are afraid of us! Just being based there, feeling part of their natural environment for a while, gave me the chance to witness the spectacular abundance of the returning fauna in spring. Unlike other species who need the ice to survive, the Fur seal and the Gentoo Penguins welcomed the early melting of the ice floe.

In both of these polar worlds, global warming requires inhabitants to adapt. It is in fact a question of survival. Hopefully, the images we took over there will spread out through the world and make more and more people realize that they are responsible of their actions and that these actions have consequences all over the Earth. I heard once that: “where there is a will, there is a way” and I hope we will find this way soon!