Landscapes & Letters
Paul McCarney
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In 2015, I was in Kugaaruk, Nunavut interviewing hunters for my graduate research. We were talking about ringed seal and polar bear ecology and the environmental changes hunters had noticed over the years, including changes to sea ice, climate, and wildlife. We were also running a harvest-based seal sampling program in which hunters took measurements and submitted samples of seals that would be used to understand seal health and learn about the… Read More
The Latin names for wildlife and plant species follow a specific and universally accepted structure that allows us to talk about the same organism across languages, countries, disciplines, and knowledge systems. It might seem cumbersome to memorize Latin names for species that might already enjoy pleasant sounding and culturally significant local names. However, the background of the Latin naming system, known as binomial nomenclature, is interesting and useful to understand. Many Latin… Read More
Its March 2016. I’m writing this from Kugaaruk, a community of about 800 people in Nunavut’s Kitikmeot Region. Kugaaruk is on the southeast side of Pelly Bay, which at its north end opens up into the Gulf of Boothia, in the Canadian Arctic. The community itself is right at the mouth of the wide Kugaaruk River and is surrounded by an amazing topography of rocky hills and islands. Right now, the ice… Read More
Paul McCarney