The Hottest Day

Ossie (a short form for his actual name) asks a question of his brother Mac (also a short form for his name): “Did you hear the weather report last night on the television? The weather woman declared that on Friday we will be experiencing a record breaking heatwave.”

Mac replies. “Yes, I did. You could say that it will truly be a Frying Day. She declared that the high temperature would be 50 degrees Celsius or 122 Fahrenheit. Nobody in our community has ever experienced such a high temperature before. And what are we going to do with the dogs? They will bake for sure, don’t you think.”

Ossie replies. “Yes, I think that we will have to put them in the shallow water and keep them there for a while until the temperature drops. And keep them from running. We might have to tie them to a dock.”

“And what are we humans going to do to survive the hot weather attack ourselves? I don’t think that we should tie ourselves to a dock.”

“That’s the big question, isn’t it, my brother.”

“Our ancestors would not have a clue as to what to do. They would never have experienced such high temperatures anytime in their lives.”

The Day of the Much Dreaded Hottest Weather Arrives

As the day arrived and the heat skyrocketed to great heights, Ossie noticed another threat brought on by the temperature. The water level was rising not far from where he, his brother and his neighbours had their houses. He felt that if the high temperature stayed this high for any length of time, their houses would be flooded. He soon saw that several others in the community had also become aware of this potential danger and were working with shovels to build a kind of very long dam made of earth and rocks to separate the sea and their village. He could tell by the look on their sweating faces that they did not seem to feel totally confident that this would work over the long term, maybe not even by the end of the day..

This made Ossie try to lighten the mood as he walked up to the group with his shovel in hand, declaring loudly to the others. “If our ancestors could have anticipated the possibility of this kind of weather, I don’t think they would have built their houses so close to the sea, unless they built them to float. They could not think of everything.” There was kind of a light laughter that followed this remark. It was a rare occurrence that anyone would criticize the ancestors in such a way and not be reprimanded or glared at for doing so. But these words were clearly meant in jest.

Still Mac was bold enough to reply to Ossie’s remark by saying, “Can you imagine what would have happened to their houses if they had one or more days such as this? They could go fishing without having to leave their houses. The light laughter again could be heard, but it did not last long as the people looked at the ever creeping shoreline in front of them.

The Snow Joke

Mac went on to say: “The ancestors would not have come up with so many words for ‘snow’ if they knew there might be a time when all the snow would have disappeared. Many names would have no longer have a meaning.”

A quick reply came from Ossie, who was proud of his knowledge of their traditional language. His grandfather had seen to that. “You know as well as I do that we do not have 50 plus terms for ‘snow’. That is just something that the people down south made up to point out how strange we are. We know that there are only seven such words. And probably some of them believe that we still kiss our loved ones by rubbing our noses together, with the threat of giving each other sniffles syphilis.” There were bursts of laughter to be heard from the group.

Ossie went home to get clothing to wear that was better suited to the weather of the day. He knew that he had to dress in such a way that the heat would not be too much for him. He did not own a pair of shorts, so he took out of his clothes closet an old pair of pants and shortened them significantly. When his wife, named Ahnah, meaning ‘wise woman’ first got a look at him, she said. “You really do have nice legs Ossie. That is one reason why I married you.”

He replied by saying that the long version of his name, Aassanaaq ‘summer’ would be an appropriate name for the day, even though it in the middle of December. And he hoped his brother usually called Mac would live up to his actual name of Aiuqjuaq ‘the strong one’.

“If this continues, we will probably end up having fairly significant rain in the winter. We will definitely need to surround our communities with stone and soil dams, and maybe in some places we will need to move farther inland.”

And snow would be an infrequent visitor, no matter how many names the Inuit had for it.

Ossie was a born organizer. He got out a camera and filmed the people, men and women, building the long running walls of stone and earth, as well as the rising of the sea waters in a relatively short time. He then took a picture of how dangerously close the water was to their houses. He added his commentary for the sound track, as well as those wise words coming from his fellow Inuit. 

Later, as the hot weather continued, he contacted people in other Inuit communities in Nunavut, asking them to film the effects of the weather on the waters and on the people. He then got in touch with several television networks, and sent them copies of his film. Eventually the film was broadcast not only in their own country but in others as well. He gathered together a committee of his people that grew and grew across the extreme north. They spoke with a voice that people across the world eventually would listen to and respect in this matter. They eventually had something of an influence that would assist in the change of practices that had affected the climate. The snow would finally return to the land, and the seawater would retreat from its threat to their houses.