Labrador dawn A future where culture meets conservation

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

- Ossie Michelin RIGOLET

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 - $60 only gets you five gallons of gas."

Nunatsiavut - one of four Inuit homelands in Canada - is where the subarctic becomes the Arctic. An autonomous region of LabradorNewfoundland province, it is located at the extreme north-east corner of North America.

Winter temperatures here average -30C with the windchill, as the Labrador current brings Arctic ice floes down the coast, as well as a host of marine life from plankton to polar bears.

From November to June, shipping is impossible because sea ice covers the 15,000km coastline, so all food and supplies must be flown in. In Rigolet, afrozen 1.5kg chicken will set you back $25. Hunting here is more than tradition; it's a necessity.

On the rocky beach, Shiwak butchers the seal with precision, turning the water crimson as crows caw overhead. As a boy, he learned to hunt and fish with his father and grandfather, who had learned from their elders.

It is also how Shiwak learned the core Inuit values of taking only what is needed, sharing, sustainability and respect for nature - values he is passing down to his children. Dane, 13, is at school but Shiwak knows he will want to be first to hear about the seal.

Traditional knowledge has allowed Inuit to survive in this harsh environment for a long time but the climatic conditions are changing quickly. Since 1950, Nunatsiavut has lost 40 days of ground snow a year. Its sea ice is vanishing faster than anywhere in the Canadian Arctic. By November, the shoreline would usually be covered in ice, and people would be putting away their boats and dusting off their snowmobiles. Winters are becoming warmer, wetter and shorter, as Shiwak will testify.