With no knowledge or experience of the big picture, the Inuit had no reason to believe that anywhere else would be any different to their own surroundings.   Unfortunately no one told the Inuit that the weather got considerably warmer further south.
      No one explained this for the quite understandable reason that no one from the warmer south had any cause to trek thousands of miles through frozen wastelands on the off chance that anyone would be there or be pleased to see them when they got there.   Even if they did take along their holiday photographs of palm trees on tropical beaches.

      But the days when the sky was clear of nuclear fall out and the ozone layer still gave protection have gone forever.
      The twin evils of exploitation of the land and corruption of the indigenous population with false promises and contagious diseases are rapidly putting the Inuit into the past tense.   In the same way that explorers have happily been putting (usually their own) names on maps ever since maps were thought of, anthropologists have happily been drawing thick black lines around land that does not belong to them or anyone else.
      Countries lay claim to vast areas of land and multinational companies classify virgin land as ‘waste’ and then sell it for vast sums of money to developers and industrialists for exploitation of its natural resources.

      In the race to destroy one of the last remaining wildernesses of the planet, it will a close run thing between the exploitation or continued global warming and it is no real comfort to know that only thing that will give the Inuit peoples another chance is a new and deep ice age.

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