Listening to the Arctic: SmartICE and the Practice of Paying Attention

Picture the bridge aboard the Ocean Victory during a late-night crossing of Davis Strait. A strengthening wind drives sea ice hard against the northeast coast of Baffin Island. The weather is deteriorating. Ahead lies Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area, the gateway to Nunavut’s High Arctic and the Northwest Passage. Failing to get through the ice means turning back to Greenland. That is the final option. 

The expedition leader and captain speak in measured tones. They study wind forecasts. They consult the Canadian Ice Service chart and the various satellite images at their disposal. They weigh dozens of variables, assessing an array of data across their screens. Everything they need to describe the conditions is at their fingertips. 

And yet, the final decision still rests with human judgment.

Today, as Director of Operations and Government Affairs for Adventure Canada, my work is immersed in analysis. Route planning, ice charts, satellite imagery, weather models, sunrise and sunset times, tide and swell forecasts, standard operating procedures, and the list goes on. The Arctic spans a vast region, relatively speaking, but now it is dense with information streams. 

Early in my career as a civil servant in Nunavut, I worked on funding a SmartICE project in Arctic Bay and Qikiqtarjuaq. The program was already groundbreaking by the time it came across my desk in 2017.  

SmartICE is a community-led sea-ice monitoring organization that brings together remote sensing, satellite mapping, and community observation to enhance travel out on the expansive winter ice. SmartICE is also a nonprofit entity, adopting a social enterprise business model, partnering with over thirty communities across Inuit Nunangat, the Northwest Territories, and Yukon. 

The model is straightforward. Community members drive snowmobiles pulling SmartQAMUTIKs along ice travel routes. The qamutik (wooden sled) is equipped with a sensor that measures ice thickness. The local operators also deploy SmartBUOYs and continually maintain, retrieve, and interpret the data from these instruments. In this collaboration, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit traditional knowledge) integrates with modern technology to produce extremely high-resolution data on local ice conditions, which is then made accessible to communities for informed ice-travel decisions, and shared with external partners when communities choose.  

I supported the program’s deployment to Arctic Bay and Qikiqtarjuaq in my role with the department. At the time, I understood SmartICE primarily as an innovative social enterprise and a tool to enhance forecasting. In my role at the Department of Economic Development and Transportation, I viewed SmartICE as an organization that would create local jobs and support safer, more informed ice travel. 

Only later did I realize that SmartICE was doing something more subtle than creating meaningful employment opportunities and providing rich data sets while doing so.  

What I came to understand is that the observations are powerful because they are grounded in Inuit experiential knowledge developed through generations of travel and risk assessment. This knowledge is translated into the data through exactly where the measurements are taken.

Ultimately, the truth is only known out on the bridge wing in the bright hours of sunrise, looking at a vast expanse of first-year ice still clogging up the entrance to the sound.

SmartICE helped me realize that there is a space between data and decision. Before data becomes knowledge, it must first be noticed and categorized. That space between interpreting what the data shows, and then acting on it, is closely reflected in the Inuit language (Inuktitut) for communicating conditions as they unfold.

I write from the perspective of a non-Inuk operations professional who has worked alongside Inuit colleagues and partners. Through that work, I have come to recognize how much expertise exists beyond the English frameworks I take for granted. This experience has influenced the way I think about information, judgment, and attention in Arctic operations.

On board Adventure Canada vessels, Inuit team members often share an Inuktitut word of the day, which is a simple and effective way to contextualize the language for curious southerners. In learning these new Inuktitut words, our more astute guests come to realize that the language itself is structured around lived interaction with the Arctic environment, and much like the Arctic, it strips away the superfluousness and condenses what matters into efficient exchanges. 

Like English, Inuktitut is capable of technical precision. Unlike English, Inuktitut’s grammatical architecture evolved in a context where safe travel and keen observation were daily necessities. Inuktitut organizes experience in ways shaped by movement across the ice, over the tundra, and through the wind. 

To use an analogy, a trained bridge officer who has been at sea for decades doesn’t just “see the sea.” They notice swell period, wave direction, white-capping, visibility gradients, and cloud ceiling because their professional vocabulary structures their attention toward those features. A guest may just see “rough water” or “calm water.” 

Another way to understand this is through language. A commonly repeated English phrase suggests that “Inuit have fifty words for snow,” but this oversimplifies how Inuktitut actually works. Consider the expression Titpaqut, from a SmartICE publication in Uqusuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven), written in the Natilingmiut dialect. In English, it becomes: “Beside the land is rough ice; small pieces that broke up in early fall, piled up, and remained until spring; this can also occur in fresh water.” 

Even then, something is lost. The meaning does not translate cleanly. The novice observer sees "rough ice." The Inuit eye sees origin, seasonality, texture, and implication. 

I do not attempt to explain Inuktitut or claim to inhabit the Inuit worldview. I want to share that by paying attention to this rich and complex language and having the privilege to work alongside those who speak and write it, I have gained a perspective that ultimately makes me a better operations professional. 

Modern English ice services describe sea ice through internationally standardized codes, thickness categories, and concentration scales. Inuit sea-ice terminology organizes the same reality through accumulated experience of travel, stability, and seasonal change.  Both systems are internally rigorous. SmartICE merges them out on the ice where it matters most.  

SmartICE shows that the Arctic is not navigated by data alone, nor by tradition alone, but through relationships: between knowledge systems, between communities, and between people and place. 

For those of us who travel and work in the North, that lesson extends beyond the ice. It shapes how we move through these waters, how we collaborate, and how we honour the expertise that makes safe and meaningful passage possible. 

The ice doesn’t teach you anything. The people who know it do. 

If you are interested in more examples of these kinds of translations you can check out the Qikiqtaqmiut Sea Ice Terminology Book here: Ice Safety – Uqsuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven) | SmartICE. 

Journeys for the Curious