From Argentina to ice floes

Snowdrifts shaped by the prevailing winds always point West-Northwest and fresh seal meat is the main antidote to freezing temperatures. These are just a few things Claudio Aporta knows from his travels to the North.

An instructor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University and a member of the Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre (GCRC), Aporta researches Inuit navigational and wayfinding techniques.

Some of the interesting facts gleaned from studying Inuit hunters in Igloolik, Nunavut include that Inuit often assign place names to fluid landmarks such as ice floes and ice cracks that appear in approximately the same vicinity every year.

But crawling into igloos and mush-mushing across Arctic tundra on a snowmobile or a dogsled is not what Aporta imagined he’d be doing years ago.

Aporta grew up in Argentina where he graduated with a BA in Communication. After two years working as TV journalist and three years at a magazine, he decided he wanted to dig deeper than the shallow surface of the story of the day.

The idea to study Inuit culture only crystallized in his mind when he met some arctic researchers during his doctoral research in the department of anthropology at the University of Alberta. From the friendship flowed an idea to study how Inuit hunters from the community of Igloolik, Nunavut related to and understood their environment.

The research meshed sociology and geography by studying navigational techniques and the transmission of Inuit geographic knowledge.

Aporta recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Laval University for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Upon completion, he moved to Ottawa to accept a position at Carleton.

He currently teaches two anthropology courses in third and fourth year.

His research focuses on the production of a CD-ROM about Inuit navigation that will be used in high schools in Nunavut. The CD explores different methods of cartography and includes elders speaking about navigation in their mother tongue.

And the future forecast shows two major projects on the horizon. One is with the National Geographic Foundation to document – 1,200 km of traditional Inuit trails. The other is research on sea ice use for the International Polar Year.

But Aporta is already exploring other worlds.
“I don’t see myself only as an arctic researcher. I’m interested in different perceptions and experiences of the environment.” Aporta adds that his next project may involve different avenues of research in South America.

The possibilities are endless.