www.iisd.org
©2013 The International Institute for Sustainable Development
**Subject to final design and copy edit
A. L. Hamilton.
IISD
REPORT
The Hudson Bay Complex in
Flux: Contemplating the
future of the world’s largest
seasonally ice-covered inland
sea
Author McAuthor and Writer Writerson
May 2013
www.iisd.org
©2013 The International Institute for Sustainable Development
**Subject to final design and copy edit
2013 The International Institute for Sustainable Development
Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
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The Hudson Bay Complex in Flux: Contemplating the future of the world’s largest seasonally ice-covered
inland sea
2011
Written by A. L. Hamilton.
www.iisd.org
©2013 The International Institute for Sustainable Development
**Subject to final design and copy edit
www.iisd.org
©2013 The International Institute for Sustainable Development
**Subject to final design and copy edit
Preface
On October 28, 1978, a Delta rocket delivered its payload: the NIMBUS 7 satellite, an orbiting satellite
designed to monitor a number of environmental parameters including surface air and sea temperatures
and ice cover. Climate change was not, at that time, of much public, political or media interest. A small
number of experts, mostly oceanographers and atmospheric scientists, were raising the alarm over
increases in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and were expressing concern as to what
this “greenhouse” gas might mean for global climate. NIMBUS 7 and other satellites have become very
important witnesses to the warming of the planet and have provided a wealth of data documenting the
changes that are occurring in the Arctic Ocean and in subarctic seas such as Hudson Bay. It is unlikely that
many would have foreseen that the September extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean (at the end of the
melt season) would, between 1979 and 2011, have been decreasing at a rate of 12 per cent year. Similarly
few would have predicted that the ice-free season in the Hudson Bay Complex would be increasing by 10
or more days per decade.
In 1978 people did not have personal computers, cell phones or global positioning systems and the Cold
War was a fact of life. Nunavut did not exist and the Inuit and Cree living around the coastline of the
Hudson Bay Complex (Hudson and James Bay, Foxe Basin, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay) were adjusting,
with difficulty, to changes that were occurring around them. The Churchill River had been diverted and
hydro developments on the Nelson River were being developed while the massive James Bay
hydroelectricity development was in the planning stage, and its major impacts on the James Bay Cree
would occur later. Generations of Inuit and Cree were losing much of their traditional connection with the
land and the sea, a connection that had been central to their culture and value system. Some, though not
all, of this disconnect can be traced to the Residential Schools program. Then, as now, there was a desire
to ensure that the option of continuing to harvest marine mammals, waterfowl, fish and invertebrates
from the sea would still be available to them and their descendants.