The connection between community identity and traditional knowledge is well documented in aboriginal communities. Traditional knowledge has evolved and survived through a process whereby community elders pass on to the next generations significant information that ensures community preservation. In the far north, traditional knowledge is embodied as an Inuit identity which is constructed from a complex holistic understanding of physical, social, emotional, cultural, and spiritual information about their interdependence with the environment. Inuit are said "to think with their whole bodies" and research on Inuit ethnolinguistics and symbolism has illustrated a complex interconnection between concepts of identity, definitions of health, cultural categories of diseases and environmental knowledge.
This paper will explore the influence of significant storm patterns in contributing to Inuit identity and community life. The collection of stories about significant storms, corroborated by existing data, will provide an interesting contribution to Inuit community identity. The concept of the community in rural, isolated, indigenous, resource based societies is strongly influenced by the identity these people have with the environment. Many of these community constellations are not aboriginal. For example, southern Eurocentric communities experience variable storms patterns throughout the cycle of a year. Major storms and dramatic weather patterns contributes significantly to the identity and the ascribed identity by people in other regions who are familiar with these reports about the changeable weather. People living in these area with consequential storm conditions have learned to prepare for these storms in a variety of ways. This knowledge influences the way houses, are built, travel is planned, resources are organized, food is stored, heating and cooking arrangements are anticipated, emergency shelters are constructed and crisis responses are executed. This paper will discuss Inuit perceptions of storms on their community life. To what extent does their predisposition to significant weather conditions as a way of life prepare them for predicted global climate change. Are the Inuit similarly sensitive to the consequences of big storms as Eurocentric cultures? If not, should they be? This understanding could provide insight and a predictive quality to explain the climate and environmentally induced changes on community life.