"It's because we're out there and experiencing": Inuit Knowledge, climate change, and Cultural Keystone Places in Nunatsiavut

Inuit across Inuit Nunaat (the circumpolar Inuit homeland) are living through profound climate-driven changes. These climate impacts are experienced most acutely in place, shaping livelihoods, culture, health, and safety. This study applies a place-based approach to investigate how Inuit in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, experience, understand and respond to climate change in relation to Cultural Keystone Places (CKPs). We use semi-directed interviews and participatory mapping to document important places, associated stories and relationships, experiences of climate impacts, and identification of related adaptation actions. Climate change was described as contributing to environmental change at CKPs, including shifting seasons, changing snow and ice conditions, and shrubification, affecting culturally important species and disrupting land access. However, we show that for many Nunatsiavummiut, experiences of climate change are inseparable from social, economic, and colonial change, which compound to disrupt relationships with the land. Through this place-based and holistic framing, cultural resurgence and land-based learning emerged as direct responses to climate change. These results highlight the need for a holistic understanding of climate change that incorporates social and environmental dimensions to support locally important and culturally relevant research and self-determined adaptation strategies.