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Approaching Cumberland Sound en route to the Hamlet of Pangnirtung, it's time to put a slightly more technical and scientific face on deliberations with a roundtable on climate change. Physical and social scientists aboard join with Inuit leaders and policy people to talk about the 10 key findings of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), initiated by the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Sciences Committee in 2004. Steven Price of the World Wildlife Fund wears a T-shirt that says, "hotter than I should be." We learn that sea ice is declining two to three times faster than expected. The Greenland icecap contains enough water to raise sea levels by seven metres. The treeline is moving northward, noticeably. The range and diversity of northern animals will decrease. Decrease in ice, increase in shipping. There will be significant cultural and economic impacts on aboriginal communities across the north. And finally, we learn that the compound and multiple effects will almost certainly exceed the sum of the individual ramifications of climate change.

What to make of all of this on this expedition is another matter altogether. Somehow it's hard to reconcile the pristine nature that we're seeing to what we're hearing through lectures, films and presentations. What brings those two together, however, is a session with two elders in the community centre in Pangnirtung. Through a translator, these two gentlemen in their 80s talk about how the Inuit have adapted to change their whole lives. The rate of change is increasing, on that they both agree. The floe edge is closer in mid-winter. The species they're seeing (or not seeing) is in flux from year to year, more than ever. Places where the sea ice has been solid for generations is now questionable. But hearing it from people who will be personally affected by change puts a human face on climate change and pollution. "What the rest of the world breathes out, we breathe in here in the North," says one elder. "We don't create the pollutants in our country food but we have to deal with them in our diet." Sharing a feast of caribou, seal, muktuk, char, bannock and tea also helps make the connection as well as reinforce the idea that has been circulating since this trip began — northerner's knowledge of land and climate is not separate from who they are or where they live. "Making climate change personal is the whole idea behind Students on Ice," says Educator Diz Glithero, as we make our way back to the ship by Zodiac. I'm left wondering how teachers who can't take their classes to the Arctic might make similarly personal connections for students who will never experience the good fortune of an expedition like this.