Inuit order air conditioners as temperatures soar

An Inuit community in Canada’s far north is installing air conditioners after an exceptionally hot summer.

July temperatures reached 31 C in the village of Kuuihuaq in northern Quebec, home to some 2000 Inuit. The effects of the heatwave were made worse by the airtight character of Inuit houses, designed for the extreme winter cold, prompting the villagers to order 10 air conditioners for an office building.

“These are the times when the far north has to have air conditioners now to function,” Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a campaigner for the rights of the Inuit peoples in Canada, Alaska, Russia and Greenland, told Reuters.

Goska Romanowicz