Signs of Change

There are key elements that influence how a community grows and operates over time. These factors are vital to a community's way of life.

In Barrow, Alaska's northernmost community, seasonal ice linking the coast with the surrounding Arctic Ocean plays a key role in that traditional lifestyle. The ice is an important factor in many hunting traditions. These ways of life are passed down from generation to generation.

In today's warming climate, the ice becomes a bellwether of change. As sea ice dwindles, resident natives face new difficulties in their whale hunts; its easier to haul out whales on the floating platform ice provides; it's cleaner to butcher them on the snow-and ice covered surface; and the naturally cool icepack is suited to preserving whale meat during processing.

Click image for audio.

Audio package by Mary Donaldson Animals in the North face new challenges because of climate change. For the .wav version of this file, click here.

Shrinking sea ice also poses challenges for animals native to the region. Polar bear and walrus are showing up on shore visibly exhausted. The ice freezes much later in the winter and these animals are left with less of a home.

Locals are starting to see more of them show on shore exhausted after swimming miles over widening open water separating the icepack from the coast. In 2004, the first-ever observation of polar bears that apparently drowned in open ocean caused an international stir among scientists and wildlife preservationists, and caused consternation ashore.

In the audio package, reference is made to Native legends of the earth switching poles.