wpostServer: http://css.washingtonpost.com/wpost
Alaskan Arctic villages hit hard by climate change The impact of climate change — including permafrost melt, more powerful storms and soil erosion — is threatening Alaskan natives.
June 10, 2005
Out late on a Friday night, teenage Inupiat Eskimos go ice-hopping on the Chukchi Sea, one of the rare distractions in Shishmaref, Alaska. The choice for the federal government — and state and local officials — is whether to try to preserve, if it is even possible, the heritage of the Inuit villages, their ice cellars, sod ancestral homes and cemeteries ringed with spires of whale bones. Or spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it would cost to move even one village.
Gilles Mingasson
/
Getty Images
Related Content
June 15, 2005
Inupiat Eskimo Fred Weyiouanna drags a seal he just shot and harpooned onto his boat, during the traditional spring hunt, on the Chukchi Sea near Shishmaref, Alaska. Traditionally, spring seal hunting around the village of Shishmaref has been done on the ice, by dog sled or snow machine, but climate change forced the Eskimos to use their handmade boats, normally reserved for the fall hunt when the sea is clear of ice.
Gilles Mingasson
/
Getty Images
July 6, 2012
Murre eggs, which Point Hope villages collect from nearby cliffs, are pointed on one end so they don’t roll off.
Juliet Eilperin
July 26, 2010
Point Hope, Alaska, native Michael Dirks, 31, left, works with his son, Dmitri, 8, to pull in a fishing net, collecting silver salmon while fishing in the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean. For thousands of years the village has lived a mostly subsistence life of hunting whales, seal, caribou, walrus, salmon fish and many other species.
Andy Cross
/
The Denver Post
Sept. 7, 2010
This picture provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows a walrus calf looking out from the group at the beach line near Point Lay, Alaska. Arctic sea ice, which shrinks over the summer and grows in the winter, decreased by a total of 21.1 million square miles in June, the largest loss on record for the month since satellite records began, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Overall, summer sea ice has declined 40 percent since 1979, when satellite imagery began mapping the ice.
/
AP
July 19, 2011
A walrus skull lies among the remnants of a sod house near the Chukchi Sea in northwest Alaska.
Bonnie Jo Mount
/
The Washington Post
July 18, 2011
Scientists working for Shell Oil search for the remnants of a sod house near the shore of the Chukchi Sea just south of Wainwright, Alaska. The area is a gathering place for caribou and other wildlife.
Bonnie Jo Mount
/
The Washington Post
July 18, 2011
A teenager explores the shoreline near the Chukchi Sea in Wainwright, Alaska.
Bonnie Jo Mount
/
The Washington Post
July 26, 2010
Point Hope, Alaska, native Lillian Lane takes out various frozen foods — cooked Beluga whale, blubber and skin from a bowhead whale, bowhead whale fluke, humpy fish and salmon berries — at her home to cut up and store for snacks. Households in Alaskan Arctic villages rely on hunting and fishing for most of their annual food consumption, activities that depend on sea ice.
Andy Cross
/
The Denver Post
July 18, 2011
A permafrost ice cellar is shown in Wainwright, Alaska.
Bonnie Jo Mount
/
The Washington Post
July 5, 2012
Kotzebue resident Angela Washington has converted a greenhouse behind her home to a meat-drying shed, where she and her husband hang up bearded seal jerky. The hunters in Kotzebue struggled with this year’s bearded seal hunt. The slushy ice made it hard to find a firm place to stand, and many of the seals were submerged in water and harder to shoot and retrieve.
Juliet Eilperin
July 25, 2010
Sylvia Kinneevauk, 10, right, Guy Nashookpuk, 2, left, and Whitney Oviok, 6, bounce on a trampoline in the village of Point Hope, Alaska.
Andy Cross
/
The Denver Post
July 26, 2010
Large bowhead whale jaw bones provide an entrance to the whaling feast grounds in Point Hope, Alaska. Every year after a successful whale hunt, the entire village celebrates with an event that includes song and dance and a large feast, sharing the new catch.
Andy Cross
/
The Denver Post
July 25, 2010
Point Hope, Alaska, is one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in North America, located along the Chukchi Sea coast of the Arctic Ocean.
Andy Cross
/
The Denver Post
FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES
Photos of the day
Chelsea Flower Show, face transplant in Poland, Oklahoma residents cope with tornado aftermath and more.
The Herndon Climb
The Herndon Monument climb is the traditional culmination of plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Eye on entertainment
Ben Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld, Emma Stone, 2 Chainz, Tyrese Gibson, Susan Boyle and more.
Animal views
Fun and fascinating creatures around the world.
???initialComments:true! pubdate:08/05/2012 19:48 EDT! commentPeriod:14! commentEndDate:8/19/12 7:48 EDT! currentDate:5/22/13 8:0 EDT! allowComments:false! displayComments:true!
Section:/national/health-science
Loading...
Comments