They Might Become Canada's First Climate Refugees

To say the tiny Canadian community of the Tuktoyaktuk in the Western Arctic is worried about climate change is a little abstract. To say they're worried about their small cemetery makes it painfully real for the hamlet's 1,000 Inuvialuit residents. A New York Times Magazine story notes that only a few decades ago, people had to light a fire to thaw the ground enough to dig a grave. "Nowadays, in some corners of the cemetery, probes are too short to find the permafrost," writes Norimitsu Onishi. "Along a deep fissure running across the cemetery, gravesites have caved in and crosses lean in the same direction like dominoes ready to topple over." The cemetery is only one example: The story follows researchers documenting the accelerating loss of Tuktoyaktuk's land as permafrost melts.

Onishi interviews locals who have had to move their homes—the actual structures—away from danger zones. Residents have placed boulders along the shoreline in spots to slow the erosion, but the gist of the story is that these are all temporary measures, a way to buy time before the entire hamlet must relocate. As Onishi puts it, Tuktoyaktuk's residents are on track to become "Canada's first climate refugees." But probably not the last: The Arctic is heating up four times as fast as the global average thanks to declining sea ice, the story notes. And what is taking place in Tuktoyaktuk "is being replicated around the Arctic," says Christopher Burn, a permafrost expert at Carleton University in Ottawa. Read the full story. (Or check out other longform recaps.)