Climate change forcing Alaskans to hunt for new ways to survive

As far back as he can remember, Willard Church Jr. has gone out ice fishing well into the month of April, chopping holes that were easily four feet deep into the Kanektok River near his home.

But the waterway that runs along the village of Quinhagak, in southwest Alaska, barely freezes now, a testament to the warming temperatures wreaking havoc on the state's indigenous people and their subsistence way of life.

"I am a hunter and a fisherman and I have spent my whole life living the subsistence lifestyle," Church, 55, a member of the Yupik Eskimo community, told an AFP team that recently visited the remote village of about 700 people that sits by the Bering Sea and the Kuskokwim Bay.

"I have travelled all over the region, going on 10-day hunting and fishing trips out in the mountains," he added. "We grew up in a time when winter was actual winter, when our elders remember snow drifts as high as the peaks of people's houses.

"Today, we're lucky to even get half an inch of snow on the ground."

As world leaders and scientists grapple with how best to combat climate change, Alaska's native people -- estimated at about 120,000 and living in some 230 rural communities or regional hubs -- find themselves at the epicenter of a crisis that has forced them to rethink their traditional lifestyle.

According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally-mandated report released in November, the state is among the fastest warming regions on Earth, heating up along with the rest of the Arctic at twice the rate of the global average.

- Rivers not freezing -

For Alaskans like Church who have a deep connection to the land, the temperature increases are changing the very core of their existence and having a drastic effect on their food supply.

Frozen waterways that turn into ice roads in winter and spring, connecting rural villages and allowing for the transportation of goods, are breaking up early or not freezing at all.

And traveling on the small planes that fly into the villages -- weather permitting -- is too expensive for most.

This year alone, at least five people, including one man from Quinhagak, died when their snowmobiles or vehicles fell through ice that softened earlier than expected.

Frozen rivers and sea ice are also crucial for subsistence fishing and hunting and without them, the native population is being forced to adapt and find new ways to survive.

"Right now we should be covered in snow... and we should be traveling by snow machine," said Warren Jones, head of Quinhagak's village corporation, as he looked out onto the flat, spongy tundra landscape that surrounds Quinhagak.

"There should be ice out there," he added, pointing westward to the Bering Sea. "When we go seal hunting, we take our snow machines and boats and drive down about three miles for open water.

"But as you can see, there is no ice at all."

That means hunters are taking more risks and travelling farther out to sea in sometimes treacherous open water to find their prey.

Added to that, permafrost -- the frozen ground that makes up almost 85 percent of Alaska -- is also thawing, affecting everything from critical infrastructure to wildlife habitat and the picking of berries that grow on the tundra.

- A resilient people -

"Out here the native people rely on the natural resources -- the berries, the greens, the birds, the fish, the land animals and marine mammals -- as our primary food," said Church. "We're not an agrarian culture, we're still hunter-gatherers."

For village elders like Annie Cleveland, 78, the warming temperatures are not only affecting subsistence food but also centuries-old traditions that define native Alaskans and their culture.

"Everything is changing and I worry about the future," she said. "We used to travel with dog teams, we used to go up river and camp and fish all summer long... but all of that is changing because of the climate."

Jennifer Hooper, natural resources director at the Association of Village Council Presidents, a regional non-profit tribal consortium, said officials at the state and federal level are working with the region's 56 tribes to help them face an increasingly uncertain future.

"Climate change is compounding the difficulties of this way of life... and making everything that much more difficult," she said. "For me the biggest issue would probably be access to resources."

Despite the grim outlook, in dozens of interviews conducted with local tribal leaders and residents in Quinhagak as well as in the village of Napakiak and Bethel, a regional commercial hub, everyone appeared confident that the resilience of the native communities would ensure their survival.

"If we don't adapt, we're not going to be here," Jones said. "Our people, the Yupik people, are used to adapting.

"We have adapted over the centuries with whatever we're given by mother nature."

Alaska's indigenous people feel the heat of climate change
Napakiak, United States (AFP) Aug 29, 2019 - The cemetery has already been moved twice, the old school is underwater and the new one is facing the same fate as erosion constantly eats away at the land in Napakiak.

The tiny village located in southwestern Alaska, along the meandering Kuskokwim River, is one of dozens of coastal indigenous communities across the state that are on the front lines of climate change, their very existence and way of life threatened by the warming temperatures.

"The shoreline keeps eroding much faster than predictions and we are continuously having to move back from the river to higher ground," city council member Walter Nelson told an AFP team on a recent tour of the isolated village of 350 residents, most of them Yupik Eskimos. "Here, we are dealing with climate change on a daily basis."

Waving his hands left and right, he points to houses and other structures, most of them on stilts, that are affected by rapid coastal erosion and thawing permafrost -- a once-permanently frozen ground on which many Alaska native villages are built.

"It's a constant race against time and right now the local grocery store, the fire station and a city building are top of the list for relocation," Nelson said. "The school will be next but we won't be able to move it. We will have to tear it down and build a new one."

The same drama is playing out across all of Alaska's coastal communities, many of which are not accessible by road, except in the winter, when the rivers freeze and turn into ice roads that are increasingly non-existent because of the warming temperatures.

According to a 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office, the majority of the state's more than 200 native villages are affected by erosion and flooding, with 31 facing "imminent threats."

Among those in danger of going underwater is Newtok, located near Alaska's western coast, where all of the roughly 350 residents should complete the daunting task of relocating this summer to a new village about nine miles away.

Further south, in Quinhagak, which sits along the Bering Sea and near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River, local leaders are also mulling moving the entire village of 700 people to safer grounds.

"We've already moved twice and the last time was in 1979," said Warren Jones, president of the local Yupik corporation known as Qanirtuuq, Inc. "But the erosion is happening too quickly and now we're preparing land for the new site which will be further inland."

- 'Existential threats' -

According to scientists, Alaska has been warming twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures in February and March shattering records.

"From 1901 to 2016, average temperatures in the mainland United States increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (one degree Celsius), whereas in Alaska they increased by 4.7 degrees," said Rick Thoman, a climate expert at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.

"This is disproportionately affecting rural communities in Alaska, many of which are facing long-term existential threats," he added. "Some communities are one storm away from not being habitable."

In Napakiak, which is surrounded by miles and miles of flat tundra dotted with small lakes, and is only accessible by small plane or by boat, Harold Ilmar's full-time job for the last decade has been to protect the village from storm surges, flooding and the river constantly eroding large chunks of land.

On average, he moves about five structures a year to higher ground and, with the meager means at his disposal, tries to push back the waves chiseling away at the banks with sandbags and plastic sheeting.

- 'Metal coffins' -

"It's non-stop and during emergencies, I even work weekends," he says.

"I think it would be better if we just moved the whole village to higher ground, right up there," he adds, pointing to a bluff about a mile away from the shore.

Like their counterparts in other native communities, Napakiak officials in recent years have been making the rounds, travelling to conferences across the country to sound the alarm about climate change and their sinking villages.

"We keep telling people to come out here because seeing is believing," said Nelson. "They're not going to understand what's happening over the phone."

He said the village has even started using more sturdy metal coffins instead of wooden ones for burials, as many bodies could not be recovered intact when the two previous cemeteries washed away.

"We have two mass graves now filled with the remains of people we couldn't identify," he said.

Nelson acknowledged that in the long-term, given the speed of erosion and increased flooding, Napakiak may end up underwater with its residents possibly joining the growing number of climate refugees forced to abandon their land.

"We thought that 2016 and 2018 were the warmest but 2019 is breaking all records," he sighed. "Every year it keeps getting warmer.

"Who knows what we are going to face in the next 10 years."

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