RAIN IN THE ARCTIC

The Canadian High Arctic Research Station conducts research in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in order to better understand rapid changes occurring in the North

During late spring in Cambridge Bay, in the very early morning, there’s an hour or so of muted light when the town’s 1,800 inhabitants are asleep, the dogs are curled in their plywood houses, and there’s not a snowmobile on the land, nor an aircraft or bird in the sky. The horizon to the east is a slash of rippled blood, and if you happen to be awake and outdoors and in a place with a view across the tundra, you can, in the silence, with a little imagination, see a thousand years into the past.

It wasn’t long ago in the High Arctic, under the illusion of planetary permanence, that you could conjure a similarly long view of the future. Nothing about the land or water or ice seemed likely to change.

Read the full story by Charles Wilkins here.

Keywords: Arctic; Cambridge Bay; Canada; Nunavut; research