Permafrost thaw in Arctic Canada shifts land, lives – ‘I feel the whole town should move’
By MONIQUE POLAK, Postmedia News
11 March 2011 In his seven terms as mayor of Salluit, Qalingo Angutigirk has tried to look after his people, and their land. But it’s not an easy job when the ground is literally shifting under his feet. Since 1998 Salluit, the province’s second northernmost community, has been hit by a series of landslides. Scientists blame it on the melting of the permafrost, the fragile underground layer of soil and rock that remains frozen year round — or is supposed to. Though Angutigirk, 72, is familiar with the science behind the problem, he offers a more concrete example. “A long time ago, in the old days, to bury a body, we only had to dig two feet. Now we have to dig all the way down,” he says, shaking his head. The deeper digging is necessary because what was once permafrost and closer to the ground’s surface has melted, turning into mud. Many people in the south have now become familiar with the problem of melting Arctic sea ice, which is endangering wildlife like polar bears and walruses, and affecting the lives of indigenous peoples. But it isn’t only the ice that’s melting in the North; it’s the earth itself. Permafrost underlies almost half of Canada’s ground surface. In many ways, permafrost defines the North. It determines construction and town planning, as well as the region’s fragile ecosystem. In Salluit and other northern communities, there is no underground plumbing since pipes would freeze in winter. Instead, the water truck comes by to fill the residents’ water tanks, and a sewage truck collects raw sewage. Frame houses rest on sturdy stilts some 50 centimetres above the ground to allow for airflow and reduce the amount of heat transferred from the house to the surface of the ground. In warm weather, hardy lichens and grasses grow rapidly on the surface, providing food for wildlife and helping to protect the permafrost below. Recent studies indicate the permafrost of the southern Arctic is deteriorating at an alarming rate. In some regions of what is called the discontinuous zone, close to the tree line, where permafrost exists in patches, there has been an estimated 50-per-cent decrease in permafrost coverage in the last 50 years. Though Salluit is above the tree line, Quebec scientists have focused their research here, where the melting permafrost has destabilized not only the land, but also the people who live on it So far, no one has died in one of Salluit’s landslides, but people worry that may not always be the case. Angutigirk says he’ll never forget the 1998 landslide, which occurred south of the town site in an area known by some locals as Salluit Two or New Town. “It was a huge slide,” he says, stretching out his arms, “500-feet wide.” In the wake of that landslide, 17 houses were moved by trailer — at considerable expense — from Salluit Two to a neighbourhood some people here call Second Salluit Two. Despite that measure, Angutigirk still worries. There have been more landslides, the most recent in September 2010, which caused the closure of the road to the local airport for nearly two months, forcing villagers to take a detour to reach the airport. … Winters in Salluit, said Angutigirk, are not nearly as cold as they once were. “When I was a boy, even the kerosene thought the weather was too cold. It turned from red to white, and it turned oily, and it was slow when we poured it out. That doesn’t happen any more,” he said. The locals miss the cold winters. “There were only eight days last year when it was minus 40. Usually, we get three months straight of minus 40. We like that. We’re wild,” said Noah Tayara, a member of the board of directors of Makivik Corporation. … Some Salluit residents are less confident about their village’s safety. “The permafrost is unstable and slides. It’s not a game. I feel the whole town should move,” said town manager Paulusie Saviadjuk. Saviadjuk, 38, lives in one of the houses that was relocated from Salluit Two to Second Salluit Two. Climate change has also had another direct and frightening impact on Saviadjuk’s life. In May 2006, Saviadjuk and a group of some 30 other hunters and fishermen found themselves stranded on Deception Bay. They’d come by snow machine and when unusually warm weather caused the snow to suddenly melt, they had no way of getting home. “We were saved by the mining company. We got home by charter planes. A boat had to come pick up our Ski-Doos,” recalled Saviadjuk. … Another elder in the community, Donald Cameron, describes himself as “very very worried” about the changes connected to climate change and the deteriorating permafrost. “In the last five years, we’ve seen strange animals we’ve never seen here before — robins, dragonflies, wasps and bees,” said Cameron, who was born in Scotland, but who has lived in the North since he was a teenager working for the Hudson Bay Company. … The problem of deteriorating permafrost goes beyond Salluit and is believed to be affecting much of Nunavik. Allard and his team recently extended their research on permafrost levels to four other Inuit villages — Akulivik, Puvurnituq, Kangirsuk and Tasiujaq. “Comparative observations from recent satellite pictures and aerial photographs dating back 50 years, supported by field observations in Nunavik, as well as elsewhere in Canada, Alaska and Russia show that the thawing of the permafrost is occurring throughout the southern Arctic, or what is known as the discontinuous zone,” said Allard. …
