Climate change affecting life in Alaska

In 2021, after Evon Peter left a high-level position in academia, he and his family built their "biggest smokehouse ever,' and spent weeks catching, preparing, and smoking and drying salmon. (Photo by Nanieezh Peter, courtesy of Evon Peter)

In Interior Alaska and northwest Canada, temperatures were in the pleasant 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit range in July, but climate change is affecting nearly every aspect of life, said Gwich’in Council International board member Evon Taa’ąįį Peter, who is Neetsaii Gwich’in and Koyukon Athabascan.

For one thing, he told ICT, more than 60% of the forest lands of the Alaskan Gwich’in nation have burned in wildfires in the past 10 years. As of July 10, 582,000 acres had burned this year in 328 wildfires in Alaska.

“I couldn’t open the windows of my house for seven days straight, I think, because it would just let smoke billow into my home, which was already too unhealthy for us to be outside. So most of us just had to remain indoors…so there’s definitely very real dramatic and in-our-face impacts from climate change across the state, even in (an urban area like) Fairbanks,” Peter said.

The fires are contributing to the melting of the permafrost, ground that’s been frozen for anywhere from two years to thousands of years. Because permafrost holds a lot of methane and carbon , “we’re also really worried about those further implications due to those forest fires connected to the permafrost that’s melting,” Peter said. The methane and carbon dioxide are greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming.

ICT’s Climate Desk: How climate change is affecting Indigenous communities

He said Gwich’in are also having increasing problems with permafrost thawing under infrastructure ranging from sheds to roads to large buildings. For example, he has a smokehouse to dry and smoke caribou, moose meat, and fish every fall. “The permafrost melted underneath it and it completely shifted one side down into the earth. It tore the door off of the smokehouse.

“So even small structures that aren’t that heavy and large are being impacted by thawing permafrost…But when you magnify that up to large infrastructure , then the economic impact becomes much more significant when you’re talking about renovating or fixing large structures that are on the land,” Peter said.

Thawing permafrost is leading to increased erosion and collapse along rivers, streams and other waterways, he said. Plus, “their spawning grounds are starting to heat up significantly, making it really challenging for the salmon to be able to make their journeys back up and into the streams and spawn.

“When our subsistence resources are being impacted, we end up having to depend on meat or food that’s being flown into our communities at a really significant expense. And so there’s increased economic impacts due to a lack of access to subsistence resources from climate change that are affecting our people,” Peter said.

Climate change effects are affecting mental health and ancient traditions, Peter said, “because it’s shifting the way that we have lived for a long time in relationship with the land.” He said traditionally families go to fish camp to harvest and put away fish every summer, but salmon harvests on the Yukon are shut down due to low fish numbers.

He said fish camp is a place for children to learn harvesting and preservation techniques as well as cultural traditions . “And it’s healing to be out on the land. So it’s not only economic impacts that are happening due to the climate data, but also health impacts among our people as well,” he said.

“I think that people and especially our government and businesses need to understand how real climate change is and how critical it is that we start taking measures to reduce carbon emissions and to help address the issues of the impacts of climate change on people, because (we are) feeling it significantly up here in the Arctic,” Peter said.

National solutions

The Biden administration on July 9 announced the availability of $120 million in new funding to help tribal communities prepare for climate-related environmental threats to their homelands. Department of Interior Secretary Deb Holland, Laguna Pueblo, said the funding can be used by tribes to plan for, adapt to, or respond to these threats by safely relocating critical community infrastructure. The money provides historic levels of funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Climate Resilience program .

In Congress, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-New Mexico wrote a bicameral letter with Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, urging the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help communities respond to extreme heat and wildfire smoke. Sixty members of Congress signed the letter.

“Extreme heat is a growing environmental justice issue,” the lawmakers said. “Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States and wildfire seasons are starting earlier and ending later. As extreme heat and wildfire smoke continue to plague our communities, we urge FEMA to be more responsive to communities’ evolving needs in the face of the climate crisis.” The lawmakers urge FEMA to consider making extreme heat disaster declarations, which would open the door for federal aid and funding.

ICT originally published this article . ICT is an an independent, nonprofit, multimedia news enterprise. ICT covers Indigenous peoples.