Out on the land in Akulivik
Monday, February 7, 2011
Akulivik, Nunavik
The scenery around Akulivik has me absolutely gobsmacked. We spent the day out on the land and landscape along the eastern Hudson’s Bay Coast is one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen. Anywhere. It was absolutely epic.
But it was hard to not to notice how visible the effects of climate change have become. It was a brutal and brittle cold today. There was snow on the ground. But local hunters kept pointing out to us that there was just far, far less snow than usual. In fact, the further we went inland, the more we saw plants and shrubs pushing through the thin layers of snow and ice. 
Many times, we could hear the underside of the snowmobiles scraping against the exposed earth and rocky ground. It was one the strangest things I’ve ever experienced in the Arctic.
