WWF is supporting a group of seven young people from the Arctic as they paddle a traditional canoe along the west coast of North America from Vancouver, Canada, to Neah Bay in the United States. As they progress along the coast, they are stopping in communities along the way to share their stories of the impacts of climate change in the homelands.

Some of the young people are from Greenland. They have seen the sea ice recede in recent years, closing off traditional hunting grounds from dog-team travel. Other paddlers are from the village of Shishmareff in Alaska, where melting permafrost (ice that freezes the ground hard) combined with increasingly severe storms is eroding away the spit of land on which the village stands.
The paddlers are in an eight-metre canoe named ‘The Perfect Storm’ or A’wila in the native language of the Kwakwaka’wakw people. The canoe was carved by native youth and Mervyn Child from the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation out of a fallen cedar tree that fell during a massive storm in 2003 taking down some 10,000 trees in North America’s largest natural park: the Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada.
A’wila Tribal Canoe Journey 2010 is part of the Tribal Journey to Makah 2010. Every year since the 1980s canoes from all along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean of British Columbia (Canada) and Washington State (US) come together on a journey to celebrate their connection to the land and spiritual well-being.
Below you can find some reflections from the paddlers.
“I came on this trip so I can learn other songs and about a lot of different cultures. Also so I can share my culture and the native games with others. I would like people to know that my culture is important to me. Even though that I barely know how to speak it. It still means a lot to me. Like we would have elders tell us stories and when they tell the stories they would speak it in Inupiaq. After the story is over they would ask us what kind of story it was. Next they would translate it into English. I would also like to share with people what is happening to our home because of climate change because when this is gone, we may also lose a big part of who we are.”
– Meghann Piscoya – Shishmareff
“In Shishmaref our land is eroding. Climate change is taking our land away. We had to move some houses from the East side of the island to the West side because the ocean was washing away the land where the houses were. Sadly our island isn’t big enough to do this much longer. Because the weather has been warmer and warmer we’re not able to pick as much berries as we used to, they ripen too quickly. Some of the lakes dry out and the fish die. Our beach gets smaller like every year. They made a seawall to try and stop it with huge rocks. I hope to show people some of our traditional ways. I’d like people to know how important our lives are. I want to learn songs from other cultures, and I hope to learn more about them.”
– Janelle Pootoogooluk from Shishmaref, Alaska

Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.
By Clive Tesar
WWF’s contribution to the 2030 North conference was to broaden the topic of climate change outside of our traditional area of wildlife, and to focus instead on the security aspects of climate collapse. This does not mean that we are changing our area of interest, just that we realize that not everyone is as interested as we are in saving the natural world for its own sake.
To reach a wider audience, we need to talk about the wider implications of Arctic climate change. The Arctic Programme has commissioned a study on Arctic Climate and Security. The study, led by Dr. Rob Huebert, a well-known Canadian expert on Arctic security issues, is to be released later this year.
At our ‘climate wars 2030’ event, Huebert was able to give people a sneak preview of where his research is heading. He detailed the recent build-up of military interest and capacity in the north. While not suggesting that conflict in the north is imminent, his research shows that various parties are certainly preparing for that possibility.
Huebert was joined on the stage by Gwynne Dyer, a distinguished London-based broadcaster and author. Dyer’s latest book is called ‘climate wars’, and details how a warming world can easily boil over in series of global flashpoints.
The thesis is simple, but powerful. Projections for a global temperature increase above 2 degrees mean many of the world’s people will go hungry. The temperature tolerance of the world’s main food crops will be exceeded in tropical and subtropical regions. “India will lose 25% of its agricultural production at two degrees hotter,” says Dyer. He says figures published only fleetingly from China suggest the giant nation could lose up to 38% of its agricultural production.
As agricultural production declines, says Dyer, “Your most dangerous neighbour lies between you and the equator.” His eyes roamed the room, watching the point sink in for a Canadian audience – in Canada, that means a hungry United States that may be in no mood for the niceties of international relations. “So the generals have reason to be concerned” adds Dyer. “If I was Russian, I’d be worried about the Chinese running out of food.”
It was a powerful presentation, and definitely seemed to make the audience aware that climate change is not just about disappearing ice, and thinner polar bears, but a global problem that requires an urgent global solution.
Clive Tesar, Head of Communications for the Arctic Programme, attended the ‘2030 North’ conference in Ottawa, Canada. The challenge of the conference was to try to imagine what life in Canada’s North will be like in 2030, and to devise a plan to deal with that new reality.