Photo Project: Vanishing Land

Sandy and Sarah Adam are two of the few remaining people living on the Point, a small peninsula at the end of scenic Beaufort Drive in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. The Point’s residents are resettling further inland due to accelerating erosion of the shoreline.

Permafrost slumps along the coast of Pelly Island, NWT.

A master’s student in Arctic coastal geomorphology from Saint Mary’s University checks a time-lapse camera to see if it captured the permafrost collapse visible in the background. Pelly Island is one of the fastest-eroding islands in the world.

Portrait of Tuktoyaktuk resident Lucy Cockney. Cockney is one of the people awaiting relocation due to shore erosion. She says she is worried that she may not be able to afford the repairs if her two-storey home is damaged during the move.

Photo Project: Vanishing Land

By Weronika Murray Aug. 6, 2019

Canada’s Arctic—including the Western Arctic, the region around photographer Weronika Murray’s home in Inuvik, Northwest Territories—is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the planet. One of the most visible consequences is the fast erosion of the Arctic coast caused by thawing permafrost, a shorter sea-ice season, more severe storms and a rising sea level, among other factors.

There are many other consequences that aren’t quite as easy to see. The erosion sends massive amounts of sediment into coastal waters, which in the long term may hurt marine life.

Northern communities are ground zero for climate change, and their residents must grapple with environmental changes before anyone else. This project, started in 2017, documents the effect of coastal erosion on the landscape, the flora, the fauna and the people of the Western Arctic.