Alaska’s oldest newspaper, The Nome Nugget, reports on the very strange happenings with the sea ice in the Bering Sea. The lack of sea ice and vistas of open water has “jumbled” the start of subsidence hunting in the Arctic according to reporter Sandra L. Medearis.
Medearis writes on resident observations all along Alaska’s Norton Sound:
Passengers and biologists looking down to check the ice as they have been traversing Norton Sound in commuter planes have been mystified. Winter ice has made a clean getaway, leaving behind a few pieces of pancake ice and a narrow fringe of shore-fast ice. Shards of buckled ice in pressure ridges have jumbled the start of subsistence hunting season.
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There is just a narrow strip along the shore, Magby said Monday. “But that ice has a pressure ridge along it that keeps people from getting their boats in the water.” Another issue is timing. Open water had come sooner than usual, Magby said, making it hard to prepare for spring hunting to satisfy eager appetites for traditional subsistence foods—ring seal, bearded seal, spotted seal. People are chipping their boats out of the snow and ice along the coast. “The open water came earlier than last year,” Magby said. “People aren’t ready to go hunting yet!”
Gay Sheffield, biologist with UAF Sea Grant Program looked down through the window of an airplane April 18, and saw open water. “It’s a stunner!” she told other members of the Nome Port Commission at a meeting the next day. Mayor Richard Beneville appointed Gay Sheffield to the Nome Port Commission last month, with unanimous approval of Council.
Sheffield, from informal aerial observations reported sea ice all gone off Norton Sound coastal villages of Golovin, Elim, Shaktoolik, Unalakleet, north and east of Stebbins and Saint Michael.
It has been difficult and frustrating that our collective efforts have failed to snap most people out of their apathy on the greatest threat to ever threaten human kind. Unlike most of us, the Alaskan people are feeling the rapidly changing impacts from a warming world. The Big Think shared a video which makes the case that Virtual Reality may just be the media to accomplish just that.