Photo by sakarin14 via Adobe Stock

Arctic Canada is filling with puddles.

Springtime in the Yukon looks astonishingly similar to June in Ontario. The days are long. Deer bite the heads off flowers deep in the forest. Icy mountains still loom in the distance, but here in the city of Whitehorse, wet mud squishes with every step. People wear shorts and t-shirts. Trucks are parked in nearly every driveway, dried clay caked onto their tires. Spring in Whitehorse is beautiful, if you forget that it comes at the cost of a forever-changed climate.

Annual mean temperatures in northern Canada have increased by 2.3 C from 1948 to 2016, with temperatures rising most rapidly in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. By 2019, a new report from Environment and Climate Change Canada revealed that northern Canada, specifically the Yukon, is warming three times faster than anywhere else because of Arctic amplification.

Arctic amplification is like a magnifying glass reflecting off a mirror: heat from the sun bounces off the bright landscape, which then mixes with warm water vapour in the atmosphere. This heat isn’t being absorbed in the ground because of the ice, so it has nowhere to go: heat rises, but it becomes trapped in the atmosphere. As more ice melts, more vapour is created, which then causes the ice to melt even further. Essentially, Arctic amplification means that the region is caught in an intense greenhouse gas effect leading to biodiversity loss, habitat degradation, and mudslides.

For residents of northern Canada, the effects of the climate crisis are being felt faster and more aggressively than any policy can take effect. They’re threatening Indigenous ways of life that have been in place for thousands of years, making it increasingly difficult to pass down spiritual and cultural customs to young people. They’re also threatening the very ground the North is built on. But the climate crisis isn’t exclusive to the Yukon—if the oldest (and coldest) parts of the Earth are heating up, it signifies a dangerous warning to the rest of the world.

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Indigenous communities throughout the Yukon and Alaska regions have depended on Chinook salmon as a key food source for millennia, moving along the 3,190 kilometre-long Yukon River to fish. Brooke Woods, a Koyukon Dene woman, is a tribal citizen of Rampart Village and grew up on the Alaska side of the Yukon River. She spent six years as executive chair for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and currently works for the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Alaska, focusing on climate policy and fisheries management. She stresses that the salmon aren’t just food for her community; salmon fishing is also a livelihood with a deep spiritual connection. It’s important to people to use all parts of the fish, and it’s common to find salmon skeletons mounted above Dene doorways. “[Our] communities are along the Yukon River for a reason. We are salmon-dependant people,” she says.

But now, climate change is leading to the continued loss of the salmon: an essential part of the Yukon River’s ecosystem that was once abundant along its stretch. And Indigenous people in the area have largely resorted to buying salmon from other areas or trying to harvest other fish due to the decline. “So many parts of our life have changed because of the salmon declines…impacting us mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and culturally,” Woods says.

Chinook salmon differ from Atlantic salmon on the other side of the country because of one key factor: they die less than a month after spawning. They also take up to eight years to reach maturity and reproduce. Though salmon live most of their life in saltwater, their eggs need freshwater to hatch. Because of this, the adult salmon usually return to their own birthplace to release the next generation of spawn, with females laying between 2,000 to 10,000 eggs. However, climate change is altering these freshwater rivers quickly, and the salmon eggs are soft and highly sensitive to temperature and environment. When the water is too warm, too polluted, too salty, or just too different from what it used to be, the hatchlings can’t survive. Right now, only about one percent of chinook salmon eggs survive to adulthood. In other words, climate change is a factor in degrading the salmon’s habitat beyond survivability.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S. believe warmer waters make it harder for Chinook salmon in the river to keep a healthy diet and stabilize their metabolism. According to the NOAA, salmon grow faster in warmer water but struggle to find prey—like other small fish or invertebrates—meaning they will lay fewer eggs and have a lower chance of survival. Warmer rivers are also causing salmon to die from heat stress, according to a study from the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also reports that as temperatures rise, it’s harder for water to retain its oxygen levels. Salmon—like all forms of aquatic life—need stable oxygen levels to survive. When the water gets too warm and the oxygen levels deplete too much, salmon suffocate and die.

In April 2024, the U.S. and Canadian federal governments teamed up to create a historic—yet controversial—agreement: ban all Chinook salmon fishing in the Yukon and Alaska for seven years in an effort to grow the population. According to the ban, both First Nation and Tribal subsistence fisheries—the method of harvesting fish specifically involving Indigenous knowledge and traditions—is prohibited “when there are fewer than 71,000 adult Chinook salmon.” Once this number is met, limited commercial, personal, and sport fishing could begin again. The salmon are counted by sonar at several sites in the region, and in 2023, only around 14,000 Chinook were counted at the Eagle sonar site near the Canadian border.

Detailed tracking of the Chinook salmon population began in the 1980s. According to the EPA, in 1984, around 1.2 million Chinook were tracked at the southernmost part of their migration—the Salish Sea region of the Pacific Ocean. With over 3,000 kilometres of migration from the Yukon River, through the Bering Sea, down to the Salish Sea before coming back up the Yukon River again, Chinook salmon have some of the largest migration patterns in the world. But fewer and fewer Chinook are surviving this migration for long enough to make it to their spawning grounds.

The 2024 Yukon River Chinook salmon run—the annual migration of salmon along the river to spawn—was the third-lowest in history, with fewer than 65,000 salmon making the voyage to the Pilot Station—the closest sonar site to the mouth of the river. Of those fish, an estimated 24,112 passed through the Eagle Sonar site near the Yukon border. The worst year on record was 2022, when an astonishing total of 12,025 Chinook salmon were counted for the season through the Eagle sonar site. This number is 80 percent lower than the historical average; some previous years have seen up to 500,000.

At the heart of the salmon run is Whitehorse. Whitehorse holds the world’s longest wooden fish ladder, a structure crucial for letting salmon pass through to their spawning grounds. It looks like a winding staircase filled with flowing water: salmon instinctively migrate and seek out changing currents. The water attracts the salmon, who swim upstream, jumping from step to step. Just like a staircase, these ladders have steps that allow the fish to “climb” upwards: this is especially helpful if parts of the river are blocked by dams or other predators waiting for their next meal. Conservation groups monitor the Whitehorse fish ladder yearly and use sonars to track how many fish pass through.

Jordan Blay has lived in the Yukon since 1985, and grew up fishing in Annie Lake 50 kilometres outside Whitehorse. He notes salmon, halibut and several types of trout among the fish he could catch around the Yukon and Alaska. “The record was 18 castes, 18 fish,” he says. However, in recent years, he says there are considerably fewer fish in large bodies of water, like the Yukon River.

Blay describes the spring of 2022 as “abysmal” for salmon. “If I remember right, it was something like six fish went through the ladder,” he says. Hardly any fish were seen on some days. Blay’s estimation isn’t far off: fish ladder supervisor Amy Jacobsen told the CBC that only 13 salmon passed through by August 10, 2023. More fish passed through after this, but August is the height of their travels.

When numbers are low, Fisheries and Oceans Canada prohibits sport fishing. Depending on the numbers and body of water, a prohibition can affect both personal fishing and Indigenous subsistence fishing. However, even if not explicitly stated by Canadian or Alaskan governments, First Nations leaders often voluntarily ask their citizens to refrain from fishing when the populations are in decline.

Historically, Indigenous-operated fisheries have had more robust fish populations than modern commercial fisheries due to longstanding practices of environmental reciprocity and continued traditions surrounding the Earth’s seasonal cycles. Woods explains that the salmon decline is a relatively new phenomenon. “We do have 10,000 years of relationship with salmon, and we have always maintained our cultural values when it comes to harvesting king [Chinook] salmon,” she says. “That has been successful, that has kept salmon runs alive and well.”

Woods says the low salmon population could have disastrous effects on future generations, noting that cultural traditions and education are passed down from older family members, and how she learned from her mother and grandmother when fishing. “Growing up, we had multi-generational family members coming together to harvest, process and share salmon,” she says. She’s concerned younger community members won’t be able to learn in the same way she did, which will pose serious challenges to their health and culture.

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Apart from warming the Yukon River, climate change means the physical landscape of the Yukon is shifting. Deep below the surface of the Earth in northern Canada is permafrost: permanently frozen soil and sediment held together by ice. The Yukon has some of the oldest pieces of permafrost in the world, with scientists estimating it’s been in place for three million years. In Whitehorse, permafrost accounts for up to 50 percent of the ground’s surface, according to Yukon University. Because of climate change, the permafrost is now melting.

“One of the biggest ways we see issues with permafrost in our human environment is probably through infrastructure and the highways,” says Alison Perrin, a senior research professional at Yukon University’s Research Centre. Perrin has been researching climate change and climate change policy in the North for the last 10 years. “It’s kind of like the supporting foundation of the North.”

In the same way a foundation provides stability for a house, permafrost creates stability on the ground in northern Canada. The crumbling permafrost threatens the livelihood of the communities—like the Kluane First Nation—that have existed in these remote areas for thousands of years before Canada was colonized.

Shirley Smith is an Indigenous Elder from the Kwanlin Dün First Nation. Their traditional land is located in what’s alsoknown as Whitehorse. One of her biggest worries is how the next generation will be able to learn about cultural traditions and living off the land sustainably. Warmer winters with increased precipitation meant that one winter, she had six feet of snow alongside her house, making it difficult to get to cultural and sacred sites.

Climate change presents a real threat to Indigenous communities’ abilities to pass their cultures and spiritual practices on to next generations. Smith says that the best place to teach younger generations about climate change is on the land, recalling that some of her traditional knowledge about hunting and fishing sustainably was passed down by her father on trips. But these lessons aren’t being taught as much anymore, she says. Still, any time at all learning from older people is deeply valuable for younger ones. “Even if they just go for two days, three days, teach them or show them how to live off the land,” she says.

Alongside threatening Indigenous ways of life and knowing, warming ice can also mean physical danger. Communities in northern Canada are remote and far between, leaving people with few options when it comes to emergency evacuations. Perrin uses Nunavut as an example of one place in the North where people’s ability to survive in the winter depends on stability below them in the forms of ice and permafrost. Communities in the North are mobile, moving to different locations to fish, trap, hunt. It’s about survival, tradition, spirituality, culture and lineage all at once. But this mobility isn’t possible when the ice cracks: suddenly, a longstanding tradition of walking across a frozen river doesn’t guarantee safety. And yet, “their lives depend on going out on the ice,” she says.

Only 30 kilometres outside of Whitehorse, reports have been made about tears in the Earth from the permafrost melting, causing trees to collapse as the dirt breaks open. These physical changes can mean less stability on the Alaska Highway, a 2,400-kilometre road that runs through B.C., the Yukon and Alaska. The highway is an essential method of transportation connecting remote First Nations communities and importing goods to northern areas. If parts of it become unusable, it could seriously threaten these communities’ health and wellbeing.

Further, melting permafrost can cause other issues: methane, carbon dioxide or potentially toxic microbes are often found within the sediment, furthering the overall problem of climate change, Perrin explains. “As permafrost thaws, it contributes to greenhouse gas effect,” she says.

Part of Perrin’s research investigates how climate change affects the Yukon over long periods. One report she coauthored, titled “Yukon climate change indicators and key findings,” published in 2022 by Yukon University’s Research Centre, looks at how the volume of Arctic sea ice has decreased since 1979. With a melting rate of about 300 cubic kilometres per year, the report estimates that most ice that was there in total has melted within the past decade.

Permafrost thaw, warmer temperatures and wildfires can cause extreme events like the landslides in Whitehorse, something that would have been unheard of until just a few years ago. For residents, the North is quickly becoming unrecognizable. Willow Brewster, a paramedic who’s lived in Whitehorse since she was a toddler in the 1990s, says she remembers long, frigid days too cold to hold a snowball. Now, she says, there’s sometimes slush in December and landslides by spring. In July 2024, a landslide caused by massive amounts of rain—another symptom of climate change—caused an 82-kilometre highway closure. While no one was hurt, it left people unable to travel between Carcross, Yukon and Fraser, B.C. Landslides are one result of climate-change related permafrost melting, according to a 2023 Simon Fraser University and Yukon Geological Survey report.

“I was driving through puddles in December because all of the snow was melting because it was plus five [degrees],” Brewster says. “It’s [an] eerie kind of feeling where it just feels kind of wrong.”

Brewster also sees injuries becoming more frequent. Her grandmother, who has lived in the Yukon for several decades, fell in the ice in 2016. In 2022, two people fell into icy water when crossing a seemingly frozen river near Pilot Station, Alaska, resulting in one death. Brewster describes freezing temperatures as “sporadic,” and says you can’t always expect the ice to be consistently frozen anymore. Routine ice trips are increasingly deadly in February, when the ice should be sturdiest.

In December 2023, the Yukon government’s official response to climate change noted 42 new actions to fight it, specifically noting green energy, wildfire protections, and smart electric heating systems. There is no mention of salmon specifically, but there is an action saying the government will “work with First Nations and communities to address a gap in lake-monitoring to capture changes in water in order to support fish habitat protection and community safety.” While permafrost is not mentioned either, there is a promise to undertake “flood risk hazard assessments for Yukon campgrounds and other key public infrastructure in territorial parks.”

When it comes to climate change, even a two-degree temperature increase can have significant overall effects. It can be the difference between freezing and melting; an animal living or dying. Canada is currently a part of the Paris Agreement—the international treaty created by the United Nations wherein countries pledge to limit their emissions to avoid a two-degree increase. Yet the Yukon’s average temperature is three degrees warmer than it’s ever been.

Both our shared physical environment and entire ways of being that have been in place since time immemorial are under threat. Bans on salmon fishing and government incentives on green tech will not solve this in and of themselves. Instead, there needs to be a priority on centring the skills passed down through generations from Indigenous knowledge-keepers, living in balance with the land, and a focus on sustainability as a continuous way of life. There is irrefutable evidence that global warming changes every part of the world: from the tiniest oxygen molecules in the water to the vast permafrost in the Earth. And what’s happening in the Yukon is foreshadowing for everywhere else: the climate can’t change so drastically while everything else stays the same.

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Indigenous communities have long been crucial to climate protection. According to the United Nations, Indigenous people have prioritized the environment for generations, meaning their contributions to the scientific community cannot be ignored. A pivot to two-eyed seeing is deeply necessary.

There are over a dozen First Nations in the Yukon, each with its own distinct cultural practices and communities. One initiative, called the Yukon First Nations Climate Action Fellowship, is trying to combine cultural traditions across the different nations with the fight against climate change by teaching young adults about biodiversity and living in harmony with the land. Dustin McKenzie-Hubbard, a member of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, loves being one of the 13 fellows because it inspires him to make the world better for his daughter.

McKenzie-Hubbard says the fellowship has focused on turning away from a colonialist and consumerist mindset and that a strong sense of community is essential in dealing with these problems. Addressing climate change means centring Indigenous people’s calls for climate protection and understanding. “Everything you do affects someone else and everything,” he says. “We have to be mindful of what our impacts will do for ourselves in the next seven generations.”

Woods stresses the importance of incorporating Indigenous knowledge into conservation efforts, something she says is “disregarded in so many management spaces.”

“We do have 10,000 years of stewardship that is not incorporated into the current Western science and governance structure,” she says, describing how important it is for knowledge to be passed down from Elders to the younger generations, especially when it comes to the salmon. “I want to be able to fish the same way my grandmother taught my mom, and the way that I’ll teach my children.”

Photo by Mooneydriver

In the middle of the 2023 fire season, A Critical Incident Stress Management counsellor came to our fire base. The season had been unprecedentedly busy, even with wildfires ramping up in recent years, and my crew in southern British Columbia had racked up more than 70 days on the fireline with no sign of it slowing down.

The counsellor’s visit was proactive. During a previous record-breaking year, I had witnessed the accumulating fatigue that led us to turn on one another. Pushed to our limits through months on end with little sleep, the social structure of the crew fractured, and infighting became common. But this year, my crew supervisor wanted to get ahead of the turmoil.

All 20 of us sit in a circle, and one by one we begin to air our grievances. One crew member speaks up. “I go home, and I just can’t listen to anyone. They tell me stories or things about their life and I just don’t care. I can’t help but trivialize everything they’re going through.” The rest of us nod our heads in agreement.

“I was at MEC and I just kept having power fantasies about beating the cashier to a pulp,” another crew member says. I feel a twinge of guilt. I’ve had similar intrusive thoughts, but I would have a hard time admitting it to a group.

“I don’t feel close to anyone in my life anymore,” I say when it’s my turn to speak. “I feel that all my friends, my family, are drifting away and I can’t stop it.” More nodding heads.

A second-year crew member raises his hand. “I just… I… miss my son.” He can’t say anything else. Tears come instead.

The counsellor speaks. “Listen, you guys are all living up here.” He raises his arm way above his head, and his wrist makes a shaky gesture. He’s referring to weeks with little sleep, the constant high-pressure thinking: contain the fire, avoid death. He’s referring to being away from our loved ones, to several months of moving from one objective to the next without any thought for ourselves or others. He’s referring to 19-year-old Devyn Gale, who died on the fireline near Revelstoke, B.C. just a few weeks before his visit. Again, we nod. I guess the counsellor is right—our normal is somewhere in the region around three feet above our heads.

“Now, when you leave the fireline and spend time at home, everyone else is down here.” His arm lowers to waist height. “Of course, being home is going to feel bad, it’s now an abnormal place for all of you.” The conclusion: being on the fireline is easy now. We have been in it long enough to adapt. It’s leaving it that’s hard.

The group counselling session helped us to recognize each other as members of a common struggle, reminding us to get through it together. However, as seasonal workers, we are laid off in October. Away from the support of our crewmates, in an environment that lives at waist height.

After a few weeks, some recover. They sleep long hours, rekindle relationships with their partners. Bodies worn out, the winter is spent recuperating. They travel, ski, and read. Some return from a chaotic summer and continue working or studying just as they had before. They do arborist work, massage therapy diplomas, forestry degrees. Life goes on.

Others do not fare so well. For many, off-season is a cruel time. It is lonely; the close ties with crewmates are severed. It is inexplicable; family and friends have a hard time understanding what we’ve been through. It is exhausting; previous months of herding fires and digging guards take a toll on the body. In an effort to reclaim, some spend their entire savings on gambling and compulsive drinking. However, usually the suffering is secret, silent. It lives under layers of despair, rotting in the decrepitude of hopelessness and isolation.

This was my fourth year on the job, and despite the struggle, I love it. I have worked in grease-stained industrial kitchens and on the icy ski slopes of New England; but to me, nothing compares to being a wildfire fighter. Nowhere else have I felt the camaraderie of carrying a fire hose with my squadmates until our legs give out, the meditative bliss of chainsaw bucking, or the satisfaction of successfully establishing a fire guard around a community. The job is challenging, thrilling, and communal, all in the astounding desolation of the Canadian wilderness.

After this season ended, I came to expect detachment and lingering fatigue. But this time something was different. Food tasteless, television and books uninteresting. I stumbled to my family doctor. The diagnosis: major depression.

It is one thing to be in such a sorry state for the five-month off-season. It is another to think that some of these burnt-out, emotionally comatose workers will return year after year without question. We are leaving. Across Canada, there are high rates of turnover and a chronic lack of retention.

One solution would be to improve mental health support during the off-season. For example, year-round access to insured therapy would be helpful. However, this would be a band-aid solution to an issue that stems from being overworked in the summer months, an issue that ultimately comes from working under an old model that is in need of revision.

The demands of the job have grown. Wildfire seasons have become more strenuous and crews are spending more days on deployment. As the nature of the job changes, the job itself must adapt to the growing destruction. Treating recovery during the season as a part of the job could be a good step. Earning paid time off after successive deployments would incentivize recovery instead of it being a financial cost to workers. And, at least in my home province of B.C., the ministry is adapting. Deployment length and rest periods have become more flexible. Pay has increased a bit. Washing ash and soot off our bodies is now considered on-the-clock work time. Gradually, things seem to be improving, one motion, one addendum at a time.

There is still more to be done. Depression should not be common among the workforce and burnout should not be an inevitable reality of the job. It may take more union clamouring and scheduling adjustments to make the job more sustainable.

It is unfortunate that my co-workers and I became wildfire fighters at a time when summers became more vicious, when the regulations of the job lagged behind the demands. That we are the ones caught in the gears of an intensity shift. I hope that those of us who are burnt-out, depressed, and isolated are catalysts for a change ahead, and not a sign of what’s to come.

Illustration by Jeffrey Kam

I grew up surrounded by a family of storm enthusiasts on the east coast of Canada, where I developed a fluency in the threat of tropical storms, hurricanes, and winter storms. Each weather system evolved according to its own unique before, during, and after. For me, each event was a coupling of fascination and fear, and my interest in science and my experience living with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) stoked this preoccupation. At present, I live on Treaty 7 territory in the city of Calgary, which is located around the confluence of two rivers, the Bow River and the Elbow River. The Blackfoot name for this place is Moh’kins’tsis.

Both rivers experienced flooding in 2013. At the time, my husband and I were renting a small, character house that was just a stone’s throw away from the Bow. Only the street and a modest green space separated us from the river. This was supposed to be an exciting time. In just under a week we were set to become homeowners. We expected the move to be hectic, but we didn’t plan on dealing with a natural disaster during the transition. I cut my workday short on June 20, 2013. I was concerned about the unfolding situation and decided to take the opportunity to move some items from our basement to the main floor. I asked the property owner what to do to protect the house, but he didn’t seem worried and explained that the house had been fine during the 2005 flood, so he thought it would probably be okay this time too. In advance of an official evacuation notice, we decided to spend the night with friends across the city as a precaution. We packed our hatchback with cherished art, family heirlooms, and our cat and dog, and crossed our fingers.

According to the City of Calgary, the Bow River swelled to “eight times its regular flow rate” during the peak of the 2013 flood. This still fell “within the natural range for the Bow River,” but the last flood of comparable magnitude had occurred 81 years prior in 1932. Unfortunately, the rental house wasn’t spared. The main floor was okay, but the basement filled with several feet of water. The first sign of trouble during our initial re-entry was a cluster of floating plastic bins around the top of the staircase leading down to the lower level. After some clean-up assisted by family and neighbourhood volunteers, we left the old house behind and settled into the home we purchased, but a new obsession focused on the destructive power of water continues to follow me almost a decade later.

I have lived with anxiety and OCD for as long as I can remember. As a young child, I strived to keep things in pristine condition, I almost never lost things, and I regularly second-guessed my decisions. As an older child, I established routines to check that appliances perceived as fire hazards were turned off and to lock up the house on my way to school. I sometimes risked missing the school bus to rush back and check the front door and if I didn’t have time to go back and check, the worry would sit with me all day. These behaviours continued into my adulthood—and moving away from home, making large purchases such as vehicles, and independently completing important tasks such as taxes increased the stakes. I am a geologist and geographer, and before enrolling in my current graduate degree program researching the carbon cycle, I worked as a geologist in the oil and gas industry. My career trajectory has included work in field, laboratory, and office settings and my professional experience often involved decision-making that had real-world safety or monetary considerations. One of the manifestations of my OCD in the workplace is excessive worry that I have made errors in my work and that these errors will negatively affect my colleagues or compromise workplace safety or security. This list might seem like a lot, but it boils down to a common element—checking and double-checking that things are accurate, safe, and complete. This experience is not unusual. The Canadian Psychological Association’s “Psychology Works” fact sheet for obsessive-compulsive disorder estimates that about one percent of Canadians will experience OCD at some point in their lives and lists “checking” as a common type of compulsion. The checking compulsion is carried out in response to obsessive thoughts, which in my case include fears of harm to others or myself, and damage to my home, the homes of friends and family, or my workplace. Engaging in checking behaviours can be disruptive. I have been late for work, school, and social commitments because of checking. In extreme cases, I have skipped activities altogether because preparing to leave home was too stressful.

At different points in my life, I have received different types of treatment for anxiety, OCD, and associated depression. At present, I find myself living in relative peace with OCD. I maintain a slow schedule and prioritize tasks to complete with increased focus and intention to keep a low baseline stress level, so I have capacity to cope with stressors and challenges as they arise. (My life with OCD is always in flux, so this strategy may change in the future and is not intended as a how-to or as medical advice for others.)

My equilibrium is most easily upset by rapid change, uncertainty, and perception of harm. Extreme weather events can develop quickly, evolve in unpredictable ways, cause significant damage to property and the environment, and be hazardous to people and pets. A good storm checks off all of the criteria to trigger my personal brand of anxiety and OCD checking responses. Calgary has no shortage of extreme weather and natural hazards. Each season features its own cast of potential disasters: blizzards and extreme freezing temperatures in winter, heavy rainfall and flooding in spring, tinder-dry conditions and severe thunderstorms equipped with large hailstones in summer, and early snow and cold conditions in fall. As a province, Alberta is intimately familiar with the impacts these types of extreme events can have on the landscape and the people who live there. In August 2020, The Weather Network published an article called “Top five costliest Canadian natural disasters of the decade.” Unsurprisingly, Alberta’s fires, floods, and hailstorms occupied four of the five spots. A summary of the “Top Insured Damage Severe Weather Events in 2020” released by the Insurance Bureau of Canada shows a similar story, with Alberta flooding and storms taking three of six places on the list.

Extreme weather and natural hazards are part of living in Alberta and my obsessive thought patterns and compulsions reflect the perceived risks associated with my surroundings.

I don’t leave windows open when I leave the house in case of a sudden storm; I wake in the night to check the leaky patio door during the rainy season, and I check—and check again—pipes and walls for signs of freezing during periods of deep cold. These may seem like reasonable actions to prevent damage or catch issues early, but the problem lies in the disruptive nature of the checking behaviours and the amount of time they occupy, as well as the distress experienced if I don’t engage in the routines. These behaviours also cause tension in relationships and may be a source of conflict when family members don’t agree on what is justified as worrisome.

My OCD changed because of my experience during the 2013 flood and my obsessive thoughts now include worrying about water damage. I more frequently incorporate checking faucets and other water-related elements into my routines, and as extreme weather events become more frequent with climate change, I expect this personal trend to continue.

Greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO2), and related increases in average global temperatures have caused increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heavy precipitation and associated flooding, droughts, and some storms, as well as changes to temperature extremes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes these connections and its latest report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, explains that these effects will continue with additional warming. This report is approved and available from the IPCC, but is subject to final revisions, as detailed on their website. In its Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC reports that “global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered.” This includes a scenario where all greenhouse gas emissions are low and CO2 emissions are lowered to net zero (reduced to zero or offset by removal) around 2050 and dip into the negative after that, which means CO2 removal from the atmosphere would exceed emissions. Right here at home, the Government of Alberta says that climate change may increase the “frequency and/or intensity” of forest fires, droughts, heavy precipitation, and associated flooding, and severe storms on an individual basis. This outlook is sombre from my OCD perspective. None of the trajectories considered by the IPCC can provide immediate relief and the changes in my home region are expected to include more frequent OCD-triggering events. Thus my extreme weather and climate change-focused OCD is likely to persist.

There is clear evidence linking climate change to mental health concerns and work such as researcher Susan Clayton’s 2020 article, “Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change,” demonstrates this while highlighting that the effects on mental health may be both direct and indirect. More specifically, I am not alone in recognizing connections between OCD, weather, and climate. In their 2012 article, “The impact of climate change on obsessive compulsive checking concerns,” Mairwen K. Jones, Bethany M. Wootton, Lisa D. Vaccaro, and Ross G. Menzies discuss the experiences of 50 people with checking OCD and report that 28 percent of participants had “OCD concerns directly related to climate change.” Most of the participants engaged in checking behaviours motivated by worries of wasting water, gas, or electricity that would further contribute to the climate emergency, while others were concerned about potential harms caused by climate change and engaged in checking related to perceived negative consequences. My experience is most closely aligned with that of the participants worried about the impacts of climate change, with an emphasis on the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and natural hazards. The researchers acknowledged that OCD can be affected by external factors, which is consistent with my experience. Jones and colleagues explain that, to the best of their knowledge, their research on climate change and OCD checking is the first study of its type. This highlights the novelty of this type of narrative in discussions about living with OCD and suggests that more work is needed to understand this facet of the OCD experience and what the future might bring for people living with OCD.

These days, I feel like I’m on the cusp of a new era of my OCD and anticipate a future reckoning. I plan to draw on the strengths of my OCD to help me navigate what’s to come, even though I don’t know what that will look like. It’s important to recognize that my OCD is not all about anxiety and disruption; it also comes with a thoughtful mind, deep honesty, and a sense of responsibility to my community. I am skilled in anticipating challenges in all areas of my life and taking preventative action to minimize negative consequences for myself and those around me. My competence in risk assessment and attention to detail gives me an advantage when it comes to emergency preparedness, though, looking forward, I’m not sure what exactly I’ll need to weather the next storm.

DEAR FUTURE GREAT-GRANDCHILD,

I will likely never meet you. I will never know the mid-21st-century world in which you will live. I hope you will be blessed with the opportunities and joys that I have experienced: the magic of visiting a pristine lake, the friendliness and generosity of neighbours, an array of vocational opportunities, and hope for the future. But I fear you won’t be.

As I write this letter, our world is increasingly subjected to human-induced and climate-related fires, floods, droughts, diseases, extinctions, and conflicts. I fear that the planet you will inhabit in 30 or 40 years will be a stark and brutal place, where the wealthy and powerful use violence and mass weaponry to protect themselves and their resources from the many more poor and desperate people.

And so, although I will never meet you, I want to apologize to you. My generation was warned for decades that we must fundamentally change our ways—and drastically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels—in order to allow future generations to share in the bounty of the earth. But we have dithered and debated and delayed—and failed to act with urgency. I hope this will change. But I fear it will not.

Many can be blamed: fossil fuel companies that obstructed change, advertisers who made millions peddling unsustainable consumption, and government leaders who have failed to stand up for the public good and the future.

But, in the end, those like me who live comfortably in wealthy countries really only have ourselves to blame. People have come together to end slavery, to defeat fascism, to stem the nuclear arms race, and to fight for the rights of those who are unjustly persecuted. Today, we are failing to tackle the biggest challenge of all: a global climate crisis arising from the very lifestyle of freedom and abundance that we have fought to defend.

It seems we just aren’t willing to give up the excitement of long-distance travel, the convenience of driving our cars, the comfort of large homes, the tastes and traditions of an animal-based diet, and most of all, the idea that we can consume our way to joy and fulfillment. I know I have often I been unable to resist the relentless advertising telling me that my happiness and self-worth depend on achieving more, having more, and doing more. But another part of me knows that buying and consuming does not deliver the meaning and sustained joy that I, and others, assume it will.

Indeed, even as we have pillaged and polluted our planet, our competitive consumerism has undermined our physical health and mental well-being, as well as the human spirit of caring and solidarity that might save us. We have become more and more immersed in social media and online entertainment, and rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness—particular among our youth—have soared.

We may still come together one day soon to forge a more modest, more equitable, and more fulfilling way of life based on learning, community, compassion, on the joys of creating rather than consuming, on sharing rather than accumulating, and on finding beauty and peace close to home. I fear we lack the courage and imagination to do so. I wish, today, I could offer you, dear future child, some words of hope and wisdom. But all I can say is this: Forgive me, and forgive us, for we have forsaken you.

Photo courtesy of SmartIce

The Inuit of Pond Inlet, Nunavut, have been navigating the sea ice for centuries, relying on their experience and wisdom from their elders to inform when and when not to travel across the frozen mass. But as global warming intensifies, the ice is becoming increasingly unpredictable and unsafe. Now, a project out of Memorial University in Newfoundland is working to change that.

“My colleagues and I wanted to help our community and try to address their concerns about the Arctic sea ice conditions,” says Andrew Arreak, a Pond Inlet resident and research coordinator for the project. SmartIce, a collaborative initiative between the Inuit community, the Nunatsiavut government in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Memorial University, uses high-tech sensors to monitor and track changes in sea ice, making it much safer for locals to tread upon.

During the uncharacteristically warm winter of 2009–10 a community survey conducted by the government found that one in 12 locals fell through thinning ice in Nunatsiavut, and more than half of the residents could not travel across the ice to collect wood to heat their homes.

Sea ice has been a leading protagonist in shaping the lives and culture of the Inuit, and understanding it has been a skill passed down from generation to generation. “Initially, my community was very concerned about the SmartIce project,” says Arreak, noting that they were apprehensive to replace their traditional wisdom with technology. “So I started listening to them and asked how they would like me to work on the project.”

The feedback helped inform the current iteration of the project, which uses sensors stored in floatable plastic tubes that monitor danger zones identified through community feedback. Data is then collected via electromagnetic waves in the ice, producing an accurate reading of its thickness. The beauty lies in the simplicity of the gadget, which visualizes data through user-friendly maps where orange means “caution” and red means “stop.”

Besides Pond Inlet, SmartIce is being piloted in Nain, Labrador. For their work so far, Arreak and his team were recognized with an Arctic Inspiration Award, the “Nobel of the North,” which came with a $400,000 prize.

“It’s good to see the community embrace SmartIce,” says Arreak, who emphasizes the importance of community ownership over the development and implementation of the technology. “We can go back to predicting ice conditions better, and making life safer.”

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

In our increasingly unequal society, the wealthy and corporations control an ever greater piece of the economic pie. Businesses are under no obligation to use these profits for the social good. Many are too nervous to invest in anything at all, so they sit on their cash. As this “dead money” lies idle, our collective creativity goes untapped, Canadians are starved for good jobs, and the urgent necessity of addressing climate change dissipates into flowery rhetoric.

Statistics Canada indicates that businesses in Canada held over $490 billion in dead money at the beginning of 2016.

That total represents only the most obvious form of “dead money”—cash and deposits. There are many more insidious ways of concealing stashed cash, as revelations from this year’s Panama Papers illustrate.

This dead money is an economic problem for all of us. When companies lack the confidence to invest, there are fewer good jobs and inequality tends to rise. Worse still, weak business investment creates a downward cycle: as lacklustre investment puts downward pressure on the economy, this bad economic news makes business expectations even more pessimistic, so business investment gets weaker still. This downward cycle cannot be reversed until confidence is regained.

The dead money problem in Canada has raised alarm bells. As a 2014 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report indicates, cash as a share of assets held by Canadian non-financial corporations almost doubled between 1990–2012. Even the IMF worries Canada is missing out on productive investing possibilities as companies sit on this cash stash.

This dead money problem could be a golden opportunity. If we freed up this cash to fund environmentally sustainable initiatives, we could create good jobs—ones that build infrastructure and products that shrink our carbon footprint. This green investment would stimulate economic growth and create better overall economic conditions. Instead, this dead money operates like an economic straightjacket.

We could do so much better. If companies cannot invest their idle cash for progressive purposes, we should either make them do it or do it for them.

Beyond some reasonable minimum cash balance required to run a corporation, companies that continue to sit on large idle balances should be compelled to invest them in green technology and green jobs. If they don’t, the government should tax the cash and direct that revenue to government-sponsored enterprises or community initiatives that get the job done.

Sure, corporations will scream that this violation of their private property rights will undermine competitiveness and destroy jobs. They will try to hide their cash. They will threaten to move their operations offshore. They will claim that their dubious investments are green and progressive.

Do not be alarmed. Business will always object if society encroaches on its ability to do whatever it wants, regardless of the social and environmental cost. Our environment and our society are in the crosshairs, and we can’t sustain any more “do-nothingism” for fear of offending business. If business was stepping up to solve the carbon emissions problem, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. But it is not. And if it won’t do it, we must.

Business did so very much to make this mess, and it cannot be allowed to sit on its hands now that the mess must be cleaned up. Nor should it be allowed to use the immense resources at its fingertips to sabotage the efforts of the rest of us who are more than ready to do the right thing.

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

The snow arrived early on March 4, 1966, entombing the Manitoba capital. Thousands of Winnipeggers were stranded downtown, forced to sleep at City Hall and on department store floors. Police officers in buffalo-fur coats delivered a baby; snowmobiles were the only mode of transport; two people died.Today, we would call this an “extreme weather event.” Today, we would look to a warming world as the cause for the blizzard of ’66, though neither “global warming” nor “climate change” entered our vocabulary until 1975, at which point This Magazine was an outspoken adolescent. By then the Winnipeg blizzard was a memory, though it hinted at a nervous new norm of unstable environments beyond human control.

We’ve had our eco-triumphs. Canada was instrumental in helping pass the Montreal Protocol in 1987. The only universally ratified treaty in United Nations history, the agreement was designed to stem ozone depletion above the Antarctic, effectively banning the chlorofluorocarbons responsible and putting the Earth’s wounded stratospheric shield on track to recover fully by 2050. In the decades since, Ontario has moved to curb urban sprawl and its staggering environmental and economic costs. This year, more beaches than ever will fly the Blue Flag, signifying the water is safe for swimming and boating. We could go on.

Yet, the cavalcade of environmental challenges still facing Canada dwarfs these victories. Invasive species threaten ecosystems countrywide. Populations of bees and other pollinators have plummeted from overuse of insecticides. Industrial mercury contamination near Ontario’s Grassy Narrows First Nation is as old as This and yet remains unremediated—a testament to the government’s willingness to ignore clean-up recommendations first made in the 1980s.

While some environmental challenges before us have straightforward remedies, most are part of a complex web of natural, economic, and social forces. Untangling them is daunting. Canada possesses 19 nuclear reactors, most of them in the country’s most populous province—but where will we store our nuclear waste? And how will we decommission reactors when they eventually come offline? We’ve never done this before. Few have. In the wake of 2013’s rail tragedy at Lac Megantic, Quebec, where 47 people perished in the name of transporting crude oil across North America, how will we store and move energy from where it’s generated to where it’s needed? As Canadian provinces embark on ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions, how best to encourage the lifestyle and industrial changes needed to meet our targets? These aren’t simple questions, and the thorny answers we come up with will no doubt be debated in the pages of This Magazine’s 100th anniversary issue.

Yet it’s the spectre of climate change and its unknown impacts that hang over all other environmental issues. But in our effort to see the forest we can’t forget the trees. None of the environmental crises outlined above are either/or propositions; our greatest test now and in future is facing all these challenges at once, knowing few can be put off in the short term and none indefinitely. We must demand better from our leaders and ourselves in the 50 years to come.

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, vibrant cities, safe spaces, peaceful collaboration, and more—we encouraged our writers to dream big, to hope, and to courageously share their ideas and wish lists for our collective better future. Here’s to another 50 years!

I knew I was in trouble when the other day I found myself bargaining with starfish. Red and purple ones are ubiquitous on the rocky coast of British Columbia where my parents live, where my son was born, and where I have spent about half of my adult life. They are always the biggest kid pleasers, because you can gently pick one up and give it a really good look. “This is the best day of my life!” my seven-year-old niece Miriam, visiting from Chicago, proclaimed after a long afternoon spent in the tide pools.

But in the fall of 2013, stories began to appear about a strange wasting disease that was causing starfish along the Pacific Coast to die by the tens of of thousands. Termed the “sea star wasting syndrome,” multiple species were disintegrating alive, their vibrant bodies melting into distorted globs, with legs falling off and bodies caving in. Scientists were mystified.

As I read these stories, I caught myself praying for the invertebrates to hang on for just one more year—long enough for my son to be amazed by them. Then I doubted myself: maybe it’s better if he never sees a starfish at all—certainly not like this…

When fear like that used to creep through my armour of climate change denial, I would do my utmost to stuff it away, change the channel, click past it. Now I try to feel it. It seems to me that I owe it to my son, just as we all owe it to ourselves and one another.

But what should we do with this fear that comes from living on a planet that is dying, made less alive every day? First, accept that it won’t go away. That it is a fully rational response to the unbearable reality that we are living in a dying world, a world that a great many of us are helping to kill, by doing things like making tea and driving to the grocery story and yes, okay, having kids.

Next, use it. Fear is a survival response. Fear makes us run, it makes us leap, it can make us act superhuman. But we need somewhere to run to. Without that, the fear is only paralyzing. So the real trick, the only hope, really, is to allow the terror of an unlivable future to be balanced and soothed by the prospect of building something much better than many of us have previously dared to hope.

Yes, there are things we will lose, luxuries some of us will have to give up, whole industries that will disappear. And it’s too late to stop climate change from coming; it is already here, and increasingly brutal disasters are headed our way no matter what we do. But it’s not too late to avert the worst, and there is still time to change ourselves so that we are far less brutal to one another when those disasters strike. And that, it seems to me, is a worth a great deal.

Because the thing about a crisis this big, this all-encompassing, is that it changes everything. It changes what we can do, what we can hope for, what we can demand from ourselves and our leaders. It means there is a whole lot of stuff that we have been told is inevitable that simply cannot stand. And it means that a whole lot of stuff we have been told is impossible has to start happening right away.

Can we pull it off? All I know is that nothing is inevitable. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.

Illustration by Matthew Daley

Photo courtesy of IsumaTV

When climate change first started showing up in the news, people feared Canada’s North would literally melt away. As scientists debate and differing opinions—and confusion—abound, that initial panic seems to have ebbed. Amongst nearly everybody, of course, but the Inuit. After a lifetime of observation and generations of knowledge, Inuit elders say the melt is already happening. Their insight may be one of Canada’s greatest untapped resources, providing untold first-hand insight into the Inuit people’s traditional world and its changing climate. So why is no one listening?

From the age of five, Inuit children go outside to meet the morning. They look at where the wind is coming from and how cold it is; their parents quiz them on their observations. In the North’s extreme weather, life is inextricably linked to the environment—and that environment is changing. Leanna Ellsworth, Policy Advisor on Climate Change for Canada’s Inuit Circumpolar Council, says the warmer temperatures affect infrastructure built on permafrost, animal migration routes, abundance and, therefore, food supply. All bad, but nothing compared to the elders’ most surprising observation: The sun has moved.

Past the Arctic Circle, residents lose the sun for a few months during the deep of winter, says Igloolik-based Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk. That’s normal. What’s not, however, is where the sun reappears. For his film, Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, Kunuk interviewed elders from four communities, hundreds of kilometres apart, who all drew the same comparison to their childhood observations: Now when the sun returns in the spring, it has shifted right, across the horizon, as far as 20 km. “We were wondering what happened,” says Kunuk, “and the elders thought, ‘our world tilted off its axis.’”

The Inuit’s observations were met with some skepticism in the scientific world, admits Co-Director Ian Mauro, the only non-Inuit researcher working on Kunuk’s film and also a Canada Research Chair in Human Dimensions of Environmental Change at Mount Allison University. “In fact,” he says, “Many scientists disregarded them.” Not willing to discount the elders’ observations so easily, however, Mauro kept asking for more scientific opinions.

As it turns out, the sun hadn’t moved – but there was something wonky going on that scientists had missed. It’s called the Novaya Zemlya effect: a mirage is created on the horizon as hot atmospheric air meets the cold surface air, creating the appearance of a shift. This effect is exacerbated by climate change and thus, the sun’s altered course acts as a visible indicator. “Once the scientific community started to understand this seemingly complex story,” says Mauro, “many realized this indigenous knowledge is very effective to helping the world understand what environmental changes are taking place in the Arctic.” Let’s hope they spread the word.

From “Studies in Sea Ice” (2009) by Roberta Holden. Image courtesy the artist.

Vast, impressionistic, and haunting in its sparseness, Roberta Holden’s landscape photography calls to mind the dark, faraway corners of memory and dreams. Taken from days in the Arctic, over the frozen oceans near Greenland, and during the long nights in Morocco, Holden’s work evokes nostalgia for landscapes untouched by human development—a phenomenon many of us have never experienced. Despite the fact that her work focuses on international subjects, her photographs feel distinctly Canadian in their quiet study of our connectedness with the natural environment and the unspoken effects of the land on us.

Holden, now 33, spent her childhood on a sailboat. her parents sailed frequently up the coast of British Columbia, often stopping in remote locations to hike and work. Taking breaks from life at sea, they would dock the boat in Vancouver’s Coal Harbour and spend seasons harvesting wild rice in rural Manitoba as part of a family business. Until she was 14, Holden worked in the rural landscapes she now documents in her work.

“I think a lot of traditional landscape art tends to romanticize the natural environment. And of course there are a lot of experiences where you can sit back and just appreciate the environment,” she says. “But when you’re actually living and working with the land, it’s just an everyday experience that takes more of the senses than just sitting back and gazing upon it. It’s not just a passive, peaceful thing to look upon, but there’s a struggle in just surviving the day-to-day hardships of the landscape.” Tensions of ancestry, colonialism, barren spaces and the vulnerability of a planet facing the effects of climate change play out in Holden’s most recent touring exhibitions, “Studies in Sea Ice” and “The Stillness of Motion: Changing Polar Landscapes.” Studies in Sea Ice is a series of archival images taken in 2009 by helicopter off the northwest coast of Greenland, a region that has undergone a significant warming trend in the past decade. The Stillness of Motion is a series of black and white images shot in Arctic Canada and Antarctica in 2007 and 2008. The series explores the intersections between humans and the landscapes they inhabit.

Both series have been part of six exhibitions in the Vancouver area during the first three months of 2011. In that time, Holden travelled for the second time to Morocco on a five-month photography trip, where she honed her skills as as photojournalist. As someone who hates having her own picture taken, she can identify with people who don’t like being photographed, an understanding which informs the way she interacts with her subjects.

“It’s taken a little longer to be able to bring a camera out in situations that didn’t create a barrier between people,” she says. “That’s what I see as a problem with a lot of photojournalism that focuses on different cultures.

There’s often a lot of that objectifying of people because you bring a camera to a situation.”

Holden brought her camera to a peaceful protest in Marrakech in late February after which the military ordered that she delete all but two images. Both of them depict a human barricade of soldiers.

Holden’s encounter in Marrakech stands in direct opposition to what she hopes to achieve in her photography—to break away from uni-directional, us-versus-them narratives and, in so doing, illuminate social justice issues, political tensions, and the grey spaces in between. “It’s more of a visceral experience,” she says of her work. “Something felt and not just seen.”