National Geographic UK - 09.2019

(Greg DeLong) #1
LEFT
For thousands of years,
Inupiat villagers along
Alaska’s North Slope
have hunted bowhead
whales. A single whale
can feed a community
for much of a year if the
meat and blubber are
properly stored, which
traditionally has been
done in ice cellars dug
into the permafrost. As
the permafrost thaws,
ice cellars are flooding.

BELOW
Josiah Olemaun,
a young Inupiat whaler
in Utqiaġvik (Barrow),
Alaska, takes a breather
while stacking whale
meat in his family’s per-
mafrost cellar.

THE THREAT BELOW 97

Free download pdf