A Melting Landscape
Permafrost, the frozen ground that supports much of the Arctic's terrain, is melting rapidly on Qikiqtaruk. This process creates thaw slumps—half-moon-shaped craters where the land collapses under its own weight. These slumps, along with landslides, are reshaping the island, threatening its ecological balance and exposing massive amounts of carbon previously locked in the frozen soil.
Qikiqtaruk's permafrost is disproportionately composed of ice, making it particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures. Unlike permafrost with higher soil or rock content, the melting ice destabilizes vast sections of land, leading to catastrophic geological events such as active layer detachments, where entire chunks of land hundreds of meters wide fall away.
An Island of Ecological Richness
Despite its small size, Qikiqtaruk is home to extraordinary biodiversity. Beluga whales, black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, musk oxen, and caribou inhabit the island, along with over 200 plant species. However, this unique ecology is under severe threat.
The warming climate has triggered a greening of the tundra, as shrubs like willow push northward, displacing slow-growing lichens and mosses. While this may increase biodiversity in the short term, it disrupts Arctic ecosystems. For instance, caribou that depend on lichen-rich tundra are losing their feeding grounds, and migratory birds like the American golden plover are finding their nesting habitats overtaken by thick vegetation.
Cultural and Scientific Losses
For centuries, the Inuvialuit people have relied on Qikiqtaruk for hunting, fishing, and cultural sustenance. They successfully secured protections for the island in 1984, designating it a territorial park to shield it from industrial exploitation. However, the forces reshaping the Arctic are beyond human control.
Richard Gordon, a park ranger and Inuvialuit community member, reflects on the devastation:
"We're supposed to be the guardians of the land. But we've let [the animals] down."
Researchers, too, are facing setbacks. Long-term monitoring sites, including datasets spanning three decades, have vanished into the ocean. These losses hinder scientific understanding of the island's ecology and its responses to climate change.
Challenges for Research
Studying Qikiqtaruk has become increasingly difficult. Rising sea levels frequently flood the gravel airstrip, grounding planes and helicopters. Unpredictable storms and fog further isolate the island, often trapping researchers for days.
Ciara Norton, a research assistant with Team Shrub, captures the urgency and complexity of their mission:
"It feels like we're at the frontier of change on this island, where the fabric of the landscape itself is tearing apart. These massive permafrost disturbance events are going to continue to happen – and yet we don't really know what that means."
A Fragile Future
The melting permafrost on Qikiqtaruk is part of a broader global crisis. Permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, and its rapid thaw could unleash a cascade of environmental and climatic consequences.
For now, the island's fate offers a stark warning: the Arctic is transforming at an alarming pace, with profound implications for its ecosystems, the people who depend on it, and the planet at large. Scientists, Indigenous communities, and policymakers must grapple with how to preserve what can be saved while adapting to inevitable changes.
"It was protected so that people could come here and experience it," Gordon laments. "But often those same people are making things worse. Every step on this land makes a landslide more likely."