As the Permafrost Thaws under Western alaska, NuNAPITCHUK is sinking.
The southwestern Alaskan village of Nunapitchuk is home to a population of 800 almost entirely Yup’ik Alaska Native people. The area is extremely remote, only accessible by boat and prop-plane. For thousands of years, the Yup’ik people lived across the tundra region nomadically, moving from summer camp to fall camp to winter to spring, chasing whatever was in season, and building homes out of natural materials.
Families stopped moving as much in the 1950’s when Alaska Native youth were increasingly required to attend boarding schools in Wasilla and Fairbanks. Then in 1976, the state of Alaska passed the Molly Hooch Act, strictly requiring all Alaska Native youth to attend brand new local schools. The state chose the land for the village of Nunapitchuk because it was the best place to build a port. Families settled around the new school.
The tundra was always fragile, and heavy modern infrastructure tore up the soil. Then it got worse: the permafrost started thawing at an incredible speed. The Arctic is warming at almost four times the speed of the rest of the world, and it’s not stopping. The tundra is turning into mud and everything in the village is sinking.
A large crack runs down the center of James Berlin Sr.’s faded brick-red home. He’s been the mayor of Nunapitchuk for 16 years, and a pillar of the community. His house needs a new porch and a new foundation.
“The best choice would be to build a new house,” Berlin Sr. said. “But right now it needs to be repaired.”
Some houses in Nunapitchuk sit on their own little hills as the soil erodes around them. Whole neighborhoods have sunk as seeping sewage mixes with the soil of the melting tundra. One long bridge on the southwest of town is blocked off now with a set of wooden planks. All of the houses in the neighborhood it once connected are abandoned.
Read on KYUK here.
January, 2024