Indigenous peoples and people of colour are disproportionately affected by our global climate crisis. But in the mainstream green movement and in the media, they are often forgotten or excluded. This is Tipping Point, a new VICE series that covers environmental justice stories about and, where possible, written by people in the communities experiencing the stark reality of our changing planet.
“My name is Paul Josie. I am 33. I am a Vuntut Gwitchin member and Old Crow is my home. It is the most northwestern community in Canada and has a population of 280 to 300, depending on the season.
Just recently, our chief, Dana Tizya-Tramm, declared a climate change emergency. Over the past few years, we have been seeing a lot of changes on the land. I guess a lot of it comes with being above the Arctic Circle. We are the front lines of climate change and we’ve known that for a long time.
I remember growing up, they would take me out in October, and we would set nets and fish the coho salmon under the ice. Now, we’re looking at December and it’s not even safe to go on the ice in some places. We are learning to travel on the land again as opposed to using the knowledge that was passed on to us from our elders on which way to go, which time of year to go.
Even just this year, we had -4 C in February when usually temperatures are at least -30 C or -40 C. I was dog-sledding in February and it was warm enough to just mush in a sweater.
In March, we had rain. We usually don’t see rain until June. A few years ago we actually had thunder and lightning at the end of May, which we’ve never seen before, where the storms were so powerful.
We’ve also been noticing the organic material that settles at the bottom of lakes is melting and creating methane bubbles. Those create holes in the frozen lakes in spring that are covered by crusted snow, so you have to be very, very cautious when you’re travelling over lakes in the spring. And spring is when people trap muskrat. I remember when I was growing up, May was still a time that we would return from Crow Flats, and now, in mid-April, it’s dangerous to travel because everything’s melting so fast.
With the warmer summer season, a lot of the permafrost is melting. A few years ago, I started to see a lot of mudslides in the Porcupine River, which runs next to Old Crow. There was a huge mudslide that almost blocked Crow River, which leads north into Crow Flats which the Vuntut Gwitchin are named after, “the people of the lakes.” The erosion from the high water and the melted permafrost has made the river wider, and the land is being washed away.
With the climate emergency declaration, we want to get across how important this really is, that the land is changing, the Earth is going through this change. We want to get the word out, create a sense of urgency. And hopefully, it’ll start a ripple effect, one that creates change.”