David Daley, a sled dog breeder, lives on the outskirts of Canada’s Arctic, in a world he’s trying less and less to recognize. “Mother Earth will punish us for all the devastation we are causing to our planet,” he says.
Churchill, Daley’s hometown, is an isolated settlement on the Hudson Bay coast where global warming is three times faster than other parts of the world and where the ice is gradually disappearing.
Like his Métis ancestors, one of Canada’s three indigenous groups, this 59yearold grandfather lives in communion with nature, surrounded by his 46 dogs, right where the tundra ends and the boreal forest begins.
But every year one fears that snow will arrive later and later. “Like all of us, my dogs are waiting for winter,” he says. “It’s common in a dying culture.”
In both summer and winter, Daley travels through this region, known for the Northern Lights, where rocks, moss and black pine forests abound. He always hunted there and saw at close range how flora and fauna changed.
David Daley, center, with children Wyatt Daley (second above) with grandsons Noa, Ria (first left), Danielle Daley (second right) and daughterinlaw Anna Nikitin (last right) in Churchill, north Canada on March 10, 2017. Aug 2022
Image: OLIVIER MORIN/AFP
“I hunted and fished here as a child and the elk were hardly ever seen, now they are everywhere,” says the longhaired man, who uses his knowledge of the indigenous people as a tourist guide. “The same goes for the sharptailed partridge and mink,” he adds.
His observations echo what scientific studies say: Global warming is threatening Arctic species, particularly by opening the door to other southern animals. For Daley, humans “have no choice”: they must “adapt” as animals must.
polar bears in the city
Adaptation means, in particular, reinventing coexistence with the symbolic animal of the region: the polar bear. During the Cold War, the site, which housed a nowabandoned AmericanCanadian military facility, must have stood ready to repel an eventual Soviet attack from the North Pole. Today, its inhabitants fear above all the great predator of the Arctic.
Global warming is shortening Hudson Bay’s freezing time, forcing the region’s polar bears to stay on land longer than before during the summer. Often hungry and weak, bears roam ever closer to urban centers.
Venturing into Churchill requires certain precautions: a rifle, bear repellents, and the need to go in a group after dark or when visibility is poor. Everyone there has a story to tell about polar bears.
I don’t remember feeling endangered as a little girl in the summer. It’s different now, my kids can’t play on the rocks along the coast like they used to.” Says Daley’s daughter Danielle, 33.
The young woman tells of her horror when she saw a bear running outside her home in July, followed a few yards away by Manitoba Wildlife Conservation Officers’ patrol, sirens wailing.
It gets even more complicated in the fall when the bears starve to death after months of fasting on land with no seal in sight.
“We’re at the start of the busiest time of the year when the bears pass Churchill on their way north,” says conservation officer Ian Van Nest.
Daley’s dogs are resting at the Churchill kennel. Canadian city sees ocean ice disappearing from its shore
Image: OLIVIER MORIN/AFP
A special device will be installed for Halloween night, October 31, he says. On that day, patrols will multiply with bulletproof vests, guns slung over their shoulders, and walkietalkies strapped to their hips.
Even helicopters will take off to spot roaming bears and give kids a chance to trick or treat. “We can use explosive devices, which creates a loud bang and a flash that scares the bear away,” explains Van Nest.
The city has new radars that can detect bears within two kilometers of the furthest houses, even at night and in fog. Around Churchill, the polar bear population, although declining since the 1980s, is estimated at 800 individuals: as many as people in the city.
“Looking for positive aspects”
Not everyone sees these climaterelated changes badly. “You have to look at the positive side of all this,” says Churchill Mayor Michael Spence, a member of the Indigenous Cree people.
The increase in tourism and development of the port thanks to rising temperatures “are also opportunities for economic growth for the local population,” says Spence, who grew up here.
The increasing presence of polar bears now draws a few thousand tourists each year to this remote corner of the province of Manitoba, which is inaccessible by car.
And melting sea ice is allowing boats to call at the city’s port, the only deepwater port in the Canadian Arctic, for more months each year than ever before.
For Daley, humans “have no choice”: they must “adapt” as animals must.
Image: OLIVIER MORIN/AFP
The mayor dreams of turning Churchill into a port where areas ever further north will grow crops and eventually minerals that could be mined, largely thanks to the thaw in the far north of Canada.
Much of Canada’s mining potential lies in the northernmost areas where there are deposits of diamonds, gold, tungsten, uranium and rare earth elements. But thawing soils can also hurt mining prospects.
In 2017, flooding from the melting ice damaged railroads and rail services were disrupted for more than 18 months. Since then the port has been largely inactive. Old wagons rust in the grass behind the huge silos.
Poverty
For many Churchill residents, poverty takes a backseat to concerns about climate change.
Between the clean season and the giant polar bear graffiti, you’ll see many dilapidated houses that have been hastily repaired. These are often simple prefabricated buildings erected on concrete blocks, which seem unsuitable for the harsh winter temperatures of often down to 40°C.
Numerous vehicles, snowmobiles, quads and vans stand abandoned, sometimes partially dismantled, in the streets of this city, known for its fur trade in the early days of European colonization.
Sixty percent of the population is indigenous (Inuit, Cree, Dene, Métis), while the total is only 5% in Canada and 18% in Manitoba. Unemployment, precarious living conditions and discrimination prevail.
In Churchill, 64% of children live below the poverty line. The UN climate experts have already said in their March Bulletin that the knowledge of the reality of these peoples must be taken into account in the fight against climate change.
Next month, during COP27, the UN climate summit in Egypt, some activists will push for policies that respect ancestral indigenous practices, as their country is home to 80% of the world’s biodiversity.
Daley dreams of a fresh start. “We, as indigenous peoples, must lead the way in reconciliation with our mother earth,” he says.