J - Climate Change
Climate change is pretty noticeable up here in Alaska and Northern Canada. All the locals that we speak to, at least the ones that have been here a while, it's the same story. 'When I first got here it would go down to 60 below and stay there for 3 weeks but now it only goes down to 40 or so.' Some think it's a great thing :) The national parks all have these amazing shots of glaciers tumbling into the sea or just generally looking big and impressive. If you walk out to see them however the are usually looking a bit sick. The most obvious sign though is the pine beetle which gets under the bark of the pines and in 2 years turns them a bright red, in 3 years kills them. There are some huge patches of this around the place. The cold winters kill the pine beetle and they have been quite warm recently.
This might mean a bit more people move to Alaska in the long term if the winters keep getting milder.
2 comments:
So you spent a night in Tok. So did I 20 years ago. Then on to north pole and fairbanks. We gave a ride to friends of ours who lived in fort yukon. They bought a boat, hauled it and the trailer to circle, took the trailer apart and carried it inside the boat to Fort Yukon over 100 miles of river. I remember leaving at midnight, getting there about 2:30 am and then leaving again back to fairbanks at about 4 am. Hard to stay awake. Isn't it cool how strong the current is in the Yukon? The boulders just roll down stream. Dave
Thank-you for my Alaskan friends - the wolf is particularly tasty!
Christopher
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