Permafrost thaw is transforming northern communities
Residents in northern Labrador are struggling with the physical impacts of permafrost thaw, which is destabilizing building foundations and infrastructure. As the climate warms, communities are forced to innovate with new construction techniques to adapt to the shifting, unstable ground.
Why it matters
Permafrost degradation poses a significant threat to Arctic infrastructure and the long-term viability of northern communities as climate change accelerates.
In central Nain, the largest community in northern Labrador, Joey Angnatok used shipping containers to build his warehouse.
He placed the two sea cans on hefty steel H-beams, leaving some room beneath them, should he need to jack up one end or the other against the sloping, ever-changing ground.
The land under them, he says, is “alive, like it’s always moving.”
Some of the Nunatsiavut region, the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement area in northern Labrador where Nain is located, is underlaid with permafrost. It’s a layer of soil and sediment, rock and ice — sometimes all of them together — that remains frozen for more than two years. Permafrost is ubiquitous across the Arctic and much of the subarctic, with some of the oldest layers believed to have remained frozen for hundreds of thousands of years.
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