It was early July when the waters of the Beaufort Sea crept, then rushed, over the gravel spit of a remote Arctic island. For hours, the narrow strip of land, extending like the tail of a comma into the waters, gradually disappeared into the ocean.
When Canadian scientists on Qikiqtaruk (also known as Herschel Island), off the coast of Canada’s Yukon territory, surveyed the deluge, they saw a grimly comical scene unfold.
Staff from the Yukon government, slogging through the water, were rushing to move historic buildings before they could slide into the ocean. It was not the first time water had enveloped old whaling buildings, and despite the team’s efforts to prevent a sliver of history from being reclaimed by nature, it would not be the last.
