Climate Changed
In Planet’s Fastest-Warming Region, Jobs Come With Thaw
The Canadian Arctic is melting, and two new gold mines are booming.
A gold mine operated by Agnico Eagle in Canada’s northernmost Nunavut territory, a region warming nearly three times faster than the global average.
Photographer: Cole Burston/BloombergJames Kalluk spent much of his childhood inside an igloo in Canada’s far north, close to the Arctic Circle. Building that kind of home requires temperatures low enough to freeze the region’s countless lakes, a particular consistency of snow and a long-bladed knife the Inuit call a pana.
“Today, there’s not much snow and it’s harder to make an igloo,” said Kalluk, now in his early 70s. “You may find a spot here or there that’s good, but the snow is very difficult now. It’s different.”