More than Cold Dirt
Discovering the human face of climate change research in northern Canada
Dr. Elliott Skierszkan
Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan
In 2012, I graduated from a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science. My studies had left me with a bleak outlook about the state of our planet. Five years of learning about the extent of environmental degradation on Earth came with a strong dose of shock, despair, and depression. I was still interested enough in science to pursue graduate studies, yet I found myself focusing my attention on my little bubble of graduate research about mine-water contamination. I avoided the often-distressing public conversation around the global environmental consequences of our way of living.
I began working on northern groundwater after completing my PhD, with a project for the Yukon Government that aimed to understand the causes of naturally elevated concentrations of uranium and arsenic in a mineral-exploration district of western Yukon, the Dawson Range. This research led me to learn about the critical role of permafrost—perennially frozen ground—on northern hydrology and water chemistry. I could not help but wonder what the consequences of thawing permafrost might be on water quality in the Dawson Range, where I had already found waters enriched in potentially hazardous chemical elements.
Research funds from Global Water Futures and the Banting Fellowship helped me tackle that question. More funding and field trips into Yukon made me realize at what rate climate change was driving changes in the territory's landscapes.
My first big revelation was in 2021, during my third sampling trip into a remote watershed of the Dawson Range, where I had found uranium concentrations that were twenty times higher than those set by federal guidelines to protect aquatic life. When I was planning this trip, Clément, a collaborator from the University of Ottawa, had asked me if there were any landslides caused by thawing permafrost in this part of Yukon. "There is no such thing in any of the watersheds I have come to know over two years of fieldwork in this area" was my response. Well, that had been a particularly wet summer in Yukon, with the highest groundwater levels in recent history. As we flew up valley towards a landing zone, the parting fog revealed a massive scar on the edge of a stream where heavy rain pooling above the permafrost had led to a collapse of the creek bank, washing away vast amounts of uranium-rich muck into the stream.
Our research team spent the fall and winter in the laboratory analyzing our samples. The results showed concerning levels of uranium and arsenic being released into water after our permafrost samples thawed, validating my initial research hypotheses and spurring me on to further work.
The following summer, I returned to Yukon for another big field trip that included some permafrost and water sampling, and participation in the North Yukon Permafrost Conference in Dawson City. Scientists and elders and citizens from Yukon First Nations were there, sharing observations regarding the impacts of climate change from science and from northern people living on the land. I listened as elders told how they could no longer travel overland to traplines and hunting zones because thawing permafrost was turning hard ground into swampy bog. They told us that new animal species were moving into the landscape, while others were getting harder and harder to find. Most telling was the testimony of Jimmy Johnny, an elder from Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation who has spent a lifetime as a guide-outfitter and horse wrangler in the wilds of northern Yukon. His stories about the trials of life in the wild, such as hauling horses out of mud pits formed by thawed permafrost, brought our science to life. Repeatedly he told the audience about how when it rains, he feels it is Mother Earth crying for the state in which we are leaving it. He told us how his elders had forewarned "You shouldn't disturb that permafrost".
After the conference, I travelled the Dempster Highway for some sampling along a section of the road where streams are stained red and their waters are undrinkable: they are acidic and laden in heavy metals such as aluminum, arsenic, and zinc because of weathering of the shale bedrock. One research paper had observed that the worst water quality in this area came from a spring beneath a landslide caused by thawing permafrost near the headwaters of one of the creeks. As I stared in astonishment at the brightly colored streams feeding the Ogilvie River, I could not help but wonder if climate change and thawing permafrost might make this problem worse. Back in Whitehorse, in a meeting with representatives from Yukon Government and Na-Cho Nyak Dun First Nation, we discussed a creek in Na-Cho Nyak Dun territory that had housed a homestead for many decades. The homestead had used the local creek for its water supply until about 15 years ago when it suddenly turned red, acidic, and proved to contain unsafe levels of heavy metals.
On the long drive back from Yukon to the University of Saskatchewan, I reflected on all that I had seen and heard during my trip. I was thinking about Jimmy Johnny's stories. If to him rainfall was Mother Earth's tears, were these red-stained streams blood oozing from her veins?
If there is one thing that I have learned from these experiences, it is the human face of climate change. Jimmy Johnny and his contemporaries showed me that permafrost thaw is about more than observing the temperature charts and cataclysmic landscapes. It is about communities being stranded by failing ice roads. It is about elders wanting to share knowledge about places and a way of living that their children may never know. It is about people losing their way of life as it erodes beneath their feet.
In travelling to study permafrost, I can see now there are real consequences for real people. This motivates me more than ever. As an environmental scientist, it is abundantly clear that science without action will not create a better future. I must apply what I learn and empower northern communities with evidence. I can also share their stories. Climate change means we are all a part of these stories. Even if we live nowhere near the Yukon, we can help write a better chapter by demanding more sustainable ways of living and by reconnecting our souls and cities with the natural world on which we depend.