KAKTOVIK, Alaska, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When Inupiaq hunters wrestle a 100-ton bowhead whale back to land from the high seas, the next challenge is where to store all that meat.
For centuries, the Inupiaq, a Native Alaskan group that lives north of the Arctic Circle, have dug cellars into the permafrost as a form of natural refrigeration.
Now those “ice cellars” are under threat. Warming temperatures are melting permafrost, while coastal erosion is exposing the underground chambers.
