AGATHA NAPOLEON, Council member, Native Village of Paimiut:
Everything about our world is changing.
CHIEF EDGAR TALL, Native Village of Hooper Bay:
We have to wake up before it becomes too late for us to adapt.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
Our ancestors said one day we will come upon this day. I didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime.
September 2022
MALE NEWSREADER:
In Alaska, the governor has declared a state of disaster after the remnants of Typhoon Merbok caused unprecedented flooding.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—a thousand miles of coastline was impacted by Typhoon Merbok—
MALE NEWSREADER:
—hurricane force winds and over 50-foot waves—
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
One of the most destructive storms to ever hit that region.
MALE NEWSREADER:
Entire towns were completely submerged.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
A little over a year after that catastrophic storm hit Alaska, I flew up the western coast.
I was headed for an area called the YK Delta, about 500 miles west of Anchorage, home to dozens of small Native villages for the Cup’ik and Yup’ik people.
They’re some of the most vulnerable communities in the country to climate change. And the storm was the latest sign of the imminent dangers.
We landed in Chevak, one of nearly 150 Native villages that have been experiencing increasing flooding, erosion and warming temperatures. It was the dead of winter, and everything was covered in thick layers of snow, making it hard to see what was water and what was land. But I could still make out the erosion caused by the storm.
What you're looking at right now is actually a river that’s frozen over, covered with snow, and the debris left by Merbok. Then here you can see a little bit of a hill, and on the top of the hill are some homes. And that’s where the village of Chevak actually starts. These are homes that are in the direct path of destruction.
Around 60 houses—nearly a quarter of the village—were badly damaged. And the situation was similar in other communities.
We went an hour away by snow machine, heading to Hooper Bay, home to around 1,400 people on the edge of the Bering Sea. When I got there, residents were arriving for a meeting to discuss the fate of the community.
MALE COMMUNITY MEMBER:
I know people seem skeptical. Our ancestors had no specific word for global warming, but they forewarned us about that 50 years ago. Now it’s here.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Estelle Thomson is a tribal president and was leading the discussion.
ESTELLE THOMSON, President, Native Village of Paimiut:
Typhoon Merbok hit our community so hard it did an entire lifetime's worth of erosion in one storm. The inundation from the sea came in through our town. It damaged infrastructure. Thirty-seven people were permanently displaced from the village. So we had a huge disaster.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Agatha Napoleon is the climate change coordinator for one of the tribes that lives in Hooper Bay.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
I'm a Hooper Bay-er. This is where I grew up. My children grew up here.
This is our land. We are its people. We've lived here for eons. We've learned to live with the storms, the blizzards and everything that the ocean has to bring. Good or bad, we have learned to adapt and live with it.
Our way of life revolves around the cold and whatever little spring and summer that we have. This climate change thing is wreaking havoc.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Experts who’ve been studying what’s happening here say the threat is so severe because of changes to both the surrounding sea and the frozen ground known as permafrost.
TOM RAVENS, University of Alaska Anchorage:
This big hunk of ice up here, which is most of Alaska, is slowly melting due to the very rapid warming—up to four times faster than what we see globally.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Tom Ravens is a civil engineer and an expert on the Arctic coast.
TOM RAVENS:
Environmental warming is really doing a number on the permafrost, and permafrost is a natural way to protect against coastal erosion. Permafrost is absolutely the glue that's holding all the sediment along the coast in place. And of course, as that permafrost thaws, the glue is essentially disappearing, and it's just draining into the sea. And all that's left is a sort of muddy mush.
Now that the permafrost is thawing, coastal erosion rates are higher.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
What’s worse, Arctic waters aren’t freezing the way they have in the past. And as the sea ice disappears, so does an important line of defense.
BRIAN BRETTSCHNEIDER, Sr. climate scientist, National Weather Service:
The ice is almost like a seawall. And so when you've got five, 10, 20 miles of ice that is anchored to the coast, those big waves, those big surges that are offshore, they stay offshore. But now when you've got no ice armoring the shoreline, those waves, there's nothing to stop it from just coming in and battering the coastline.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
That’s what’s happening in Hooper Bay, and efforts to strengthen the village’s defenses haven’t been able to keep up. The state has spent millions in federal grants trying to protect the airport road.
TOM RAVENS:
The Department of Transportation in Hooper Bay elevated the airport access road, and we thought it was going to be good until 2050, according to our projections of sea level rise and flooding. But it turns out Merbok came in and flooded this road.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
So for some here the conversation is changing from protecting Hooper Bay to leaving it behind.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
We've learned that within 15 years, the permafrost in the YK Delta around Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay and Chevak is going to be melted. And at the end of the century, the Bering Sea is going to be subsuming that entire area. So it's become a priority for us to resettle our village in order for us to have a place to escape to.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
She and her tribal council have been working on a plan to move to higher ground around 15 miles away, to a tribal area called Paimiut.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
It's a lone mountain. It's part of the Asqinaq range. Its Yup’ik name is Qikertakuq, meaning "island."
It's safer, and definitely water would not reach us.
While everything is changing, we’re just making sure that we take care of ourselves, our grandkids, and that we adapt as easily as we possibly can, even though it is difficult.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
This plan to move to the Native Village of Paimiut. Is everybody 100% ready to do that?
ESTELLE THOMSON:
No. As with any other relocation, there are going to be people that want to stay in Hooper Bay as long as they possibly can. And we can respect that. It's been our home for quite a long time.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
In fact, several Hooper Bay families are originally from Paimiut, but they were relocated here decades ago as part of a U.S. government effort to assimilate Alaska’s Native people.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
I think it was in the 1940s when people from the Bureau of Indian Affairs came to my village of Paimiut, my settlement, and told the people there that you need to move to another community that has a school, because our settlement was pretty small. And one of the things that happened was that it split up our people between three villages: Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay and Chevak, with the majority of our tribal membership living in Hooper Bay or from Hooper Bay.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
In the schools, the Yup’ik children were taught English and Western culture instead of their own.
Hooper Bay students, 1949
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
Going from fluently speaking our language every day, all day long, entering school and not knowing very many words in English—maybe "yes," "no," "please" and "thank you."
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
In 1953, Walt Disney Productions released a film about the Alaska Natives in Hooper Bay; that’s Agatha's mother as a young girl, reaching for a tool. She was helping sew skins for the outside of a boat. Members of the tribe were still holding their ceremonies in a traditional setting.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
The Qaygiq was a place of learning. My father always let us know to go down to the Qaygiq so—and listen, because this is our first and foremost way of life, our teachings.
And then the Catholic Church came in, the Covenant Church came in, and then we learned about God.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
The story resonated with me. My family moved from our Hopi reservation in Arizona to Denver, where I was born. Growing up in the city, it was hard to hold on to our traditions, as it’s been for the Alaska Native people, too.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
I think that it’s important to keep what you can, just like any society, any culture.
One of the things that I've noticed with most cultures around the world, regardless of how much they've assimilated or changed over time, is the fact that they've been able to keep their food. It’s extremely important to us.
DEREK NIGHT:
I’ve got two blackfish traps here. There’s elders’ favorite delicacy out there. They love blackfish.
Oh, you hear that? It’s not even that thick.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Many of the Native people here still practice subsistence living: living off the land. In the winter, they get fish from the ice-covered rivers and sea.
DEREK NIGHT:
Just a small little one.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
In the school at Hooper Bay, I met a group of students who told me how important it is to them to practice their traditional way of harvesting.
We talk about subsistence living. What do you eat?
STEVEN RIVERS:
Birds, seal, moose, whale, fish.
IDA RIVERS:
Clams.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Clams? You guys hunt walrus out here, too?
STEVEN RIVERS:
Yeah. We go up to them slowly, so we don't scare them and they’ll get pissed off and come after us.
THOMAS RIVERS:
And we produce a seal oil from seals from when we catch them. And they have a nice layer of fat.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
So, your food is not something you can buy in the grocery stores.
ALL STUDENTS:
No.
CURTIS MOSES:
No. We get them from the land. The land provides.
THOMAS RIVERS:
The stores here are full of junk, so we’d rather go out and go get our own food, which is more healthier.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
I can't imagine not living with and eating the foods that we have lived with all our lives. It would be like a fish out of the water.
I know eventually my grandchildren, they're going to have to find other ways. But right now it hurts. We have no other choice. We have to make changes. We have to do something. Otherwise, we'll just be part of the ocean, too.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
The challenges facing Alaska Native villages have been growing for decades. As far back as the 1980s there were warnings that dozens of communities were in danger from erosion and flooding.
A federal agency called the Denali Commission was created to work with rural Alaskan communities, and one of its missions has been to help protect Native villages from the impacts of climate change.
But only one village so far has actually gone through the dramatic process of relocating: Newtok, a community of around 300 people that built a new town 9 miles away. The move has cost about $160 million, taken around 30 years and it’s still not complete.
MAX NEALE, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium:
Relocation is an extremely complex, difficult process that takes a huge team to work through over many years. Many, many dozens of organizations are involved in the process.
It's a very messy problem, and we need some strategic, top-down guidance to agencies and organizations to streamline it, to transform it, to make it a more efficient system.
Right now there's no one to support a community with relocation officially. There's no lead agency. There's no lead technical assistance provider at the federal or state level to help communities address the impacts of climate change.
AUTOMATED VOICE MAIL MESSAGE:
Sorry, Sen. Murkowski Anchorage main line is not available.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Over the past several months, I have tried to interview many state and federal officials. I wanted to understand their roles in relocating the Native villages. But no one would agree to go on camera. And since President Trump took office, the outlook has grown more uncertain for the villages, with the focus being shifted away from climate change and funding cuts to federal agencies.
As the situation has been worsening, people from various Alaska Native villages have been searching for help, even far from home.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
Can I get a show of hands of all the people from Alaska? [Offers greeting in Yup’ik language] We are experiencing climate change at a rate that’s four times faster than the rest of the world.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
In the spring of 2024, Agatha Napoleon and Estelle Thomson traveled to a climate change preparedness conference in Las Vegas. Among the attendees were members of tribes from the Lower 48.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
For our villages, for those of us that are faced with relocation, we've had a lot of difficulty with relocation. It can be really easy to get discouraged. And I’m sure that those of you that are working for your tribes or for your people, it is discouraging to think about our way of life, our life way, changing.
Many of us that are going through relocation don’t know the ins and outs. And so, for us to be able to work with other indigenous communities that are facing the same thing, it’s extremely helpful. We can learn from each other.
QUINTIN SWANSON, Chairman, Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe:
The shared struggle underscores the broader impacts of climate change for Indigenous coastal communities.
Capacity and funding are two of the biggest challenges. You have to cut through all this red tape. You have all of these strict regulations and rules to follow that really aren’t in the best interests of anyone.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Their plan to move to Paimiut has run up against these bureaucratic challenges. For example, some federal grant money can’t be used until families inhabit Paimiut, but to make Paimiut habitable, they say they need financial assistance.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
Until we have a family living up there, we won't be able to get certain things: a school, power, water, sewer. All the stuff that human beings need.
Good afternoon, my name is Agatha Napoleon. I am with the Native Village of Paimiut Traditional Council. We live literally on the coast of the Bering Sea. And we have seen so much destruction. But hopefully, we’ll be able to do a little remediating so that we can live in Hooper Bay for a little bit longer. We need to make a move.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
The accounts of Hooper Bay’s situation struck a chord with people at the conference. After hearing Agatha Napoleon speak, another Native woman gifted her a pair of beaded earrings and a necklace.
FEMALE CONFERENCE PARTICIPANT:
I'll be praying for you guys, OK.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
We do have to acknowledge the fact that there is a lot of historical and intergenerational trauma around relocation for all sorts of Indigenous peoples. Relocation does come with harm, but it also comes with an opportunity for healing, for rebuilding, for creating a community that is going to serve us in the ways that we want it to.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
After Vegas, we travelled to the far north of the Alaskan coast to see how other Native communities were faring.
We arrived in Kotzebue, an Inupiat town above the Arctic Circle. Rather than relocating, they have been focused on fortifying their defenses.
Alex Whiting, the tribe’s environmental program director, took me for a walk on the frozen Kotzebue Sound.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Whoa! [Laughs]
ALEX WHITING, Env. Program Director, Native Village of Kotzebue:
It's very important for people that they continue to—Yeah, that looks a little watery.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
But I'm trusting that I'm not going to sink into the water, right?
ALEX WHITING:
Another month for sure you’ll be swimming right here.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
In 2012, they built a $34 million seawall, funded mostly by federal dollars, to protect against the rising waters.
Honestly, I had imagined this huge wall, like 20 feet tall, but it's not that big. It’s not that tall.
ALEX WHITING:
Yeah. More than the height of it all is just having a buffer, because we’ll get west wind this way, we’ll get high water from the west wind, and then we'll get waves, too. And if you didn't have something like the seawall and we have more massive storms that are becoming more common because of climate change, then there would be no hope for a lot of these structures that are facing the ocean right here.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
But the seawall took something critical away from Kotzebue: its beachfront.
ALEX WHITING:
From time immemorial, people in Kotzebue that lived in this area utilized the beach for all their many activities. It’s necessary that we have the seawall, but it's really bad that that relationship has been torn asunder by this cement and steel structure, and that future generations will never have the opportunity to have that same kind of relationship with that beachfront.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Kotzebue is surrounded by water on three sides. And while the seawall has so far protected the west side of Kotzebue, the east side remains unprotected. Three rivers drain into the Kotzebue Sound near here, making this area especially vulnerable to flooding.
SAM CAMP, Planning Director, Kotzebue:
It’s definitely a battle fighting the coastal flooding on the front and then the lagoon flooding on the back.
TESSA BALDWIN, City Manager, Kotzebue:
This is the flood zone in Kotzebue. My home is actually in the flood zone as well. The flooding happens because when all the snow melts the water levels rise a little bit, and then it’ll go in to town, and all these homes right here are impacted from that.
Even in the past five years we've seen significant changes, especially with the amount of snow. Last year we had a very large snowstorm, and in some parts of town we had 20 feet of snow, which is an incredible amount of snow. And then afterwards, that brings in flooding.
Every single year we're impacted by the ice breakup. It tends to come further and further into town, which is pretty impactful for a lot of families.
Because Kotzebue is on a spit of land and we’re surrounded on all sides by water, if we were to start building up, we would be building up in these hills up here. A lot of elders and a lot of people are starting to talk about what that might look like. But right now we're just trying to make sure that our current community could withstand any type of storm or flood or another typhoon, possibly.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
It’s August when we return to Hooper Bay. Now that ice and snow aren’t covering everything, you can see ponds of water everywhere. It's almost like the village is floating on the spongy tundra. The waves of the Bering Sea are breaking close to people's homes.
EDGAR TALL:
The springtime we mostly come here after the ice is gone. We go hunt our seals way out here, around this whole area.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Edgar Tall is the chief of the Native Village of Hooper Bay.
Do you ever get tired of hearing the ocean?
EDGAR TALL:
No. I'd like to stay. It's the only place where I like to be.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Chief Tall takes me out to the only set of dunes left that protect Hooper Bay.
EDGAR TALL:
You see here, you see the cloudberries. This is what we're picking right now.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Oh, wow. And can you eat these?
EDGAR TALL:
Yes. Right now they're soft.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Oh, my gosh, that's so good.
With relocation still years away, Chief Tall tells me he’s focused on short-term planning.
EDGAR TALL:
Right now our plan is to protection in place before we move. Because we can’t move any faster. There's still process to do, and paperwork—a lot of paperwork and stuff.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
And the protection in place. We are helping each others do that.
EDGAR TALL:
We do have some grants that were approved, but those are little grants.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
When you say little grants, what kind of amount are we talking about?
EDGAR TALL:
Like $4-5 million. We've got 1.5 to fix up the landfill. That's not even going to make a dent. And, you know, it's hard to get grants, but those were earmarked to us from Sen. Murkowski.
These guys here, they’re getting ready to go berry camp, to go get some cloudberries.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
How long do they go for?
EDGAR TALL:
Till they fill their barrels. If not, they don’t get lucky.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
So this is what it’s like all summer long. People are headed out to—
EDGAR TALL:
Yeah, first you’ve got your egg hunting, then you’ve got your fishing, and then you’re going to go berry camping and get some berries. In a few weeks they’re going to go moose hunt, or bird hunt. Subsistence is a must. Always. Always.
ESTELLE THOMSON:
As long as we're able to continue to practice our traditions, tell our stories, we will always have the basic building blocks to maintain the culture and to continue to grow it.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
I love the people. I love what the land has to provide. I love what the water has to provide. I love this land.
PATTY TALAHONGVA:
Before we leave Hooper Bay, we watch Agatha Napoleon making care packages to send to her daughters, who moved away years ago.
AGATHA NAPOLEON:
My children grew up on these, like me, so they crave it. All the foods that I pack them, their little souls, their little hearts need it. Even if they have moved, they have to eat it.
There have been families that have moved away, because they're afraid that the next big storm, we could be all underwater. And it's scary. And yeah, we are talking about relocating. But there is no place like home. I am a Hooper Bay-er. I am from, in Yup’ik, "Naparyarmiut." I am from Hooper Bay.
MALE VOICE:
Wow, this is the highest I’ve ever seen the water in Kotzebue ever.
In October 2024, another powerful storm hit Kotzebue.
The seawall was breached.
MALE VOICE:
There was a road here once, folks, in case you didn’t know.
Scientists say Arctic sea ice fell to the lowest level on record this past winter.
This month, the Trump administration cancelled a FEMA program that helped communities reduce their risks from climate change.
