Virtual reality project immerses viewers in climate change on Yukon island

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The virtual reality project transports people to Yukon’s northernmost point without them ever having to leave home

Surrounded by chirping birds, buzzing mosquitoes and waves gently lapping on the shore, viewers travel through time, witnessing a permafrost thaw slump, rising floodwaters and shrubs take over Qikiqtaruk or Herschel Island.

Gordon said the coast is rapidly eroding, ice is going out earlier and it’s getting more difficult for elders to read the weather when travelling. He said black guillemots, with the island home to the largest colony of the seabirds in the western Arctic, are also declining as there are fewer of the fish they feed on.

“If you could see it happening on a small island within your homeland, it’s happening all along that North Slope coast.” Gordon, who is Inuvialuit, said when he was a kid, his family lived off muskox, caribou, Arctic char and herring from the island and Indigenous people continue to harvest in the area today. Qikiqtaruk was established as a natural environment park in 1987 under the Inuvialuit Final Agreement allowing for traditional Indigenous use to continue.

“I think for a lot of people around the planet, they hear about climate change but they don’t necessarily understand what that means and what it might mean in an Arctic context,” she said. He said the project helps address accessibility challenges as travelling to Qikiqtaruk requires chartering a plane, which is expensive, or taking a long boat ride. It also helps bridge an empathy gap, he said, connecting people from far away to the island in the Canadian Arctic.

 

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