Inside the Hidden Wonders of the Shrinking Arctic

Over the course of 20 years and 11 trips, writer Neil Shea explored the awe-inspiring landscape of the Arctic, its icy whiteness and sparkling blues. He encountered narwhals poking their tusks above the water as they communicated with each other, herds of caribou moving across the tundra, and majestic white wolves raising their young. He saw a place of fragile beauty, and rapid change. 

Shea joins us to talk about his new book, “Frostlines: A Journey Through Entangled Lives and Landscapes in a Warming Arctic.” We hear about the indigenous peoples who live there, and why climate change is threatening their millenia-old way of life; the primal experience of coming face-to-face with the white wolves of Ellesmere Island; and what archaeologists have learned about the fate of Norse explorers whose Arctic settlements survived for 500 years, before suddenly vanishing.

ALSO HEARD:

• We listen back to an interview with Evgenia Arbugaeva, the filmmaker behind “Haulout,” an Academy Award-nominated documentary about how climate change is affecting Pacific walruses. The film follows Russian marine biologist Maxim Chakilev and his annual pilgrimage to a remote Arctic beach where, since 2011, he’s observed a disturbing new phenomenon — thousands upon thousands of migrating walruses being forced to “haul out” of the water to rest due to shrinking ice floes.