What climate change means for Inuit lifestyle

For more than 1,000 years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen.

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But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, around 300km (186 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, that's not possible. Instead of gliding over snow and ice, Kristensen's sled bounces over earth and rockGrowing up in a village in northern Greenland, Jørgen Kristensen’s closest friends were his stepfather’s sled dogs. Most of his classmates were dark-haired Inuit; he was different. When he was bullied at school for his fair hair — an inheritance from the mainland Danish father he never knew — the dogs came to him. He first went out to fish on the ice with them alone when he was 9 years old. They nurtured the beginning of a lifelong love affair and Kristensen’s career as a five-time Greenlandic dog sled champion. “I was just a small child. But many years later, I started thinking about why I love dogs so much,” Kristensen, 62, told The Associated Press.

“The dogs were a great support,” he said. “They lifted me up when I was sad.”

For more than 1,000 years, dogs have pulled sleds across the Arctic for Inuit seal hunters and fishermen. But this winter, in the town of Ilulissat, around 300km (186 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, that’s not possible. Instead of gliding over snow and ice, Kristensen’s sled bounces over earth and rock. Gesturing to the hills, he said it's the first time he can remember when there has been no snow - or ice in the bay — in January. The rising temperatures in Ilulissat are causing the permafrost to melt, buildings to sink and pipes to crack but they also have consequences that ripple across the rest of the world.