“Into the Thaw” – In Conversation with Author Jon Waterman

Of all the books I’ve read this fall, I think that it is safe to say that few are as important as Into the Thaw: Witnessing Wonder Amid the Arctic Climate Crisis by Jon Waterman (available now from Patagonia Books). In it, Jon documents his trips into the Arctic, outlining the very real, very extreme changes he has witnessed over his decades of travels into the wild — changes that have only accelerated and accumulated as the climate crisis has worsened, severely impacting the landscape, the wildlife, and the native populations that call this extremely important yet environmentally sensitive region their home. Earlier this month I had the opportunity to speak with Jon. Read on to learn more about him, why he felt compelled to write this book, the impacts of climate change, some reasons we all should care, the impacts of industrial activities and exploitation, the need to empower ourselves through educating ourselves on the issue — education we can then use to take meaningful action — as well as some reading recommendations, and more. 

Andrew DeCanniere: To begin at the beginning, I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about yourself — your history and background — and, in addition, how and when it was that you decided you wanted to write Into the Thaw in particular and why.

Jon Waterman: My background as a writer, which is germane to this interview, is that I have long taken journeys in the wilderness or wild places. Unlike most journalists, I take very immersive journeys. I sometimes go alone, sometimes for extended periods, in order to develop a sense of place. I’ve been doing this for decades now. For instance, I did a two-month kayak trip down the Sea of Cortez in 1993, and wrote a book about the environmental demise of the Sea of Cortez. I continued doing that sort of thing, and I began working for National Geographic as a freelancer, and took a trip down the Colorado River a dozen years ago. I spent five months paddling all the way from the source to the sea, in order to thoroughly document the river’s demise and overallocation. That, in a nutshell, is the sort of work that I’ve been doing. However, I have a particular affinity and love for the far north — the Arctic. 25 years ago, I paddled across the roof of North America, and I learned a lot about the place and about the culture of the Inuit people and the wildlife, and I continued going back — one time for the National Geographic to investigate climate change in northern Alaska.

To answer the second part of your question — why I wrote this book — I first went to the Arctic in 1983, when I worked for the National Park Service as a mountaineering and backcountry ranger in Denali National Park. I was on a Park Service exchange patrol to Gates of the Arctic National Park. It was my first visit to the Arctic, and I was absolutely spellbound by it all. That’s why I continue taking trips to the Arctic. On that visit in 1983, I saw an amazing caribou migration and discovered a wolf den with five pups. I watched a grizzly eating a caribou. It was just a life-changing experience. I quit the Park Service and began working as a wilderness guide on that river in Gates of the Arctic National Park for a couple of years — in the early- to mid-eighties — and then I didn’t go back until 2021, which is more than 30 years later. I happened to go back to that river in Gates of the Arctic National Park, and I was so astounded by the changes. The river was flooding. We could scarcely find campsites because the river was so flooded. Instead of seeing thousands of caribou — as I had seen in the eighties — I saw one caribou in a hundred-mile trip down the river with my 15 year old son. The river had brushed over through a phenomenon known as “the greening of the Arctic.” There were a myriad of changes. It was warm. We went swimming in the river, which was something I would never have considered doing 35 years previously. So, I decided I have to go back and investigate more thoroughly the following year — in 2022. Thus, the birth of the book chronicling the changes there and in the Arctic, and the many trips I had taken.

DeCanniere: I do think that when you read the book, one of the most striking things about your experience is how the environmental changes have started to really accumulate — and not only accumulate, but they have really started to accelerate as well. These changes have been having an adverse impact on the environment and, consequently, on us, and it does seem like these really dramatic changes that have happened over a very short amount of time. I know you talked about it in the book, but for the benefit of our readers, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about what some of those changes have been. What do they mean? Why should we care? Personally, I know why we should care — I can think of many very good reasons why people should care — but I think it is important to explicitly touch upon that, nevertheless. I think it is important that we put what is going on in some sort of context.

Waterman: To wrap my arms around this, and to try and present it simply and concisely, the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world. So, a series of changes have taken place. Imagine a set of dominoes that are knocking one another over. Scientists refer to this as an Arctic feedback loop. It’s caused, of course, by the increase in temperatures in the Arctic. Most strikingly, and most known to the public, one of those changes is the diminishing sea ice.

As the sea ice diminishes, the sea losses its albedo — or reflectivity — and so the ocean absorbs the warmth, because there is so much more water exposed without the sea ice. This, in turn, causes the land to warm up, because this sea ice covers a massive body of water. So, the land begins to warm up. One of the more startling changes in the Arctic, which is not as well known by the public, is that the permafrost is thawing. All of the circumpolar Arctic around the world is underlain by frozen ground that can be as deep as 600 feet, and it is a combination of solid ice and frozen soil and all kinds of plant matter. As the land continues to warm, there are what are known as thermokarst features. Those look like landslides, where the permafrost underneath the ground just thaws and collapses. The land slides away if it is on a hillside or mountainside. In flat places, it just collapses like a sinkhole. This is occurring throughout the circumpolar Arctic, and is causing the siltation of rivers and watersheds.

Furthermore, there are rivers which, just in the last few years, began turning fluorescent orange due to the permafrost melting and the resulting release of iron and other minerals in the permafrost. As the land warms, and the sea ice continues diminishing, the Arctic has begun brushing over, and trees are now moving northward in the “greening of the Arctic.” In turn, there are animal species that have never lived in the Arctic that are moving north. Red foxes are moving north and moving out the less aggressive Arctic foxes. The changes from that sort of thing aren’t that apparent or destructive, but in the area that I traveled through — on the Noatak River — the brush has attracted beavers. In this one section of river in northern Alaska, researchers have counted over 11,000 new beaver ponds in the Arctic, in a region that had never seen beavers before. They are drawn there by the willows, which didn’t exist there previously, and they’re using those willows as food and dam material. They’re damming up rivers and streams, and significantly altering the aquatic riverscape. So those, in a nutshell, are examples of those dominoes — or the Arctic feedback loop — and this, of course, affects the animals. It also affects the culture.

We often forget that there are people living up there. There are over three dozen native villages that are in danger of being flooded over, or in other ways diminished, so that people have to relocate because of climate change. Why should we care? Because of these cultural changes, and because of the changes to the landscape, but also the Arctic serves in a bigger way as the world’s air conditioner. The air conditioner is now broken because of this Arctic feedback loop. Just this October, scientists released a paper that shows how this is affecting the Atlantic currents. It is changing the currents out in the Atlantic. We also have these polar vortexes that are sweeping south, because the lack of cold air has forced the jet stream to move south. So, the Arctic does physically affect the southern biosphere, where we live. That’s one physical reason we should care about it, but there are other greater philosophical, humane reasons why we should care about these massive changes in the far north.

DeCanniere: Right. Obviously, the environmental impacts are huge. They are a major reason we all ought to care. However, I did think that it is wonderful that you also mention the human impact. I do think that many people may conceive of it as this vast area where, perhaps, the occasional expedition passes through. People take pictures, collect data, do their studies or whatever it may be, and then they leave and then there’s nobody there again. Clearly, that is not the case.

Waterman: Yeah. There are over 60,000 people that live in Arctic Alaska alone. In Arctic North America, there are roughly 260,000 people. In the circumpolar Arctic, there are 4,000,000 people living above the Arctic Circle in the seven countries that have territory north of the Arctic Circle. So, that’s 4,000,000 people around the world who are being affected by these radical changes.

DeCanniere: Which I think just further emphasizes the ethical and moral obligation that we all have to act, while we still have the opportunity to do so. As we well know, the longer we delay significant, meaningful action, the less opportunity there is to fend off some of the worst changes.

Waterman: Along those lines, I believe we cannot stop climate change, but we can reduce its impacts. That is why we need to act. I think that taking action is really important, and we can all do that. When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there are a myriad of ways we can do that in our lives. We’re not really making huge sacrifices. I want to emphasize that it is mostly referred to around the world as “climate change,” but it’s really not climate change. It’s a climate crisis. It certainly is in the Arctic. I don’t know why we’d refer to it as anything but a crisis when you see what is happening with Hurricane Helene, or when you see these epic rains that just hit Spain. This is a crisis. It’s not climate change.

DeCanniere: What can we do as communities — at the municipal, state, county and federal levels — and what can people and businesses do? 

Waterman: This doesn’t sound like taking action, but we can’t react or understand what to do unless we educate ourselves. It’s not terribly difficult. There’s a plethora of information and books out there, in addition to my own, that spell out what’s going on. So, I think the first step is education. Then, of course, with this looming election, not only do we need to vote, but we need to speak out on a local level. There’s so much we can do locally. I think something that has been grossly overlooked, until recently, is where our food comes from — what we are eating and how much waste we create. I think it behooves us to learn how to contribute to the world by rethinking our diets and trying to utilize local foods. 

I’m really honored to be working with Patagonia Books, because they have steadfastly analyzed  their greenhouse gas emissions, and their own contributions to climate change, through publishing books. Rather than publishing books in Asia, as most publishers do — which is the cheapest route, but which also incurs all kinds of greenhouse gas emissions by shipping those books back across the ocean, and there would be no guarantee they can get post-consumer recycled paper if they go with those Asian publishers — Patagonia Books prints their books in Canada. That, in turn, reduces the shipping-related impacts and guarantees that they are using post-consumer recycled paper. 

I think one great reference as to how people can take action is just to simply Google “United Nations How to Take Action.” The United Nations has very simply laid out the many ways in which we, as consumers, can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

DeCanniere: You also talk a bit about the effects of industrial activity on the region as well — specifically the effects that industrial activities like drilling for oil or mining — have had, as well as the history of the land. Is there something that you feel needs to happen to better protect the land and the native population from industrial exploitation and its effects?

Waterman: Well, there’s a bill pending in the Senate that has gone nowhere. It was introduced by Alaskan representatives, and is a piece of legislation that would appropriate the millions of dollars needed to relocate these 37 different villages that are in danger of flooding or being wrecked by climate change. With this diminishing sea ice, there is now shipping occurring across the Northwest Passage, because it’s a much shorter trip if ships go across the top of the world than it is to go through the Panama Canal or around South America. So, this is going to cause all kinds of damage, because of the pollution and interruption to native life as these huge cargo ships pass through the Northwest Passage. There is the potential of further drilling and mineral exploitation that is going on throughout the Arctic — increasingly in the Arctic Ocean — because there’s evidence of significant fossil fuels underneath the sea. Oil spills in the Arctic Ocean could really damage the ecosystem and wildlife. So, of course, industrial presence in a fragile place like the Arctic is just not sustainable for the ecosystem.

DeCanniere: Absolutely. I know that I personally was just curious to hear your thoughts, particularly given that there are those who seem to believe that the solution is to continue drilling, and to continue our dependence upon fossil fuels. Obviously, I do not believe that.

Waterman: Well, we could become energy independent if we just bear down and look at fossil fuel-free energy alternatives like wind, solar and nuclear. The number of jobs that could be created, and the amount of environmental destruction averted, would be incredible. 

DeCanniere: I agree. I think that we need to be moving away from fossil fuels, and toward green alternatives — particularly wind and solar — as quickly as possible.

To argue for a continued dependence upon fossil fuels is an unrealistic, short-sighted, and ultimately destructive plan that will likely severely curtail our ability to minimize the damage to the environment which, in turn, hinders our ability to ensure that everyone — particularly future generations — can have the safe, healthy and happy future that they deserve.

While it should not be about business first, and definitely not about business alone, it seems to me that there also are tremendous business opportunities in the transition to green energy and green infrastructure. I think that if more people recognized that potential, people would be all the more eager to make that transition, and significant progress could be made. It’s kind of unbelievable that it is 2024, and yet there still are people who say that more fossil fuels are the answer to our problems. They are not.

Waterman: Well, you know, in the Presidential Debate several weeks ago, when the question of climate change came up, the candidate that I favor ended up talking about manufacturing jobs, when she should have been talking about the environment. The environment should be at the top of the list, above jobs. I’m afraid that is not the way a lot of people see the world.

DeCanniere: Right and, for the record, I also favor her. That is shocking, though, since I feel as though we’ve been talking about climate change and our impact on the environment for quite a while now. The first Earth Day was in the seventies. So, we’ve known about the part that we play when it comes to the health of the planet for a very long time, and we’re still faced with a lot of these issues, and we’re still falling short when it comes to doing what we need to do.

Waterman: Well, to be perfectly frank, I think that, as a species, we react largely to crisis. Without crisis, we don’t take action. We are now on the threshold of — and, in some places, in the middle of — the crisis. I think it is going to take a lot more of these sorts of extreme weather events and fires and displacements before people will put the environment first.

DeCanniere: Right. I think that if you focus too much on the past or too much on the future, you end up missing out on the present. However, you do have to think about the future to some extent. You cannot just neglect to think about the future entirely, or neglect to plan for it at all. I think this illustrates that if we don’t think about the future at all, we can end up in even more dire circumstances. It definitely is something that more people need to be more focused on. 

In terms of the effects of climate change on the land, the planet and the people, there seem to be many very dramatic impacts. Given that most people aren’t particularly aware of precisely what those impacts are, I was wondering if you could shed some light on that as well. Personally, I think that the extinction of the animals is cause for concern. That, in and of itself, is a major problem. Therefore, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the impact of their extinction, and all of these effects on the planet as well.

Waterman: Well, I’ll give one outstanding example, and that is the example of the caribou herds. The caribou is a unique animal because it largely exists above the Arctic Circle. Its numbers have been rapidly diminishing, partly due to loss of habitat, largely due to this climate crisis. That has huge implications. It has cultural implications, because many of the people of the north depend upon the return and migration of the herd. As the numbers diminish, people have trouble hunting caribou. Caribou equals food security for many of the people that live in the far north. For many of those 60,000 people who live in Arctic Alaska, the caribou is an important animal.

Then, of course, it’s not just the caribou, because there are other animals that are dependent upon the caribou, that prey upon the caribou — the bears and the wolves, for instance. If the caribou numbers diminish, then the other parts of the ecosystem that depend upon the herd begin to diminish. Then there are fish populations. I have a friend who grew up in a sod home in Arctic Alaska and, in the summers, he made his living as a salmon fisher in the Arctic. He has earned up to $20,000 per summer, which really is his entire income. This year, the salmon did not return. He caught enough salmon to earn $37. So, there are economic consequences. However, the consequences are much greater than economic because, again, there are bears that depend upon the salmon. The salmon have been returning to their spawning beds for many millennia. For the salmon not to return means that the ecosystem has been severely altered. We don’t know exactly why they’re not returning. It likely has to do with the warming of the oceans. That is a good segue to the number of coastal seabirds that are dying now, all up and down the Alaskan coast and into the Arctic.

In the last decade, they have counted millions and millions of seabirds that have just washed up on the shores, dead from starvation, because the warming of the oceans has forced their food down deep, and they are unable to reach it. So, you could see where I’m going here without really even having to think about it. I’m enumerating the domino effect of how one thing starts to affect many different species. The grizzly bears are going further north, and the polar bears — because they are increasingly lacking in ice platforms to hunt off of — are driven to land. The grizzly bears have begun mating with the polar bears, and in 2006 they found the first polar bear – grizzly bear hybrid. There are now two or three generations of those hybrid bears, and it’s a phenomenon that could continue across the Arctic. Of course, the polar bear is sort of this symbol of the climate crisis, but I think that the polar bear will survive for several decades, because it’s mostly found in these very remote places, although it is endangered in Alaska. The populations seem to be fairly stable in other parts of the Arctic. There are foxes that are moving north, as well as beavers. The animal species are severely affected by these warming temperatures. 

DeCanniere: Is there anything else that you wanted to touch upon?

Waterman: I’d like to re-emphasize that people should empower themselves through taking action. There’s a tendency to feel overwhelmed by it and to avoid reading more about it. First, learn more about it, and then find ways to take action. They don’t have to be draconian sacrifices. You can take simple actions. For instance, hang your clothes to dry rather than using the dryer. Challenge yourself to figure out how to quantitatively reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. It can be a fun game, actually. If people could take that initiative — if we could hear that sort of initiative being offered to us by our leaders, political and otherwise — I think we could make great strides.

DeCanniere: I agree. I think that the scope can make it seem as though it is something you can’t possibly tackle, but that’s not the case — particularly if we all work together. If everyone works together to take meaningful action, I think the climate crisis is an entirely solvable problem. 

I always find it interesting to learn more about who you, as an author, would count among your influences or else what you’ve been reading. I know I am always looking for my next read, and I think many other people are as well. Who or what would you recommend?

Waterman: Since we talked a little bit about food, I recommend a book called The Blue Plate. It was just recently released by Patagonia Books. That very seriously researches the source of our food — for instance, where most meat comes from and what the greenhouse gas implications of your diet are. There’s another book on a similar plane called The New Fish, also published by Patagonia Books, which starkly details the implications of farmed salmon. So, it’s a microcosm of a greater issue, but I think that’s a great place to start. I’m greatly influenced by the writings of Elizabeth Kolbert, who often writes about climate change for The New Yorker. I think she’s smart and thorough, and following her work is an intelligent thing to do in these times. 

About the Author:

Jon Waterman found his calling as a writer while making photographs on expeditions more than 40 years ago. Drawn to the physical challenge and peace he felt in the natural world, he continually fell short explaining this allure to others. The necessity of being fully present in the outdoors to witness beauty, and then to preserve the natural world, became essential to him, so he turned to writing to explain both adventure and conservation.

He has also made and written television films.

He is mostly known for his northern explorations, detailed in many of his books and countless journals since 1978. He lives in Carbondale, Colorado.

For additional information, please visit his website. He can also be found on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram.

For additional information about Into the Thaw, or to order a copy of your own, you can also visit the Patagonia Books website.