"This Canadian Island Is Losing Ground But Not Losing Hope"

"A tiny island off the Atlantic coast is shrinking as the climate warms and the seas rise. But its indigenous people aren’t waiting for global help: They’re taking action now."

"LENNOX ISLAND, Canada — Wearing clean white cotton gloves, Gilbert Sark carefully unwraps papers containing artifacts from his ancestors. An eel spear. An arrowhead. A flint. Many of these ancient treasures, now housed at this aboriginal community’s cultural center, have been collected from the beaches, where the dissolving coastline scatters them on the sand.

'When our artifacts start popping up on the shore because of erosion, I ask myself: ‘What’s one of the major things erosion comes from?’ Higher water table, high storms. And where does that come from? Global warming,' says Sark, who, at 36, is considered an elder of this community.

The Mi’kmaq, among the original inhabitants of Canada’s Atlantic provinces, have lived on Lennox Island, slightly north of Prince Edward Island, for thousands of years. Shaped and sustained by the rhythms of the sea, the island’s low-lying sweep of red sand is now being swallowed up by the cold waters of Malpeque Bay. Along with it, the island’s archaeological record is being swept away."
 
Alanna Mitchell reports for National Geographic December 16, 2015.