The Inupiat hunt for whale, walrus, seal, caribou, and fish, but yields from subsistence hunting go out and
flow unpredictably, making ice cellars, which generally sit 10 to 12 feet below the surface, critical for storing meat for
lean months. Often shared by several families in a whaling crew, some cellars are accessed through small huts;
plywood hatches cover others.
Increasingly, ice cellars that generations of native Alaskan communities have relied upon for storing food
are melting, according to tribal elders and researchers. In addition to the warmer temperatures, coastal erosion and
geologic ground disturbances are worsening the thaw.
“For many cellars even if the temperature is below freezing it’s not cold enough to keep meat safely,” says
geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. As a result, some Arctic residents are
scrambling to find new, safe ways to store their meat.