Into the Thaw

An award-winning author and photographer returns to the Arctic to document the effects of climate change.

Forty years ago, the park ranger Jon Waterman took his first journey into the Alaskan Arctic, to the Noatak headwaters. He was astonished by the abundant wildlife, the strange landscape, and its otherworldly light—how the “frequent rain showers glow like lemonade poured out of the sky.” Taken with a new sense of wonder, he began to explore the North.

After a 30-year absence from the Noatak, he returned with his son. Amid a now-flooded river missing the once-plentiful caribou, he was shocked and heartbroken by the changes. The following year, in 2022, he took one final journey “into the thaw” to document—for this lushly illustrated and scholarly book—the environmental and cultural changes wrought by the climate crisis. 

A widely published author and photographer, Waterman’s narrative alternates between adventure and wilderness memoir and plainly stated natural history of the area. Chased by bears, sometimes alone for weeks on end amid hordes of mosquitoes, he notes the extraordinary changes from 1983 until the present day: brush grown over the tundra in a phenomenon called Greening of the Arctic, tear-drop-shaped landslide thaw slumps—a.k.a. thermokarsts—caused by thawing permafrost, and an increasing loss of sea ice as he travels along the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The author also spends time with the kindhearted, welcoming Inuit or Inupiat most affected by the Arctic crisis, who share how their age-old culture has attempted to cope with “the thaw.” Stricken by the change, Waterman paints an intimate portrait of both the villages and the little-visited landscape, because “it’s high time that we truly understand the Arctic.” He writes, “Lest we forget what it once was.”

Through his quest for wonder—in prose illuminated by humility and humor—Waterman shows how the Arctic can confer grace on those who pass through. Despite the unfolding crisis, as a narrative of hope, at the book’s end he suggests actions we can all take to slow the thaw and preserve what is left of this remarkable, vast frontier.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jon Waterman has sought out an unconventional adventurer’s path since he was a teenager. As a lifelong environmentalist and writer, he has specialized in immersive journeys—often to the North—to develop a sense of place and then share the beauties, cultures, and fragilities of imperiled parts of the world. His wide-ranging expeditions include a winter ascent of the Cassin Ridge on Denali, kayaking the Northwest Passage, dogsledding into and up Canada’s Mount Logan, sailing to Hawaii, and boating the Colorado River from source to sea. He has worked as a director of a small press, an editor, a naturalist, a park ranger, a wilderness guide, a photographer, and a filmmaker. Among his many publications, Jon’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Wild Bird, Outside, Men’s Journal, Adventure, and Sailing World. His sixteen books include In the Shadow of Denali, Kayaking the Vermilion Sea, and National Geographic Atlas of the National Parks. By taking risks and tackling difficult issues, his narratives transcend traditional outdoor yarns and have garnered numerous awards, including a Literary Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, three Best Adventure Book Awards from the Banff Book Festival, an Emmy, a National Park Service Special Achievement Award, and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. He lives in Carbondale, Colorado.