We’ve gone as far as we can go this trip. We made it to Tuktoyaktuk and the Arctic Ocean.

Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

What is it like? Overwhelming. Stark. Cold. Odd. There are landforms called pingos that dot the tundra. They come and go, the result of changes in permafrost. I lost my sense of scale. Is that landmark a kilometer away or twenty? I could not tell. As for Tuktoyaktuk, it is beautiful and probably doomed says our Inuit guide, despite the millions spent on a breakwater.

Our guide assures us that place is not what matters in Tuk. It’s the people. The people are Tuk. If Tuk moved inland, it would still be Tuk.

The people are trying to heal from colonialism. There is trauma. It is evident. A stop the day before at Reindeer Station on the MacKenzie River was a little different than it might have been because community members were there doing the work to heal trauma. We stayed out of their way.

Would the $150 million spent on a doomed breakwater have been better spent on healing the people? I have no doubt it would have. Physical infrastructure is easier. The political class can put signs up. No one can put a sign on a person’s soul to announce their investment in it.

We met a traveling nurse in Inuvik who will likely spend the rest of her career going from community to community in the north. People like her care for the physical body. More doctors and nurses are needed—and veterinarians too. Physical bodies matter.

So do hearts and minds.

Our guides and hosts were kind, generous with their stories, and unfailingly good to us Southerners. I learned so much fro them. I am changed by them. I thank them all.

Now, the long journey south begins.