27 May 2026
Six fourth-graders stand on the frozen river, squinting into the bright March sunlight. The snow is deep here, a short distance away from the snowmobile trail that leads to their village. Two students measure the snow depth while another shovels an area clear for the ice auger. They have already measured ice thickness at two other spots today, and this will be their third for the month.
The river is well known to these students who have grown up living on its banks, travelling its waters by boat in the summer and snowmobile in the winter, swimming in its silty waters, and helping their families bring in a year’s supply of fish. Some of the children have ancestors who have lived in much the same way here for thousands of years. Now this youngest generation is helping their community and others like it by tracking the unprecedented changes in seasons and ice dynamics that directly affect their safety and livelihood.
Exerted from a newly published story in the RMS Journal and authored by Karin Bodony and Michael Winfree with the US Fish and Wildlife Service