In northern Norway, trees are rapidly taking over the tundra and threatening an ancient way of life that depends on snow and iceltafjord is a wide expanse of black water on the edge of the Barents Sea, ringed with mountains. Alta is a relatively large town in the Finnmark province, the crown of the horse’s mane that forms Norway’s jagged coastline and Europe’s northern shore. Here at sea level the most northerly trees in Europe are moving upslope, gobbling up the tundra as they go.
It might be unprepossessing, even ugly, with its stumpy branches and pockmarked bark, but this tough little tree is a survivor and a pioneer, essential to nearly all life in the Arctic. Used by humans for tools, houses, fuel, food and medicine, it is home to microbes, fungi and insects central to the food chain, and it is critical for sheltering other plants needed to make a forest. The downy birch dictates the terms of what can grow, survive and move in the areas in which it takes hold.
Reindeer are endearing animals, with their wide brown eyes, furry antlers, soft fur and enormous snow-proof padded hooves. Sami herders recognise every member of their herd individually. Love is an insufficient word for the relationship: codependency comes closer. The people move because the reindeer move in search of grazing. Their culture has evolved around the migratory needs of the herds. But the breakdown in weather is upsetting this cycle.
When the temperature climbs back up towards zero or, even worse, above it, this delicate winter ecosystem collapses. Even a little warming of the snow can create havoc. Moisture starts to appear in the snowpack at -5C or -6C, at which point it loses its sand-like quality, and the snow starts to compact under the reindeer’s hooves, ruining the grazing beneath. If the thermometer goes all the way into the positive, as it has done increasingly in recent years, it is a catastrophe.
“When was this map printed?” he asked. We located the date in small print at the edge: 1994. “This is totally useless,” he said. “We need new maps. The treeline is out of control.” This is bad news for the reindeer and the humans who rely on them. Upright birch forests don’t develop a canopy; they are more like thickets. Without a canopy, they trap more snow, their mass forming a windbreak for drifts too deep for the reindeer to walk or dig through. Their roots warm the ground below, causing ice and melt around them.
From Alta, I took the road to Kautokeino, 80 miles south. The road starts among the mixed pine and birch forests that border the River Alta. Then it climbs swiftly through a narrow gorge beneath sheer towering cliffs hundreds of metres high, up on to the plateau above. As I drove, all along the roadside shrubby birch kept close company with the car.
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