Last summer, the western Arctic was uncomfortably hot. Smoke from Canada’s wildfires hung thick in the air, and swarms of mosquitoes searched for exposed skin. It was a maddening combination that left researchers on Qikiqtaruk, an island off the north coast of the Yukon, desperate for relief.

And so on a late July afternoon, a team of Canadian scientists dived into the Beaufort Sea, bobbing and splashing in a sheltered bay for nearly two hours. Later, as they lay sprawled on a beach, huge chunks of the island they were studying slid into the ocean.

“The land was giving us hints of what was to come,” says Richard Gordon, a senior ranger “Days before, we found all these puddles of clear water. But it hadn’t rained at all in days; you look up and see nothing but blue sky.

“Now we know: all of that ice in the permafrost had melted. The signs were there. We just didn’t know.”

Over the next two weeks, the landslides happened again and again. Throughout the small island, the tundra sheared off in more than 700 different locations. Some collapses were quick, soil ripping from the land with a damp thunderclap. Others were slow, with land “rippling and rolling like a carpet” down the slope, says Isla Myers-Smith, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia.

In one case, the team was devastated to learn that one of their monitoring sites, where the data they collected had given a three decade-long glimpse into the island’s shifting ecology, had vanished into the ocean.

“Each time you lose a dataset, you lose understanding of how the island is changing,” says Myers-Smith. “It’s hard not to get emotionally invested in the work you do and in this place because you know you’re studying and witnessing irreversible changes.”

For more than a decade, Myers-Smith and her “Team Shrub” graduate students have studied those dramatic changes unfolding on Qikiqtaruk (also known as Herschel Island).

Armed with a fleet of drones and working closely with Indigenous Inuvialuit rangers, the team has revealed a rapid reshaping of the tundra with little precedent. As they race to understand what those changes might mean, a combination of rising seas, landslides and flooding mean the landscape is literally collapsing around them, making it harder to study an island that reflects the tumultuous future of the western Arctic.

Lying just off the Canadian mainland, Qikiqtaruk is a mass of sediment and permafrost piled up during the last ice age. Despite its small size, the island is packed with immense ecological richness, with waters teeming with beluga whales and trout-like Dolly Varden char. On land, it is one of the few places on Earth where black, grizzly and polar bears cross paths. Musk ox and caribou browse the lichen. The land is thickly carpeted with more than 200 species of wildflowers, grasses and shrubs.

For the Inuvialuit, the island continues to be a hunting and fishing ground that for nearly a thousand years sustained communities through dark and bitter winters.

When they negotiated a land claim agreement with the Canadian government in 1984, Inuvialuit elders used their new powers to protect Qikiqtaruk by establishing the Herschel Island–Qikiqtaruk territorial park, fearful that industry and outsiders would destroy a place that held deep cultural value.

When he was a child, Gordon’s family would make the multi-day trek to Qikiqtaruk in a small boat, crossing hundreds of kilometres of brackish delta. He spent summers on the island, running through the remains of weather-beaten buildings, built during the region’s whaling era at the turn of the last century.

Returning with a cohort of elders before the agreement, he saw “how meaningful the land was, how intertwined it was with our oral histories, our culture; I understood the power it had”, Gordon says. “I understood why they wanted so much for it to be protected.”

While the elders envisioned a space protected from destructive outside forces, in two decades as park ranger at Herschel Island–Qikiqtaruk territorial park, Gordon has watched as the island has morphed into something unrecognisable.

In early August the first faint blush of autumn is visible in the shrubs of the tundra. Taking advantage of a brief window of favourable weather, Myers-Smith and a group of researchers pile into a helicopter, to be dropped off throughout Qikiqtaruk to monitor its changes, deploying trail cameras, scouring wetlands and piloting drones. The work is tiring and often pushes late into the night. They sometimes eat dinner close to midnight, enjoying the pink hues of a sky where the sun does not fully set.

The team’s research has shown an island ecosystem in rapid flux: the tundra is “greening” at an incredible rate as shrubs such as willow push north and grow taller. In doing so, they push out the cottongrass, mosses and lichens that take hundreds – sometimes thousands – of years to grow.

Buoyed up by higher temperatures and lengthened growing seasons, the number and diversity of plants will keep growing, Myers-Smith says. This is seemingly a bright spot amid a global biodiversity crisis: more plants and animals are making the tundra their home.

And yet a lush, greening Arctic will come at a cost: upending the lives of animals that rely on seasonal rhythm and predictability. Herds of caribou are among the most likely casualties, as bare spots on the tundra, favoured by the lichen that they like to eat, are overtaken by shrubs. The American golden plover, a shorebird that flies yearly from the Arctic to the southern reaches of South America, will find its habitat disappearing as plants grow thicker, crowding out the bald patches of land it prefers.

“It’s one thing to think about what the changes mean to us, but I can’t imagine the fear and stress the animals feel as everything changes so fast,” says Gordon. “We’re supposed to be the guardians of the land. But we’ve let them down.”

Qikiqtaruk is now pockmarked with half-moon shaped craters. Known as thaw slumps, they occur when the underlying permafrost has melted to the point that it can no longer support the soil and the ground collapses.

Permafrost thaws across the globe are destroying housing and infrastructure, and disrupting ecosystems. These slumps are also harbingers of a cascading environmental catastrophe: there is twice as much carbon locked up in permafrost as in the atmosphere.

One of the world’s largest thaw slumps is Slump D, on Qikiqtaruk. Inside it, bumblebees bounce between mastodon flowers (also known as marsh fleawort). The whine of mosquitoes reaches the same pitch as the research drones overhead. Melt water gurgles through silty channels, creating a viscous mud that has claimed many rubber boots from Team Shrub. Every few hours, a lump of earth tears away from the overhanging cliff and falls to the ground below.

Increasingly, chunks of land hundreds of metres wide will rip away – a phenomenon known as active layer detachment. Unlike other types of permafrost, with high levels of rock or soil, Qikiqtaruk’s permafrost is disproportionately made of ice, making it uniquely susceptible to immense and powerful geological forces when that ice melts.

“It feels like we’re at the frontier of change on this island, where the fabric of the landscape itself is tearing apart,” says Ciara Norton, a Team Shrub research assistant. “These massive permafrost disturbance events are going to continue to happen – and yet we don’t really know what that means.”

One thing is clear: the constant landslides are the latest in a string of challenges that have made studying the island increasingly difficult. Bush planes cannot land on Qikiqtaruk when puddles of seawater are present – and they have become a near-constant presence on the low-lying gravel airstrip. Fog smothers the cove and grounds helicopters for days. Unpredictable storms keep boats away. In mid-August this year, Team Shrub was trapped on the island for an extra 12 days.

Melbourne teen Bianca Jones has died in a Thai hospital, a week after a suspected methanol poisoning incident in neighbouring Laos that affected her and her best friend.

Anthony Albanese confirmed the 19-year-old’s death on Thursday, after her parents travelled to Thailand to be with her.

“Our first thoughts at this moment are with her family and friends who are
grieving a terrible and cruel loss,” the prime minister told parliament.

The Jones family told the Herald Sun she was “surrounded by love”.

“It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the news that our beloved daughter and sister, Bianca Jones, has passed away,” the statement said.

“She was surrounded by love, and we are comforted by the knowledge that her incredible spirit touched so many lives during her time with us.

“We want to express our deepest gratitude for the overwhelming support, love, and prayers we’ve received from across Australia.

“The kindness shown to our family during this unimaginable time has been truly humbling.”

Jones and her best friend, Holly Bowles, both aged 19, had been staying at a hostel in Vang Vieng, north of the Laos capital Vientiane, while on a “dream getaway” when they fell critically ill.

Bowles remains fighting for her life in a Thai hospital.

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said drink spiking and methanol poisoning were “far too common” in many parts of the world.

“I would say to parents, to young people, please have a conversation about risks, please inform yourselves. Please, let’s work together to ensure this tragedy doesn’t happen again,” she said.

Federal MP Zoe Daniels, whose electorate of Goldstein takes in Beaumaris, said Jones’s parents and brother were “suffering pain beyond measure”.

“I offer my sympathy and strength to Bianca’s family and to Holly’s parents Shaun and Samantha who remain at her bedside in Bangkok,” she said in a statement.

“I send the families of both these girls love and strength along with people all over the country who have been thinking of these two young Aussie girls who simply headed off together on a life adventure.”

On Thursday, a US Department of State spokesperson also confirmed an American had died in the town – just days after Danish authorities said two of its citizens had died in Laos.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and providing consular assistance,” the US state department spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson did not link the death to methanol, and said local authorities were “responsible for determining the cause of death”.

While confirming two deaths in Laos, Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not link them to methanol.

Earlier on Thursday, the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, said her thoughts were with the families of Bowles and Jones.

“This is just heartbreaking to have your beautiful, young adults head off on an exciting adventure,” Allan told reporters on Thursday morning.

“For that exciting adventure to end in these awful, tragic circumstances is really heartbreaking for the families and obviously too for the many people in our community who love these two young women.”

Jones’s parents on Wednesday said they hoped authorities worked out exactly what happened “as soon as possible”.

Jones’s mother is employed by News Corp’s Herald and Weekly Times. Penny Fowler, chair of the HWT, told staff on Tuesday that the teenagers had fallen victim “to an apparent case of methanol poisoning”.

The location of the suspected poisoning has not been confirmed by authorities.

The pair had played Australian rules football together at the Beaumaris football club, which on Wednesday extended its “love, best wishes and unconditional support to Holly and Bianca in their hour of need”.

Australia’s Smartraveller website urges tourists to be on the lookout for methanol poisoning, saying as little as one shot can be fatal.

It warns symptoms appear similar to drinking too much but can be “stronger”, leading to vision problems including blindness or death.

An 18-year-old man from London could be jailed in the United Arab Emirates after having sex with a 17-year-old girl.

Marcus Fakana, from Tottenham, was on a family holiday in Dubai when he met the British girl, who is also from London and has since turned 18.

He told the Detained in Dubai group: “We really liked each other but she was secretive with her family because they were strict.

“My parents knew about our relationship but she couldn’t tell hers. She had to meet me without telling them it was to see a boy.”

The pair had hoped to continue their relationship back in London after the girl returned home from her holiday. But Fakana said he was taken into custody without any explanation after police turned up at his family’s hotel.

He was detained for three days, Sky News reported, and was unable to contact his parents.

Detained in Dubai, which campaigns to help people it says have suffered injustice in the UAE, said Fakana was charged because the girl’s mother found their chats and pictures back in the UK.

It is understood the woman subsequently contacted police in Dubai and Fakana was arrested.

Campaigners say the teenager could face up to two decades in prison owing to the country’s strict laws regarding sex outside marriage.

“Dubai has only recently legalised out-of-wedlock sex for tourists but still hosts a strict Islamic legal system,” said Radha Stirling, the chief executive of Detained in Dubai. Sex outside marriage is legal for tourists, but only if both parties are over 18.

“The girl was just a few months younger than Marcus and he didn’t know that at the time,” said Stirling. “Since his arrest, she has turned 18.

“This is not something Dubai should be prosecuting.”

In the UK, their relationship would not be illegal. Fakana’s family has called on the foreign secretary, David Lammy – their local MP – to intervene.

Fakana is no longer being held in a police cell but is unable to leave the country, with his family facing bills of £2,000 for Airbnb accommodation until his case is resolved.

He told Detained in Dubai: “[My family] saved up for this one-off holiday and have now used all of their savings.”

Australia’s plan to host a major UN climate summit in 2026 has hit a Turkish roadblock. It is unclear how long it will last.

The Albanese government had expected that its bid to co-host the Cop31 summit in partnership with Pacific island nations – a Labor promise since before it won power in 2022 – would be agreed by now, as the UN climate talks in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku approach their final stages.

A decision this week would give Australia and its island partners two years to prepare for what is a huge undertaking, hosting tens of thousands of people and leading the negotiations between nearly 200 countries over what should be done to combat and survive the greatest threat facing people and the planet.

The bid for what its backers call “the Pacific Cop” has the support of nearly all of a group of 29 largely western European countries that are responsible for the decision this year (hosting rights are shared between five country groups on a rotational basis). Eleven – including the UK, Germany, France, the US and Canada – have expressed their backing publicly, while it is understood 12 have offered private support.

But decision-making at the UN works by consensus. And Turkey – the only other country vying to host Cop31 – is resisting pressure for it to leave the race.

The annual Cops – short for “Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change” – are the major event on the climate diplomacy calendar, with negotiations between government officials running alongside a massive trade fair for green industries.

It is a frustrating and flawed process, but its supporters say the Cop system has led to progress amid its stumbles – most notably the landmark 2015 Paris agreement, which helped boost green energy investment. Climate activist and business organisations believe hosting a local Cop could have a similar galvanising effect in fossil fuel-reliant Australia.

There had been an expectation from some Australians earlier this year that the Cop31 rights was close to a done deal. But in the lead-up to Cop29 in Baku it became apparent that Turkey wasn’t planning to step aside.

It prompted the Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, to detour via Ankara on the way to Baku to meet with the Turkish minister, Murat Kurum, in an attempt to land a deal. It was the fifth meeting between Bowen and his Turkish counterparts on the issue. Australia offered Turkey a role at Cop31 leading events on buildings resilience, recognising its recovery from the twin earthquakes that killed 55,000 in its country and Syria in February last year.

But Turkey declined, and did not make a counter offer or request. Kurum later posted on X that his government had emphasised to Bowen it remained determined to host the summit, and was well placed because it had an “ability to create a link between developed and developing countries” and was logistically ready.

A few days later Anthony Albanese raised the issue in a meeting with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil. Turkish media reported that Erdoğan reinforced that his country would not withdraw its candidacy.

Other reports quoted Turkish representatives suggesting it should win the hosting rights because, unlike its rival, it was not a major fossil fuel exporter – and that Australia would be going into a period of uncertainty as it is due to hold a federal election by next May.

Australian and Pacific ministers have increasingly pushed back, saying there was rising concern that if the issue isn’t resolved this week it would delay preparations for what is seen as an important event.

Bowen told the Guardian he was respectful of the Turkish bid but “clarity would be good for everyone involved – us, Turkey and all the parties, particularly our Pacific colleagues, who are very excited about the opportunities”.

Asked about Turkey referencing Australia’s coal and gas trade – it is the third-largest dirty fuel exporter, and continues to approve expansions – the minister said he would not comment on Turkey’s fossil fuel use, pointed to his government’s ambition to be a “renewable energy superpower” and argued: “Of the 29 Cops, six have been held in the southern hemisphere, 23 in the northern hemisphere. It’s time.”

Other supporters of the Australia-Pacific bid have pointed out Turkey’s contribution to climate pollution, including its role selling “camouflaged” Russian oil to the European Union in a relationship that helped Moscow bypass sanctions after it invaded Ukraine.

The Turkish delegation at Cop31 refused an interview request from the Guardian, and declined during an interview with Reuters to name members of the Western European and Others regional group of countries that were supporting it.

Pacific leaders, who are not members of the Western European and Others Group, have become more vocal in their support of the joint bid even while some government representatives from the region urged Australia to make a more rapid shift away from fossil fuel.

The president of Palau, Surangel Whipps Jr, used his national address to the plenary at Cop29 to say “very much hoped” the Australia-Pacific would be declared the successful bid before delegates left Baku this weekend. He said “those involved in this decision” should “not deny the Pacific this rare opportunity to help host what is the most important international forum for our future”.

Bowen has taken a similar tone. Giving Australia’s national statement on Tuesday, he framed the case around the Pacific perspective, saying the climate crisis was “not seen as a subject for negotiation, but an existential and security threat” and that “this is a message that the world needs to hear, and a reality that the world needs to see”.

There are only a few planned days of Cop29 left, though it is almost certain to run into overtime. After that, a deal could still be landed and formally confirmed at a smaller UN climate meeting during next year.

Failing that, the decision could hang in the balance until November next year, when climate delegates gather again – in Belém, a Brazilian city on the Amazon River, for Cop30.

The state of Texas has offered thousands of acres of land to Donald Trump “to construct deportation facilities”.

The Texas land commissioner, Dawn Buckingham, wrote in a letter to Trump that her “office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the US border patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history”.

In October, Buckingham’s office, the Texas general land office (GLO), purchased 355,000 acres of land – equivalent to half the size of Rhode Island. Of this, 1,402 acres has been offered to the federal government.

The land sits on a ranch in Starr county in the Rio Grande Valley on the US-Mexico border.

Terms of the purchase were not disclosed, but Buckingham writes in her letter that the land was purchased from a woman who previously refused to let state officials build a border wall on her property. Now, the state plans to build 1.5 miles of the border wall where they were once denied.

The rest of the 353, 598 acres, collectively known as “Brewster Ranch”, located near Big Bend national park, were purchased in October for roughly $245m from the billionaire and tobacco tycoon Brad Kelley, the state’s largest private landowner. It was one of the most significant public purchases of land in the history of Texas.

Such an offer to Trump comes in the wake of a campaign in which he promised immigration crackdowns. Trump confirmed on Monday that he plans to declare a national emergency and activate the US military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

The president-elect has also appointed the former Ice director Tom Homan as his border czar, who has vowed to carry out “the biggest deportation this country has ever seen”.

“They ain’t seen shit yet. Wait until 2025,” the Heritage Foundation fellow and Project 2025 contributor said before his official appointment.

When questioned about policies in the previous Trump administration that led to family separation in an interview for CBS’s 60 Minutes, Homan said there was a simple solution: “Families can be deported together.”

Buckingham said she was “committed to using every available means at my disposal to gain complete operational security of our border”.

Sarah McBride, the incoming congresswoman and first openly transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives, on Wednesday shared a statement on social media in response to the House banning trans people from using single-sex bathrooms on Capitol Hill that match their gender identity.

Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, issued a statement “regarding facilities throughout the US Capitol complex”.

Johnson said: “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings – such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms – are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”

He added: “It is important to note that each member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. Women deserve women’s only spaces.”

McBride is due to be sworn in in January to represent Delaware after handily winning the seat in the election earlier this month, having been the first openly trans person elected to the state senate seat there in 2020.

She had initially pushed back over proposed restrictions by saying the argument was a far-right-driven distraction from issues such as housing, healthcare and childcare.

But on Wednesday, after Johnson’s announcement, McBride responded with a post on X: “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms, I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them … serving in the 119th Congress will be the honor of a lifetime, and I continue to look forward to getting to know my future colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”

On Monday Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican representative, had introduced a bill to ban transgender people, including congressional members, officers and employees, from using single-sex bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill that correspond to their gender identity.

Mace told reporters that McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop” and called her a biological man, insisting that McBride “doesn’t get a say”, CNN reported.

Mace’s bill comes as Republicans have attacked transgender people as part of a broader political culture-war strategy, limiting what bathrooms they can use and the youth sports teams they can play on. Fourteen states currently have laws that prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights group.

Donald Trump leaned into such politics vigorously during the presidential election campaign.

The mayor of a small town in Sardinia has said thousands of Americans keen to escape Donald Trump have expressed an interest in moving there after he offered homes to them for as little as €1.

Francesco Columbu, the mayor of Ollolai, has staged similarly enticing initiatives in the past as a way to combat depopulation. He released more homes for sale after sensing he was on to a winner when Trump clinched a second term as US president in elections earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Columbu launched a website mainly targeted at disgruntled Americans, inviting them to start planning their “European escape in the splendid paradise of Sardinia”.

Colombu said: “Within a day, we had 30,000 requests [from would-be residents] and over 156,000 visitors to the site.” . He said the objective was not to interfere in US political issues but to create investment and jobs in Ollolai, a town in the mountainous Barbagia region of the Italian island with a population of roughly 1,150.

The project is open to other nationalities too, although US applications would be fast-tracked, he added.

Ollolai claims to be the “birthplace of the global €1 homes phenomenon”, having first offered dilapidated homes for sale in 2018. The scheme attracted a flurry of buyers who then spent thousands on doing the properties up, but rarely do the owners take up year-round residency.

A project to lure digital nomads called Work from Ollolai has been more successful in that respect, with 10 American professionals moving to the village last year and paying just €1 a month in rent. Americans were also picked on that occasion because of the village being the birthplace of a former Mr Universe who was a close friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Columbu is hoping that the latest plea for new residents will attract more people able to work remotely. As part of the deal, Ollolai will offer three types of accommodation: free homes to certain categories of digital nomads, €1 properties in need of renovations and habitable ones for up to €100,000 (£83,230).

A team of experts would be on hand to help guide people through the process of buying a property, dealing with paperwork or finding contractors for renovation works.

“The whole point is to revitalise the town and improve the life of inhabitants,” Columbu said. “We are a population of mostly elderly people in a town which is depopulating and we need to invest in our future. We can’t resolve the issue with these initiatives, but at least we are creating a bit of activity.”

Surrounded by nature and blessed with plenty of sunshine, Columbu said any new resident to Ollolai “would want for nothing”. What’s more, the village is part of an area in Sardinia designated a “blue zone” – one of five regions of the world where people live much longer than average.

On top of that, Columbu said the village boasts great culture and delicious food. He joked that if Trump wanted to invest in the village, he would be welcome, although that might defeat the object of his plan.

A Venezuelan man has been convicted of murder in the killing of the Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that fueled the national debate over US immigration during this year’s presidential race.

José Ibarra was charged with murder and other crimes in Riley’s February death, and the guilty verdict was reached on Wednesday by the Athens-Clarke county superior court Judge H Patrick Haggard. Ibarra, 26, had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning that Haggard alone heard and decided the case.

Riley’s family and roommates cried as the verdict was read. Ibarra did not visibly react.

The killing added fuel to the national debate over immigration when federal authorities said Ibarra illegally entered the US in 2022 and was allowed to stay in the country while he pursued his immigration case.

The trial began last Friday, and prosecutors called more than a dozen law enforcement officers, Riley’s roommates and a woman who lived in the same apartment as Ibarra. Defense attorneys called a police officer, a jogger and one of Ibarra’s neighbors on Tuesday and rested their case on Wednesday morning.

Prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge that Ibarra encountered Riley while she was running on the University of Georgia campus on 22 February and killed her during a struggle. Riley, 22, was a student at Augusta University College of Nursing, which also has a campus in Athens, about 70 miles (113km) east of Atlanta.

Defense attorney Dustin Kirby said in his opening that Riley’s death was a tragedy and called the evidence in the case graphic and disturbing. But he said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that his client killed Riley.

Riley’s parents, roommates and other friends and family packed the courtroom throughout the trial.

Thousands of farmers gathered in central London on Tuesday to protest against changes to inheritance tax announced by the Labour government. Amid the anger at the changes, the Guardian discovered a mistrust of politicians, fear over the future of UK farming and suspicion of Bill Gates

• Location Fort Smith, Canada

• Disaster Wood Buffalo Complex fire, 2023

Olivia is Dene, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, and works in environmental management. In 2023, she was caught up in the massive evacuation when the Wood Buffalo Complex fire broke out, burning more than 500,000 hectares in and around the national park. Across Canada, the 2023 wildfire season was unprecedented in its scale and intensity. Eight firefighters were killed, and about 200,000 people were displaced.

We were on evacuation alert. I remember my heart racing because I was like: “This is it. This is happening.” I finished my work day, went home, and I was unsure of what to do, wondering if I could stay and help.

There was going to be a severe wind event the next day. They gave us an eight-hour window to evacuate, because the fire was on the highway. There is one highway into Fort Smith, and you had to drive through the fire to leave. They focused all the fire crews to keep the highway open so people could leave before the fire got too close to town. To avoid traffic, and since we have long hours of light, I was like: “I’ll be fine if I just leave later.”

I showered. I ate supper. I sat down and hung out with my boyfriend. I played some video games, and we went for a cruise around town and took pictures. I took videos of the town, because I was like: “OK, here’s my high school I went to.” One of my best friends is painting a mural in the high school right now. I took a picture of her mural. We’re the only town in the Northwest Territories with a water tower and I took a picture of that. We’re the only place that has a cathedral. Just general, everyday things, where I was like “Hey, I don’t think there’s pictures of these things. I want to document this.”

Then I went home, packed up my vehicle, and every year on the anniversary of buying my house, I take a selfie with my house. I asked my boyfriend to come outside, and I was like: “Hey, come outside with me. Let’s take a picture of the house. This might be the last selfie.”

I posted to TikTok something along the lines of “when you believe your house is going to burn, you take a final selfie with it.” It was just a little clip. That ended up being my first video to go viral.

I’m not big on social media. I like posting for me and for my close friends. Being public makes me anxious. I was really afraid, having that up there. I was torn because Meta had just introduced their policy where no news media was supposed to be online. No one knew what was happening. I felt like, if I took down my videos because of my own fear of being seen, it would be selfish. I kept them up.

I was the highest viewed video for what was going on in the Northwest Territories for a while, specifically, Fort Smith. I took it down when news sources started picking up what was happening. It wasn’t until Yellowknife got evacuated a week later.

I packed up my vehicle, got my dogs in, and I was getting ready to leave. As a wildland firefighter, my boyfriend stayed and I took off. I hadn’t seen any of the burn areas yet. As I drove through, it looked like normal burn. If you’re not used to seeing forest fire burn areas, what that means is there’s standing trees and burnt grass, and the trees might be a little bit darker. It was not normal later.

I took a video of this massive helicopter carrying a water bucket. Nonstop helicopters overhead. All that post said was: “Fort Smith, Northwest Territories is evacuated due to wildfires.” I took a picture of me and my dogs. I know it’s morbid to be like, “I want to record what’s happening,” but when you go through mass emotions and trauma, you start to freak out. I wanted to record things so later on I could remember. I was taking pictures and videos along the way.

I didn’t listen to any music. I didn’t listen to any radio, nothing. I drove in silence for the three hours all the way to Hay River. I got to Hay River at 11 o’clock at night, and my friends had already arrived there. They made me pizza, and we had a beer. We’re sitting there, just talking about it, but the big question was like: “What’s next?” I went to bed, and I did not sleep. I was wired the whole night.

It was supposed to be 80km winds the next day blowing the fire towards town. The gossip was that it was going to hit town. There was no stopping it. The grief process already began, like this is it. Everything’s going to be gone. The next morning, I woke up and heard the people staying with me talking about what to do. That’s when they’re like: “We’re going to leave.” I took off before my friends, because I was by myself, and I told them: “I’m going to get tired at some point, so I want to get as far as I can.”

There’s two popular gas stations. I went by both of those, and there were lineups to get gas. Then I went into the industrial area, which is not paved. I pulled up to a cardlock (gas station) that accepts credit cards, and it’s a place that I’ve been to multiple times. I got out of the vehicle.

That’s when it hit me: the windstorm is here. I could not keep my vehicle doors open. My legs were getting smashed in, and bruised from the doors repeatedly being blown closed on me. My face was burning, because the wind was so strong, it was whipping me in the face with sand.

I have very long hair, and my hair was up and spinning in every which way. By the end of filling up my vehicle and getting in, I had a beehive. My hair was full of dirt. I couldn’t run my fingers through it. It was just straight knots.

I drove south. You lose cell service after a while. You’re in dead zones for hours on time. It was windy, but things were fine. You can see this giant smoke plume coming from a fire from the west. The wind is blowing that fire towards us. I stopped at the 60th parallel, which is the border into the Northwest Territories from Alberta. They have a little park there.

The person that takes care of that park was stressed out. I could see them pacing and walking around everywhere. I was just standing there with my dogs on a leash, watching. He kept pointing at this big smoke bloom, which looked far in the distance. Then I realized there’s closer little ones not very far away. I saw those, and I was like, those are here. Those are right here.

The rest of the drive to Innisfail is blurry. I just remember driving and sobbing and crying. Seeing the photos and videos of what people were going through was terrifying. That fire burnt the highway people were evacuating on. I just missed it. People were in car accidents. People lost their livestock. People were driving through flames.

There was one video some teenagers had posted and they were screaming and yelling, because they were by themselves without an adult in the vehicle. I was so thankful my grandmother and her kids were not evacuating through that, but I was really, really afraid for all my extended family. I was really afraid of the death toll that was going to come out of that.

When we first got to Alberta, we went so far south that there was no evacuation centre and we were on our own. Soon after, word of Yellowknife being evacuated was up in the air. Eventually, because so many people were evacuating, a centre opened up in northern Edmonton, which is where my parents were.

I didn’t elect to take all the help that was there. I feel like I got what I needed. I think the major flaw that happened in places that received us was the lack of awareness. I get they would not know about my town but it’s like, if someone had a dying parent or lost a parent, you’d be very kind about it. I found a lot of people did not realize that is essentially what everyone was going through: grief. It’s hard to have patience for each other when you don’t realize that is actually what’s occurring.

We ended up all separating to not outstay our stay. I went to Sundre and stayed with my friend’s family. This friend is also Indigenous. She took me on this hike that she loves, which was a turning point for me being able to release and relax. She’s like: “It’ll feel like healing because we’re going to go to a waterfall.” I told her: “That’s what I want right now. I just want to be by water. I’m so tired of fire.” I got what I asked for, because it poured rain our whole drive up there. Absolutely poured the whole time for our hike. My friend was like: “I’m so sorry. Usually, this is nicer.” I was like: “No.” I needed to see rain because I don’t think I saw rain all summer.

I was pretty sure that we would not be permitted to go home until Hay River opened up, because there would be no groceries or anything because there’s no fuel along the way. They opened up Hay River, and then they started talking about us. Then a week later we got to go home. This is where things got really emotional.

South of Enterprise is a series of waterfalls that have nice boardwalks. You could see that they’re burnt. That little community was full of vegetation and lush. Driving through Enterprise, it looked like a dystopian film. Everything was grey or black. You could see so many of the homes burnt. These are people on their pensions, for the most part. Enterprise is an older population. I wept for them.

Driving home, I saw all the areas I’ve ever camped and hunted at with my family are gone. The way the fire burned, it surrounded Fort Smith. I was shocked to see how much of the highway going toward my town burnt. The pavement itself was fine.

The eerie thing about the drive was the wooden telephone poles. There were just wires hanging. Some you could see little licks of fire touch the bottom. You’d come across ones where it’s so burnt it looks like a beaver chewing on it, with the transformer bits hanging there loosely. Then, sometimes you’d come across ones where it would be burnt all the way through.

I didn’t receive any damage. I had power when I came home. There was no sewage issues. There’s no water issues. The only thing is we did not have internet for a while.

There’s one major part in returning to town where I knew that if I saw it, it was going to wreck me. That area is outside of town called Salt Mountain. It’s a key spot because that’s where it burnt the hottest and it burnt the hardest. It looks like a nuclear bomb went off. It’s decimated. There’s absolutely no plants. There’s absolutely no vegetation. You would never believe there was a tree there. You’d never believe there was a plant there. It is white ash everywhere for as far as you can see.

I won’t be able to bring my children there one day and explain certain details of a place because it’ll be brand new by the time they get there. When I eventually have a family, I won’t be able to show them the boreal forest as a mature forest. It will be young and it’d be in a totally different stage than what I got to experience. I’m hoping we’ll see a lot healthier forests around here now. Old growth isn’t always a healthy forest. I always knew that was a threat.

Hunting was really hard for people this year. You had to go so much further, and even if you went on boats, you’re going into areas that are still burning. We can still see it. It’s still smouldering. You can still smell it. You can see it on the highway. It’s not gone. I always thought climate change was something that affected other people. Tuktoyaktuk, which is on the Arctic Ocean, is slowly eroding away due to warmer weather, less sea ice. I still view climate change as affecting the Arctic-Arctic, not me. Then, I’m a victim of it.

This testimonial was produced with the help of the Climate Disaster Project; thanks to Sean Holman, Aldyn Chwelos, Darren Schuettler, Ricardo Garcia, Cristine Gerk, Tracy Sherlock, Lisa Taylor.

• Edited by Tracy Sherlock, Julia Townsend, Sean Holman, and Aldyn Chwelos. Design and development by Harry Fischer and Pip Lev