Residents of disappearing island want a new home

Residents on Shishmaref, a settlement on a narrow island eroding into Alaska’s Chukchi Sea recently picked the site where they want to make their future home. On Jan. 13, more than 100 of Shishmaref’s 590 residents voted unanimously to move to a site called Tin Creek.

The community has been losing an average of one to two metres of shoreline to autumn storms each year.

It may cost between US$100 million US$400 million to relocate the village.

Funds are available from several US government sources, but the villages don’t qualify because they can’t come up with the 25 per cent to 50 per cent share of relocation costs that are required.