Shea to talk about climate change impact on the far north
Journalist and author Neil Shea will talk tonight about his travels around the Arctic in a lecture at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also will talk about a book he wrote about the impact of climate change in the region.
Shea grew up in an urban environment around Boston and he now lives in Brooklyn. But he says he’s always been drawn to wild places – like the ones he imagined he could find by following a river that ran through his backyard.
“So my brothers and I would constantly be playing in and around this river,” he said. “And I think that this had a great deal to do with me becoming interested in the outdoors, the lives of animals, and sort of the paths that things like water carved through all of our lives, and the way they connect communities and people.”
Shea says the river served as a sort of pathway to faraway places that he yearned to explore to learn more about nature and the people and wildlife that lived there.
Fast forward to 2006, when he took his first Arctic trip as a young writer for National Geographic magazine.
“I’d never really been anywhere for the magazine,” he said, “and that was the first place that they decided to send me. So I went to the north, to Arctic Canada, to Admiralty Inlet, to the ice edge, the place where the sea ice meets the open ocean in springtime. And I had absolutely nothing to compare that experience to.”
Shea said he marveled at the wildlife that roamed the land and plied the waters offshore.
“ Narwals, beluga whales. bowheads, polar bears -- everything that comes to the edge of the ice in the springtime. And my mind was so blown by that, that I think that it just sort of haunted me in a good way for many years afterwards.”
Since then, the 51-year-old has taken many trips to the far north, in Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia and Alaska. He says every trip reminds him of the abundant wildlife he saw on that first visit. He’s also reminded how the landscape has changed since then, due to climate change impacts that have disrupted weather patterns, animal migrations, even ocean currents.
Shea wrote his first book after a 2018 trip to Canada’s Ellesmere Island with a crew working on a documentary about the wolves that lived there. And that seemed very curious about the humans.
“They were not afraid. And they came up to us and sort of investigated us the way the owner of the property would. And that what they were, you know, it was their territory and they came up to us as visitors, sort of trying to figure out why we were there.”
The book is titled “Frostlines: A Journey Through Entangled Lives and Landscapes in a Warming Arctic.” Shea will talk about that book and the experiences that led him to write it in the UAF Engineering Building.
Lynne Snifka is an associate professor of Journalism with the UAF Department of Science and Environmental Journalism. She says Shea was invited to talk with her students as part of the 2026 Snedden Lecture Series.
“I think Neil is the sort of journalist that most of our students really aspire to be,” she said. “He has had the sort of career that many aspiring science and environmental journalists want someday. And his work really speaks for itself.”
Snifka says anyone would find the talk interesting.
“I'm hoping that we get a wide variety of people,” she said. “It's great that he's coming and that he's there for students, but if you enjoy good stories you'll enjoy his presentation.”
The talk begins at 7 p.m. tonight, and it’s free. It’ll also be webcast on Zoom.
