On the shore of Lake Tiktalik in Canada’s Western Arctic, the thawing permafrost had set off two huge landslides into the water, leaving yawning craters on the tundra. These “thaw slumps” measured several hundred feet wide and just as deep. Jaden was part of the team that Mr. Dillon, 69, had created to measure the retreating permafrost. Only a few decades earlier, the permafrost had lain just several inches below much of the region’s surface. For centuries, the Western Arctic has been home to Mr. Dillon and his ancestors, the Inuvialuit, as the region’s Inuit are called.

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Persons: Jaden Cockney, clambered, William Dillon, Jaden, Dillon, Dillon’s Locations: Lake Tiktalik