Inupiat children on the frozen Arctic Ocean in June 2006. This year, the ice was gone from the shore by March.

Throughout the spring, climate change has generated refugees across much of the Midwest as unprecedented storms and record flooding drove thousands from their homes and flooded farms, business, neighborhoods, and military bases. But the climate change being experienced over most of the United States is mild compared to what’s happening further north. With the Arctic on track for a record year of melting ice and above freezing temperatures becoming more common even in winter darkness, things are changing in a way that is turning into a place that even its oldest residents do not recognize.

As the Washington Post reports, temperatures this spring in Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) weren’t up by one degree, or two, or even three — they were an astounding 18.6 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. That kind of drastic change has turned the areas’ traditional ice roads into lakes, exposed villages normally sheltered by sea ice to the pounding of spring storms, and it has led to at least five deaths when people fell through ice that had never before been an issue.

In many areas of the state there are no permanent highways. Lakes and rivers have long been treated as transport corridors, and some villages can only be reached by snowmobile. But with the warming conditions, routes that have been solid for generations are turning into dangerous slush. Three people, including an 11-year-old-girl, died in the last week after an excursion to visit family ended by a plunge through fragile ice.

Alaskan natives have experience in the area that goes back long before written history. But that experience doesn’t help, because none of their ancestors—going back to those who first crossed the ice to enter the area—have ever experienced conditions like those in Alaska today.

Utqiaġvik has set an all time high temperature rating in 28 out of the last 100 days. At this extreme northern point, the ground should still be hard frozen and any sign of spring still weeks away. Instead, rains are falling, permafrost is thawing, and both animals and people are struggling to adapt to an environment that has not existed for millions of years.