Sub-arctic

When the Second Men had remained in their strange racial trance for about thirty million years, the obscure forces that make for advancement began to stir in them once more. This reawakening was favoured by geological accident. An incursion of the sea gradually isolated some of their number in an island continent, which was once part of the North Atlantic ocean-bed. The climate of this island gradually cooled from subtropical to temperate and sub-arctic.

Mike Williams has spent much of his life on the Kuskokwim River in the western region of sub-arctic Alaska. He says rising temperatures during the last decade have been melting the permafrost layer of Earth, causing increased erosion. Bethel, Alaska and other towns have had to constantly reinforce their sea walls.