Tuktoyaktuk (July 12/04) - As cold Arctic waves methodically lap against the shoreline just west of Jim Felix's house, they carry away Tuktoyaktuk's fragile shoreline with each ebb and flow.

"Over time, you could see the land slowly disappearing into the ocean," said Felix, who has lived in Canada's northernmost mainland community most of his life.

Felix is one of Tuktoyaktuk's luckier residents. Four years ago, the territorial government paid to fill the beach behind his house with massive boulders trucked in from Inuvik. The buttress was designed to hold back the Beaufort Sea, which had crept within 10 metres of his back porch.

"I was worried for a while," he said.

But just a few hundred metres down the beach, Tuktoyaktuk's shoreline remains dangerously exposed to rising water levels, which have already claimed large sections of the peninsula.

And while hamlet and government officials work on a plan to keep the hamlet from sinking into the sea, rising temperatures -- a byproduct of global warming -- are expected to increase the rate of coastline erosion, throwing the future location of the community into doubt.

"This is my home," says mayor Jackie Jacobson, echoing the sentiments of a large part of the community. "I don't want to leave. I was born here and I plan to die here."

Tuktoyaktuk is perched on an alluvial plain, roughly 50 kilometres east of the Mackenzie River Delta, squarely on the shores of the Beaufort Sea. The land surrounding the hamlet is a hodgepodge of lakes and marshes, dotted by massive earthen mounds known as pingos. The five- kilometre-long peninsula that is home to most of the hamlet's 1,025 residents was formed over thousands of years by silt deposited from the Mackenzie River.

It's a volatile landscape. Ocean currents, river sediments and brutal Arctic storms constantly re-shape the terrain in and around Tuktoyaktuk. "From a city planner's perspective, it isn't an ideal location (for a permanent settlement)," said Dennis Berry, a senior community planner with the department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development.

While coastline erosion is a natural process, the situation in Tuktoyaktuk is being exacerbated by shifting climate patterns.

The average temperature in the NWT has increased by 1.5C in the last 40 years and climate models predict it will jump another 5C by the end of this century.

"While there is still some debate over the issue, I think it's safe to say that humans are altering the environment," said Emery Paquin, with the Environmental Protection Service, and arm of the territorial government.

The temperature increase has had a devastating effect on Tuktoyaktuk and the Arctic landscape. Sea levels appear to be rising, in part because of the melting of the polar ice caps, but more significantly because of the physical properties of water: as it warms, it expands.

The relatively balmy weather has also eaten away at the permafrost that lies underneath the Arctic shoreline, making it easier for the tide to carry the silt-laden earth out to sea.

Finally, the increase in temperature has altered ocean currents, interrupting the delicate interaction between the air and the sea. That has led to increasingly severe storms, some of which have carved sizable chunks of the Tuktoyaktuk peninsula.

"It seems as though they get worse every year," Jacobson said of the gales that pound the hamlet's coast in the spring and fall.

"It's to the point where some parts of town are flooding on a regular basis."

And it's a phenomenon that will only get worse as the temperature increases, said Paquin.

"Predictions on climate change show it will produce more frequent and more severe storm events," he said.

In their effort to save the hamlet, community members and territorial government officials are pioneering methods to protect Arctic coastlines.

As part of their strategy, the department of Municipal and Community Affairs has already spent about $2.5 million trying to reinforce the shoreline around the community. Gigantic pieces of stone -- some the size of a compact car -- line the eastern half of the peninsula, which has seen its tip whittled down like a fourth-grader's pencil.

The boulders have been effective in holding back the sea, say residents like Felix, who has lived on the shore since 1990.

"I could see the water getting closer and closer, but the situation hasn't gotten worse since they put the boulders in," he said.

Still, roughly half the community -- including parts of its inner harbour -- aren't protected against the ocean, which worries Jacobson.

"All it takes is one severe storm and you could see large-scale flooding," he said.

The territorial government spent nearly $500,000 reinforcing Tuktoyaktuk's shoreline in 2003, but isn't scheduled to do more work until at least 2005, said Berry.

"Like any capital project, the Tuktoyaktuk program is competing against things like schools and fire trucks," he said.

"But we think this is an important issue and it's in everyone's interest to have a safe and healthy community," he continued.

"We're not going to let Tuktoyaktuk fall into the sea."

The government estimates it could take another $3-4 million dollars to finish the job, but there's still no guarantee the boulders will be enough to hold back the sea.

A 2002 report by an engineering firm said despite the stoneworks, the eastern tip of the peninsula could be inundated within 25 years, wiping out an estimated 15 buildings and turning the hamlet's cemetery into sea-front property.

Faced with the rising water level, community officials have discussed moving several low-lying buildings to higher ground.

Government engineers have also looked at that possibility, which is potentially less expansive than reinforcing the shoreline.

But a large number of Tuktoyaktuk's residents, led by Jacobson, aren't in favour of abandoning the hamlet.

"This is home," said Jacobson.

"People in the community are always talking about it. They wonder how far the water is going to come up this year. But many don't want to move."

Instead, the eastern tip of the peninsula has been labelled off limits for builders; and construction projects -- like the hamlet's new subdivision -- are being built further inland.

As the water raps against the shore behind Jim Felix's house, stirring up silt and working it's way into the field of boulders, he says there will probably come a time when he has to leave his home.

"It might be 15 years from now, but I think we will eventually have to move," he says. "What else can we do?"