April 7, 2015 - Recently, the use of winter roads and access trails have become increasingly unreliable as temperatures rise and weather patterns become unpredictable. Many First Nations communities in Northern Ontario are vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, since they depend on consistent cold weather during winter to sustain their economic, social, and traditional ways of life. Community members here and across all of northern Canada, as well as scientists, describe climate change as gradual in the region until 10 years ago, when weather patterns began to change significantly. According to the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER), “seasonal precipitation, the number of frost-free days, and the frequency of severe weather-related events have all been in greater flux. Predictions about global warming, even at such high latitudes, forecast dramatic increases up to eight degrees in average temperature through the rest of the century, which will further degrade winter transportation.”[i]