In 2009, I travelled to an Inupiat village called Kaktovik in northern Alaska and over several days experienced life in one of the most inhospitable places on earth, where wind speeds can reach 70 miles per hour and temperatures can drop to 50 degrees below zero. As the weather closed in after a trip to track polar bears, I looked up to see a bespeckled marine blue storage tank puncture the grey light and play off an abandoned fishing boat in the foreground.