In an innovative pen pal project, middle school students from Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the coastal village of Mertarvik, Alaska, are forging connections through their shared experiences of growing up in environments heavily affected by climate change.
A recent video call allowed students from both communities to engage in discussions about a pressing issue: erosion. During the call, Mertarvik junior Jojean George posed a thought-provoking question, asking, “How is erosion affecting your life?”
Provincetown’s twelve-year-old John Gunn responded candidly, drawing from his firsthand knowledge of the threat of coastal erosion facing his own community. He explained, “Over time, Provincetown will eventually become an island. Because that part that connects us is slowly narrowing because of the wind moving on the sand and the waves.”
Provincetown, located at the end of Cape Cod, faces unique challenges as a seaside town. With a population of around 3,000 that swells significantly during the summer months, the picturesque community attracts many visitors with its rich art scene and inclusive LGBTQ+ culture. However, as climate change drives coastal erosion and flooding, the community is confronting serious existential threats.
This pen pal project was initiated by Provincetown-based photojournalist Emily Schiffer and Alaska-based creator Katie Basile. Funded by Anonymous Was a Woman in partnership with The New York Foundation for the Arts, the initiative allows students to exchange letters and photos, documenting their communities while gaining insights into each other’s lives.
Students in both communities have found they possess meaningful common ground through their correspondence. In Mertarvik, students are all too familiar with the struggles posed by rising waters and flooding. Originally from the village of Newtok, which experienced extensive environmental decline, they relocated to Mertarvik after the last residents left Newtok following a vote by tribal councils. Newtok was gradually washed away as permafrost thawed, diminishing the land and leading to an alarming loss of shoreline each year.
This stark reality formed the backdrop for discussions among the students. In particular, the Provincetown students were curious about how the relocation from Newtok to Mertarvik had addressed the erosion problem. Gunn recounted learning that Mertarvik’s geography provided a safer foundation: “Newtok was very flat on the ground… But Mertarvik is on, like, they said it’s, like, these rolling hills.”
Additionally, Mertarvik’s solid rock foundation offers more stability compared to Newtok’s permafrost and dirt background — a concept easily relatable for the students of Provincetown, whose own town is constructed of sand.
Thirteen-year-old Bella Wirthwein of Provincetown reflected on another story of relocation from her own town’s history. She pointed out that when the Mayflower first landed, the colonists faced difficulties growing food in their new settlement, prompting them to move.
“They floated all of their houses over,” she explained, recounting her community’s unique history of relocation.
Wirthwein, who once lived in a wooden house that was floated across an inlet in the 1850s, now grapples with present-day realities of life by the ocean. Since 2018, she has witnessed an alarming increase in coastal flooding during winter storms, prompting local leaders to explore vertical solutions, such as raising houses on stilts.
Despite the recreational joys of her home—like pier jumping and sand dune sledding—Wirthwein admitted that living in a climate-affected area carries its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to disaster preparedness.
She described how some days she goes to school equipped for potential floods: “If I went to school on a day that we had been flooded, or a weekend, or flooding is happening, I would wear two pairs of pants, two pairs of sweaters. I would bring a kind of pack of clothes with me to school.”
Wirthwein shared her personal account of experiencing flooding in her old home. Returning after a storm, she found the house engulfed by chaos—furniture strewn about, seaweed littering her neighborhood, and debris scattered in the streets.
As the flooding continued to worsen, she noted that it disrupted not just her home life but everyday life as well.
“I was like, ‘Oh, we’ve done this before. We’ve done this before.’ But then it started getting, like, over and over and over and over again. So it was just, like, interfering, kind of, with like, day-to-day life.”
Ultimately, her family sold their historic house, but the impact of climate change remains prevalent in Wirthwein’s mind. She has even devised an idea for a breakwall barrier intended to harness storm waves’ power in an attempt to combat coastal erosion.
Wirthwein expressed gratitude for the connection established with her pen pal Glennesha Carl, a 17-year-old from Mertarvik, noting that their conversations serve as a mentorship. In their letters, they discussed flooding and their shared understanding of climate change and its impacts on their lives.
Carl related her experiences of living with floods in Newtok to Wirthwein’s struggles. “When they mentioned flooding, I thought about Newtok because Newtok is a place to flood all year long,” she said.
Carl shared her emotional reflections on her last visit to Newtok: “Like, it was a wave of sadness, and as we got off the boat, I could feel like it was my home, but not my home.” She reminisced about fishing with friends near her old house, now lost to time, stating, “There’s no more pond. There’s no more fish, like that’s a whole new environment.”
The exchanges between these students not only highlight their experiences with climate change but also explore their cultural ties, favorite music, and shared hobbies, weaving a rich tapestry of connections that transcends geographical boundaries.
Earlier in 2025, their collective stories were showcased beyond their own communities. Selected letters and photographs from both classes were featured in a photography exhibition in New York City, allowing students to meet each other face-to-face for the first time.
Through this collaboration, kids from Provincetown and Mertarvik are turning their resilience in the face of climate adversity into a stronger connection and a foundation for future activism, creating expressions of hope in a world increasingly defined by change.
image source from：wbur
