APTOPIX Climate Migration Alaska Village Charles Alexie stands along the coastal erosion that has eaten away at the riverbanks on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in Newtok, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)ASSOCIATED PRESS Calvin Tom, left, the tribal administrator, lifts his son Brady Tom into his boat in Mertarvik, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) MERTARVIK, Alaska (AP) — Growing up along the banks of the Ninglick River in western Alaska, Ashley Tom would look out of her window after strong storms from the Bering Sea hit her village and notice something unsettling: the riverbank was creeping ever closer. It was in that home, in the village of Newtok, where Tom’s great-grandmother had taught her to sew and crochet on the sofa, skills she used at school when students crafted headdresses, mittens and baby booties using seal or otter fur. It’s also where her grandmother taught her the intricate art of grass basket weaving and how to speak the Yupik language. Today, erosion and melting permafrost have just about destroyed Newtok , eating about 70 feet (21.34 meters) of land every year. All that’s left are some dilapidated and largely abandoned gray homes scraped bare of paint by salt darting in on the winds of storms. “Living with my great-grandmother was all I could remember from Newtok, and it was one of the first houses to be demolished,” said Tom. In the next few weeks, the last 71 residents will load their possessions onto boats to move to Mertarvik, rejoining 230 residents who began moving away in 2019. They will become one of the first Alaska Native villages to complete a large-scale relocation because of climate change. __ EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate […]