Until recently, easy passage across the Arctic’s frozen landscape remained the stuff of fantasy and fable. Who could afford – or risk - cutting through thousands of miles of ice to go from East to West?

But, near the Canadian port of Churchill, one of the country’s top arctic scientists, David Barber, from the University of Manitoba, is finding data that may change everything. His teams have been studying the ice in the Arctic for quite a while and have just embarked on a new project on Button Bay – just north of Churchill – which they will study for the next decade.

Dozens of scientists and grad students perform experiments on the ice, and have found that the area is warming. Each year the melt comes earlier, the freeze later.

Though he’s reluctant to say exactly when this bay he’s standing on will be ice-free and passable as early as April, Barber is resigned to the facts that the evidence shows him: the big melt will likely be in his lifetime.

As the warming accelerates here – twice as fast as the rest of the earth – scientists are scrambling for answers to why, as well as how fast and how long the trend will continue. And what does it mean for the rest of us?

While some warn that the climate shift will have catastrophic effects felt around the world, others are looking at the warming trend as an opportunity.