Louie Palu: Distant Early Warning documents the vestigial legacies of the Cold War and the increased military presence in the North American Arctic today. The changes in the region are exacerbated by the many unknowns the Arctic faces, among them the warming of the planet.

Over several years — from 2015 to 2018 — what began as a Guggenheim Fellowship evolved into an assignment for National Geographic magazine. Taken as a whole, the series of photographs examines the growing geopolitical tensions and changing life around Inuit communities in one of the planet’s most extreme and challenging places.

Louie Palu’s work was supported by funding from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, National Geographic Magazine and Pulitzer Center.