Cain's Quest isn't going away, say organizers. Neither are warmer winters, says climatologist

The recent stretch of uncharacteristically mild winter in Labrador that forced the cancellation of a snowmobile race across the region this week is also causing havoc for residents.

Communities along Labrador's north and southeast coasts have been hammered by rain since Saturday, with some, such as Rigolet, seeing more than 100 millimetres.

Chesley Sheppard, Rigolet's AngajukKâk, or mayor, is linking the problem to climate change.

"We've been seeing lots of brooks opening up, flooding. There's just water running down our roads, eating our snow away — the little bit that we had," Sheppard said Wednesday.

"It's been a slow winter. We had no snow hardly at all this winter compared to any other year."

The messy weather forced the cancellation of the 3,500-kilometre Cain's Quest snowmobile race, which takes teams across the Big Land. Organizers cited safety concerns for the participants, with one team sinking through ice while trying to cross a river.

Sheppard said mild winters in his area are starting to become a trend. He said there has been noticeably less snow over the last five or six years. 

"Everyone is noticing the global warming. The ice is not as thick and it doesn't freeze up as fast as it usually does. Everyone is noticing a big difference in the winters," he said.

And while Cain's Quest could just be cancelled, residents depend on winters and their machines as a way of life. 

Sheppard said the more than 300 people in Rigolet rely on snowmobiles to gather wood, hunt and connect the community to the larger hub of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, about 160 kilometres southwest. 

"It's going to be hard for people to get their wood if nothing changes, if we don't get any snow soon. Roads are pretty much washed out as it is now and the brooks are starting to open up," he said.

"There's nothing but water out in our bay. This usually happens in late spring, in late April. This time we're almost over a month early. It's a pretty dramatic change for us." 

Memorial University climatologist Joel Finnis says once-rare weather events in Labrador, such as this week's rain, are becoming more common. 

He said winter thaws have happened before but they used to be short-lived and less frequent.

"That's shifting. They're becoming much more common, much more frequent," said Finnis. 

"You've got a warm front moving through but it's an unusually strong warm front, relatively far north, compared to our long-term climatology. That amount of rain is probably pretty unusual in the winter up there but it's maybe an indication of what we might expect to see relatively frequently as we move toward the end of this century."

Finnis said some of more pessimistic climate projections for coastal Labrador suggest winters could start to closely resemble those in St. John's.

"It's an alarming increase in temperature and considerably more rain rather than snow would be expected," he said.

"I want to stress that's really tied to the coast. where the sea ice in winter normally would lock the temperatures to lower values. But as that sea ice recedes and thins you've got a much stronger coastal influence. It can create some dramatic shifts — and again I want to stress that these are the more pessimistic end of the climate change projections."

The race goes on

After what organizers say was a difficult but necessary decision to cancel Cain's Quest this year mid-race, they're looking ahead to the next running, expected in 2025.

Chris Lacey, chair of Cain's Quest's board of directors, said Thursday the event isn't going anywhere.

"Climate change is a thing, it's happening, but this weather has happened to us before, maybe not in the severity of having back-to-back days of rain," he said. 

"We're always planning and we're always expecting that but you can't predict the weather. It's the most unpredictable thing in the world."

Lacey said organizers understand weather patterns are changing but Cain's Quest will continue to run on the first weekend of March if possible.

"We don't feel that moving the dates right now is something that we have to do because we're afraid that if we take it the other way then it's too cold," he said. 

"That adds a worse element of safety, in my opinion, from a freezing cold side of things versus being wet and uncomfortable."

Finnis said rare weather events are becoming more common because of human-induced climate change and people can simply look to Labrador to get an idea of what impacts a changing climate can have on the province as a whole. 

"Cain's Quest gets a lot of attention because it's a high-profile sporting event but, of course, this has consequences for the daily lives of the people living up there," he said.

"It's not just about a race. The race is inconvenienced by something that is presenting real challenges to ways of living in Labrador."

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