Arctic societies experience the impacts of climate change at great speed as global warming is amplified in the Circumpolar North. This challenges northern people in several ways. For hunters and fishermen this often means a shrinking landscape due to a decline in mobility and resource access, whereas for Greenland as such the increased accessibility to land and sea has offered new industrial and urban opportunities. In Alaska, a number of small communities face total relocation due to exposure to extreme weather conditions. These climate related challenges and possibilities affect the social dynamics in many regions and force regions, communities, and households to rethink their short- and long-term strategies and aspirations. Human mobility has always been applied as a strategy and this chapter argues that people in the Circumpolar North are hyper-mobile and place-polygamous. However, the role of human mobility takes on a new importance in relation to the present climate change challenges as people have to make choices of a scale not seen before because it forces them to think of future possibilities in new ways – possibilities that may transform the societies radically.

This chapter introduces the concept of ‘horizons of expectations’ and relates it to perceptions of community in order to develop a new understanding of the perceptions that influence attitudes and responses to climate related conditions. On the basis of three contemporary examples of climate change related mobility discussions and mobility patterns in the Arctic, the chapter focuses on how different understandings of community are mobilized and used in order to deal with the rather complex situations faced by northern peoples.