Elmer Brown was following two friends on his four-wheeler last November, hunting caribou across a frozen channel in northern Alaska when the ice gave way. All three plunged into the frigid water. One friend drowned, and Brown, 45, later died of hypothermia, leaving behind five children. “He was always helping other people and sharing his catch with the elders,” said his brother Jimmy Brown. “It’s been tough, not seeing him. I keep expecting him to walk in and tell me about his day.” The friends had ventured onto the ice to hunt caribou, under pressure to make the most of shorter and less reliable hunting seasons, Jimmy Brown said. It wasn’t the first time the family had lost someone to the ice. The Brown brothers’ father drowned in 1999 while seal hunting. They’re among thousands who have died on ice across the Northern Hemisphere in recent decades as warming winters make conditions thinner and less predictable for those who fish, hunt and recreate on frozen lakes, rivers and coastal waters. March and April are particularly dangerous months as winter conditions recede. The risks are especially acute in Alaska, where the unpredictable ice season disrupts traditional hunting practices for Indigenous communities and pushes people to take chances. Though some communities are using satellite imagery to assess conditions and social media to share ice observations, technology can’t replace the predictability that generations once relied upon. Transition seasons are deadliest. A study examined more than 4,000 winter drownings across 10 countries, including Canada, the U.S., Russia and Japan, over a 26-year period ending in 2017. It found drowning rates surged fivefold when winter temperatures rose to just below freezing. Deaths peaked in March and April, when reduced snow cover allows sunlight to penetrate the ice, melting it from within in invisible ways. “It’s only a matter of three to five days where you can go from safe ice conditions to totally unsafe,” she said. An analysis shows that earlier sea ice breakup has shortened Kotzebue’s spring seal-hunting season by 26 days compared to a decade ago. “Each winter, it gets more and more dangerous to be out on the ice,” said Roswell Schaeffer, 78, who still hunts seals. Schaeffer’s son fell through the ice while traveling by snowmobile and later died of suicide. The community's traditions and safety are under pressure from climate change, forcing families to take greater risks to secure food as opportunities for hunting diminish.