Arctic Communities

Heather Hudson, professor of public policy at ISER, is a co-author of an article about advocating for indigenous regulatory authority in Canada's far north, recently published in the Journal of Information Policy. Download the article (pdf, 194.8KB).

Gender disparities in the out-migration of young people from rural fishing regions across the North Atlantic and North Pacific suggest important differences in the ways rural young men and women identify with and experience rural life. Rachel Donkersloot, director of the Working Waterfronts Program for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, has studied those disparities in the rapidly shifting landscape of a rural Irish fishing community.

Historically and into the present day, herring and herring roe (tskah and xs'waanx) have provided the Tsimshian people of British Columbia with a range of food resources, both the fish itself—fresh, dried, or smoked—and the roe in several forms. But indigenous use has narrowed since the arrival of non-indigenous peoples. In this talk, Charles Menzies, a professor of social anthropology at the University of British Columbia, will describe the causes and implications of this narrowing of herring use among the Tsimshian, discussing the topic through archaeological, ethnographic, and indigenous-knowledge approaches. Dr. Menzies was formerly a commercial fisherman, and his research is predominantly fisheries-related, involving both indigenous and non-indigenous communities on the north coast of British Columbia. He also produces and directs documentary films, primarily about fishing communities.

Many recent developments in telecommunications provide opportunities for Alaska, particularly for Alaska Native and tribal organizations, business and institutional users, public sector agencies, and consumers. This seminar, held on March 28, provided a concise overview of these developments, with links to additional information. The seminar was conducted by Dr. Heather E. Hudson, professor of communications policy at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at UAA. She has conducted many studies on telecommunications in the North, and is completing a book entitled Connecting Alaskans: From Telegraph to Broadband, to be published by the University of Alaska Press. Download the presentation (PDF, 3.5MB) If you were not able to attend, but are interested in future ISER broadband activities and research, please send a message with “Broadband” in the subject line to UAA_ISER@uaa.alaska.edu.

Sitka Sound in Southeast Alaska is home to one of the state’s largest commercially viable stocks of Pacific herring, which are harvested for their roe (eggs) in the spring, just before they spawn. There is also a subsistence herring fishery in Sitka Sound, with subsistence users collecting the roe after the herring spawn. In recent years, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has increased the commercial guideline harvest level—and conflict between commercial and subsistence fishermen has also increased. James Shewmake, a research professional at ISER, earned his master's in natural resource management for his research on the subsistence herring fishery in Sitka Sound. He found that the size of the subsistence harvest depends not only on how many people participate, but also on other measures of participants’ effort and on harvesting opportunities.

The Barents region is a sprawling area of international cooperation that includes the northernmost parts of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, as well as Northwest Russia. It was created under an agreement among those countries in the early 1990s. Thomas Nilsen is the editor of BarentsObserver.com, an online public affairs and news site operated by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, which promotes cooperation among Barents member countries, particularly cooperation between Norway and Russia. At ISER, Mr. Nilsen talked about a range of topics, including Arctic oil and gas drilling in Norwegian waters, transportation of oil in Norwegian and Russian Arctic waters, potential routes across the Arctic as sea ice melts, and the Norwegian government’s High North policies and strategies for promoting economic and social development in the Arctic. Mr. Nilsen's visit to the United States was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program.

The TUNDRA project is an international study, with researchers from Norway, Russia, Canada, and Alaska examining the influence of society and governance on subsistence and land use among the people who live on the tundra in the Circumpolar North. Jennifer Schmidt, a researcher at the University of Tromsø, Norway, is part of the project team. She also describes other socio-ecological projects underway in Norway and Europe—and opportunities for researchers from different disciplines to collaborate on such research. To learn more about the TUNDRA project, visit: http://site.uit.no/tundra/researchers/

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in funding to help developing countries adapt to climate change. As those funds increase, scholars and policymakers have been raising more questions about how such adaptations should be funded—and in particular about how adaptations to climate change should be linked with existing development policies. Maureen Biermann, a PhD candidate at Pennsylvania State University, is examining how a leading international institution at the United Nations is dealing with that issue as it finances climate-change adaptations. She spoke at ISER November 13, 2013.

A report on current Internet connectivity and access to and use of information and communication technologies in rural southwest Alaska is now available.