ABSTRACT
There are over a dozen native communities in Alaska that are directly and currently feeling the ravages of climate change. This chapter, the first of five case studies from around the world, examines the encounters and experiences of climate change among the indigenous Yupik and Iñupiat peoples, or Eskimos as they came to be called by European arrivals in Alaska. Specific focus is on the lives of the residents of the largely indigenously populated small city of Barrow and the indigenous villages of Newtok, Kivalina, and Shishmaref. Dispersed across very challenging natural arctic conditions, the indigenous Alaskan peoples developed highly successful cultures closely attuned to their local environments, including extensive environmental knowledge and understanding of the making and use of human and dog-powered technologies derived from local resources. But, with a rapidly heating Arctic, these communities report that the ice cellars in which they store food are melting, houses are slipping off their foundations, and hunters are finding it hard to locate game. For the indigenous Alaskans, climate change is not just a theory, it is an immediate and dangerous reality. This chapter argues that the social injustice and inequality they already face are magnified by a changing climate.
