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Climate Change Adaptation: Traditional Knowledge of
Indigenous Peoples Inhabiting the Arctic and Far North
Marine Hunters of Chukotka
The cultural icescape has its own history that is many centuries old. Its antiquity is
reflected in the indigenous terms for various types of sea ice that the Eskimo
(Inuit) people used at least two thousand years ago. The traditional Eskimo sled
trails (“ice roads”) connecting arctic settlements over the seasonally frozen sea
have existed for many generations.
Like land, the utilized ice space is covered with a dense network of place names,
landmarks, crossroads, traditional meeting and resting places, and areas for certain
types of activities. For traditional communities that use the ice in winter months, it
becomes a space tied to the rich oral tradition. It includes personal stories,
memories, songs, legends, descriptions of traditional routes, and also beliefs in the
supernatural and mythological creatures living on or under the ice.
At the same time the cultural icescape is a phenomenon that continues to shrink,
both physically and culturally, with each passing year. Presently it is under a threat
for two reasons: the rapidly changing climate of the Arctic and the loss of the
language and cultural heritage of its indigenous peoples. The sea ice of the Arctic
can only be saved by a new cooler climate phase or by conscious efforts on part of
all of the inhabitants on the planet. The disappearing knowledge of the minority
peoples of the North can only be maintained by the indigenous peoples themselves
and by the experts in their cultural heritage.
Local Cultures of Eastern Chukotka
The Yupik Eskimo and coastal Chukchi lived along the narrow stretch of the
shoreline, up to one or one and a half kilometer wide, but the main place of activity
of the marine hunters was in the sea. They spent the summer on the water, and in
winter, which before the present-day warming lasted for eight to nine months, they
would always be on the ice. In many regions the territory used by the coastal
communities substantially increased during the winter time due to the addition of
the space occupied by the sea ice.
The characteristic features of the icescapes, such as inlets, ice cracks, shore-fast ice
(immovable ice connected to the shore) and drift ice, determined the existence of at
least ten local versions of sea mammal hunting culture along the shores of eastern
Chukotka. In each settlement, local hunting economy depended on the conditions
of the ice, and also on the direction and strength of the predominant winds and sea
currents, shoreline features, and the distribution of the animal resources.
6
Climate Change Adaptation: Traditional Knowledge of
Indigenous Peoples Inhabiting the Arctic and Far North
Marine Hunters of Chukotka
Local differences in natural resource use also affected other forms of subsistence,
such as fishing, land hunting, and plant gathering. They are evident in variations
among the hunting gear, clothing, construction of dwellings, and the system for
locating seasonal hunting and fishing camps.
Up to the 1940s there were many more coastal aboriginal settlements and local
cultural variations in eastern Chukotka than there are now. The level of cultural
diversity was higher, and this diversity had guaranteed the stable existence of
Chukotka marine hunting culture for many centuries, even thousands of years.
Indigenous Peoples and Marine Hunting Сulture
Places with abundant natural resources, with seasonal concentration of whales,
pinnipeds, birds, and fish species, that were convenient for hunting and fishing,
had attracted ancient hunting people from very early on. There were multiple
recorded human migrations from one continent to another along the Bering Land
Bridge and across the Bering Strait.
It is commonly believed that this is the way the ancestors of American Indians
once moved from Asia to North America twelve to fifteen thousand years ago. Due
to their unique geographical position eastern Chukotka and western Alaska have
played a prominent role in the history of Asian-American human connections for
over ten thousand years. Both ancient and modern aboriginal peoples have left
numerous archeological monuments in the Beringia region.
Several thousand years ago the shores and islands of the Bering Strait witnessed
the birth of the ancient Eskimo marine hunting culture, which was then absorbed
by the Chukchi people who later populated the Asian part of Beringia. Eastern
Chukotka is a unique region not only in Russia, but in Eurasia. Nowhere else did
the marine hunting culture have such ancient and strong roots.
At present this culture is mainly concentrated along the shore of Eastern Chukotka
from the community of Uelkal located near the entrance to the Kresta Bay (in the
Anadyr Bay, northwestern part of the Bering Sea), and up to the community of
Vankarem, on the shore of the Chukchi Sea. Presently there are around fifteen
thousand people living in this area in fifteen predominately aboriginal communities
that continue traditional marine hunting.