I am living in Gustavus on land that didn’t exist just 250 years ago, but was created from the outwash of the Little Ice Age’s great Grand Pacific Glacier. The outwash’s 2 great water flows created our Salmon and Good Rivers. Outwash sand and silt, mud and debris along Icy Strait then began to rebound (isostatic rebound). The fastest retreat of ice in history began with the melting of the glaciers north and W. of Gustavus in Glacier Bay, as recorded by Vancouver in Icy Strait in the 1700’s;
I have lived here just over 3 decades, and have watched while a moon-like rock un-vegetated world up-Bay has taken seed and through succession moved through quick episodes of rock – lichen – mosses – mountain avens like dryas –willow - alder – cottonwood – spruce – lower bay hemlock. I’ve watched Muir Glacier retreat year by year, go up on land, and lose its touch with Muir Inlet. We’ve watched ice change from clear hard crystalline nature to crumbling, rapidly astronomical melting, punky soft ice, showing water “portals” destroying the glacial flow from within. It’s hard to believe the changes we’ve seen.
We’ve been involved with yearly summer scientists studying Muir’s retreat and thinning; isostatic rebound; streams being re-inhabited by salmon in areas that have been under ice for hundreds or thousands of years; changing benthic habitats; halibut sonar-tagging to identify habitat and seasonal movement; prey fish; humpback and orca identification and travel patterns; seals declining; sea lions not declining – unlike in the rest of Alaska; small prey fish increases and fluctuations; sea otters coming back from near-extermination; sea birds inhabiting the rock land and being displaced by vegetation; forestation from bare rock; puffins losing their foothold in their most southerly home; gravity measurements; It’s been a wild ride!
It’s not just succession and reforestation that scientists come to study. It’s climate change. There’s more happening here than just the natural morphing after glaciations. It’s a scientific world of change and study in a pristine World Heritage Site, a cryosphere close to home.
Here is it so evident that “the [cryosphere] ecosystem is both highly productive, and at the same time fragile.” (Clay Good) So imagine the far north arctic and its permafrost world.
Snow and ice data exists for Glacier Bay from scientists only from the 1950’s. Elders in Hoonah and Yakutat have stories and songs from ancient times, data not written and not shared by Tlingit owners of information. Emmonds and de Laguna wrote copious accounts of land, subsistence, culture of Tlingit people:
Today, in Haa Shuka by Nora and Richard Dauenhauer, there is information of the land and the people, written in both Tlingit and English, with at times multiple accounts of ancient stories.
Balancing native stories are modern scientists who've worked for 30 years in Glacier Bay, including Motyka. It's essential to integrate local Native knowledge with global scientific studies.
Looking at the Little Ice Age and its effect across the northern hemisphere, across the globe, I realize that Alaska is unique, but that we have much to learn from our own written history of northern Europe just 700 years ago. integrating local Native knowledge with global scientific studies?
- What are the values of simple labs using light, ice, water, and salt in teaching climate concepts, energy, absorption, reflection...?
- Look at 2009 Sea Ice.
- Look at NASA Arctic Sea Ice: 3rd lowest sea ice on record great graphics.
- What are some ecological or cultural implications of decreasing sea-ice?
Ice melts,
temperature rises
heat increases
thermal energy expands
role of ice on earth
as sea ice melts
temperature rises
our planet changes
and change affects
every living thing.
Find native stories
and elders' knowledge
now,
interlace with scientific data
learn now for the future
of us all.
What is being done?
- Resolutions: Inuit Rights Transcend National Boundaries
"1. It is recognized that Inuit rights extend across the circumpolar regions.... Inuit have the right to enjoy the full measure of human rights without hindrance of discrimination. In order to protect Inuit human rights and interests in the Arctic regions, focus should be necessarily directed to international forums since many related issues are increasingly regulated at this level." (Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada); followed by precise directives for changes.
2. Anchorage, Alaska
"We reaffirm the unbreakable and sacred connection between land, air, water, oceans, forests, sea ice, plants, animals and our human communities as the material and spiritual basis for our existence...""Mother Earth is no longer in a period of climate change, but in climate crisis. We therefore insist on an immediate end to the destruction and desecration of the elements of life. Through our knowledge, spirituality, sciences, practices, experiences and relationships with our traditional lands, territories, waters, air, forests, oceans, sea ice, other natural resources and all life, Indigenous Peoples have a vital role in defending and healing Mother Earth. The future of Indigenous Peoples lies in the wisdom of our elders, the restoration of the sacred position of women, the youth of today and in the generations of tomorrow. We uphold that the inherent and fundamental human rights and status of Indigenous Peoples..." (Anchorage-- Alaska's Circumpolar Conference)
Calls for Action
- Shishmaref storms, losing ground, houses tumbling, sea ice only one foot thick, no walrus, game going East...
- Point Barrow, and climate changes affecting whaling, survival, and subsistence
- Nunavut 40 years of data recorded by Jamese Mike, showing the cycle of life thrown out of balance, the health and welfare questioned, and cultural survival a serious matter
- Bering Sea with its 26 species of sea birds, blue and sperm whales, sea otters, rich, threatened; native scientist Steve MacLean of the Nature Conservency : the importance of preserving biodiversity; minimizing affects of fishing on Stellar Sea lions in Aleutian islands; arctic changing much faster than rest of world; losing ice over the next 40-50 years in the arctic; learning from family; the culture dependent on nature; conservation never separating the people from the natural systems as they have been for thousands of years; importance of getting into science – school science, making a difference in the part of the world that you choose to live in (Steve MacLean of the Nature Conservency)
What other online resources profile Alaska Native scientists?:
