WITH NPS PARTNERS
Partner - Alaska Office of History & Archaeology
Title: Alaska Submerged Cultural Heritage
A Russian/English publication will be produced on the underwater archaeology of the Kad'yak, the oldest sunken vessel discovered in Alaska. This wooden three-masted bark of 477 tons was owned by the Russian-American Company and sunk in March 1860.
Title: Arctic Teens Speak Out
This is a cross-cultural exchange program between Alaska Native youth of Kotzebue and Russian Native youth of Chukotka. Youth will learn videography and document their interactions in both traditional and modern shared activities.
Title: Heritage Preservation Plan
Long-term planning will be undertaken for the disposition, permanent storage and/or display of a remarkable collection of artifacts, excavated in Deering from 1997-1999.
Title: Remember the Past, Ensure the Future
Fifty Chukotkan youth will engage in year-round activities under the guidance of the Kaira Club in Anadyr. The project aims to restore interest and respect for local indigenous culture and subsistence practices, improve communication between youth and elders and integrate traditional and modern concepts of environmental stewardship.
Title: Mapping a Hunting Landscape
This project will study the area around Agiak Lake in Gates of the Arctic National Park. Perhaps the most fascinating story to be told at this site revolves around the hundreds of sentinel-like inuksuit that stand watch over the lake. The rock cairns, positioned in two rows, each nearly a mile long and remarkably straight, were used like fences or scarecrows to direct herds of caribou towards the lake.
Title: Teller Cultural Festival
Teller will organize a cultural gathering and invite the community of Uelen. The gathering will be a sharing of the past with an emphasis on remembering those bonds of music, dance and history that once connected the communities across the Bering Strait. Elders will share their knowledge of Inupiaq personal names, history and songs. Youth will document the event and produce DVD and audio tapes to be used in the school curriculum.
Title: Ties that Bind
Historical, cultural and kinship ties between Bid and Little Diomede will be reestablished. Local field researchers will gather historical information on trade routes, village relationships, art and history. They will also compare customs, traditions and subsistence lifestyles of the past and present.
Title: Prehistoric Maritime Adaptations
Conference support will be provided for "Archaeology of the Northern Pacific During the End of the Pleistocene and Holocene Periods" to be held in September 2005 at the Northern International University in Magadan, Russia.
Title: Brown Bear Management Workshop
Tourism is just developing in Chukotka. Training will be conducted in Alaska for local Russian tour operators and crafts people on how to conduct tourism on protected lands. Current Russian regulations will also be discussed.
Title: Kingikmiut Dance Festival
The Village of Wales held their 5th annual dance festival in June, 2004. Before this dance revival, the last Kivgiq celebration was held in Wales in 1943. The National Park Service provided funding to bring dance groups from Uelen, Chukotka and Point Hope, Alaska. Wales is 55 miles from the Russian mainland coast.
Title: Taxonomic Listing of Beringian Fauna
This project will update the popular Beringian biota publication of species names in English, Russian, Latin, Yupik and Inupiat. A database will also be developed.
Title: Synthesis of Ten Years of Beringian Research
This will be a book manuscript discussing the past ten years of Beringian research that has occurred between Alaska and Chukotka.
Title: Community Based Monitoring of the Bering Sea
Five Alaskan villages (Kotzebue, Unalakleet, Elim, St. Paul, St. George) and three Chukotkan villages (Anadyr, Lavrentiya, Lorino) in the Bering Sea region will take part in this student project to gather environmental and cultural observations.
Title: Russian version of Important Bird Areas of the Bering Sea
This is another Audubon project that will produce a Russian version of the Important Bird Areas of the Bering Sea. The English version, funded by the Beringia Program, will also be released.
Title: The Biting Flies of Beringia: Their Biodiversity & Pest Status
This is base-line field research in the Nome area in the summer of 2004 on biting flies (mosquitoes and black flies). Work in Chukotka will take place in 2005.
Title: Archaeological Mentorship
The NPS is mentoring students in Beringian villages and incorporating them into on-going field work in our parks the next three summers.
Title: Indigenous Interpretation of Beringian Collections
The Arctic Studies Center is working with Alaska and Russian Native Elders and communities to share indigenous knowledge about cultural heritage objects in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. A website is being developed to house this information in English and Russian.
Title: Contemporary Beringian Archaeological Papers
This will be another in a series of translations by Richard Bland. This publication will be a contemporary collection of Russian and American scientists.
Title: Biosampling of Gray & Bowhead Whales
The Borough's Department of Wildlife Management will continue their pioneering studies funded by previous NPS projects to work with Russian Native organizations to sample whales along the coast of Chukotka for contaminants.
Title: Cultural Values of Polar Bear in Chukotka
Work will be conducted with the Association of Marine Mammal Hunters of Chukotka on traditional social values of the polar bear. Oral traditions on the cultural role of polar bears to Native people of Chukotka will be collected through interviews of elders and other knowledgeable people. A bibliography of Russian written and recorded materials on the role of polar bear in the culture of the Native people of Chukotka will be developed.
Title: Rural Development Exchange
The Rural Development Exchange will link up Alaskan and Chukotkan villages in the study of sustainable development. It will identify three villages on each side of the Bering Strait where studies will be conducted in development needs. The goals of the project are to foster an exchange of traditions and community development strategies between indigenous leaders of Chukotka and Alaska, and to provide experiential opportunities for students to explore the application of rural development methods within Beringian villages.
Title: Three Dikov Books
Richard Bland will continue his translation series by translating from Russian to English three books by the renowned Russian archaeologist N. N. Dikov.
Title: King Island Song & Dance Preservation
The King Island repertoire of songs and dances will be identified, practiced, and then videotaped. Research will be conducted on the origins of the dances to learn how some were exchanged between Chukotka and Alaska. Elders will be consulted on the less well known or rarely performed dances.
Title: Russian Participation in Mammoth Conference
Funding was provided to bring Russian scientists to the Yukon for a conference on the mammoth. The group also traveled to Fairbanks and made field trips to Yukon-Charley and Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Title: Russian Participation in the 2004 Kattivik Trade Fair
Russian dancers joined Alaskan dance groups at the 2004 Kattivik Trade Fair in Kotzebue in July. Heartbeat Alaska filmed for a one hour special on the Trade Fair and will produce a DVD for the community.
Title: Remember the Past, Ensure the Future
Funding was provided to support after school activities for youth and their families in Chukotka to gain increased interest, knowledge and respect for Native traditional subsistence cultures of the North. Interest, knowledge and respect will also be gained for the natural environment of Beringia and how traditional knowledge can be integrated with modern ecological stewardship concepts.
Title: Online database for Chukotka Flora Collection
The University Museum has a collection of 20,000 dried and preserved vascular plant specimens from Russia, primarily Chukotka and Wrangel Island. A database listing the collection of the Chukotka flora is being prepared and will be available through the internet.
Title: Teacher Workshop on Beringia Landscapes
A week-long workshop was held in Nome for Russian and Alaskan teachers to discuss Beringian geography and landscapes. Russian teachers traveled from the Moscow region and from three districts in Chukotka. Alaskan teachers participated from communities across the state. A wide variety of subjects were introduced and many local and regional Beringian leaders gave presentations.
Title: Chukotka Tourism Training & Development
Tourism is just developing in Chukotka and Alaska companies are adding on Russian tours in their travel packages. Training was conducted in Nome, Kotzebue and Anchorage for local Russian tour operators and crafts people on how to conduct tourism on protected lands. Current Russian regulations were also discussed. The group visited local area businesses to study various aspects of the tourism industry.
Title: Trunks Across the Bering Sea
WWF conducted teacher environmental training for three Alaskan and three Russian village schools during Beringia Days 2002. The schools then worked on common projects during the school year and hold competitions for the best material.
Title: Arctic Observations: Student Journals
A web-based writing curriculum is being developed for use in northern schools. The emphasis is to use the unique experience of students who live in the Arctic. They will maintain journals on natural and cultural observations and will develop web and graphics products based on the material written. Specialized topics will include conservation and NPS related material.
Title: Culture History of Beringia: An Archaeological Synthesis
The university is researching and producing a synthesis book on the archaeology of Beringia including Russian and American research viewpoints.
Title: St. Lawrence Island/Chukotka Language & Cultural Studies
Savoonga organized several cultural exchanges, including a summer language camp on St. Lawrence Island for Russian Yupik speakers.
Title: Chukotka Walrus Harvest Monitoring Project
The Eskimo Walrus Commission provided training for Native Russian monitors who document the walrus harvest in Chukotka. The walrus population is a shared resource between the United States and Russia.
Title: Documenting the Economic & Cultural Necessity of Subsistence in Chukotka
This study documented the economic importance of subsistence activities in Chukotka in selected villages. In recent years, subsistence was the sole source of food for many communities.
Title: Paleo-Indian Archaeology & Paleoecology in the Noatak Basin
A US-Russian team investigated past vegetative and geological changes as well as early-man archaeology at a site along the Noatak River.
Title: Exchange between Shishmaref and Uelen Ivory Carving
Both Shishmaref in Alaska and Uelen in Chukotka are walrus ivory carving centers. This project facilitated an exchange between the two communities to study these traditions. Residents of Uelen traveled to Nome, Shishmaref and Kotzebue to demonstrate their sewing and carving skills. Members of the Shishmaref community traveled to Chukotka and presented their carving and sewing skills at a demonstration in the Provideniya Museum.
Title: Global Change in the Marine Food Webs
A university scientist is studied the biochemical composition of sea bird diets in western Alaska and eastern Chukotka to index the health of the marine ecosystem.
Title: Brown Bear Management Workshop
A week long workshop for Russian biologists and managers was conducted in August 2002 on Kodiak Island and in Katmai National Park covering good management practices for brown bear populations, such as bear viewing, human-bear encounters, hunting regulations and law enforcement.
Title: Important Bird Areas of the Bering Sea
An informative booklet is being produced identifying sensitive bird areas in the Beringia Region of the Bering Sea.
Title: Inupiaq Nations of Northwest Alaska: Partner of National Life
This title will be a volume in the encyclopedia series produced by Dr. Burch on the history and anthropology of the Inupiaq people.
Title: Golovin Field School
The Golovin Village Corporation and local school conducted their third archaeological field school session in July 2000 to train local students in culture and archaeology. In addition to classroom training conducted by UAF personnel, field work assessed the cultural sites on village corporation lands. Six students and two adults from Russia participated. Inuit Circumpolar Conference will assist the Golovin students with a reciprocal exchange to Provideniya, Russia.
Title: Portrait of a Divided Maritime Family
This photographic and fine arts project documented Siberian Yupik elders in a traveling exhibit and collection. Residents of Nome and Savoonga in Alaska, and New Chaplino and Sireniki in Chukotka, Russia were highlighted.
Title: Fungi of the Beringia Region
UAF scientists and colleagues from other world-wide universities and agencies conducted a comparative study of fungi between the Seward Peninsula and Kobuk Valley in Alaska and the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia. Earlier work produced the discovery of new species in the region and one new species known to the scientific community.
Beringia International Park Program