The National Park Service funds projects of scientific and community importance in the Beringia Region of western Alaska. The work averages one to three years in length and includes Russian collaboration. Please see information elsewhere on this site for details and the funding announcement, which will be available in mid-September.
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New Projects Funded in FY 2001
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Partner - Alaska Pacific University
Title: Chukotka Tourism Training & Development
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.
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Partner - Bland & Assoc.
Title: Translation of Provideniya Museum’s Catalog and Baidara Construction
For the past several years, the NPS has supported translation of Beringian related Russian books of interest to the academic and general community, including works by regional archaeologists. These two current translations are Russian works produced recently under other Beringia funded projects.
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Partner - Deering IRA
Title: Elder/Youth Arts & Exchange
The elders and youth of Deering, Alaska will meet on a regular basis to produce arts and crafts based on traditional subsistence activities. Later in the project, an exchange with a similar Chukotkan village will be organized to compare these traditional subsistence tools and activities.
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Partner - Northwest Arctic Borough School District
Title: Arctic Observations: Student Journals
The school district, based in Kotzebue, Alaska, will adopt new curriculum development for writing based on this project. Students 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.
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Partner - Shishmaref IRA
Title: Exchange between Shishmaref and Uelen Ivory Carving Traditions
Both Shishmaref in Alaska and Uelen in Chukotka are walrus ivory carving centers. This project will facilitate an exchange between the two communities to study these traditions.
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Partner - University of Washington (Pullman) Researchers
Title: Paleo-Indian Archaeology & Paleoecology in the Noatak Basin
A US-Russian team will investigate the past vegetation and geological changes as well as early-man archaeology at a site along the Noatak River.
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Continuing Projects Receiving FY2001 Funds
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Partner - Alaska Nanuuq Commission
Title: Beringia Polar Bear Co-management
The Nanuuq Commission is working with the Russian Association of Traditional Marine Mammal Hunters and the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) in conducting habitat studies and conservation education on Polar Bears in Chukotka, Russia. Traditional knowledge will be collected in Chukotkan villages. A similar study has been completed in western Alaskan villages with the assistance of the US Fish & Wildlife Service.
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Partner - Alaska Nanuuq Commission & Russian Academy of Sciences (Vladivostok)
Title: GIS Coverage of eastern Chukotka
The NPS GIS team has been working with GIS specialists from the Pacific Institute of Geography in Vladivostok to produce GIS coverage of parts of Chukotka at the request of the Nanuuq Commission to initiate implementation of the recent US-Russian polar bear treaty. Coverage is completed for eastern Chukotka and western Alaska. This year coverage will be completed for the north coast of Chukotka to its western border.
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Partner - Alaska Pacific University
Title: Documenting the Economic & Cultural Necessity of Subsistence in Chukotka
This study will document the economic importance of subsistence activities in Chukotka in selected villages. In recent years, subsistence was the sole source of food for many communities.
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Partner - Environmental Alliance
Title: Resource Management & Biodiversity Education in Chukotka
Environmental Alliance will put together exhibits and information packets to inform communities within the Beringia region about the activities of projects funded by the Beringia program. They will also organize press releases and other material to inform foundations nation-wide about activities in Beringia.
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Partner - Kawerak, Inc. Eskimo Walrus Commission
Title: Chukotka Walrus Harvest Monitoring Project
The Eskimo Walrus Commission is providing training for Native Russian monitors who will document the walrus harvest in Chukotka.
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Partner - Native Village of Savoonga
Title: St. Lawrence Island/Chukotka Language & Cultural Studies
Savoonga will organize several cultural exchanges including a summer language camp on St. Lawrence Island for Chukotkan Yupik speakers.
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Partner - University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Title: Naukan Dictionary Project
The UAF Native Language Institute is working on a dictionary for the Naukan Eskimo language of Chukotka, Russia. NPS will assist UAF with gathering data from visiting Native speakers by assisting with logistics and the publishing of the final product, the dictionary.
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Partner - University of Colorado
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.
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Recent Projects of Interest Currently Being Completed
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Partner - City of Nome
Title: Ten Years After - Documenting the Human Landscape
Ten Years After is recording the changes and expectations of having the border open between Chukotka, Russia and Alaska, USA since 1988. The principle investigator is interviewing residents of villages from St. Lawrence Island to Barrow and in Chukotka on how the open border has affected their lives.
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Partner - Ernest S. Burch, Jr.
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 Inupaiq people.
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Partner - Golovin Native Corporation
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 Field School with a reciprocal student exchange with Provideniya, Russia in the summer of 2001.
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Partner - Inuit Circumpolar Conference
Title: Traditional Knowledge of Sea Bird Colonies
The last year of this work was a study of the traditional use and knowledge by residents in villages (Sireniki, New Chaplino) of neighboring seabird colonies in Chukotka, Russia. Beringia funded work in 1996 and 1997 was completed on St. Lawrence Island and included the villages of Gambell and Savoonga. A companion project with the USFWS completed biological census of the seabird colonies on the island.
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Partner - Kawerak, Inc.
Title: Eskimo Heritage Project
The Eskimo Heritage Project is a collection of approximately 1,000 oral history tapes produced in the Bering Straits Region from personal interviews and elders conferences. NPS assisted Kawerak with the process of transcribing and translating the tapes and preparing the information for schools, communities and research.
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Partner - Kodiak Brown Bear Trust
Title: Wrangel Island Biodiversity Conservation
The Kodiak Brown Bear Trust will produce an updated version in Russian and English of their booklet Wrangel Island Zapovednik: Stronghold for Beringian Biodiversity.
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Partner - Kotzebue IRA
Title: Ethnographic Documentation of Kotzebue Trade Fair
The Kotzebue IRA is producing several 20 minute documentaries from video taken at the revival of the Kotzebue Trade Fair.
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National Park Service
Title: Radiocarbon Dating of Critical Archaeological Sites
The NPS and the Northeastern Institute (NEISRI) in Magadan, Russia are working cooperatively in standardizing and dating archaeological artifacts from various sites in the Russian Far East.
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Partner - Native Village of Savoonga
Title: Portrait of a Divided Maritime Family
This photographic and fine arts project is documenting Siberian Yupik elders in a traveling exhibit and collection. Residents of Nome and Savoonga in Alaska, and New Chaplino and Sireniki in Chukotka, Russia are being highlighted.
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Partner - North Slope Borough
Title: Preservation of the Subsistence Lifestyle
The North Slope Borough, together with the Yupik Eskimo Society of Chukotka, Provideniya Museum and the Naukan Cooperative, are documenting the subsistence activities in selected villages in Chukotka.
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Partner - Princeton University Researchers
Title: Chert Artifact Fingerprinting
The determination of the routes of the expansion of humans into the New World comprise some of the most difficult questions in North American archaeology. Typology of chert artifacts is often the only source of information for the earliest prehistoric network in this region. A comparative structural analysis of chert artifacts is being performed on material collected in Alaska and Russia to determine the sources of the chert deposits.
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Partner - Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation Foundation (Barrow)
Title: Deering’s Cultural History
The village of Deering conducted archaeology training for area residents during work on a local sewer project. Traveling display boxes are being constructed as educational aides in sharing information about the Deering project with surrounding villages. Further boxes are being built in Point Hope, Provideniya and Golovin.
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Partner - University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Title: Archaeological & Geological Survey in the Killik Valley
A reconnaissance level survey of the Killik Valley in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve studied likely areas for early-man sites.
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Partner - University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Title: Fungi of the Beringia Region
UAF scientists and colleagues from other world-wide universities and agencies are conducting 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. Field work in 1998 took place on the Seward Peninsula. Work in the Kobuk Valley National Park took place in the summers of 1999-2000, with a final year of field studies planned for eastern Chukotka in the summer of 2001.
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Partner - University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Title: Kobuk Sand Dunes Research
Research in the Sand Dunes examined dune processes and the effects of climate change on the dunes and surrounding park area.
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Partner - University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Title: Traveling Between Continents
This major anthropological work will report on the relations of indigenous people living in the Bering Straits region of Beringia.
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Partner - University of Washington (Pullman) Researchers
Title: Paleoindian Adaptations in Arctic Alaska
This early man archaeological expedition focuses on the Tuluak Hill site in Northwest Alaska. Preliminary radiocarbon dates of 11,130 and 11,180 indicate that Tuluak Hill is one of the oldest known sites in Arctic Alaska. Work includes mapping of surface artifacts, locating buried cultural materials and identifying suitable deposits for obtaining paleoenvironmental data.
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