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Chris Cuomo, Wendy Eisner and Kenneth Hinkel,
"Environmental Change, Indigenous Knowledge, and Subsistence on Alaska's North Slope"
(page 6 of 9)
"Subsistence" is also an important political term for the
Iñupiat, for native Alaskan subsistence hunting and fishing
rights are outlined in the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act, which defines subsistence uses of fish and game as
"the customary and traditional uses by rural Alaska residents of wild,
renewable resources for direct personal or family consumption as food,
shelter, fuel, clothing, tools, or transportation."[31] And according to
the regulations of the International Whaling Commission, it is the
designation of indigenous groups' whaling practices as "subsistence"
rather than "commercial" that allows them to engage in whaling. Yet the
legal definitions are not the only relevant meanings of subsistence.
When interviewees were asked about the meaning of subsistence, they
emphasized subsistence as self-sufficiency, or being able to provide for
family and community, as well as relationships with the local
environment and the animals used for food. A subsistence lifestyle was
defined as regularly procuring and eating the native animals and berries
that Iñupiat have been living on for generations, spending time
camping, away from the power grid and store-bought food, and sharing
native food with others in accord with Iñupiaq traditions.
Subsistence is maintaining the food that is on the table,
that you put on the table, and that's caribou, the walrus, the seal, the
bearded seal, the ducks, the geese, and hunting them, and providing a
good diet for yourself. That's what subsistence is all about, a good
diet from the native food. (Ida Olemaun)
Subsistence to me is to enjoy the lifestyle of hunting,
enjoying going out to camp, and thirdly, enjoying the serenity, the
peacefulness of living out hunting—no electricity, no gas, and we're
literally camping out. Not the business of the south and whatever. And
if I don't hunt, I don't have the caribou, the fish that I want to eat
with the rest of my family, you know? (Evelyn Donovan)
In interviews a loss of connection to native food and replacement
with "Western" or "store-bought" food is repeatedly lamented and
criticized as nutritionally inferior. The bearded seals Olemaun mentions
provide seal oil, a staple food for the Iñupiaq that is eaten
year-round, and cannot be replaced by anything purchased in a store.
Elders attribute increases in illness to eating store-bought food, and
it is common knowledge that store-bought food cannot sustain hunters on
the tundra or the Arctic sea. When children enjoy native foods, this is
celebrated as an expression of their Iñupiaq identities.
If you eat all . . . the Eskimo food that we have up here,
whale, caribou, the seal, it can sustain you and keep you fulfilled
throughout the day. But we're now eating too many potato chips, store
bought food with all the preservatives and we're not as healthy, as lean
and strong as our grandparents were . . . they didn't have TVs to flick like
I do. (Evelyn Donovan)
Sometimes they'll say, Mom I want muktuk [whale skin with
fat] for dinner, and I was like, 'yeah, that's my kid!' . . .. Our babies,
they teethed on the whale flippers . . . we get big pieces and put them in the
high chair and take off all their clothes, you know so they don't get
oil all over, and they just won't let go . . .. That helps them to set the
flavor for other foods to come. We also gave them dried seal meat and
caribou to teethe on . . .. One time with my son, he was learning to talk but
he was pointing to the freezer . . .. He was crying for muktuk and that really
melted my heart. (Mary Sage)
People who rely on hunting local wildlife for food are highly tuned
in to the regular patterns and physical condition of local species.
Iñupiaq hunting traditions are generally scheduled very precisely
in relation to the regularity of animals' migrations and life cycles,
which flow like clockwork with changing seasonal conditions. Many
participants voiced grave concern regarding demonstrable changes in
animals' regular patterns. Interviews and the GIS are replete with
reports of deviations in caribou and bird migration patterns. These
include examples of particular breeds of birds or fish showing up in
unusual locations, and with animals' disorientation in relation to
changes in the usual weather cycles. The health of animals is a matter
of utmost importance that demands heightened awareness for a number of
reasons. Although local animals are a primary source of food protein for
many Iñupiat families, and traditional foods are thought to be
the healthiest diet, it is also well known throughout the circumpolar
region that eating local wildlife comes with some risk. In recent
decades there have been well-publicized reports of high levels of toxins
in Arctic animals, and in the breast milk of Eskimo women living there.
A 2004 article in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health
reports that the problem remains quite serious:
The invisible contamination of traditional foods with
man-made chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins,
toxaphenes, and other pesticides, which are transported to the Arctic by
ocean and atmospheric currents and then are biomagnified in the marine
food web, ultimately end up in humans.[32]
Those who engage in subsistence hunting raise questions about the
ways climate change may contribute to the problem:
We found a lot of sick caribou last year. One of them
literally had ribs eaten out. And I've tried to tell . . . the fish and game
manager up here. One year we found a caribou that the baby was
stillborn inside . . .. We've seen several caribou with puss. We've seen a
lot of caribou really skinny at different seasons and this has become
apparent within the last five years, my guesstimate, maybe longer.
[Interviewer asks if there are theories about the increase in sick
caribou] No. I am sure with all the global warming and what they're
eating. (Evelyn Donovan)
In spite of such concerns it is evident that participants do not feel
suitable contexts exist for discussing these matters and questions
within the community at large. Most of those who had directly
experienced alarming events and conditions reported that they had only
discussed them with family members. This indicates that even in a
relatively economically healthy community such as Barrow, with
cutting-edge climate and biological research happening right up the
road, it can be very difficult to organize collective conversations
about and responses to dramatic environmental change.
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