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> My first day in Fairbanks, Alaska, Connections--Alaska and New Hampshire
Tom_Crumrine
post May 1 2005, 11:08 PM
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30 April 2005

On the plane ride from Richmond to ARCUS I began reading The Whale and the Supercomputer by Chales Wohlforth. The first chapter references a the whale hunting in and around Barrow, Alaska. Wohlforth describes the hunt of 1977 where 111 whales were harvested out of a population of whales estimated to be around 1300. Bowhead whales by the way. Upon hearing this information the International Whaling Commission ordered the hunting of bowheads stopped. Their information told them that even if hunting was stopped the whales might still go extinct. The local Inupiat hunters felt differently. They recognized a decline in the past but they were confident that the bowhead population was on the increase.

This opposition of native knowledge versus scientific knowledge is a constant one in the history of culture and science. Yesterday we met a native culture specialist Sean Topkok. He spoke to this conflict and even referenced the bowhead story from Barrow. As it turns out the scientists were wrong. Their method of counting whales was missing too many and their calculation for the ones they didn’t see was way too low.

Part of Sean’s job is to advocate the value of native knowledge. Not to say that either it or scientific knowledge is better but to say that they are on the same level. Natives who have generations of information cannot be discounted in any research. Going to an area and not talking to the local people would be missing a large piece of the whole. In the past science was something that was done to an area. Sean helps scientists and natives see that it should be something done with an area.

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This picture was taken from my hotel room on the night of April 29, 2005. This guy might not be too old but if he has lived in Fairbanks for any time at all it is safe to say that this might be his earliest jet ski on the Tanana? river. That might all be wrong but my point is that local knowledge can really be important to science. In my home state of New Hampshire the Rockywold-Deephaven Camps harvests ice from Squam Lake and has done so for over 100 years. Norman Lyford, Phil Zimmer and Arthur Howe, Jr. have put in decades of time harvesting the ice every year. When you ask them about it they have the knowledge of the seasons. No, they haven’t kept detailed records but they certainly remember the conditions and the dates and the years they worried that the ice might never make the requisite 1 foot thickness.

When I have talked to them, Phil and Arthur, especially they have indicated that they have noticed some changes. They haven’t pointed directly to global climate change but they have noticed that they worry more about the ice now than they did in the past. Of course we can’t base a theory of world climate change on the observations of a small group of ice harvesters, but they are certainly part of the puzzle. Going to do research on seasonal changes in NH and not surveying locals would miss a huge part of the puzzle.

Maybe Sean wouldn’t agree with the local New Hampshire person/native Alaskan comparison but thinking about it from my local perspective certainly made me very aware of the role native Alaskans should take. I have always thought of Phil Zimmer as one of the most intelligent men I have ever known. A carpenter, logger and expert on countless things Phil did not go to college and certainly does not have a PhD. But to discount his knowledge of the Squam area would be a mistake. His knowledge going back to his father Bill and to Bill’s father before covers almost 100 years of Squam Lake knowledge. I value his knowledge of the Squam area tremendously and usually ask him if I have a question about it. Thanks to Sean Topkok. I now know that valuing the knowledge of natives while I visit Alaska is equally important.
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