Memory and Landscape Indigenous Responses to a Changing North

“Our identity, our sense of belonging, our understanding of being human, is all connected to our relationship with the land. And our relationship with these lands span millennia. Our grandfathers and grandmothers that came before us walked these same ridges, valleys, and trails. They fished the same lakes, streams, and rivers. They cherished memories carried in the pungent smell of the fall tundra, in wafts of spruce, cottonwood, and willow smoke. They ventured throughout these lands until their final rest. Our ancestors are literally part of this land. We are part of this land.” –Evon Peter

The North is changing at an unprecedented rate as industrial development and the climate crisis disrupt not only the environment but also long-standing relationships to the land and traditional means of livelihood. Memory and Landscape: Indigenous Responses to a Changing North explores the ways in which Indigenous peoples in the Arctic have adapted to challenging circumstances, including past cultural and environmental changes. In this beautifully illustrated volume, contributors document how Indigenous communities in Alaska, northern Canada, Greenland, and Siberia are seeking ways to maintain and strengthen their cultural identity while also embracing forces of disruption.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors bring together oral history and scholarly research from disciplines such as linguistics, archaeology, and ethnohistory. With an emphasis on Indigenous place names, this volume illuminates how the land—and the memories that are inextricably tied to it—continue to define Indigenous identity. The perspectives presented here also serve to underscore the value of Indigenous knowledge and its essential place in future studies of the Arctic.

A rich and beautiful book that tackles issues of great importance for many Northern communities: land and dispossession, tradition and change, memory and loss. With an impressive array of eminent scholars who seek to foreground Indigenous voices, this volume addresses the interplay of colonial pressure and Indigenous peoples’ resilience through topics ranging from berry picking and house forms to ecological knowledge and place naming. A book for everyone who wants to understand the cultural pillars of changing social and natural environments in the North.”

Peter Schweitzer, Professor of Anthropology, University of Vienna

A fresh and welcome approach to documenting rapid climate change in the North. The volume succeeds in privileging both scholarly and Indigenous perspectives and will be useful and appealing to researchers and Northern peoples alike.”

Rachel Mason, senior cultural anthropologist, National Park Service, Alaska Region

This beautiful book smartly allies many means of communication, including photography, poems, testimonies, drawings, papers, and as many methodological and disciplinary approaches to please a large range of readers—as well as please the eye.”

Catherine Dussault, Études Inuit Studies

About the Editors

Kenneth L. Pratt is an anthropologist and ethnohistorian employed by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. He is a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center. He is the editor of Chasing the Dark: Perspectives on Place, History and Alaska Native Land Claims (2009). Scott A. Heyes is an ethnographer and landscape architect. He is a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center, and an adjunct professor at Monash University’s Indigenous Studies Centre. He is the author of Mammals of Ungava and Labrador (2014) with Kristofer Helgen.

Contributors: Vinnie Baron, Hugh Brody, Kenneth Buck, Anna Bunce, Donald Butler, Michael A. Chenlov, Aron L. Crowell, Peter C. Dawson, Martha Dowsley, Robert Drozda, Gary Holton, Colleen Hughes, Peter Jacobs, Emily Kearney-Williams, Igor Krupnik, Apayo Moore, Murielle Nagy, Mark Nuttall, Evon Peter, Louann Rank, William E. Simeone, Felix St-Aubin, and Will Stolz.

Table of Contents

1. Foreword
2. Note on Orthography and Terminology
3. Introduction
4. Part One: Indigenous History and Identity
   1. Perspective: Our Land
   2. 1. What “Really Happened”: A Migration Narrative from Southeast Alaska Compared to Archaeological and Geological Data
   3. 2. Inuvialuit Ethnonyms and Toponyms as a Reflection of Identity, Language, and Memory
   4. 3. Wandering in Place: A Close Examination of Two Names at Nunivak Island
   5. 4. Berry Harvesting in the Eastern Arctic: An Enduring Expression of Inuit Women’s Identity
5. Part Two: Forces of Change
   1. Perspective: But Who Am I?
   2. 5. Places of Memory, Anticipation, and Agitation in Northwest Greenland
   3. 6. “The Country Keeps Changing”: Cultural and Historical Contexts of Ecosystem Changes in the Yukon Delta
   4. 7. Inventing the Copper River: Maps and the Colonization of Ahtna Lands
   5. 8. Inuit Identity and the Land: Toward Distinctive Built Form in the Nunavik Homeland
6. Part Three: Knowing the Land
   1. Perspective: Diitsii Diitsuu Nąįį Gooveenjit—For Our Ancestors
   2. 9. Place-Naming Strategies in Inuit-Yupik and Dene Languages in Alaska
   3. 10. Watershed Ethnoecology in Yup’ik Place Names of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta
   4. 11. Sentiment Analysis of Inuit Place Names from the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut
   5. 12. Indigenous Place Names in the Senyavin Strait Area, Chukotka
7. Appendix: Northern Animal Illustrations
8. List of Contributors
9. Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.