Portraits of Resilience

Through Our Eyes - By youth from Alaska

By GRID-Arendal

January 19^th, 2016

HOW EROSION IS AFFECTING OUR VILLAGE

Whenever a big storm hits our town, it erodes the land from the ocean side and the lagoon side. Whenever there are really big waves it washes the land away. It doesn’t wash away the land on the lagoon side as much because the grass holds the sand together. Sometimes people lose their boats and sometimes they sink to the bottom of the water.

On the ocean side it washes away our racks. Racks are very important to our community because that is where we work on our subsistence food. We use the racks to dry our seal meat, ﬁsh, and more. Whenever it washes away our racks, we usually just move them to a different spot and hope they don’t get washed away again. We are using big rocks on the ocean side to keep our land from eroding.

The sea wall is very good because it is big and it covers most of the seaside. The village can be saved if the sea wall will keep the waves from getting to the land. If the waves are too big and the sea wall isn’t capable of preventing the waves from getting to the land, we are in big trouble. Our community voted for our village to move to a place called Tin Creek. We will need a lot of money because of all the houses that will need to be moved.

It would take a long time to move our whole village because of all of the houses and big buildings. We can build new houses or simply take apart the old houses and then use all the wood to rebuild them, if it isn’t possible to relocate them. There are a lot of places we can move our village because of all of the land there is around our area.

If we relocate during the summer, we’d need a lot of barges to move everything. In the winter we can use big sleds or anything that can hold our houses while they are dragged across the snow. The thought of moving our village is very sad because Shishmaref is the place where I grew up. Shishmaref is a great place to live because everyone knows each other. If we move, it would probably bring our community closer together.

It could be totally opposite though because some people might just move to a new place. If we move, it won’t be the same because it wouldn’t be the Shishmaref that everyone knows. I would rather have a big sea wall to save our village instead of having a bad sea wall that wouldn’t save our village. If the sea wall is good then we would have a chance for saving our Shishmaref.

If we had to choose to move or to stay, I would choose to stay. I love this village and I would do anything to help save it.

— Allison “Anisaaluk” Nayokpuk

hUNTING

One of the biggest things that has changed in my village, due to global warming, is the ice is melting when we need it to hunt sea mammals in spring time. Global warming is causing rising land and ocean temperatures which keeps the ice from forming as solidly as it should.

Instead of being strong enough to hold a full grown man on a snow-machine, the ice now breaks, which is very dangerous for us. Seals don’t come into our hunting waters in the fall. In years past there was enough sea ice for the seals to rest on, so they would come and that’s where we could ﬁnd them.

Now, because there isn’t enough sea ice the seals don’t come into our area. When we can’t hunt them, we lose out on food, supplies for native arts and winter clothing. The seals are a very important part of our culture. Without them, our culture will suffer.

— Clarence “Ahnalook” Weyiouanna

Elders

The elders told us how to hunt. One of the elders told us they used harpoons to get seals and walrus. He also told me they used sink hooks to get the seal or walrus out of the water. John Sinnok told the class they made sealskin boats by stretching the seal skins till they got dry. They used wooden oars to go to the mainland or would wait for a windy day.

They mostly made hunting material out of wood and sometimes out of ivory. The elders knew the ice was good to cross by going on the ice and used a tuilik to tap on the ice a couple of times as they walked farther and farther. I heard a lot of stories from the elders about what happened or what good hunts there were a long time ago. Most of the elders told the stories they heard from their great grandparents. The elders tell stories to younger adults and kids so they can go on for generations.

The elders say they see a big change in our weather because the winter ice would stick around more a long time ago. Now it goes out early. My grandma has a picture of Shishmaref from a long time ago. There was a lot of grass but now there is mostly sand from the Hondas and snow machines. Ever since then the island began to grow smaller.

There was a lot of land back then before the erosion and from climate change. It is warmer in the winter. Back then it was real cold. There are some different birds and ﬁsh coming around to Shishmaref like the Wilson’s warbler, house sparrows and different species of birds than we have here.

— Henry (Qaqazuaq) Ahgupuk

Homeless?

Did you ever lose your home? Have you been homeless? We are about to lose our homes — from erosion. Most importantly, erosion eats our Island and we have less land. Erosion happens from our ocean. The ocean takes away land from our Island. It takes away our land by taking sand and moving it someplace else. And when storms come it takes lots of land.

We moved some of our homes from the west side of Shishmaref to the east side. We moved some of our homes because we live in them and if we hadn’t moved they would’ve fallen into the ocean. The ocean takes more land on the west side of Shishmaref than the east side. And this is why we moved our homes.

Finally, workers put out a huge seawall along the beach. They put a huge seawall because the ocean was eating too much land, and they tried to stop it. If we hadn’t put the huge seawall up the ocean would’ve eaten more land. And so it wouldn’t catch up to our homes. There was an old seawall, but it sank into the ocean.

After having reviewed all the evidence it’s obvious — my family is the most important thing in my life. And I think everybody in Shishmaref is a family. And I don’t want to lose them.

— Renee Kuzuguk

The Need for a New Runway

A long time ago we used to have a north-south runway for planes. When larger planes wanted to land, we found out that our runway was too short. Other villages just lengthened their runways, but we couldn’t because we’ve lost too much land off the north shore due to the erosion caused by global warming. The Alaska Department of Transportation built us a new one. Now the runway is better because it is long enough for planes to land on.