Since 1986 I lived in Nuiqsut, an Inupiat community on the Beaufort Sea coast of Arctic Alaska. In 1991 I graduated from the University of Washington Medex Northwest Physician Assistant program and was employed as a health aide in Nuiqsut for 14 years. Nearly 8 years ago I helped to found REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands) to represent my interests.
I have raised my family in Nuiqsut. I have one daughter, four sons, two granddaughters, and four grandsons. I live a very traditional lifestyle—hunting, fishing, whaling, gathering, and teaching our family and community members the traditional and cultural activities as my elders taught me. We hunt and eat various birds, including ptarmigan, ducks and geese; fish, including char, salmon, whitefish, dolly varden, grayling, pike, trout, and cisco; land mammals, including caribou, moose and muskox; and marine mammals, including bearded seals, walrus, beluga and bowhead whales. We harvest berries, plants roots and herbs. We work together in harvesting plants and animals.
We have extensive sharing traditions that unite our families and communities. Other communities share their harvest with my family and we share our harvest with others. These sharing patterns have given us much of the variety of foods that we eat. We also share our harvest with those in need.
My mother taught me the land hunting skills that she learned from her parents and family. Other family members taught me how to hunt whales and other marine mammals. I have family ties that bind me to Nuiqsut and other communities in the Arctic, and exposure to hunting and gathering is an important part of these ties. Read the full report here.
Source: by Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, Climate Story Tellers.
