On August 21st, ten Trent students from Circumpolar Studies began a weeklong field trip to the ‘American Arctic’ – that is to the state of Alaska. We met up in Anchorage to begin an exploration of the American North, and to think about how it compares to the rest of the circumpolar region. Faculty at University of Alaska Anchorage facilitated our tour, and provided lectures, field trips and insights that were invaluable to our learning experience.
Anchorage was indeed the place to begin such an adventure. We explored the Anchorage Museum and studies the origins of the Alaskan Native Land Claims Act (ANCSA), the Alaskan Native Heritage Centre, and the urban fabric of the City.
As our faculty hosts at University of Alaska Anchorage pointed out, Anchorage is at the heart of a distinctive Alaskan economy. It is the largest urban area of the North American Arctic, the home of two post-secondary institutions, a world class museum, a thriving urban economy, a centre for tourism, and the home of a large number of Alaskans.
Yet it is well-connected to rural and remote Alaska by a road network that took us along the coast of Cook Inlet and the Turnagain Arm to the Portage Glacier, Chugach National Forest, and the town and port of Whittier at the ehad of the Passage Canal—where all 273 or so residents live in the same multistory building. The deceptively luxurious hotel at the edge of town looks much like a building from a child’s adventure movie (Lemony Snickett comes to mind), while the single road is lined with establishments offering food, marine tours and souvenirs. As one student commented, it is the ideal place to undertake an urban sociology project.
Our studies took us further afield to the SeaLife Centre and Alutiq Pride Marine Institute in Seward, where climate change and marine research are front and centre. Alutiq Pride Marine Institute is an Indigenous-owned and operated research lab, which conducts extensive work on marine life and environment. Staff and faculty had all the time in the world to introduce us to their research ranging from sea cucumbers of sea lions.
On the final day we regrouped in downtown Anchorage, to absorb a little local knowledge through “tourism”. In doing so we confronted the Alaskan geological and tectonic reality – and stood on the point where of memorialization of the miraculous survival of a neighbourhood Anchorage residents in “Earhquake Park” when over 70 homes were destroyed on good Friday in 1964. This when an earthquake of 9.2 magnitude shook Alaskans in Anchroage and forever changes the landscape of the City.
Students on the trip learned a lot about Alaska, and certainly found differences between Alaska and the Canadian North. But they also learned more about the North itself- the commonalities of experience and how remoteness, Nordicity and environment are not so different throughout the entire circumpolar region.
