Notes on Part 1:

Marino takes her first trip to Shishmaref as a reporter, but later returns as an anthropologist, using a fully immersive method that put her into the eyes of the population there. This is called a long-term ethnographic study, where anthropologists live and document the area they study and use their experience doing ethnographic fieldwork to better understand the culture they immerse themselves in. Dr. Marino describes her longing for Shishmaref through foods that are traditional, such as caribou soup, black meat, and seal oil; something akin to the taste of Alaska. Shismaref is an isolated rural town on Sarichef Island in Alaska, and its people are the Kigiaqtaamiut Inupiat, surviving on harvests of the Arctic coast.

There are many reasons why they Kigiaqtaamiut continue to live on Sarichef Island, it would be very difficult for them to relocate to nearby tribal land. They are dependent on the land, but the land also depends on them. The people of Shishmaref are part of the natural cycles, they live on what the land provides and within their own sustenance economy. The one agreement that Marino found amongst this diverse population was that everyone felt they should remain within traditional territory in the event of a relocation, they could not abandon their land. The most difficult part of this relocation is the expenses, infrastructure construction costs are unaffordable, while a move to pre-colonial ways (life without this infrastructure) is highly unlikely.

One especially interesting note that Marino makes is that the people of this region are known as being “victims of climate change” (pg. 28), yet different models and narratives can be used to look at the cause and effect of this problem. One suggests that the regions social systems are under attack because the climate change is overwhelming in this area (pg. 28). The relationships between vulnerability, politics, economics, history, colonialism, and ecological shifts are critical in understanding the bigger picture of what is happening in Shishmaref.

Notes on Part 2:
Local populations moving away from coastal Kaua’I because the vacation and luxury home market is driving up real estate prices in their community. This form of gentrification ensures that longtime residents are displaced from their homes, the places their ancestors are buried and have lived for centuries. The concept of home noted by Vaughan is precise, it encompasses one specific are where the person is from. Whereas in Oregon, my own concept of home is more a feeling than a place – I am spread out across landscapes and people that I connect with.

In Hawaiian, the meaning of kuleana is “rights and responsibilities” (pg. 5), it is the way people in a community function to make an impact greater than themselves. Maintaining healthy ecosystems, which in turn keeps people healthy, is a big part of kuleana. The community members in Vaughan’s homeland have been threatened by the overuse and recreational use of the marine areas. Their goal is to perpetuate kuleana through better coastal management by the residents and the government in collaboration. This was brought on by the stark contrast between local people compared to tourist behavior, when people from other regions come and deplete/destroy local resources. The purpose the stories called Mo’olelo is to pass down lessons through generations of people, so they can learn from their ancestors (pg. 10). This serves an important role in building family, tradition, community, and other vital cultural values to the next generation of people caring for the land.

Part 3 Response:

Two years ago, I took a trip on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), a hiking trail that is 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada. I had never flown on a plane or traveled solo before this trip, and other than my love for backpacking and the hiking community, this 6-month trip was to be fueled by my own strength. (Though I did break my foot after 1.5-months, so this experience was cut short.) I flew in to LAX and stayed at a stranger’s house, they took me in along with 30+ others for the night before we hit the trail. I started early in the morning at the Mexican border, having never been in a desert before, feeling scared and excited. I have social anxiety and was nervous about having to interact with so many strangers – though most spoke fluent English, they were from all over the world. The currency was of course the same as in my home state of Oregon, but the cuisine of dried and rehydrated shelf-stable foods was not my typical. I have never eaten so much junk food before in my life, hiking 10 to 20-mile days means you need serious calories to keep your energy up. It was a whole new lifestyle to immerse myself in, waking up and walking all day, sleeping at a campsite with strangers (soon to become friends), tending only to my more basic needs. Bodily health, mental health, and our limited food and water supplies were always on my mind.

In a way, my trip on the PCT was a trip in a new culture; one with people covered in sweat and dirt, walking for days in the sun. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest my whole life, but the dry stillness of the desert still calls to me, even now. The kind of sweltering heat that radiates off the ground in front of you, the pleasure you get from coming up to a stream or lake in the middle of barrenness and cherishing the water. This was not my “real life,” this was something truly unique. The best part about the trip were the people I met, the trail family I built was made up of a few girls and guys in their 30’s, I was the smallest and youngest at 18. We would have had nothing in common if we had met before the trail, but now here we were having a shared experience, bonding over our common problems, homesickness, fears, joys, and pains. We were all different, coming from across the world to be in this space together. Sometimes during our mid-day naps piled up in the shade we would talk politics, religion, dreams, struggles, all kinds of things you normally wouldn’t discuss with strangers outside of this bubble. My coping mechanisms were to lean on these people, to try to put myself in their shoes and listen to their stories. I also made sure to stay in touch with those I missed at home, to have them send me pictures and tell me about the life I was away from, to reconnect me. To me, home is not a place, but a feeling.