Before everyone got to work at the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference, organizer Katie Basile asked them to take a moment.
“Think about resilience and abundance in Western Alaska. What does that look like?” Basile asked the room. “What foods are available, what languages are spoken when you walk through that village or town, what do you see and hear?”
Basile works for Alaska Sea Grant, which organized the conference. She said it's hard not to get bogged down by the difficult issues the region is facing. Many of those problems inform research presented April 7-9: salmon fisheries in decline, permafrost erosion and the devastation of ex-Typhoon Halong. But Basile said the gathering was also an opportunity to imagine what things could lead to a better future.
“What conversations can we have this week that will connect us to a narrative of abundance and resilience?” Basile asked the assembled presenters and community members.
The traveling conference was born out of Dillingham. Its founder, University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and environmental researcher Todd Radenbaugh, was passionate about environmental education and felt it was important for scientists and conservationists to convene in the communities where they conducted research.
Now, the conference is in its 18th year. It rotates between Western Alaska communities.
Though it’s a stage for research and projects happening across the region, it typically has a tailored focus to that year’s host community.
It had been over a decade since WAISC was last hosted on the Yukon-Kuskowkin Delta. Organizers titled this year’s conference “Narratives from a Resilient Coast.” The lineup of presenters included outside researchers and local speakers.
Bridging Indigenous knowledge – often in the form of oral accounts recalling first-hand experiences – with Western science took center stage at the conference.
Napakiak Mayor Joann Slats spoke about growing up in the village, back when not everyone had refrigerators or freezers. The Kuwkoksim River community is managing a piecemeal retreat strategy of relocation in response to shoreline erosion.
She said she remembers bringing home popsicles from the store.
“And in order for the package to stay frozen, we had to dig a hole on the ground,” Slats said. “And of course, the permafrost was about two feet, July, June.”
Today, Slats said stronger fall storms, including October’s ex-Typhoon Halong, have been a new piece of the village’s relationship with its environment.
“We all were changed from the last two fall storms, but this one was the worst,” Slats said. “The recent one, we just went 90% in our community, 90% of the homes experienced water getting into their homes.”
Much of the research presented had similar firsthand accounts and testimonies around the changing environment.
Take Matthew Lohrstorfer’s for example. He works for Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association. He presented on the power of engaging people who fish in the research of salmon decline, listening to the people who know the river best when approaching fisheries science.
“Our project goal is to contribute to understanding drivers of Yukon River salmon collapse,” Lohrstrofer said, pointing to a map of the Yukon River. “The first part is interviews. And these are ethnographic interviews in communities near the mouth.”
Nicole Herman-Mercer with the U.S. Geological Survey presented a different project that couples local interviews and climate data on extreme weather events in Y-K Delta communities, like the 2022 wildfire that came within three miles of the St. Mary’s community.
“We set out to develop finer-scale climate data coupled with community narratives to create storylines of change in an attempt to really contextualize the data and make it easier to understand,” Herman-Mercer explained in her presentation.
Nate Akers of the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge presented on the smolt trap in Kwethluk used for fisheries research. He said community partnerships are essential because they also help connect back to the fundamental ‘Why?’ of the data collection.
“Better science occurs when local participation and knowledge are included,” Akers said. “And they should be included because these projects are to support those various subsistence users and their families and their communities that they come from.”
Organizers said a record-breaking 160 people registered to participate in the conference this year.
