Idaho & the Arctic … What’s the Connection?

By Dr. Andrew Kliskey, Co-Director, Center for Resilient Communities, University of Idaho

The Alaska tundra. (Photo credit: Holly McQuinn)

What is a New Zealander doing in Idaho and working on the Arctic? Like the Arctic Tern that migrates from its wintering grounds in Antarctica and New Zealand to its breeding grounds in the Arctic, sometimes pausing in Idaho on this massive 20,000 mile journey, Arctic scientists can also make that journey.

One example is Andy Kliskey, a Kiwi (a colloquial term for a New Zealander) who is also the Co-Director of the Center for Resilient Communities (also known as the CRC) at the University of Idaho. Kliskey moved from New Zealand to Alaska in 2003 to set-up the Resilience and Adaptive Management Group at the University of Alaska Anchorage with colleague Dr. Lil Alessa. After 10 years working in Arctic communities in Alaska and the Russian Far East, they were both recruited to Idaho, establishing the CRC in 2014. Together, they lead the CRC and run a national program that develops tools with which Arctic communities can assess how they might respond to the multitude of changes to biodiversity, climate, and economy that they face due to today’s rapidly changing Arctic.

The Inpuiat villages of Golovin and Wales in Alaska, like many other Arctic villages, are being forced to a different future than imagined in light of rapid regional changes. (Photo credit: Andy Kliskey)

University of Idaho’s Center for Resilience Communities works to assist Arctic communities to respond to changes in the Arctic on their own terms.

While many people have been living and thriving in the Arctic’s harsh climate for thousands of years, changes happening in the region today are occurring so rapidly that many of the Arctic’s approximately four million inhabitants are faced with serious challenges. For example, some communities that have relied on a particular animal as a food source for as long as they can remember are suddenly finding that this particular species is not appearing at the expected time of year (or, in some cases, not at all). As a result, entire villages face the risk of food shortages.

What are communities to do when faced with a lack of food, a fact that threatens their very survival? As Arctic communities are being forced to adapt quickly to new and harsher realities, including food shortages, eroding coastlines, melting permafrost, and so forth, Kliskey and Alessa’s mission from their base in Idaho is to help communities adapt as effectively as they can. Their work helps to ensure that those who live in the Arctic have the data and information they need to make informed decisions about the future, to adapt effectively, and to continue to survive and thrive in the place they call home.

Video: Andrew Kliskey discusses drivers of change and impacts on communities on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Idaho and the Arctic (and New Zealand, for that matter) share stunning landscapes, economies that rely on natural resources, and vibrant Indigenous cultures. Kliskey’s work actually shares all of these elements, and in particular looks for ways to bridge diverse ways of understanding the world. By looking for broad connections that weave social science, ecological science, and physical sciences, and partnerships between communities and scientists, we build a science of integration. The valuable tools that arise from this type of thinking have applicability not only in the Arctic and its communities, but also in Idaho and its communities.

Rainbow connection: New Zealand, Alaska, and Idaho all share stunning landscapes, and rainbows. (Image credits, L to R — Puponga on New Zealand’s South Island by Anthony Harris; Alaska tundra by Holly McQuinn; Boise Foothills by RMilo)

Earlier in his career Kliskey spent time at the Arctic Institute of North America, one of Canada’s premier Arctic research organizations. He was based at the institute’s Kluane Lake Research Station in southwest Yukon Territory. Working on the edge of the St. Elias Icefield — the largest non-polar icefield in the world — provided a phenomenal appreciation and awareness of the connectivity between forest and tundra environments, the subsistence hunting and fishing of the Champagne-Aishihik First Nations people, and the broader global drivers of change, both climate and economic, affecting each of these in confounding ways.

This experience propelled him to Alaska and the honor of working with Inupiat, Chukchi, and Siberian Yup’ik people in the Bering Straits region of Alaska and the Russian Far East, the Eklutna people of Knik Arm, and the Kenaitze people of Kenai River, Alaska. Among these indigenous groups, salmon are essential to livelihood and well-being, just as they are for the Nez Perce (or Nimi’ipuu) people of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, Idaho. The lessons learnt from working in the Arctic have relevance to Idaho, and those from Idaho to the Arctic.

The indigenous peoples of both Alaska and Idaho rely on species like salmon, which today are impacted by various environmental changes. (Image credits L to R: Alaska Native Heritage Center and AAANativeArts)

Speaking of salmon, last year the University of Idaho led on the development and design of an innovative and fun new way for students to learn about salmon ecology. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the university created a virtual reality world called SalmonSim, an interactive educational game that puts the player into the shoes, or fins, perhaps, of a Sockeye salmon returning from the ocean to spawn in a freshwater river in Alaska.

The 3-D simulation, which can be easily played by students and general audiences alike on an XBox, is based on real environmental and salmon-related data sets. The game takes into account all of the challenges faced by salmon as they swim along on their important journey, and focuses attention on the consequences for these species of changing water and landscapes in the Kenai River Watershed of southcentral Alaska.

SalmonSim is a product of Idaho leadership through the CRC and the design expertise by University of Idaho virtual technologists John Anderson and Roger Lew.

SalmonSim is being championed by the University of Alaska Anchorage, the Kenaitze Indian Tribe Youth Program, and the University of Idaho’s College of Education. It has also been used in an NSF Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)teacher training program in Alaska as a way of getting students more engaged and excited about science.

The virtual world of salmon offered by SalmonSim has produced remarkable educational outcomes for youth from the Kenaitze Indian Tribe of southcentral Alaska, which has more than 1,600 tribal members across Alaska’s Kenai Pensinula and beyond, and the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe of northern Idaho, with approximately 2,000 enrolled citizens, many of whom reside on the tribe’s sovereign reservation in northern Idaho.

Idaho’s relevance to the Arctic is driven by cultural and ecological parallels, partnerships between communities and scientists, and the journeys of birds, fish and, of course, people.

Kaleb Franke hangs salmon strips in the smokehouse at the Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s waterfront fishery. (Photo courtesy of the Kenaitze Indian Tribe)

About the Author:

Dr. Andrew Kliskey is a Professor in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences, the Bioregional Planning program, and the Landscape Architecture program at the University of Idaho. His research interests include human response and adaptation to environmental change; spatial methodologies for understanding coupled natural human systems; spatial approaches for representing indigenous & traditional knowledge; and social-ecological systems and place-based science. He feels at home in New Zealand, Alaska, and Idaho. You can reach him at akliskey@uidaho.edu.