First Nations: Alaskan Villages Face Physical and Cultural Erosion.

By Rachel D’oro, The Associated Press, December 24, 2006

“It's a dilemma taking on a new urgency as the effects of climate change escalate in a region many consider a harbinger of global warming. Erosion and flooding are nothing new here, but communities are increasingly vulnerable to melting permafrost and shorter periods of the shorefast ice that historically protected them from powerful storms. Erosion and flooding affect 86 percent – or 184 – of 213 Alaska native villages to some degree, according to a 2003 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is trying to determine which communities need the most help from a network of state and federal agencies… Joining another community is unacceptable… In their nomadic past, natives generally stayed within a certain region. Today they hunt the same animals as their ancestors, create their artwork with the same materials, know the land intimately… Being absorbed into another culture, even one only 100 miles away, could amount to cultural death, exposing residents to urban ills including alcohol, which is banned in Shishmaref and other dry villages. Residents fear the subsistence lifestyle their traditions and economy so heavily rely on would fall off, pushing them to welfare… But Alaska natives, who represent 11 distinct cultures and 20 languages, are fighting back. They're hosting culture camps and rural student exchanges. Villages have resurrected dances and festivals that were banned a century ago by missionaries. Schools have launched native language immersion programs.”