Video Stories
FRIENDSHIP FLIGHT 1988 - Nome, Alaska to Provideniya, Chukotka
On June 13, 1988, a single plane left Nome, Alaska, headed to the eastern Siberian port of Provideniya. The 45-minute flight was the first step toward opening a border that had been closed for 40 years. Siberian Yupik people once freely crossed the Bering Strait to visit and trade with relatives, but passage was cut off in 1948, amid Cold War tensions.The 1988 flight reconnected relatives and friends and was a catalyst for several decades of meaningful and long-lasting cultural exchanges.
MUSK OXEN BIOLOGIST - Joel Berger Nome, Alaska - Wrangel Island, Russia
Joel Berger studies muskoxen, one of the least known mammals in the Arctic. On Wrangel Island in Russia and on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, he is trying to determine why some populations thrive and others decline. His research is aimed at understanding how a warming climate will affect wildlife worldwide.
SNOW GOOSE BIOLOGIST - Vasiily Baranyuk - Wrangel Island, Russia
On remote Wrangel Island, in the far North Russian Arctic, Vasilily Baranyuk has spent every summer for more than thirty years studying breeding snow geese. When he began his research, the population had declined by more than half, and there were no new goslings. Baranyuk's long-term study has been critical in determining how weather affects this migratory species and the fragile arctic ecosystem on which it depends.
REINDEER HERDER - IVAN TANKO - CHUKOTKA AUTONOMOUS OKRUG
At his summer camp in the Russian Far East in the Gylmemyel River Valley in the Russian Far East, Chukchi elder Ivan Tanko takes a break from the long winter of herding and lives a subsistence life harvesting salmon, seal, walrus, mushrooms and berries with his grandson. He grew up in a family of nomadic reindeer herders in northern Chukotka.
ivory/whalebone carver - jerome Saclamana- King Island, Alaska
Jerome Saclamana is an Inupiaq artist born in 1963 on remote King Island, Alaska in the Bering Sea. He learned to carve from his father and grandfather. He combines traditional subjects with his style, using human and animal features together in both whalebone and ivory, creating objects that reflect the interconnectedness of the natural world and the spiritual traditions of his culture.
ARCTIC WINTER GAMES COACH - CASEY FERGUSON - CHEVAK, ALASKA
Growing up in the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta of Western Alaska, in the coastal community of Chevak, Casey Ferguson recalls jumping back and forth on chunks of ice, practicing for Arctic native games. The self-esteem and leadership he learned from his community led to a coaching position at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, where he now teaches the strength, skills, and traditions of indigenous games to indigenous athletes who compete in the Native Youth Olympics, Arctic Winter Games, and the World Eskimo Indian Olympics.
Marine Mammal Biologist - Andrew Trites - Pribilof Islands, Alaska
For seven years, more than a hundred scientists have been studying the Bering Sea, one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world. The eastern Bering Sea shelf has undergone significant change in recent decades and is likely to shift further as the climate continues to warm. As part of the study, Andrew Trites and his team focused on the Northern Fur seals, Thick-billed Murres, and Black-legged Kittiwakes of the Priblof Islands. Their populations have been in decline on the Islands of St. Paul and St.George, while they have flourished 150 miles south on Bogoslof Island.
paleontologist - Dr. Daniel Fisher - Siberia
Renowned paleontologist, Dr. Daniel Fisher has studied mastodons and mammoths in North America and Siberia for decades. His current research at the University of Michigan focuses on the paleobiology and extinction of these mammals by studying their tusks and cheek teeth. Fisher has made many important discoveries, including evidence of human association, but his scientific journey began with a simple idea formed in a Michigan backyard.
NATIVE ATHLETE - AUTUMN RIDLEY - ALASKA
A granddaughter carries on the traditions that have meant survival forgenerations. Autumn Ridley, part Inupiaq Eskimo, part Tlingit Indian, is a world champion athlete. Since elementary school, she has competed in the Native YouthOlympics, Arctic Winter Games, and World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. These games celebrate the contests of strength, skill, and knowledge that were held throughout Beringia. Although the world has changed considerably, the values the games teach continue to endure in communities all over the Arctic.