IgorKrupnik, Rachel Mason,

and Tonia Norton, editors

NORTHERN ETHNOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPES

Perspectives from Circumpolar Nations
Mist hangs over the abandoned Sdmi summer camp at Kvcenangsfjellet mountain, Norway.
|\jorthern h n ogra ph i

[andscapes

perspectives from (^j'rcum polar Nations

IGOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON,

AND TONIA W. HORTON, EDITORS

Published by the Arctic Studies Center,

National Museum of Natural History,

Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C.

In collaboration with

The National Park Service
© 2004 by the Arctic Studies Center, National IVIuseum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Washington, D.C. 20560-0112

All rights reserved.

ISBN 0-9673429-7-X

Library of Congress Cataloging-ln-Publication Data

Northern ethnographic landscapes : perspectives from circumpolar nations / Igor Krupnil<, Rachel Mason, and

Tonia W. Norton, editors.

p. cm. — (Contributions to circumpolar anthropology ; v. 6) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-9673429-7-X (alk. paper)

1. Ethnology—Arctic regions. 2. Human geography—Arctic regions. 3. Landscape assessment—Arctic regions.

4. Landscape protection—Arctic regions. 5. Environmentally sensitive areas—Arctic regions. 6. Arctic regions— Environmental conditions. I. Krupnik, Igor. II. Mason, Rachel, 1954- III. Norton, Tonia W. (Tonia Woods)

IV. Series: Contributions to circumpolar anthropology ; 6.

GN673.N67 2004

306'. 091 1 '3-dc22

2004024361

oo The paper used In this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard For Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39. 48-1 992.

This publication was supported by a grant from the National Park Service, Alaska Regional Office.

Technical Editor: Thetus H. Smith Cover design: Raissa Macasieb-Ludwig

Series design: Anya Vinokour

Production editor: Elisabeth Ward

Printed In Canada.

This publication Is Volume 6 in the Arctic Studies Center series, Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology, produced by the

Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural Nistory, Smithsonian Institution.

THIS SERIES IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY THE JAMB W. VANSTONE (1921-2001) ENDOWMENT.

Cover: Cape Espenberg, Alaska. During the last 6,000 years, storm surges and winter winds sculptured sands deposited from offshore currents into the beach ridges of Cape Espenberg on the southern shore of Kotzebue Sound, Alaska. The cape was inhabited by

the Pittagmiut, a group of North Alaskan Ihupiat people in the 19th century. In late May or early June the entire population of 400 people would be located along the cape hunting for bearded seals in the offshore ice. The long expanse of coastline from

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contents

VII

X

xiii

XV

Contributors

List of Figures

Abbreviations

FOREWORD

William W. Fitzhugh

INTRODUCTION: LANDSCAPES, PERSPECTIVES, AND NATIONS

Igor Krupnik, Rachel Mason, and Susan Buggey

fart One

part ~]~wo

1 7

45

65

105

131

155

177

State Policies: Perspectives from Four Arctic Nations

AN APPROACH TO ABORIGINAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPES IN CANADA

Susan Buggey

PROTECTING ETHNOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPES IN ALASKA:

U.S. POLICIES AND PRACTICES

Rachel Mason

WRITING ETHNOGRAPHIC HISTORY: HISTORIC PRESERVATION,

CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND TRADITIONAL CULTURAL PROPERTIES

Tonia Woods Horton

MANAGING THE SAMI CULTURAL HERITAGE IN NORWAY:

THE LEGAL LANDSCAPE

Ingegerd Holand

CONCEPTS AND PRACTICES IN ETHNOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

PRESERVATION: A RUSSIAN NORTH PERSPECTIVE

Pavel M. Shul'gin

Protecting the "Invisible": Stories from the Arctic Zone

'TO SAVE THE YUGAN": THE SAGA OF THE KHANTY CULTURAL

CONSERVATION PROGRAM

Andrew Wiget and Olga Balalaeva

NENETS SACRED SITES AS ETHNOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE

Galina P. Kharyuchi

LANDSCAPES OF TRADITION, LANDSCAPES OF RESISTANCE

Donald G. Callaway
203 "THE WHOLE STORY OF OUR U\ND": ETHNOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPES

IN GAMBELL, ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND, ALA^SKA

Igor Krupnik

228 SUSAN WILHITE FAIR, IN TRIBUTE

Herbert Anungazuk

230 NAMES OF PLACES, OTHER TIMES: REMEMBERING AND DOCUMENTING

LA^NDS AND LANDSCAPES NEAR SHISHMAREF, ALA6KA

Susan W. Fair

255 MEDIEVAL TALES, MODERN TOURISTS: EXPLORING THE NJAL'S SAGA

LANDSCAPE OF SOUTH ICELAND

Elisabeth I. Ward and Arthur Bjorgvin Bollason

277 CULTURAL SEASCAPES: PRESERVING LOCAL FISHERMEN'S KNOWLEDGE

IN NORTHERN NORWAY

Anita Maurstad

fart T'liree Regional Approaches to Documentation and Protection

301 'THE LAND IS LIKE A BOOK": CULTURAL LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT

IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA

Thomas D. Andrews

323 DOCUMENTING ETHNOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPES

IN ALASKA'S NATIONAL PARKS

Tonia Woods Horton

343 CULTURAL HERITAGE IN YAMAL, SIBERIA: POLICIES AND CHALLENGES

IN LANDSCAPE PRESERVATION

Natalia V. Fedorova

358 SAMI CULTURAL HERITAGE IN NORWAY: BETWEEN POLITICS OF LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND THE POWER OF THE STATE

Torvald Falch and Marianne Skandfer

fart rour Comparative Perspectives

379 JOINING THE DOTS: MANAGING THE LAND- AND SEASCAPES

OF INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA

Claire Smithe and Heather Burke

401 EPILOGUE. NATIONS, PERSPECTIVES, AND NATIONS: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEANS?

Ellen Lee

407 INDEX

41 4 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
contributors

Thomas Andrews has conducted research in the

northern Yukon and in the Canadian Northwest Territories since the late 1970s. His many publications include articles on Aboriginal land management systems,

community-based resource management in the Northwest Territories, local cultural landscapes, ethnoarchaeology, and sacred sites. Since 1990, he has worked at

the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, in

Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, where he currently

holds the position of Territorial Archaeologist.

Herbert O. Anungazuk is an Inupiaq from Wales,

Alaska. Since 2003, he has worked as a Cultural Anthropologist for the Cultural Resources Team of the

National Park Service in Anchorage, Alaska. Before

that, beginning in 1993, he was a Native Liaison and

Heritage Specialist with the NPS Alaska Office. His knowledge of liiupiaq language and culture, along with

traditional skills acquired from elders over decades,

facilitate his work as a researcher, liaison and interpreter. Olga Balalaeva is a researcher in folklore and ethnology of the Peoples of the North and in Finno-Ugric

Studies. She has served as Senior Scientific Researcher,

Folklore Department, A.M. Corky Institute of World Literature, and as scientific consultant to State Committee

of the North and the Arctic Science Committee of the

Russian Federation. She has been engaged in field- work among the Khanty since 1 988.

Arthur Bjorgvin Bollason was Director of the Saga

Centre, Hvollsvollur, Iceland in 1 999-2003. After completing Master's degree research in Germany, he became the Icelandic radio's national correspondent for German affairs, was a researcher at the Arni Magnusson

Institute, and will be the co-chief editor for a new Ger- man translation of the Complete Saga of the Icelanders. A sometimes television host, poet, and tourist guide,

he now works for Icelandair in Germany.

Susan Buggey has been active in research, evaluation, and writing on cultural landscapes for 25 years. Former Director of Historical Services for Parks Canada,

she is now an Adjunct Professor in the School of Landscape Architecture at the Universite de Montreal in

Monreal, Canada. She writes extensively on landscapes

associated with the history of Aboriginal peoples and

the associative values of cultural landscapes.

Heather Burke has over thirteen years experience

as a consultant archaeologist, working in New South

Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern

Territory. Her particular skills are in the fields of site

recording and significance assessment, for both historical and Aboriginal archaeological sites, the assessment and recording of standing structures and mining heritage, and the interpretation and presentation of heritage sites. She has authored several publications on

Aboriginal archaeology in Australia. Donald C. Callaway is the Senior Cultural Anthropologist in the Alaska Regional Office of the National

Park Service. He has conducted fieldwork and research

in rural Alaska for the last 19 years and, over the last

decade, in the Russian Far East. A cultural anthropologist by his training, he also held post-doctoral fellowships in statistics at DC Berkeley and in health issues at
the Institute on Aging and Oregon Health Sciences in

Portland, Oregon. His primary fields of interest include

applied anthropology, formal methods, network analysis, and oral histories. Susan W. Fairv^as a folklorist and Native art historian; she conducted independent research and wrote

extensively on Alaska Native art and culture. Her relationship with the Ihupiat village of Shishmaref, in North- west Alaska, was particularly close. In the 1 970s and

early 1 980s, she was a certified appraiser of Native

American and Alaska Native art. In Alaska, she curated

several prominent installations of Native art and ethnographic collections. At the time of her death in 2003,

she held a joint teaching/research appointment at the

University of Arizona Tucson. Ton/aid Falch is Deputy Director General, Department of Environment and Cultural Heritage, Sami Parlia- ment of Norway in Vuonnabahta (Varangerboten),

Norway. He has a Masters' degree in political sciences

from the University of Oslo and he has worked for the Sami Parliament's Department of Cultural Heritage since

1 994. He is responsible for the management and documentation of Sami cultural sites and landscapes in Norway, as well as for the general political liaison in actions concerning cultural heritage, biological diversity,

sustainable development, and environmental issues. Natalia Fedorova is Senior Research Fellow at

the Institute of History and Archaeology of the Urals

Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences in

Ekaterinburg, Russia. Since 2003, she is also Deputy

Director of the Museum and Exhibit Center in Salekhard,

Yamal. Her recent studies are focused upon the prehistoric cultures of the West Siberia boreal forest and Arctic zone, medieval and antique metal artwork, and

culture contacts in Central (Inner) Eurasia. She authored

six books and more then fifty papers on West Siberian archaeology and art history.

William W. Fitzhugh is Director of the Arctic Studies Center and Curator at the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian

Institution, in Washington, DC. His interests include prehistory and environmental archaeology, maritime adaptations, and culture contacts. He has organized several special exhibit projects, such as Inua (1 982); Cross- mads ofContinentsO 988); MnuO 999); and Vikings(2000).

Ingegerd Holand works as Adviser on Sami (Saami)

cultural heritage and resource management at The Nor- wegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage (Riksantikvaren)

in Oslo, Norway. She was born in Kvaenangen, Northern Norway, in a Coastal Sami comunity, and is an archaeologist by profession, educated in Tromso as well

as in London. Her research and work has previously

included both mainstream Scandinavian archaeology

and Sami archaeology, while her present job involves

responsibility for all Sami monuments, including landscape preservation.

Tonia Woods Hotton is a landscape architect and

ethnohistorian. She was the first manager for the Cultural Landscapes program in the Alaska Region, National Park Service, from 1998 to 2004. She directed

projects through Alaska's fifteen national parks with a

special focus on ethnographic landscapes. She holds

degrees in landscape architecture, and in American Indian and environmental history. Currently she is an

assistant professor of landscape architecture at Pennsylvania State University.

Calina P. Kharyuchi is senior researcher at the Center for Humanitarian Research on Indigenous Minority

Peoples of the North in Salekhard, northern Russia. She was born to a Nenets reindeer-herding family in

the Gydan tundra along the Arctic coast of West Siberia. She graduated from teacher's college and worked

for several years as an educator in her native area, prior

to becoming professional ethnographer. She has a degree in history and anthropology, and she writes extensively on indigenous nations of West Siberia and her

native tundra Nenets people, in particular.

Igor Krupnik, Arctic ethnologist at the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC,

is currently coordinator of various international projects

studying the impacts of global climate change and the

preservation of cultural heritage, and ecological knowlviii
r

edge of northern Native people. He writes extensively on Arctic peoples and he is the general editor of the

Smithsonian Contributions to CircumpolarAntleropology

series.

Ellen Lee is Director of the Archaeological Services

Branch of Parks Canada, an organization responsible

for the national parks and national historic sites pro- grams of Canada. She has written on a range of topics

related to cultural landscapes and the commemoration

of Aboriginal history in Canada, and maintains an interest in the overlapping of cultural and natural values for

protected area management. Her most recent publication is "Managing the Intangible" (co-authored with A.

English), in 7/ie Full Value ofParks and Protected Areas: From Economics to the Intangible (2003).

Rachel Mason is a cultural anthropologist with the

National Park Service, Alaska Regional Office. She has

worked in Alaska since 1986, most extensively in the

Kodiak Archipelago and the Aleutian Islands. Prior to

her current employment at the NPS, she worked as a

technical advisor to the Federal Subsistence Management Program for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Her research interests include Alaska Native cultures,

subsistence, and commercial fisheries. Anita Maurstad has performed research on smallscale fishing in northern Norway since the late 1980's. She has a doctorate in resource management, and her

publications focus on culture and knowledge management in small-scale fisheries, paying special attention

to its interaction with science and fisheries management. Formerly a research associate by the Norwegian

College of Fisheries Science since 1997, she is now

associate professor at Troms0 Museum, Department for Contemporary Cultural History.

Pavel M. Shul'gm is Deputy Director of the Russian

Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage in Moscow, since 1 992. His research interests include vari- ous issues in economic, legislative, and regional de- velopment that relate to the conservation and use of

heritage resources in Russia. His numerous publications have advanced the concept of the so-called

"unique historical territories," that is, regions, for which

heritage preservation should be regarded as a top eco- nomic and social priority. Marianne Skandfer has a Ph.D. in archaeology from

the University of Tromso. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Tromso in Troms0,

Norway. Her research interest is in north FennoScandian archaeology, including Stone Age, early ceramics, and the emergence of Sami ethnicity. Between 1997 and 1999 she worked as an executive officer in

the Department of Sami Cultural Heritage in the Sami

Parliament in Norway.

Claire Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at

Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Her main research focus is on archaeological field methods and

on Indigenous archaeology. She has conducted field- work in the Barunga region of southern Arnhem Land

since 1 990, and has on-going excavation projects in

the Barunga region, Northern Territory and in Burra,

South Australia. Her major publications include the coedited volume Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World (2000) and the authored book. Country, Kin and

Culture. Survivalofan Aboriginal Community{m press).

Elisabeth I. Ward is a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, Scandinavian Studies

Department. Drawing on her maternal Icelandic heritage, Elisabeth has actively pursued her interest in the

Icelandic language and culture. After completing a

Master's degree in Anthropology at George Washington University, she became Assistant Curator and Coeditor for the Smithsonian Institution millennial exhibition, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, a position she

held from 1998 until 2003.

Andrew Wiget is professor and Director of the New

Mexico Heritage Center at New Mexico State University. He has been involved in cultural conservation

work and land claims cases with Native American tribes

for twenty years. Since 1992, he has partnered with Olga Balalaeva in conducting ethnographic field research and engaging in applied work among the Khanty

of western Siberia.
ist of fjVures

Title: Mist hangs over the abandoned Sami summer camp at Kvaenangsfjellet mountain, Norway ii

1/ Mt. Drum in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska xiv 2/ Traditional houses and ritual constructions at the abandoned Masik site, Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia. xvi 3/ Ezogokwoo ('bones of Ezo's people'), a Dogrib sacred place and the site of a major battle, Canada 14

4/ Map of landscapes important to the history of Aboriginal peoples in Canada 18

5/ Bear Rock, on the Mackenzie River, Northwest Territories, Canada 21 6/ Mortuary or memorial poles in the village of Nan Sdins on SCaang Gwaii Island, British Columbia 23

7/ Paallirmiut drum dancing, near the community of Arviat, Nunavut 25

8/ Nagwichoonjik, the Mackenzie River, Northwest Territories 27

9/ Deline fishery, at the mouth of the Great Bear River, Northwest Territories 29

1 0/ Kwikati or 'Tence Narrows Lake", on the Idaa Trail, Northwest Territories 33

1 1/ A campsite at Sahyoue (Grizzly Bear Mountain), Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories 35

1 2/ The Kazan River at Piqqiq, Nunavut, in the land of the Harvaqtuurmiut 37

1 3/ View of Denali Mountain (Mt. McKinley), in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska 47

14/ Eilson Road in Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska 48

1 5/ Chief Deaphon and his Athapaskan band that was associated with Denali National Park, 1919 51 16/ Map of Federal Lands in Alaska 53

1 7/ Map of State of Alaska Game Management Units and Federal Wildlife Management Units 54

18/ Map of Ten Alaskan regions represented by Federal Subsistence Regional Advisory Councils 55 19/ Telida, an Upper Kuskokwim Athapaskan village and a subsistence communtiy for Denali National Park 59

20/ Map of Sami settlement areas in Scandinavia, with the estimated number of Sami living today . 83

21/ Old Coastal Sami communities of Sorstraumen and Nordstraumen in Northern Troms, Norway 89

22/ Reconstructing a traditional Sami turf house (gamme) at Nordstraumen, northern Norway 91 23/ The old church at the island of Skorpa in Kvaenangen, northern Norway 93

24/ Typical post-World War II farm buildings at Saltnes in Kvaenangen, northern Norway 95

25/ The sacrificial stone (Graksesteinen) at Mortensnes in Varanger, Finnmark, northern Norway 97

26/ Map of Sami sites in Northern Norway discussed in the text 98

27/ The site of Hjemmeluft/Jiebmaluokta in Alta, Finnmark, northern Norway 99

28/ The Eastern Sami site of Skoltebyen in Neiden, Finnmark, northern Norway 1 01

29/ Ostyak (Khanty) mother and daughter, at their family camp, 1911. West Siberia 1 1 5 30/ Visiting the Kayukov Family Camp, 1 999. Salym River, West Siberia 1 1 5 31/ Traditional Khanty storage structures at Aidar Yourts, Salym River, 191 1 117

32/ Khanty storage structures (ambars) at Punsi Yourts, Salym River, 1 999 1 1 7 33/ Khanty herders build smoky log cabins to protect their reindeer from mosquitoes in summer time, 1 999 1 1 9

34/ Khanty wood grouse trap near Punsi Yourts, Salym River 121

35/ Putik, a wooden path through the marshes to pastures and fishing sites, Salym River 1 23

36/ Two Yamal Nenets men making sacrifice at the Khagen-Sale sacred site, Yamal, West Siberia, 1928 1 28

37/ Map of The Middle Ob River Basin, West Siberia 1 33

X
r

38/ Aerial view of the Bolshoi Yugan River Basin, West Siberia 1 3 5 39/ Map of sacred sites of the Yugan Khanty area, 1998 1 36

40/ Destroyed sacred hill, Imi Yaoun, and Khanty sacred site on the Trom-Agan River, West Siberia 1 3 7 41/ Map of Vassily Kaimysov's hunting territory, Yugan River basin. West Siberia 1 38

42/ Map of Proposed Yugan Khanty "Protected Territory of Traditional Land Use" 1 39

43/ Forested high places in swamps, called 'islands,' are often sacred sites 143

44/ Cultural heritage site with sacred wooden cabins {labas) at Lake Larlumkina, Bolshoi Yugan River 1 47

45/ Khanty caretaker, Yefim Kolsomov, at one of the Khanty sacred sites. West Siberia 1 51 46/ Area populated by the Nenets people in Arctic Russia and the area of the Cudan Tundra Nenets 1 5 7 47/ Galina Kharyuchi during her winter field survey 1 58

48/ Active Nenets sacred site in Southern Yamal, 1996 1 59

49/ Nenets children at an abandoned oil rig site 1 61 50/ Nenets sacred site at Cape Tiutey-Sale, Yamal, 1928 1 63

51/ Nenets herders work on the map of traditional sacred sites, summer 2001 1 69

52/ Nenets reindeer herders from the Cydan Peninsula, 2000 1 71 53/ Traditional Nenets sacred site on Yamal Peninsula, 1928 1 73

54/ Sunset on the Yukon River, Alaska 1 79

55/ Eagle Bluff, Alaska, known to the local Han Athapaskan people as "Water hitting right in to it" 1 83

56/ ATV trail through a meadow in bloom, Alaska 1 85

57/ Map of the Lower Noatak River basin, with the boundaries of Cape Krusenstern National Monument 1 86

58/ Map of the present-day land-status owners, Seward Peninsula, Alaska 1 87

59/ Ahtna place-names plotted on computerized map 1 88

60/ Graph of annual subsistence cycle for the community of Tetlin, Alaska 1 91 61/ Alaska Native caribou hunt 1 93

62/ Mentasta caribou herd density dependent model 1 94

63/ Aerial view of Cape Chibukak, with the Sivuqaq (Cambell) Mountain, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska 205

64/ Henry Collins' map of ancient sites at Cape Chibukak, St. Lawrence Island, 1937 207

65/ St. Lawrence Island women and children, in front of their traditional house, 1 889 209

66/ Gambell's landscape as of summer 1930 21 1 67/ Men are wrestling at Qellineq, traditional village public space in Sivuqaq/Gambell, 1912 213

68/ Map of Sivuqaq/Gambell area and major local place names, by Willis Walunga, 2001 21 5 69/ Traditional sacrificial site at the outskirts of Sivuqaq/Gambell, 1930 21 7 70/ Beach area in Gambell, with summer tents and winter houses, 1889 21 9

71/ Section of the "old village" in Gambell, 2001 221

72/ The view of the old Siqluwaghyahget site, destroyed by "subsistence digging," 2001 223

top Susan Wilhite Fair (1948-2003) 228

73/ Susan Fair and Edgar Ningeulook interview Gideon and Fannie Barr in Shishmaref, Alaska, 1993 229

74/ Northwestern shore of Seward Peninsula, Alaska - the Saniq-Saniniq coastline 2 32

75/ Early Ifiupiaq map of the Saniq-Saniniq afreadrasNn in Wales, Alaska, 1 902 2 33

76/ Watercolor of the Messenger Feast, or Wolf Dance, 1902 235

77/ The village of Shishmaref in the late 1 920s. 2 37

78/ House in Shishmaref hangs precariously over the bluff created by the severe storm, 1997. 2 39

79/ Shishmaref boats gather on the open Chukchi Sea during spring hunting in 1 987 241

80/ Members of Shishmaref Traditional Council, who saved the village from the influenza epidemic of 1918 243

81/ The village of Shishmaref in 1983 245

82/ The fish- and berry-picking camp near Shishmaref, 1998. 247

83/ Open treeless landscape allows for expansive view towards Trihyrning Mountain, southern Iceland 2 57

X 1
84/ Drawing of Gunnar meeting his wife Hallgerdur by A. Bloch, reproduced as a postcard, 1929 2 59

85/ Map of Iceland and distribution of Njal's Saga sites 261

86/ Gunnarsstein (Gunnar's stone), believed to be associated with Gunnar's fight, in Rangarvallasysia, Iceland 263

87/ Highway signage of Njaluslod, southern Iceland 265

88/ American tour group at Hof, southern Iceland, August 2001 267

89/ Tour guide relates the story of the death of Gunnar at Gunnar's farm, HIidarendi, southern Iceland, 2001 269

90/ Icelandic tour group at Dimon, southern Iceland, August 2001 271

91/ Bergthorshvol, the site where Njal and his family were burned alive, is the last stop on the tour, 2001 273

92/ Fishing village Kj0llefjord, Finnmark, northern Norway 279

93/ Small-scale fishing in the near-shore seascape of Lyngenfjord, northern Norway 281

94/ Storms at sea create special challenges, and opportunities, for fishermen 285

95/ Small-scale fishing vessels resting in Tromso on their way to the Finnmark fishery 291

96/ Big Rock near Mesa Lake, NWT, Canada, believed to be associated with the Dogrib chief Edzo 298

97/ Map of Northwest Territories, showing indigenous communities and land claims areas 302

98/ Map of significant places and sites, NWT, Canada 304

99/ Drum Lake, Mackenzie Mountains, a Mountain Dene sacred site, NWT, Canada 305

100/ A Dogrib hunter prepares to butcher a bull moose 307

101/ Bear Rock, at the confluence of the Bear and Mackenzie Rivers, NWT 31 1 102/ A Dogrib elder teaches two youth how to clean a large lake trout 31 3 103/ Dogrib elder examines archaeological remains of a birchbark canoe 31 5 104/ Kweedoo (Blood Rock) sacred site, at the confluence of the Bear and Mackenzie Rivers, NWT 31 7 105/ Relocated Tlingit grave marker at Dyea Cemetery, Southern Alaska 327

106/ Tlingit village at Healy and Wilson's Trading Post, Dyea, 1897 329

107/ Tlingit village, KhartHeenee [Gal-hi-r\i], "Salmon Water, " 1889 335

108/ Nenets herders visiting the Yarte site archaeology camp in Central Yamal, Siberia 345

109/ Nenets domestic reindeer grazes at the Vary- Khadyta- 2 site 349

1 1 0/ Khalmer, traditional Nenets burial site. West Siberia 351

111/ The Tiutey-Sale site, long considered a remain of "Eskimo type" culture on Yamal Peninsula, Siberia 353

1 1 2/ Remains of a traditional Sami goahti (turf house) and protected farm buildings, northern Norway 359

1 1 3/ Remains of a traditional Sami goahti ('turf hut') for goats, Devddesvuoppmi, Inner Troms, Norway 361

1 1 4/ Frame of a recent Sami summer herding tent, lawo in 0verbygd, Inner Troms, Norway 363

1 1 5/ Bj0rnesteinen ("The Bear stone") in Ceavccegeadgi/Mortensnes, northern Norway 365

1 16/ Fireplace at a Sami reindeer herding camp at Devddesjavri, Inner Troms, northern Norway 367

1 1 7/ Ancient Sami grave at Gaparas/Klubben represents a continual tradition from 2000 BC to AD 1600 369

1 18/ Pre-Christian Sami grave in Veidnes, Unjarga/Nesseby municipality, northern Norway 373

1 1 9/ lyat, or Serpentine Hot Springs, a place of healing and spiritual renewal for Ihupiat of Northwest Alaska 376

120/ Indigenous women's dreaming site, near Barunga, Northern Territory, Australia 385

121/ Luma Luma, a female ancestral being from Northern Australia 388

1 22/ Wakulyarri Tjukurrpa (Rock Wallaby). Aboriginal painting 390

123/ Untitled acrylic on canvas painting, by Barunga artist, Paddy Babu, 1992 391

1 24/ Reindeer herders tent (choom) at the camp site on the Yamal Peninsula, West Siberia 406

xii
a reviations

ADFG Alaska Department of Fish and Game, USA

AMNH American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA

ANCSA Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act, 1971, USA

ANILCA Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, 1 980, USA

ASC Arctic Studies Center, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. ATV All terrain vehicle

BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C, USA

CEAA Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 1 996, Canada

CIS Commemorative Integrity Statement, Canada

CU Cultural Landscape Inventory, National Park Service, USA

CPAWS Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Canada

CRM Cultural Resource Management

ERI Ethnographic Research Inventory, US National Park Service EVOS Exxon Valdez oil spill, USA

CIS Geographic Information System

GPS Geographic Positioning System

HSMBC Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada

ILO International Labour Organization

ILUA Indigenous Land Use Agreement, Australia

IPS Indigenous Peoples' Secretariat KMAO Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, Russia

NAGRPA Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1 990, USA

NHP National Historic Park, USA

NHPA National Historic Preservation Act, 1 966, USA

NHS NatioanI Historic Site, Canada

NAA-SI National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, USA

NPP National Park and Preserve, USA

NPS National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior NWT Northwest Territories, Canada

RAIPON Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the North, Russia

RRICNH Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage, Moscow, Russia

TCP Traditional Cultural Properties TEK Traditional Ecological (Environmental) Knowledge

USFWS United States Fish and Wildlife Service USGS United States Geological Survey

WACH Western Arctic Caribou Herd, Alaska

X i i i
1/Mt. Drum in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. The Ahtna Athapaskans living in this area called this 12,01 0-foot peak "Upriver K'elt'aeni. " Nearby Mount Sanford is Downriver K'elt'aeni, while Mt. Wrangell is simply K'elt'aeni. Many

Athapskans tend to render all directions as "upriver" or "downriver. " The name K'elt'aeni seems to mean 'The One That

Controls," apparently referring to the weather.

xiv
foreword

Today, few scholars would question the importance

of "landscape" as an integrating concept in understanding cultural traditions. Landscape approaches have been

applied for several decades in European and North

American scholarship. In American anthropology, land- scape theory has been influenced strongly by Julian Steward's concept of cultural ecology and more recently by increasingly integrative approaches combining environmental studies, ecology, history, and anthropology. More recent movements toward understanding ethnographic landscapes are being fostered by growing collaboration between scientists and native partners in studies of climate and environmental

change, natural resource distribution, subsistence practices, and many other topics having a geographic component. The extension of such studies into historical periods and the deep past and growth in scientific knowledge of paleoenvironments and effects of cli- mate change expand these frontiers still further.

Native American groups, especially in North

America, are playing an important role in advocating

that these concepts of cultural and ethnographic land- scape be included into government programs and

management policies. Nevertheless, it is encouraging

to discover a government agency building such an

idea into its management policy. Unlike other nations

that have recognized the importance of culture (admittedly, often a "national" culture, not always "cultures"), the United States has not had a distinguished

record of heritage preservation in general or of cultural

preservation in particular. Such themes have generally

been relegated to museums, scholars, and private interest groups rather than governments. Therefore, I was

delighted when Ted Birkedal of the Alaska Office of

the National Park Service (NPS) expressed interest in

having the Arctic Studies Center collaborate with the NPS to conduct a study of how the concept "ethnographic landscapes" was being utilized in scientific literature and government policy in the circumpolar

region.The Arctic Studies Center was familiar with how

park systems operate among many arctic nations and was actively conducting research and educational pro- gram throughout this region. As the editors explain in

their introduction, the initial idea was to provide a stateof-the-art overview that could be used by the NPS in

their policy formation process. While it took us several

years to design the study and identify partners, this

publication represents the perspectives of specialists

involved in key organizations and projects. The result

is, of course, only a sampling of thought and practice

as applied to the arctic and subarctic region.

The Arctic Studies Center has been pleased to collaborate with the National Park Service's Alaska Office

in this effort by bringing together a body of new knowledge and practice in the field of heritage preservation.

The inclusion of ethnographic and cultural landscapes

as valuable elements of national heritage conservation provides an important new opportunity for recognizing the contributions of culture, ethnography, and

the traditions of indigenous arctic residents; it also provides an important perspective for understanding cultural similarities and differences around the globe.

William W. Fitzhugh, Director

Arctic Studies Center

X V
2/Masik site at the entrance to Mechigmen Bay, Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia. This ancient whaling settlement was abandoned

around 1 950; but family visits, memories, and stories associated with the site keep the old landscape alive.

xvi
introduction

Landscapes, perspectives, and jXjations

IGOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON,

AND SUSAN BUGCEY

The creation of this book is a remarkable story worth

sharing with its readers. In the late 1 990s, the Cultural

Resources office of the U.S. Department of Interior's

National Park Service (NPS) in Anchorage, Alaska, considered contracting a junior archaeologist or a graduate student for a fairly standard service: producing an

overview of the current literature and policy documents

about cultural and ethnographic landscape preservation in some northern countries. Money was available and the terms of reference were clear; nobody believed

that it would take more than a few months to produce a 50-60 page report for the agency's internal use only.

The NPS' Alaska Regional Office was eager to look

at other nations' policies on ethnographic landscapes

for several reasons. By that time, several federal and

state legislative actions, NPS-led initiatives pertaining

to Native Americans' heritage and ancestral lands, had

been adopted. Many collaborative projects with Native communities were under way, both in Alaska and

elsewhere in the United States. After several decades

of protecting '"historic sites"~historic monuments and

buildings, battlefields, archaeological ruins, and remains

along pioneer trails—the NPS finally acknowledged

the need to extend protective status to heritage places

that may have, but equally may not have any visible

traces of human activities.

This recognition opened the way for a new vision

of heritage preservation that was far more suitable to

the Native American perspective. It included physical

landscapes with great value to indigenous people, reflected in their associated myths, stories, rituals, and

spiritual practices. As a result, new terms, such as "historic properties," "tribal preservation," and "indigenous

cultural (or ethnographic) landscapes" appeared on the

Native American public agendas and in NPS documentation alike (cf. Parker 1 990; Stoffle et al. 1 997). In 1 990,

the NPS institutionalized a distinct Cultural Landscapes

Program that addressed serious inadequacies in national

preservation policies, particularly affecting the lands

that were of special value to Native Americans (see

Norton, this volume). It was clear that this area would

require innovative approaches in management and protection. In fact, the new notion of 'ethnographic landscapes' would become one of the most contentious

policy issues for years to come.

At the federal level, the Native American Graves

Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1 990 symbolized a huge step in recognizing the cultural pres- ence of Native Americans on their ancestral lands and

in requiring by law that all human remains and funerary

items discovered on federal grounds be repatriated to

associated tribes. Two years later, the 1 992 amendment

to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of

1 967 required that places significant to Native Americans be conserved with other culturally significant sites

that are part of a diverse national heritage. In 1996,

Executive Order 1 3007 explicitly protected Native

Americans' access to their sacred sites provided under

1
the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978 (Mason, this volume). In Alaska, negotiations

between the NFS and Russian park managers had been

under way since the late 1 980s to establish a new joint

"Beringia International Park" on both sides of the Bering

Strait. Key among its many declared functions was the

protection of landscapes, monuments, and the subsistence activities of indigenous people as well as their

ties to the ancestral lands and their historical connections to each other. The "Shared Beringia Heritage Program," established in 1 991 under the NPS Alaska office,

offered strong support to such ties and connections

through research, conferences, and cultural exchanges

across the Bering Strait (Beringian Heritage 1989;

Callaway 2003; Vdovin 1990).

Those transitions in U.S. attitudes toward indigenous

lands and landscapes went hand-in-hand or were often

preceded by similar developments in Canada (Buggey

1 999, this volume), Norway (Holand, this volume), and

several other countries, particularly Australia and New

Zealand. The crucial role of UNESCO cannot be overestimated, notably since 1992, when it introduced the term "cultural landscapes" to its operational guidelines

pertaining to the World Heritage Convention of 1972.

It recognized them as "the combined works of nature and of man" and "the interaction between humankind

and nature," and it officially acknowledged that "the

protection of traditional cultural landscapes is . . . helpful in maintaining biological diversity" (UNECSO 1 996x1.

36-38). By 2002, about thirty cultural landscapes were

inscribed on UNESCO's 'World Heritage List (Fowler

2003:ch.3).' Scientific literature was bubbling up with new monographs, conference proceedings, and project

reports, including three seminal international volumes

on cultural landscapes published under the One World

Archaeology senes (Carmichael et al. 1994; Smith and

Wobst, in press; Ucko and Layton 1 999; see also Alanen

and Melnick 2000; Bender 1 992; Feld and Basso 1 996;

Hirsch and O'Hanlon 1995; Mitchell 1994; Thompson

1995; Tilley 1994). At the same time, the NPS Alaska

office supported several field programs aimed at documenting Native Alaskan oral traditions associated with

protected landscapes around the prospective 'Beringia'

Park and elsewhere across the state (Simon and Cerlach

1991; Fair and Ningeulook 1994; Schaaff 1996; Fair,

this volume; Callaway, this volume). New data and expertise argued strongly in favor of shifting the NPS'

focus toward ethnographic landscapes as the next cutting edge in its activities, particularly in the areas critical to Native Americans' lives, history, and heritage.^

Despite all these factors and the establishment of a

special "Cultural Landscapes Program" at the NPS Alaska

office (which recognized ethnographic landscapes as a

particular focus of its activities in 1 998), several gray

areas remained. No clear instructions existed on how

to deal with ethnographic landscapes and the associated traditions of indigenous people, from the park

management perspective. A tentative definition of what

constitutes an "ethnographic landscape,"^ developed under the NPS guidelines, proved to be of limited man- agement value. National Register Bulletin 38 (Parker

and King 1 990), part of a series that was so instrumental

in developing the NPS cultural landscapes framework,

offered little help, since its primary focus remained physical landscapes. Anthropologists working with northern

Native communities were quick to point to the whole

spectrum of invisible indigenous legacies associated

with ethnographic landscapes—myths, dreams, personal

stories and names, place-names, teaching and initiation

practices. Without Native people's participation, those

legacies remained hidden to park managers and were

not listed on their preservation mandates. Therefore, new expertise was needed and more information had

to be collected to tackle the ethnographic landscape

challenge, for both theoretical and practical purposes.

A Book Project Emerges

The initial idea of contracting with a student to do a

brief in-house review was quickly abandoned, and the NPS opted to collaborate with the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,

D.C. By that time, the ASC was conducting its own

2 INTRODUCTION
heritage landscape studies and site surveys in Canada

(Labrador), Alaska, and Russia (Yamal Peninsula in West

Siberia). The ASC also had a long history of cooperation with the NPS, particularly with its Alaska office.

Smithsonian anthropologists promptly suggested that

the project be turned into an international venture and

that it present authentic visions and voices from many

northern nations besides the U.S., including Canada,

Russia, and the Scandinavian countries. The appearance of a Parks Canada special report. An Approach to

Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes (Buggey 1 999), with its

trove of information on the Canadian approach to heritage landscape preservation, made such an idea even more appealing.

For about a year the main vision for the study centered on an international workshop, with speakers from

several countries presenting their national policy papers. In 2000, Igor Krupnik, the ASC ethnologist, intro- duced a new scenario for the project. Instead of a conference to be held in Washington, D.C. or Anchorage,

Krupnik suggested producing an edited volume of invited papers written by scholars and managers from

several northern nations. Such an international collection of articles would be published jointly by the ASC

(Smithsonian Institution) and the NPS. The main incentive to prospective contributors would be the potential

to demonstrate a circumpolar diversity of perspectives

and approaches to ethnographic landscapes in a single

book. This approach positioned the U.S. -Alaskan heritage preservation policy as an important component (if

not the key magnet) of the book, something not envisioned under the original plan. The NPS gladly

accepted this new vision. Two of its Alaskan ethnographers, Rachel Mason and Donald Callaway, and the manager of the Alaskan NPS cultural landscapes program, Tonia Horton, agreed to write papers for the book,

and Mason and Horton became its co-editors. Krupnik, was named the lead editor for the volume, and he went

on trips to Russia (Fall of 2000), and to Norway and

Canada (Spring of 2001 ) to look for possible authors. The response to a joint international volume on

ethnographic landscape preser^/ation was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, even though most of the invited

authors had never met and often had never heard of

each other's work in the same field. By late 2002 the

book's core had been assembled with contributions

from the U.S., Canada, Russia, Norway, Iceland, and Australia (see below). Authors include park management

specialists, heritage administrators and scholars, cultural

anthropologists, and indigenous researchers (see Contributors list). It took two more years to complete the

project and to produce this volume as a part of the new

Smithsonian series. Contribution to Circumpolar Anthropology, published by the ASC.

Indigenous/Aboriginal Approach to Landscape

As has been asserted repeatedly, indigenous peoples

in many parts of the world view landscapes in ways common to their experience but different from Western views on land, landscape, and historic heritage

(Buggey 1999:1).'' Indigenous people view the relationship between people and places in holistic and

often openly spiritual terms, rather than seeing it primarily in terms of material interests and ownership/

property rights. This does not mean that they have no

material interests in land and landscapes, or that their

subsistence use of land and landscape lacks any notion of land ownership, based on tribal, clan, or family

ties. The difference is, first and foremost, in the priorities that indigenous people put into their perspective on landscape—or, for that matter, the seascape, i.e., the

waters they use or travel through. Most indigenous communities, particularly hunter-gatherers and herders, regard themselves as an integral part of the holistic and

living landscape. Within this worldview, people are at one with the landscape, which also includes animals,

plants, known and mythological ancestors, and various

supernatural beings, like animal keepers, malignant spirits, and non-empirical creatures. The spirits of all these

entities inhabit the landscape, which—according to in- digenous views—is a multi-faceted and densely populated place, well beyond humans' daily presence.

IGOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON, AND SUSAN BUGGEY 3
Traditional aboriginal cosmologies similarly saw a

relationship of the earth and sky, the elements, the

dirertions, the seasons, the life species, and mythic transformers to the lands that people have occupied since

ancient times. All those elements were also connected

via journeys or paths through space and time that once were accessible to humans' mythological ancestors and

that still are/were accessible to shamans and even to some ordinary people through dreams, initiations, or

visionary revelations. In this perspective, land and landscapes are revered in total as well as in specific physical incarnations, such as mountains, lakes, rocks, stones,

capes, trees, etc. Those physical incarnations are primarily, though not exclusively, regarded as places of connectivity, nodes of spiritual power, or markers of paths

andjourneys related to ancestors, shamans, animal spirits,

or supernatural beings.

This is, of course, a condensed and a bit idealized

compilation of what may be called "aboriginal world

views" (Buggey 1999:1-3). In reality, views on landscape differ substantially from one group to another

and also change through time. Even classical tribal ethnographies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often documented only fragments or traces of

the elements of this generic complex. Introduced religions, particularly Christianity, and later, modern education, also made huge inroads in indigenous perspectives in many northern areas; both contributed substantially to the erosion of the old holistic visions

(Krupnik and Vakhtin 1 997). Nevertheless, traditional knowledge in the form of myths, narratives, place- names, and ecological lore, bequeathed through oral

tradition from generation to generation, has embodied and preserved indigenous people's relationship to

the land, from the ancestral times to the present. Such

a holistic view is often cited as a key in understanding

indigenous conceptualization of the land, the landscape, and its cultural resources (Stoffle and Evans 1 990;

Stoffle et al. 1 997:232). Today's northern people differ

greatly in terms of their individual knowledge and ability to articulate their specific ties to the land; but they

voice their unity with the land immediately when confronted with another view of the same landscape es- poused by resource and heritage managers, govern- ment people, and scientists.

Besides their specific vision of the land and landscapes, indigenous northern people have a particular

view of history (cf. Buggey 1 999:3). Their approach to

history is primarily through cosmology, narratives, genealogies, and places—rather than through written

records, fixed dates, and established time sequences. Elements of the land often become markers of time

and of past events, particularly through place- names

and associated stories that are remembered and transmitted to younger generations. Under this vision, the

land is "like a book" to indigenous people (see Andrews,

this volume); it is their most solid chronicle and a tribal

register that unites group members through shared

memories, residence, and affiliation. The land also acts

as an ever-present teaching ground, a classroom to which

the elderly and the learned bring the young and the

uneducated.

With this in mind, we would like to endorse the

following definition of indigenous "ethnographic landscape" that was formulated earlier by one of the coauthors of this Introduction (Buggey 1 999:27):

An 'ethnographic landscape [or 'aboriginal

cultural landscape'] is a place valued by an

Aboriginal group (or groups) because of their long and complex relationship with that land.

It expresses their unity with the natural and

spiritual environment. It embodies their traditional knowledge of spirits, places, land

uses, and ecology. Material remains of the

association may be prominent, but will often be minimal or absent.

The key components to this definition—long and

complex relationship between people and land; the

idea of people's unity with both natural and spiritual

environment; the expression of people's ties to the

landscape primarily through their cultural knowledge;

and the unimportance of material remains in supporting such ties—are all critical indicators. They fuse into

that which anthropologists call the "living group iden4 INTRODUCTION
tity," that is, a cognized feeling of today's cultural specificity and belonging, actively transmitted within the community and among the generations. We believe, this is

the pillar in approaching indigenous cultural (ethnographic) landscapes, rather than the constructs commonly used by heritage managers, such as "historic memory," "testimonies to past glory," "monuments of human creativity," "aesthetic values," and others. In many

well documented cases, such a vision collided with the

indigenous approach to land, landscape, and history—

almost universally with great loss and harm to indig- enous people (cf. Keller and Turek 1998). Recently,

however, the trend is gradually being reversed—whether

the issue at stake is a claim to land-use or to specific

resources, access to land for particular spiritual purpose,

or a government-initiated designation of lands as wildlife sanctuaries, parks, or heritage areas. The concept of "northern wilderness" that had served

for decades as the cornerstone for all approaches to

landscape protection was the first to change its status,

as illustrated by several chapters in this volume. Whether

focused on the pristine nature of vast northern expanses

or on "untouched" arctic ecosystems, it argued for northern lands to be protected for the purpose of nature

preservation, or as the nation's treasure, or for the sake

of future generations—that is, independent and irrespective of its residents, northern peoples, as well as of

their values, memories, traditions, and their current use

of the land. While still popular with the broad public, some conservationist groups, and tourist agencies alike,

the "northern wilderness" paradigm is quickly losing its

appeal among parks- and heritage managers in many

northern countries (see several papers in Catton 1997

and Burks 1994, specifically Turner 1994; Muk and

Byaliss-Smith 1 999; also chapters by Buggey, Callaway,

Norton, Mason, Shul'gin, Ward and Bollason, Wiget and

Balalaeva, this volume).

The recognition of indigenous landscapes—via the

score of new policies and projects described in this book—constitutes a milestone in this transition. The

designation and protection of certain landscapes, because of their specific cultural meaning to indigenous

people, paves the way to a far more respectful and in- formed approach to aboriginal cultures and to the general heritage of all local peoples. It applies to every

northern nation whose preservation practices are described in this book. It also elevates the status of aboriginal views on landscape and land-human relationships to the sphere of legislative actions, management

instructions, budget allocations, and daily work of the

respective governmental agencies. As heritage managers, scholars, cultural anthropologists, and citizens, we

applaud such a transition.

The Structure of the Volume

As chapters of this volume were gradually taking shape,

it became clear that the book would address three different perspectives, or levels, in northern ethnographic

landscape preservation. The first level analyzes what

may be called "national doctrines": the established official approaches and management systems of individual

polar countries, like Canada, the U.S., Russia, and others. This represents a view from the top, a reflection of

the general ideology that is usually developed and

espoused by the main national preservation agency or

associated research institutions. At the opposite end of

the spectrum is a specific bottom view that comes from

the "foot soldiers" in the trenches, such as park managers and researchers, engaged in particular local pro- grams or projects. Those local experiences illustrate

the true diversity and on-the-ground realities that are

often hard to grasp from major national policy documents. Finally, the middle stands for a regional perspective in management that comes from local hubs

and regional agencies, and is shaped by decades of accumulated practical studies and management decisions. It also represents unique blends of local histories, administrative politics, and population mixtures

typical of each major northern region.

Most of our authors have worn several hats during

their professional careers, and each person has his or

her heartfelt story about ethnographic landscape reICOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON, AND SUSAN BUGGEY 5
search or management to share. No individual chapter

in this volume, therefore, speaks for only one particular "beast". Still, we found it useful to group the papers

along national, local, and regional lines, and to organize the book in three main sections, according to

those major visions.

Part 1 : State Policies from Four Arctic Nations

Part One is made up of five papers. Arranged geographically, each paper represents a nation: Canada (Susan

Buggey), the U.S. (Rachel Mason and Tonia Norton),

Norway (Ingegerd Holand), and Russia (Pavel Shul'gin).

Altogether those four countries cover almost eightyfive percent of the circumpolar land area. We regret our

lack of information on ethnographic landscape policies in Greenland, Sweden, and Finland; a paper by

Elisabeth Ward and Arthur Bollason (see below) at least

partially represent the situation in Iceland. The two papers covering heritage landscape preservation in Alaska comes from the realities of the U.S. National Park Service system that recognizes "cultural landscapes" and

"ethnographic landscapes ' as two separate programs.

Similarly, the two institutionalized visions on heritage

landscapes in Norway are represented by the main governmental heritage agency, Riksantikvaren {Ho\ar\6, this

section), and by the Sami Parliament (Falch and Skandfer,

below).

Part 2: Protecting 'The Invisible": Ethnographic Landscape Stories Across the Arctic Zone

Part Two is made up of seven chapters, which follow a

thematic, rather than a geographic, progression. They

illustrate the richness and variety of local ethnographic

landscapes; each paper describes a specific research,

documentation, or a local management effort. The section starts with ethnographic landscapes

having the greatest physical visibility of human traces on the ground, such as material constructions built for

subsistence activities in the boreal marshland areas of West Siberia (Andrew Wiget and Olga Balalaeva) or at

indigenous ritual sites across the Siberian tundra used

by nomadic reindeer herders (Calina Kharyuchi). It moves

to a more complex overlap of indigenous and managerial perspectives on protected landscapes in Alaska

(Donald Callaway), with their conflicting intertwinement

of uses, boundaries, markers, and regimes. A different

mixture is presented by the story of a complex multilayer heritage landscape of a contemporary Native community, the village of Sivuqaq/Gambell on St. Lawrence

Island, Alaska (Igor Krupnik). Here, the overlapping traces

of earlier ethnographic landscapes are engrained both

in remains and in human memories stretching back to

the past The section progresses to even more intangible markers of human presence on the land, such as

Native place-names from the Seward Peninsula in North- west Alaska (Susan Fair), and to virtual heritage landscapes re-created by projecting medieval Icelandic saga

stories onto the twenty-first century terrain (Elisabeth

Ward and Arthur Bollason). In the two latter cases, the

ethnographic landscape barely exists beyond the hu- man mind; it is being created and transmitted by the

sheer power of community memory and its adherence

to the ancestors' traditions. The last paper presents the most extreme case of "invisible" heritage landscape,

almost beyond today's park managers' imagination. It

deals with the purely mental constructs of ocean fishing grounds and "seascapes" of the ocean bottom off

the coast of northern Norway (Anita Maurstad). These

products of generations of accumulated fishermen's

knowledge are both the most elusive and the hardest

types of "scapes" to manage, as they literally cease to

exist at the moment the fishermen leave the place.

Part 3: Regional Approaches to Ethnographic Landscape Documentation and Protection

Part Three has four chapters, which are, again, organized geographically to cover Canada, U.S., Russia, and

Norway. In this section the authors present more targeted regional reviews peppered with individualized

experience from the ongoing heritage landscape pro6 INTRODUCTION
T

grams in the Canadian Northwest Territories (Tom

Andrews), in two Alaskan National Parks (Tonia Norton),

in the Russian Yamal Autonomous Area, in northern

West Siberia (Natalia Fedorova), as well as from the work of the Sami Parliament and of its former Sami

Cultural Heritage Council on the protection of the Sami

heritage landscapes in Norway (Torvald Falch and

Marianne Skandfer). We believe that those four chapters, framed by years—often, decades—^of their authors'

involvement in local research and documentation/preservation efforts, will be both illustrative and indicative

of current trends across the circumpolar North. We hope

that further writers and publishers explore this vast body

of northern landscape management expertise that we

cannot explore here beyond a few selected stories.

Part Four and Epilogue

The final section offers our readers a look at heritage

landscapes preservation outside the northern polar zone.

In a book about northern landscapes, we had space for

just one compelling perspective from outside the Arc- tic—a paper about the management of aboriginal heritage landscapes and seascapes in Australia (Claire Smith

and Heather Burke). We believe that the Australian experience is particularly relevant to heritage management in the North, not only because the Australians

pioneered the idea of indigenous heritage landscapes,

but also because so much in Australian indigenous

landscapes is about 'invisible' elements such as myths,

dreams and 'dreamlands,' place-names, ancestral journeys, story-scapes, and knowledge initiation rites. The volume concludes with an Epilogue by Ellen

Lee, Director of the Archaeological Service Branch of

Parks Canada. Her remarks review some of the many

institutional hurdles and bottlenecks in heritage land- scape preservation and in carrying the message out to

the general public and to policy-makers. It reiterates

the key line of every chapter in this volume that points

to partnership with northern aboriginal communities as

the best strategy to better document and to protect

the invisible heritage of their lands.

Lessons and Messages

As always, the edited chapters and the final printed

volume represent only a fraction of what has been as- sembled and reviewed during our project. As we perused the many paper drafts, agency reports, and sec- ondary literature, several themes emerged as common

experiences from across the northern regions. In the

final section of this Introduction, we want to share a few critical lessons we learned through this process. We also consider these points as our key messages to

park managers, researchers, and to general readers interested in the issues of northern ethnographic landscapes policies, preservation, and documentation.

Definition

Our first message is that there is a common understanding among researchers and managers in many northern

countries about what constitutes an etiinograplnic landscape. But neither a good working definition nor a practical management approach transcends the boundaries

of the respective nations. Landscape scholars and managers quote each other's policy documents and papers

actively, but their daily operations take place in the

legal and administrative spaces of their respective national systems. Of the four national approaches reviewed

in our volume—those of Canada, the U.S., Norway, and

Russia—two national systems (the U.S. and Russia) use

the term "ethnographic landscape," whereas two other systems (Canada and Norway) stick to the term "cultural landscape" instead, with the added terms "aboriginal" and "Sami," respectively. This demonstrates that

true convergence of policies and approaches is still far ahead of us, if ever attainable, given the diversity of

peoples, traditions, politics, and histories across the cir- cumpolar zone.

In every northern country landscape managers and

scholars now agree that the preservation of "ethnographic landscapes" is of critical importance to its NaICOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON, AND SUSAN BUGCEY 7
tive residents. In the long run, it may be as crucial to

the continuity of their cultures and identities as physical access to ancestral lands, in terms of subsistence

activities, mobility, and use of traditional resource and

community sites (Parker 1990). However, little public

understanding and a great deal of managerial discord

exist about what actually constitutes an indigenous "ethnographic landscape" and how such a landscape can

be protected.

One may argue that there is only a minor semantic

difference between the American vision of "ethnographic

landscape" and the Canadian "aboriginal cultural landscape," and that the more distinctive Norwegian and

Russian definitions fall more or less within the same

realm. But the seemingly minor semantic distinctions may conceal more important practical differences. For example, under the U.S. National Park Service, ethnographic landscapes are just one of /bwr recognized types

of cultural landscapes (in addition to historic sites, historic designed landscapes, and historic vernacular land- scapes—see papers by Mason and Norton, this volume). Ethnographic landscapes, defined herein by the MPS as "containing a variety of natural and cultural

resources that associated people define as heritage resources," are clearly perceived as a combination of certain valuable resources that have to be identified, listed, and protected. The NPS' Ethnography Program, however, uses a different definition that presents an ethnographic landscape as "a relatively contiguous area of

interrelated places that the members of contemporary

social groups define as meaningful because it is inextricably and traditionally linked to their own local or

regional histories, cultural identities, beliefs, and behaviors." Under that vision, the focus is upon certain

"contiguous areas" and places that must be, similarly,

identified and protected.

Canada's definition sees a cultural landscape as "any

geographical area that has been modified, influenced,

or given special cultural meaning by people" (Parks

Canada 1 994:1 1 9). In contrast to the U.S. definition,

it stresses the role of human impact upon the landscape. Within this wide scope, it generally follows the anthropologically-inspired typology of the

UNESCO World Heritage Convention (UNESCO 1996,

cl.39). Common grounds are quite obvious; but one

has to have extensive insider knowledge to grasp the

practical differences. Though accepted in their respective management

systems, those definitions are but a starting point. They

co-exist with several other related terms that sometimes offer a more instrumental perspective, such as

"sacred landscape" (Carmichael 1 994), "sacred sites"

(Balalaeva 1 999), "sacred places" (Kelley and Francis

1 994), "spiritual (or ceremonial) lands," "spiritual geography" (Griffith 1 992), "symbolic landscape" (Burley 1 991

;

Schanche 1 995), "ancestral lands," "holy lands" (Spicer

1957), "holy grounds" (Schlee 1990), "storyscapes"

(Stoffle et al 1 997), and others.'' They also lack a functional aspect indicative of the specific origin or uses of

an ethnographic landscape. Every typology has certain

gray areas of ambiguity; some authors argue that all

socially relevant landscapes are symbolic and historical (Cosgrove 1989; Ingold 1991).

Definitions inevitably have limited operational value and have to be elaborated by specific identification

guidelines that address the distinctive qualities of different types of landscapes. In terms of implicit guidelines for identifying and especially for managing areas that could be labeled ethnographic versus other

recognized types of cultural landscapes, much work

is urgently needed. We cannot offer a plausible response to this challenge, besides pointing out that various symbolic landscapes have an interwoven and even

conflicting history, and that flexibility, openness, and

consultations are the best tools in dealing with "virtual

realities," such as ethnographic landscapes.

Knowledge

Although both the title of this book and the various

policy and management systems it represents feature

the terms "lands" and "landscapes," the real subject is,

in fact, knowledge. It is the human knowledge about

8 INTRODUCTION
the landscape, preserved and transmitted by its residents (or, often, former residents), that gives its magic

touch to northern lands and waters. Verbalized human

tradition transforms the vast and mostly unpopulated

arctic areas with no signs and street markers, or a terrain

dotted with anonymous archaeological remains, into

meaningful cultural space. We believe that such an explicit focus on human

knowledge and tradition is critical in developing policies regarding ethnographic landscape preservation.

Unlike a physical landscape, an ethnographic landscape

is alive and meaningful as long as it is supported by

viable and accessible cultural knowledge. In a reverse

statement, the extinction of cultural knowledge associated with a certain landscape returns it to the status of

wilderness or makes it an empty land with barely seen remnants of former occupation.

We would argue that in practical managerial terms it

is, therefore, as important to preserve and support the knowledge about the land (through documentation,

education, and other heritage efforts) as it is to establish a vigorous protective regime for the land itself. A

compelling example comes from the fishermen's knowl- edge of seascape (Maurstad, this volume). When the

fishermen are gone, and their knowledge of bays, currents, ocean floor, and specific fishing sites is lost, the

age-built cultural seascape reverts back to the "wild" ocean or is reduced to a nautical chart. There would be,

in fact, nothing more to protect than lighthouses and

fish stocks. The focus on human knowledge, rather than on the

land or landscape itself, offers new prospects for long- term preservation and even for a restoration of certain ethnographic landscapes. Indeed, knowledge preserved

in writing or orally within the present or former residential community may bring new life to the old cultural landscape. Old knowledge is the only path to

restore cultural value to the landscape that has lost its

original meaning for its current residents and land managers. The unique preservation of early medieval oral

histories (sagas) in Iceland helped revitalize "virtual

ethnographic landscapes ' of the past and turn them

to today's use for tourism and heritage education (Ward

and Bollason, this volume). Therefore, today's invest- ment in documenting the knowledge related to northern ethnographic landscapes may be the best and the most sound policy to assure their continuity in the

future.

Cooperation

As many papers in this volume illustrate, documenting

ethnographic landscapes is a collaborative process. There is a huge mental gap to bridge and a great distance to cover between the offices of heritage preservation agencies (even those located in the northern

regions) and the indigenous communities who created and maintained local ethnographic landscapes over

generations. Here nothing can be done without true

collaboration, mutual trust, and respect. Cultural sensitivity is crucial in approaching the most invisible aspects of Native legacy related to ethnographic landscapes and to people's bonds to their ancestral lands. Whereas heritage managers may address local communities directly and often do a thorough job in collecting knowledge about landscapes, we believe that

three other groups of players are critical to this process. The first are respected indigenous experts, usually elders. They embody local heritage and tradition, and they act as the most legitimate and authoritative spokespersons for their communities. Cultural anthropologists, with established ties to local groups and extensive first-hand knowledge of their tradition, make

up the second group. Local educators, particularly those

from within the Native communities, are the third type

of players. Their role in landscape documentation and

preservation is absolutely critical, though greatly underestimated. Their main input is in formatting the knowledge of elders (and of anthropologists) into stories and texts appealing to the younger generations of

Native people, who will be the bearers and protectors

of local ethnographic landscapes for decades to come. Through our personal experience—and more than

IGOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON, AND SUSAN BUCCEY 9
ever, after this volume—we believe that no documentation and no protection of ethnographic landscapes

can be successful without the full involvement of local communities. We regard this as the key message of our

collective effort and we want it to be heard clearly by

policy-makers, heritage professionals, and public alike.

Acknowledgements

This Northern Ethnographic Landscapes volume is an outcome of collaboration between the NPS Alaska

Regional Office in Anchorage and the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. This book would never have materialized if not for friendly guidance as well as the logistical and financial backing of the NPS in Alaska. Within

the NPS Alaska Regional Office we are especially grateful to Ted Birkedal, Cultural Resources Team Manager,

and to Steve Peterson, Senior Historical Architect. They

developed the initial concept of a report on international practices in northern ethnographic landscapes

documentation and they have supported the project

through every stage of its implementation. Donald

Callaway, Senior Cultural Anthropologist, was our NPS

project liaison. At the Smithsonian, William W. Fitzhugh,

the ASC Director, was always a source of friendly en- couragement and insight; Stephen Loring and Aron

Crowell shared their knowledge and offered good advice. We thank you all.

Several more people were instrumental in introducing prospective contributors, sharing their expertise, and providing other forms of support. In Alaska, we are grateful to Judy Gottlieb, the NPS Associate

Regional Director for Subsistence and Partnerships, in Anchorage; and to Leigh Selig, then Assistant Superintendent, Western Arctic National Parklands, in Nome.

In Canada, we thank Ellen Lee and Helene Chabot at

Parks Canada in Ottawa; Norman Hallendy in Carp,

Ontario; and Rick Armstrong at the Nunavut Research

Institute in Iqaluit, Nunavut. In Norway, we received

great support from Ole Gron at the Norwegian Institute

for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) in Oslo; Audhild

Schanche at the Nordic Sami Institute and Alf Isak

Keskitalo at the Guovdageaidnu Municipal Museum in Kautokeino; Bjornar Olsen and Henry Minde at the

University of Tromso in Tromso; Terje Brantenberg and

Ivar Bjorklund at the Tromso Museum, Tromso. In Russia, Krupnik's trip to Salekhard in fall of 2000 was supported by the Science Department of the Yamal Area

administration, and was facilitated by Natalia Fedorova,

Sviatoslav Alekseev, and Aleksei Zen'ko.

While working on this volume, we lost one of its most devoted contributors, the Alaskan folklorist and

art historian Susan Fair, who passed away in 2003. We

are fortunate that Susan's colleague, Herbert Anungazuk

from the NPS Alaska Office, graciously prepared a tribute to Susan's legacy for this collection. We are grateful to many colleagues who kindly offered their photos for section and text illustrations. These

visual contributions by Thomas Andrews (Yellowknife,

Canada), Sergei Bogoslovskii (Moscow, Russia), Donald

Callaway and Thetus Smith (Anchorage, Alaska), David

Dector (Jerusalem, Israel), William Fitzhugh (Washington, D.C.), Ingegerd Holand (Oslo, Norway), and John

Hood (Harrow, UK) are very much appreciated.

Our special thanks go to the volume's editorial and

production team. Thetus H. Smith, our style- and technical editor from the NPS Alaska Office, was instrumental in bringing individual papers into one consistent

format for the volume. Georgene Sink in Anchorage

assisted with translation of the Russian papers, and Cara

Seitcheck and Katherine Rusk in Washington offered

their editorial skills. Elisabeth Ward and Iris Hahn-Santoro

at the ASC and Bryan Hood in Tromso assisted in translation and editing of Torvald Falch and Marianne

Skandfer's paper, delivered in Norwegian. We thank

Elisabeth Ward, our volume production editor (now at

Berkeley); Kathleen Paparchontis, who prepared the In- dex for the volume; and Raissa Macasieb-Ludwig, who

prepared the illustrations for the book.

Finally, we salute all our volume contributors. Our common journey, from the outset of the project to the

printing of the book, took several years to accomplish.

We would never have made it if not for their enthusi10 INTRODUCTION
asm, patience, and comradeship that helped coalesce many individual studies in several languages and countries into a collective vision on ethnographic landscapes

preservation across the circumpolar North. Notes

1 . As of 2002, 29 cultural landscapes have been

nominated from 23 countries (World Heritage Convention 2002). As of this writing, there were 1 5 sites

officially registered as "cultural landscapes" and two

sites listed as "archaeological landscapes," in addition to 23 "mixed" properties (of which most feature "outstanding cultural values") on the overall list of 788 "world heritage properties" (http://

whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid-31 ).

2. This turned out to be the right prediction, as the issue of indigenous ethnographic landscapes

became the key theme for the 29"^ Annual Meeting

of the Alaska Anthropological Association in An- chorage in 2002 (titled "Lands, Landscapes and Landmarks") as well as for "WAC-5," the 5* World Archaeological Congress in Washington, D.C. in 2003.

3. According to the NPS definition, an ethnographic landscape is a landscape that contains "a variety of natural and cultural resources that associ- ated people define as heritage resources. Examples

are contemporary settlements, religious sacred sites and massive geological structures. Small plant communities, animals, subsistence and ceremonial

grounds are often components" (Birnbaum 1994:2;

Hardesty 2000:1 82; see also chapters by Mason and

Norton, this volume).

4. The literature on the issues of indigenous

worldviews and landscapes is indeed enormous. The

most commonly quoted sources include Basso 1 996; Berkes 1 999; Brody 1 981 ; Frey 2001 ; Kelley and Francis

1 994. For the Northern indigenous people see FienupRiordanl 994; Haliendy 2000; Kari and Fall 1 987/2003;

Kawagley 1 995; Nelson 1 986; Nelson et al. 1 982; Tanner 1979. International collections, with extensive bib- liographies include Feld and Basso 1996; Grim 2001;

Hirsch and O'Honlon 1 995; Irimoto and Yamada 1 994;

Mills and Slobodin 1994.

5. Again, we regret that the limits of our vol- ume prevent us from presenting regional data from

other northern countries as well as from other areas

within the four nations covered in the book, like Nunavut in Canada (Haliendy 2000; Heyes 2002), or Chukotka in Russia, for which a lot of information is

IGOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON, AND SUSAN BUCCEY

available

6. See also specific northern/Arctic terms, such

as 'memoryscapes' (Nuttal 1 991 ), 'culturescapes' (King

2002), 'visioscapes' (Sejersen 2004). One could ar- gue that some of these terms refer to different levels of aboriginal ethnographic landscapes and, thus, may

be organized typologically, if not hierarchically. For an attempt to produce such an hierarchy of cultural (ethnographic) landscapes of Southern Paiute people

of the Grand Canyon area see Stoffle et al. 1997.

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1

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IGOR KRUPNIK, RACHEL MASON, AND SUSAN BUCCEY
3/ Ezogokwoo ('bones of Ezo's people'), a sacred place and the site of a major battle between the Dogrib and a

neighbouring group, Northwest Territories, Canada.
STATE POLICIES —PERSPECTIVES FROM FOUR ARCTIC NATIONS

/\n /Approach to /Xborigina!

(^uiturai Landscapes in (panada

SUSAN BUCGEY

Indigenous peoples in many parts of the world view

landscape in ways common to their experience and

different from the Western perspective of land and

landscape. The relationship between people and place

is conceived fundamentally in spiritual terms rather

than primarily material terms. Many indigenous people

consider all the earth to be sacred and regard themselves as an integral part of this holistic and living

landscape. They belong to the land and are at one in it

with animals, plants, and ancestors whose spirits inhabit

it. For many, places in the landscape are also sacred, as

places of power, of journeys related to spirit beings, of

entities that must be appeased. Laws and gifts from

these spirit beings shaped the cultures and day-to-day

activities of Aboriginal peoples in Canada's North. Inti- mate knowledge of natural resources and ecosystems

of their areas, developed through long and sustained

contact, and respect for the spirits that inhabit these

places, molded life on the land. Traditional knowledge,

in the form of narratives, place names, and ecological

lore, bequeathed through oral tradition from generation to generation, embodies and preserves the relationship to the land. Landscapes "house" these stories, and protection of these places is key to their long-term

survival in Aboriginal culture.

In Canada's North, Aboriginal peoples have occupied the harsh, varied environment for millennia. A

diversity of historical experience across time and

place, as well as differing current situations, marks the

relationships of people with the region. Today Indians, Inuit, and Metis comprise approximately fifty

First Nations, speaking predominantly Athapaskan

and Inuktitut in about sixteen different languages.

The area is divided politically into three territories; Yukon in the west, Northwest Territories in the center, and Nunavut in the east. Aboriginal rights and

settlement areas are defined by comprehensive land

claims agreements negotiated between Aboriginal

peoples and the federal government and based on traditional use and occupancy of lands. Provisions in each

claim differ. Agreements concluded in the past decade

include chapters relating to environment, heritage,

and cultural resources that provide part of the planning context for national historic sites (Lee 1997).

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, established in 1991, examined the relationship between

Aboriginal peoples and Canadian society in general,

including government, over time and throughout the

country. Its massive report (Canada 1 996) articulated

Aboriginal worldviews, traditions of knowledge, issues, and recommendations that have situated, or placed

in context, subsequent considerations of Aboriginal heritage. The Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Delgamuukw case (1 997) marked legal acceptance of

Aboriginal oral history related to a group's traditional

area along with wider implications for Aboriginal

rights related to land ownership.

To recognize the values of Aboriginal cultural landscapes (Fig. 4) and to commemorate these places, identification and evaluation have to focus on Aboriginal

worldviews, rather than on those of non-indigenous

cultures of Western civilization and Western scientific

1 7
tradition. In Canada, national heritage falls under the

purview of the Minister of the Environment. The minister is advised on the identification of national historic

significance by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board

of Canada (HSMBC), a statutory body composed of

representatives of the ten provinces, three territories, and three national heritage agencies. Parks Canada, a

federal government agency reporting to the Minister

of the Environment, administers the program of national

historic commemoration. Historically, the history of Aboriginal peoples has been underrepresented in its National Historic Sites system, but it is now one of the

priority themes. For a decade, an ongoing dialogue

involving many parties has been exploring ways to

address this neglected aspect of Canada's history. By

1997-98 the HSMBC had specifically identified the need for an appropriate framework based on "nature,

tradition, continuity, and attachment to the land [. . .] as

the defining elements in determining historic signifi- cance" and on "considering groups for commemoration [and] focusing on the importance of place to

the Aboriginal group" (HSMBC Minutes July 1998).

This paper focuses on Canada's North, but it derives

from a national context (Buggey 1 999). It situates

Aboriginal worldviews and place in relation to the

field of cultural landscapes and to national historic

site designations related to the history of Aboriginal people. Various aspects were explored with about

fifty people, who include Parks Canada; provincial

and territorial staff in all parts of the country; consultants with extensive experience in working with

Aboriginal communities; and Aboriginal people in umbrella organizations and various other positions.

The paper presents guidelines that Canada has de- veloped for the identification of Aboriginal cultural landscapes of national historic significance.

4/ Some landscapes important to the history ofAboriginal people in Canada.

SGaang Gwaii

Yuquot

Nagwichoonjik

Edacho

Bear Rock •Sahyoue

Deline ^ Fishery ridaa Trail

Hay River Mission Sites

Xa:ytem Head-Smashed-ln

Buffalo Jump

500 1000

Kilometres

Some Landscapes Important to the History

of .Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

Fall Caribou Crossing

Enukso Point

Arvia'juaq and

'Oikiqtaarjuk

Newfoundland and Labrador

Apitipik

Kejimkujik

18 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
Aboriginal Worldviews

To understand the northern landscape requires an understanding of the related cosmologies. Aboriginal

cosmologies relate earth and sky, the elements, the

directions, the seasons, and mythic transformers to lands

Aboriginals have occupied since ancient times. Guided

by these cosmological relationships, many have creation stories related to their homelands, and they date

their presence in those places to times when spirit beings traversed the world, transformed themselves at will between human and animal form, created their ancestors, and contoured the landscape. For the Beaver

people of the subarctic, for example, the creation story

focused on Muskrat, the diver who brought a speck of

dirt from the sea bottom to the earth's surface, at a

point that represented the coming together of trails from the four directions. It focused equally on Swan,

who flew into the sky and brought back the world

and the songs of the seasons. Transformed in vision

quest from the boy Swan to culture hero Saya, who

travels across the sky as sun and moon, he was the

first man to follow the trail of animals and thus established the relationship between hunters and their game.

Hunters slept with their heads to the east, the direction of the rising sun, so that they might dream their

hunt along the trail of the sun before they experienced

it on the physical trail across the land (Ridington

1990:69-73, 91-3).

Certain places embody these cosmological contexts. The stages of the journeys and exploits of culture heroes, such as Yamoria and his namesakes of

several groups through the Mackenzie Basin of the Northwest Territories, can be related to specific features in the landscape (Andrews 1990). These narratives vary from group to group, but their climax occurs

at the same geographical point. Bear Rock on the

Mackenzie River (Fig. 5), where the several features of

the mountain and the archaeological evidence concur

in long association. Many Dene regard Bear Rock as a

sacred site, and its symbolic importance is reflected in

its selection as the logo of the Dene Nation, which

represents the relation between the Dene and Deneneh

(Hanks 1 993). The Cwich'in cycle of stones of the trickster Raven records how the hollows in the landscape

known today at Tsiigehtchic in the Northwest Territories are his camp and bed (Cwich'in Social and Cultural

Institute 1 997:800-7). In northern Quebec, sites associated with the travels of the giant beaver still in transfor- mation mode populate the demographically vacant map

(Craikand Namagoose 1 992:1 7-2 U. Cosmological relationships and associations with

spirit beings identif/ places of power, where the combination of spirits and place creates environments favorable for spiritual communication. Identification of

sites along two trails in the Dogrib landscape in the Northwest Territories, for example, differentiated five

categories of sacred sites to which Dogrib elders ac- corded recognition:

—Places where the activities of culture heroes are associated with landscape features;

—Sites inhabited by giant, usually malevolent and

dangerous, "spirit animals;"

—Locations where the dreaming activities of cul- ture heroes intersected the landscape;

—Places where important resources, such as stone and ochre, are found;

—Craves.

Twenty sacred sites associated with culture hero

Yamozhah and his exploits in making the land safe were identified along the Idaa Trail (Andrews et al.

1 998:307-1 4; Andrews, this volume).

The cosmological and mythological associations

of sacred places and the continuing cultural relationship to the spirits and power of these places characterize many landscapes important to Aboriginal people

in Canada. Traditional knowledge relates contemporary cultures directly to traditional places. Social structure, economic activity, language, rituals, and spiritual

beliefs preserve cultural memory through intangible

traditions related to place. Seeing places as markers

SUSAN BUCCEY 19
of identity requires looking at them through the

worldview and experience of the peoples associated

with them. As the report Rakekee Cok'e Codi: Places We Take Care Of states,

[o]ne of the most important themes in understanding Sahtu Dene and Metis history

is the relationship between culture and

landscape. Virtually all of Sahtu Dene and

Metis history is written on the land. As such, the places and sites, which commemorate this relationship, are an integral part of Sahtu

Dene and Metis identity (Sahtu 2000:1 4).

Narratives and place names bequeathed from generation to generation relate these spiritual associations

directly to the land.

The Sahtu Dene narratives create a mosaic of

stories that envelop the cultural landscapes of

Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Crass

Hills. The web of "myth and memory" spread

beyond the mountains to cover the whole

western end of Great Bear Lake, illustrating the complexity of the Sahtu Dene's landscape

tradition (HSMBC Minutes November 1996).

The complexity and intensity of Aboriginal belief and

tradition mark the continuous living relationship people

have with the land, and the concept of "land" includes

water and sky as well as earth. The interrelationships of

people, animals, and spirits—as well as kinship and lan- guage attachments to place—are spiritual, mental, and

emotional aspects of living with a particular environment. Traditional life, rooted in intimate knowledge of

the natural environment, focused on seasonal movement, which was patterned by movements of animals,

marine resources, and the hunt. Uses and activities, from

harvesting and social gatherings to rituals and ceremonies, are core expressions of relation to the land. Kinship, social relationships, and reciprocal obligations

linked people in this complex round sustained for centuries. These defining attributes of Aboriginal peoples'

attachments to land are more important to them than

place as physical resource. The inter-connectedness of all aspects of human

life with the living landscape—in social and spiritual

relationships as much as in harvesting—continuously

through time roots Aboriginal cultures in the land. A

working definition declares that

An Aboriginal cultural landscape is a place

valued by an Aboriginal group (or groups)

because of their long and complex relation- ship with that land. It expresses their unity

with the natural and spiritual environment.

It embodies their traditional knowledge

of spirits, places, land uses, and ecology.

Material remains of the association may

be prominent, but will often be minimal

or absent (Buggey 1 999:27).

The associated people will not necessarily be only

current occupiers or users of the land, but may also

include those who have a historic relationship still significant to their culture, such as the Huron-Wendat of Quebec to the territory in southern Ontario that they

left in the mid-seventeenth century. As well, other

people than the associated group (or groups) may

have used these landscapes and may attach values

to them.

Cultural Landscapes

In identifying cultural landscapes of national historic

significance, Canada follows UNESCO's approach. After nearly a decade of debate about the nature of cultural landscapes and their potential outstanding universal value, in 1992 UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, the administrative body for the World Heritage

Convention, agreed that "the term 'cultural landscape'

embraces a diversity of manifestations of the interaction between humankind and the natural environmenf

(UNESCO 1996a:37). UNESCO's guidelines focus on

this interaction between societies and the natural world

that shapes the cultural landscape. In addition to this

defining characteristic, it lists a tripartite categorization

of landscapes:

—The clearly defined landscape designed and cre- ated intentionally by man; —The organically evolved landscape: relict or continuing;

—The associative cultural landscape.

These provide an elementary identification of types as

20 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
5/ Bear Rock, on the Mackenzie River, Northwest Territories, is the subject of important traditional teachings and

a sacred site to the Dene people.

aids in tlie identification of where values lie. The third

type, the associative cultural landscape, is justified for

inclusion on the World Heritage List "by virtue of the

powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations of

the natural element rather than material cultural evi- dence, which may be insignificant or even absent"

(UNESCO 1 996a:39iii). Cultural landscapes associated

with indigenous peoples are most likely to fit in this

category.

Associative cultural landscapes mark a significant move away from conventional heritage concepts rooted

in physical resources, whether the monuments of cultural heritage or wilderness in natural heritage. They

also accentuate the indivisibility of cultural and natural values in cultural landscapes. The 1995

Asia-Pacific workshop on associative cultural landscapes, held for UNESCO, elaborated on their essential

characteristics:

Associative cultural landscapes may be defined

as large or small contiguous or non-contiguous

areas and itineraries, routes or other linear landscapes—these may be physical entities or mental images embedded in a people's spirituality, cultural tradition and practice. The attributes of associative cultural landscapes include the

intangible, such as the acoustic, the kinetic and

the olfactory, as well as the visual (Australia

ICOMOS 1995:4).

Associative cultural landscapes are, then, defined by

cultural values related to natural resources. The range

of natural features associated with cosmological, symbolic, sacred, and culturally significant landscapes may

be very broad: mountains, caves, outcrops, coastal waters, rivers, lakes, pools, hillsides, uplands, plains, woods,

groves, trees. While the physical resources are largely

natural, cultural values transform these places from natural to cultural landscapes. In language, narratives, sounds,

ceremonies, kinship relationships, and social customs

SUSAN BUGGEY 21
are found cohesive evidences of cultural meanings.

The emergence of cultural landscapes as an integral part of cultural heritage coincided with international recognition in the natural heritage community

that areas long identified as pristine wilderness and

celebrated for their ecological values untouched by

human activity are the homelands of indigenous peoples

and are shaped by long-term, sustainable human occupation. Their management of those landscapes has often altered the original ecological system, but it has

equally contributed to the biological diversity that has

long been regarded as a prime value of wilderness

(McNeely 1 995). Anthropologists and Aboriginal people

working on traditional use studies and undertaking to

reestablish cultural landscapes on the West Coast have

applied this dilemma to ways of seeing west coast landscapes: in contrast to the visitor and the scientist, who

perceive wilderness in Cwaii Haanas (Fig. 6), the Haida

people see their homeland, Haida Cwaii, rich with the

historical and spiritual evidences of their centuries-long

occupation.

Defining cultural landscapes as "[a]ny geographical

area that has been modified, influenced, or given special cultural meaning by people" (Parks Canada

1 994a: 1 1 9), Parks Canada overtly recognizes cultural

landscapes characterized by the intangible values that

indigenous peoples attach to landscape. According

heritage status to places with spiritual associations in

the absence of material remains acknowledges human

values crucial to the identities of these peoples. It is

also explicitly accepted that the associated peoples

identify such places and values. Most provinces have

developed an approach to cultural landscapes (e.g.,

Ontario: http://www.culture.gov.on.ca/english/culdiv/

heritage/landscap.htm and Nova Scotia: http:// museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/nhns/tl 2/tl 2-2.htm).

Both the provinces and the territories, however, have

generally used an archaeological rather than a cultural

landscape approach to the commemoration of Aboriginal heritage and have not designated places as Aboriginal cultural landscapes. They recognize, though,

that some designated sites, such as Writing-on-Stone

Provincial Park in Alberta and White Mountain on Lake

Mistassini in Quebec, have cultural landscape values.

British Columbia's traditional use studies program (British Columbia 1 996) and Yukon's address to Aboriginal

values of place in its planning processes are examples

of other approaches to recognizing cultural landscapes.

Aboriginal decision-makers, as well, have their own

approach, including toponymy for the management of

symbolic values.

National Historic Site Designations of

Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes

During the past thirty years, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada has recommended a number of

places associated with the cultures of Aboriginal peoples

for designation as national historic sites. The move- ment from viewing objects through perspectives of art

history and archaeology, characteristic of the HSMBC's

experience in commemorating Aboriginal history from

the late 1960s through the 1980s, to seeing cultural

landscapes associated with living peoples, mirrors the

historiography of the various decision periods. As early

as 1969, the board recognized the Inuksuit at Enusko

Point, Baffin Island, Nunavut, as being of national significance. In keeping with the perspective of the time,

it saw them primarily as archaeological artifacts, rather

than holistically as part of a multi-dimensional cultural

landscape (Stoddard 1 969). A range of other designated

sites in several parts of the country reflects this scientific approach to the identification of values, which situated them within the traditional scholarly disciplines of

archaeology, history, or art history. Their scope, boundaries, and significance were normally described by the

archaeological investigations that had been carried out, sometimes accompanied by professional historical or

ethnological studies; and their values were defined by

such established criteria as the exceptional or outstanding example of a culture (Federal Archaeology Office

1 998a, App. B). Limited scale often characterized them,

as at the fish weir at Atherley Narrows (Mnjikaning) in

22 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
Ontario or the mysterious Cluny Earthlodge Village in

Alberta. Some sites were designated for their historical significance as defined by Canadian national

history, such as Batoche for its role in the North West

Rebellion/Resistance of 1885. Other places became

national historic sites because of their cultural expression as art, for example the Peterborough petroglyphs

in Ontario or Nan Sdins, the Haida village in British

Columbia. A few large sites, such as Port au Choix in Newfoundland and Debert/Belmont in Nova Scotia, were identified for their culture history, which was analyzed through archaeological evidence, not through

cultural associations. The practice of designating sites

related to the history of Aboriginal peoples primarily

based on archaeological evidence reflected standard

approaches in the heritage community nationally and

internationally. Since then, while there has been no move to diminish archaeological values, institutional

standards have moved to ensure the participation of

associated living communities in the identification of

perspectives and values, as well as in the management

of cultural landscapes.

The Perspective of the / 990s

Recognizing that the history of Aboriginal peoples was under-represented in the National Historic Sites

system, in 1990-91 the board explored issues and a

preliminary classification of sites related to the commemoration of the history of Native people. That year

the board recommended that

sites of spiritual and/or cultural importance to Native peoples, generally

should be considered to be eligible for designation as national historic sites even when no tangible cultural resources exist,

providing that there is evidence, garnered

through oral history, or otherwise, that such sites are indeed seen to have

special meaning to the culture in question and

that the sites themselves are fixed in space (HSMBC Minutes February 1 990).

Background papers identified that "from a

6/ Mortuary or memorial poles in the village of Nan

Sdins on SCaang Cwaii Island, in Haida Cwaii, British Columbia, homeland of the Haida people.

Native perspective commemorative potential seemed

to derive from one or a combination of the following:

the traditional and enduring use of the land; the relationship between the people and the land; and recent

events in a first nation's history, such as its relationships with newcomers" (Coldring and Hanks 1991).

Inspired by a presentation on the Red Dog Mountain

and the Drum Lake Trail in the western Northwest Territories, the HSMBC took particular interest in exploring

the significance of mythical or sacred sites and in the

potential of "linear sites or trails encompassing a number of tangible resources . . . and emphasizing linkages

between a people and the land" (HSMBC Minutes March

1 991 ). As a result of formal and informal consultations

during 1990-91 , it was apparent that any framework

for addressing Aboriginal history

—Must conform with emerging prescriptions in sucSUSAN BUCCEY 23
cessive northern land claims regarding heritage and

cultural sites (Lee 1 997);

—Must respect Aboriginal worldviews encapsulated in the enduring relationship between people

and the land. —To achieve the latter objective, must recognize

[w]hat distinguishes Native Peoples' understanding

... is the extent to which the human relationship

with places has ethical, cultural, medicinal, and spiri- tual elements, which are interwoven with patterns of economic use. Stories are told about particular

parts of the land, spiritual powers exist in certain places that are absent elsewhere, and teachings are annexed to specific places in ways that have little counterpart in non-Native society. In Native cul- tures, these attributes are often more important than

the physical, tangible remains of past human use of

land (Goldring and Hanks 1991:14).

By 1 991 , therefore, the board had already before them

a basic outline of perceptions, issues, and structures for

approaching northern Aboriginal sites that would gradually and increasingly direct their considerations and

recommendations on the commemoration of the history of Aboriginal peoples for the rest of the decade.

The decision not to proceed with a study of petroglyphs

and pictographs and to shift resources to communitybased studies marked a key stage. In moving from a

focus in scientific knowledge to a focus in Aboriginal

traditional knowledge, from types of sites (e.g., trails,

sacred sites) to places that embody traditional narratives and spiritual meaning along with economic use, and from criteria to guidelines for directing their assessments, the board began to evolve an approach to commemorating the history of Aboriginal peoples that

is based both in Aboriginal values and in the signifi- cance of Aboriginal places to all Canadians. The concept of cultural landscapes, rooted in the interaction of

culture and the natural environment in all its dimensions, epitomizes this approach.

Consultation and Participation

One of the key implications of the redefinition in approaching landscapes in the 1 990s is the involvement of associated peoples directly in the selection,

research design, designation, and management of places

of heritage significance. The 1 980s saw transition in

research strategies from culture history to ethno-archaeology in studies, for example, of the Mackenzie Basin

in the Northwest Territories and of St6:l6 sites in British Columbia (Hanks and Pokotylo 1989; Lee and

Henderson 1992). The more active involvement of

Dene and Metis in the former area reflects in part a response to the fact that "the Dene are tired of being

simply the object of inquiry and are becoming inquirers in their own right" (Hanks and Pokotylo 1 989:1 39). The Traditional Environmental Knowledge Pilot Project

of the Dene Cultural Institute, started in 1 989, exemplifies participatory action research, in which indigenous

peoples have primary involvement in the direction of

studies that serve their needs, including research design and implementation, "the accepted approach to

the study of TEK" Oohnson 1995:1 16). The active in- volvement of Aboriginal people, particularly elders, has

refocused the investigative effort from the analysis of

physical resources to recognition of the holistic and

essentially spiritual relationship of people and land.

Experience in the 1990s endorses the crucial nature of this role. When the petroglyphs at Kejimkujik

National Park, Nova Scotia, were initially identified for commemoration, they were seen as the primary cultural resources of the park. Consultation with the Mi'kmaq

people reoriented the commemorative focus from the

single resource type to the whole park area. Arguing

the "strong sense of connection between people and

place," the background paper, prepared jointly by representatives of the Mi'kmaq people and Parks Canada's

Atlantic regional office, proposed three bases for commemoration of the "cultural landscape" of the region:

—The 4000 year history of traditional land use in which the archaeological resources were largely

undisturbed;

—The natural environment of the park that en- hanced an understanding of Mi'kmaq spirituality

with the land;

24 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
—The petroglyph sites, which are a significant part of Mi'kmaq cultural and spiritual expression (Mi'kmaq

1 994).

Equally, when Parks Canada initiated a commemorative integrity exercise at Nan Sdins (Ninstints) National

Historic Site, British Columbia, consultation with the

hereditary chiefs argued for recognition of heritage values that identified not only the achievements of Haida

art and architecture represented by the village—the

focus of the National Historic Site and World Heritage

Site designations—but also "the history of a people in

a place:"

—The continuing Haida culture and history;

—The connectedness of the Haida to the land and

the sea; —The sacredness of the site;

—Its role as the visual key to the oral traditions of the Haida over thousands of years (Dick and

Wilson 1 998).

Both examples demonstrate Parks Canada's move to implement three principles resulting from the National Workshops on the History of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada in 1992-94:

—Fundamental importance of Aboriginal traditional knowledge to the understanding of the culture and

history of all indigenous peoples;

—Meaningful participatory consultations with

Aboriginal groups;

—Aboriginal peoples' taking a leading role in pre- senting their history and culture (Parks Canada

1 994b).

Involvement of Dogrib elders in extensive studies along

the Idaa Trail in the Northwest Territories similarly ex- panded the initial research design from a survey of

traditional sites and documentation of Dogrib place names and narratives to documentation of sacred sites,

travel using traditional methods, and development of a

training program in archaeological methods and recording of oral traditions for Dogrib youth (Andrews and

Zoe 1997:8-10). In the resulting six-category classification of sacred sites, elders recognized five categories but not a sixth, which represented identifications

7/ Paallirmiutdrum dancing in traditional clothing at Arviat Heritage Day, near the community of Arviat, Nunavut.

of significance from outside their culture (Andrews et

al. 1998:307-8). Recent research projects submitted

to the HSMBC have consistently and actively included

involvement and consultation of local communities,

including elders.

Recently Designated Aboriginal Cultural

Landscapes, 1995-2000

Since 1 990, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board

of Canada has considered a number of Aboriginal cultural landscapes. As early as 1991, Hatzic Rock, now

known as Xa:ytem, in British Columbia presented not

only archaeological evidence of potential national significance, but also the importance of this transformer

site in terms of Aboriginal cultural values. Drawing directly on Cordon Mohs' research on the St6:l6 people,

it demonstrated the cosmological relationships that underpinned its role as a sacred site (Lee and HenderSUSAN BUGGEY 25
son 1992; Mohs 1994). An agreement under the National Cost-Sharing Programme recommended in 1 998,

following consultation with the St6:lo people, endorsed

the board's acceptance of the exceptional national

significance of sites valued primarily for their spiritual

importance to Aboriginal peoples.

The inland Kazan River Fall Caribou Crossing site and the coastal island of Arvia'juaq with the adjacent

point Qikiqtaarjuk in the Eastern Arctic, designated in

1 995, provide exceptional illustrations of the integrated

economic, social, and spiritual values of Aboriginal

cultural landscapes (Fig. 7). Chosen respectively by the communities of Baker Lake and Arviat to conserve and

depict Inuit history and culture in this area, these areas

"speak eloquently to the cultural, spiritual, and eco- nomic life of the Inuit in the Keewatin region . . . and as

sites of particular significance to the respective communities" (HSMBC Minutes July 1 995). The results of

—Earlier archaeological investigations,

—Mapping using a global positioning system, —On-site visits with elders,

—Oral interviews with other knowledgeable Inuit informants in the communities,

—Recording of traditional stories associated with

the areas

identified the traditional Aboriginal values and the

scientific values associated with these places (Keith

1995; Henderson 1995). The approved commemorative plaque texts articulate the associative and physical values of these cultural landscapes:

For centuries, the fall caribou crossing on the

Kazan River was essential to the inland Inuit, providing them the necessities of daily life and the means to survive the long winter. Once in the water, the caribou were vulner- able to hunters in qajaqs who caught and

lanced as many as possible. The Inuit cher- ished and cared for the land at crossing areas

in accordance with traditional beliefs and

practices to ensure the caribou returned each

year during their southward migration. To

inland Inuit, the caribou was the essence of

life. All parts were valuable for food, fuel, tools, clothing, and shelter (in Harvaqtuuq

1997:2.3).

26

For centuries, the Inuit returned here each summer to camp and harvest the abundant

marine resources. These gatherings also provided an opportunity to teach the young,

celebrate life, and affirm and renew Inuit society. The oral histories, traditional knowledge, and archaeological sites at Arvia'juaq

and Qikiqtaarjuk provide a cultural and

historical foundation for future ge-nerations.

These sites continue to be centers to cel- ebrate, practise, and rejuvenate Inuit culture

in the Arviat area (in Arviat 1 997:2.3).

Building on the 1990-91 Northern Native History initiative, the Keewatin area project and the Deline fishery study (see below), in 1996 Christopher C. Hanks

extended the articulation of "the elemental link be- tween . . . culture and the land" (Hanks 1 996a:887) as

the core basis for understanding the cultural landscape

of Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass Hills (Sahyoue/Edacho) in the western Northwest Territories. With

a firm base in both local traditional knowledge and the

relevant scientific and academic literature, the back- ground paper he prepared on behalf of the Sahtu Dene

identified three bases for national historical significance:

—These people had lived on that land since time

immemorial;

—They had evolved there as a distinct people;

—The interplay of place names and traditional narratives in Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass

Hills has characterized their relationship to the land

(ibid.:885,888).

Drawing on broad archaeological and ethnographic literature of the subarctic, as well as on extensive oral

histories of the Great Bear Lake region. Hanks judiciously presented selected narratives in relation to specific landscape features and larger landscape meanings.

The narratives play important roles in sustaining Sahtu

Dene culture by transmitting language, prescribing behavior, and identif/ing sacred sites from generation to

generation through the association of place and story.

By linking places, names, and narratives, he successfully mapped them on topographical representations

of the Great Bear Lake region. Five broad periods provided a time frame that served to group the narratives

STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
S/ Nagwichoonjik, the Mackenzie River, Northwest Territories, homeland of the Gwichya Gwich 'm ofTsiigehtchic.

thematically. Dene Elder George Blondin, whose own

narratives of the region are widely read (Blondin 1 997),

concurred in the framework while at the same time

recognizing it did not come from within his culture. Hanks himself notes that for the Dene, "thematic connections of spiritual power and relationships with ani- mals are more significant than time" (1 996a:906). The

rich historical associations between traditional Sahtu

Dene narratives and the "homes" of those stories on two of the four headlands that physically divide the arms of Great Bear Lake show "the land is alive with

stories which blend the natural and supernatural worlds,

defining [the Sahtu Dene] as people in relationship to

the earth" (ibid. :886, 888).

In 1 997 the Gwichya Gwich'in ofTsiigehtchic in the

western Northwest Territories presented for commemoration, protection, and presentation the segment of the Mackenzie River (Nagwichoonjik) from Thunder River

to Point Separation (Fig. 8), which they identified as

the most significant area of their traditional homeland.

Following Hanks' approach closely, a series of oral

narratives of Raven, Atachukaii, Nagaii, Ahts'an Veh,

and others were closely tied to the identified land and

its defining features (Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute 1 997). The superimposed five period time grouping of the stories served to develop a

holistic understanding of history, encompassing the whole of the land and assigning the

river its meaningful place within it . . .[;] the

stories of their history and the experiences of

their lives on the land . . . [are the] fundamental cultural themes [that demonstrate] the important place the river occupies in Gwichya Gwich'in culture (Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute 1997:824).

The majority of new national historic sites designated

for historic values identified through traditional knowledge and consultation with associated communities

have been in the North. However, Apitipik in Lake

Abitibi, Quebec, designated in 1 996, is the center of

the traditional territory of the Abitibiwinni and of the water routes they used to travel through vast areas.

Their summer gathering and trading place for centuries, with archaeological evidences of 6,000 years of

SUSAN BUGGEY 27
use at Pointe Abitibi, it is also a sacred site to the

Abitibiwinni (Societe MatciteSeia 1 996).

Yuquot in Nootka Sound, British Columbia, designated in 1997, is the center of the Mowachaht world.

Here the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations have lived

since the beginning of time. They have hosted travelers since eighteenth century imperial exploration, developed whaling power of which the Whalers' Washing House is the physical encapsulation, and have deep

spiritual bonds to the "immense natural power and

beauty" of the environment (Mowachaht-Muchalaht,

1 997). The 1 997 designation responded to the request

of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations that "earlier designations be corrected so that our place in history is clear and accurate" and that "a single commemoration of our area [be made] which will bring all

of the history together under the name of Yuquot"

(HSMBC Minutes June 1997).

The 1 990s study of the history of Nunavut from an

Inuit perspective was based on community consultations and elders' judgments and was prepared under

the guidance of an Inuit steering committee with staff and knowledgeable scholars' inputs. It represents an

alternative approach to the commemoration of the history of Aboriginal peoples. Rather than beginning with

the identification of places, it has established a historical and cultural framework for identif/ing places of principal importance to the Inuit. Three principles express

the thematic priorities: enduring use, Inuit culture and

Inuit identity, and regional variation. All center on the

"close traditional relationship between culture and land

use. Many traditional dwelling sites, travel routes, resource harvesting sites, and sacred places have a rich complex of associative values, combining economic,

social, and spiritual purposes in a sequence of annual

movements from place to place, with people gathering

in greater or smaller numbers according to their needs

and opportunities" (Coldring 1 998).

Concurrent with the "Inuit Traditions" study in

Nunavut, the Metis Heritage Association of the North- west Territories played a leading role in the definition

and development of eleven themes related to their

history. Community-based oral histories in addition to

Euro-Canadian accounts incorporated the traditions of

both the Aboriginal and the Euro-Canadian cultures of

Metis heritage. "Picking Up the Threads" documents

traditional history and land use to assist in identif/ing

places significant to the Metis along the Mackenzie

River since the eighteenth century (Payment 1 999).

National Historic Sites with Potential Aboriginal Cultural Landscape Values

A number of national historic sites designated before 1990 for their archaeological, scientific, or historical

values have characteristics that identify their potential

for recognition as evolved or associative cultural landscapes. Commemorated primarily for their capacity

through archaeological resources to represent the significant contribution of Aboriginal peoples to Canada

over an extended period of time, places such as Wodd

Heritage Site Head-Smashed-ln Buffalo Jump (Estipah

skikikini kots), Alberta (National Historic Site [NHS] 1 968; World Heritage Site [WHS] 1981) are recognized and

endorsed by Aboriginal peoples in association with

their cultural heritage. These sites are almost exclusively located in southern Canada (Buggey 1999: 24-

5). In the 1 990s, however, the approach was extended

to a few northern sites, such as The Hay River Mission

Sites on the Hay River Indian Reserve, NWT (NHS 1 992).

Comprising St. Peter's Anglican Church, St. Anne's Ro- man Catholic Church and Rectory, and the two church

cemeteries with their numerous spirit houses, they were

designated for "their close association with a critical

period in Dene /Euro-Canadian relations" (HSMBC Minutes June 1 992). Valued by local Dene for their spiritual

role, they may be seen as part of the larger cultural

landscape of the community. More recently, the Deline

Traditional Fishery and Old Fort Franklin (Fig. 9), NWT

(NHS 1 996), identified for its significant historical associations, was designated as a place that "speak[s] eloquently to the relationship which evolved in the nineteenth century between Aboriginal people in the north

28 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
9/ Deline fishery, a centuhes-old food source of the Sahtu Dene and Metis, at the mouth of the Great Bear River,

Northwest Territories.

and those Euro-Canadian parties who were determined

to explore it," to "the support and assistance of the Dene and Metis people" to Sir John Franklin's second

expedition, and to the impact of Franklin's and later

expeditions on the Aboriginal people of the region,

particularly in contributing "to the emergence of the

Sahtu Dene as a distinctive cultural group." Also, "the

Sahtu Dene see the fishery at Deline as being of particular cultural significance to their occupation of the

region" (Hanks 1996b; HSMBC Minutes November

1 996). The Sahtu Dene's request for protection and

presentation of the site emphasizes the importance of

place as expression of Aboriginal history.

Relict Landscapes

A significant number of other national historic sites are

also designated on the basis of archaeological values

to commemorate the history of Aboriginal peoples that may possess cultural landscape values and that associated peoples might choose to identify as, or within.

Aboriginal cultural landscapes in the context of their

heritage. In addition to the Inuksuit at Enusko Point in

Nunavut, these include relict village sites, other habitation sites, pictograph and petroglyph sites, tipi rings,

burial places, and resource sites, such as quarries. Some

or all of the nine abandoned Haida, Citksan, and

Tsimshian villages in British Columbia, designated NHS

in 1 971 -72, for example, may have Aboriginal heritage

values similar to those identified by the hereditary chiefs

at Nan Sdins (NHS 1981; WHS 1981). Pictograph and

petroglyph sites, widely designated both federally and

provincially across the country, may be significant features in larger cultural landscapes, such as their examination at Kejimkujik demonstrated. Tipi rings are likewise part of broader cultural landscapes, and designated

burial sites could be sacred sites within Aboriginal cultural landscapes. Aboriginal peoples could choose to

identify as Aboriginal cultural landscapes some existing national historic sites designated for other values,

as was done by the Mowachaht-Muchalaht in reclaimSUSAN BUGCEY 29
ing Nootka Sound for their own history at Yuquot

(Mowachaht-IVIuchalaht 1 997). Equally, they might see

existing designations of national historic significance

currently related to events, such as battles, or Aboriginal cultures, as part of their heritage that would be more

effectively commemorated through cultural landscapes.

Some landscapes related to the history of Aboriginal peoples and recognizably of historic value are not

currently identified with a specific people. At Crasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, for example, archaeological analysis of the cultural remains provides

evidence of the diverse activities of occupation spanning 1 0,000 years, but one that ended in the past; currently no people claim a direct association with the

park area (Gary Adams, pers. comm. 1 998). Such landscapes might be addressed as relict landscapes, where

the cultural evolution ended in the past but strong material evidences remain, rather than as Aboriginal cultural landscapes, which involve the participation of associated people(s). This division between places associated with living communities and those known only

by their scientific evidences of the past would be consistent with Australia's separation of "indigenous heritage places of archaeological significance" and "indig- enous places important to the heritage of living cultures" for the identification of environmental indicators

for natural and cultural heritage (Pearson et a! . 1998:1 5-

19,57-76).

Guidelines for the Identification of Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes of National

Historic Significance

How should national significance in Aboriginal cultural landscapes be identified? What does "national significance" mean in the history of Aboriginal peoples?

The HSMBC recognized that its conventional criteria,

structure, and framework for evaluation did not adequately respond to the values inherent in the history

of Aboriginal people. While the Minister of Canadian

Heritage has already designated a number of Aboriginal cultural landscapes, as discussed above, the search

for an appropriate framework to examine significant

places related to the history of Aboriginal peoples continued. Whether Aboriginal peoples are identified by

First Nation, language group, or traditional territory, it

is widely recognized that experiences with the land

vary enormously from place to place in Canada. Historical experiences also differ, as do languages. Beliefs and practices have forms and traditions specific to individual groups. The Report on the Royal Commission on

Aboriginal Peoples identified about sixty distinct groups

in Canada (fifty-six First Nations, four Inuit, and the Metis), based primarily on language. This grouping provides one approach to establishing a comparative context

within which to evaluate places of national historic

significance. Using language group as a field for deter- mining national historic significance is evidently complex. For example, the extensive movements of many

Aboriginal groups through time requires understanding

the distinctions between peoples within groups, such

as the Malecite of New Brunswick and the Malecite of Quebec. The HSMBC also initiated discussion about

using "the traditional territory of an Aboriginal nation .

. . as the comparative universe for the site proposed for commemoration or designation" (Federal Archaeology

Office 1998a:21). Some pilot projects are underway

using the concept of Aboriginal nation as a comparative framework (Lee 2000:5). To date, while both lan- guage group and traditional territory are required aspects of background papers submitted to the HSMBC,

decisions on national historic significance have been

made primarily at the level of the individual First Nation, where language, territory, and history all come

together. Aboriginal cultural landscapes are compatible with these directions.

Guidelines for Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes

In the context of the HSMBC's criteria for national historic significance (HSMBC 1 999), a designated Aboriginal cultural landscape "will illustrate a nationally important aspect of Canadian history." The history of Aboriginal peoples is recognized to be such "a nationally

30 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
important aspect of Canadian iiistory." As a place designated by virtue of its "explicit and meaningful association" with this aspect, an Aboriginal cultural landscape will "illustrate or symbolize in whole or in part a

cultural tradition, a way of life, or ideas important in the development of Canada." The identified elements indicating integrity of a place, except setting, will not normally be essential to understand the significance of an

Aboriginal cultural landscape, and will not, therefore,

generally apply.

The following specific guidelines form the basis for

the HSMBC's examination of the national significance

of Aboriginal cultural landscapes (Buggey 1999:29-31).

1 . The long associated Aboriginal group or groups

have participated in the identification of the place

and its significance, concur in the selection of the

place, and support designation.

This guideline derives from the HSMBC's consistent

direction since 1 990 that Aboriginal peoples will be

consulted, involved, and participating in the identification of frameworks and sites related to their history. It

is consistent with the established consultation process

for Aboriginal heritage sites and the Statement of Principles and Best Practices for Commemorating Aboriginal History (Federal Archaeology Office 1 999). It is

likewise consistent with recommendation 1.7.2 of the

Report on the Royal Commissioti on Aboriginal Peoples

(Canada 1 996).

2. Spiritual, cultural, economic, social, and environ- mental aspects of the group's association with the

identified place, including continuity and traditions,

illustrate its historical significance.

This guideline focuses on the identification of national historic significance through the associated

group's long attachment to the territory, its enduring use and activities, its social and kinship relationships, its intimate knowledge of the area, and its

spiritual affiliation with it.

3. The interrelated cultural and natural attributes of

the identified place make it a significant cultural landscape.

This guideline recognizes the integrated nature of Aboriginal relationship to place, including the inseparability of cultural and natural values. Identified places,

which will likely be of widely diverse types, will illustrate this core interrelationship of cultural and natural

forces that characterizes cultural landscapes. The guideline anticipates that the identification will incorporate

diverse aspects of the group's association extended

through time. Tangible evidences may be largely absent, with the attributes rooted primarily in oral and

spiritual traditions and in activities related to the place.

There may also be tangible attributes, such as natural

resources, archaeological sites, graves, material culture, and written or oral records. The guideline foresees that

the identification of attributes will recognize such physical components as ecosystem, climate, geology, topography, water, soils, viewsheds, and dominant and

culturally significant fauna and flora in the context of

the associated Aboriginal people's relationship to the

place. The Aboriginal expression of these aspects may

occur in animal or other natural metaphors.

4. The cultural and natural attributes that embody

the significance of the place are identified through

traditional knowledge of the associated Aboriginal

group(s).

This guideline anticipates that the traditional knowledge, including traditional environmental knowledge,

will likely encompass narratives, place-names, language,

traditional uses, rituals, and behavior related to the identified place. It recognizes that some knowledge cannot be shared, but available knowledge must be sufficient to demonstrate the significance of the place in

the culture of the associated group.

5. The cultural and natural attributes that embody

the significance of the place additionally may be

comprehended by results of academic scholarship.

This guideline recognizes the contribution that aca- demic scholarship makes to the understanding of place.

History, including oral history and ethnohistory, archaeology, anthropology, and environmental sciences are

the most likely, but not the only, relevant disciplines.

SUSAN BUCCEY 31
Size, Scale, and Boundaries

Identification of Aboriginal cultural landscapes involves

not only understanding the historic value of the place

to be designated, but also specif/ing the boundaries

of the designated place. The size and scale of these

challenge both Aboriginal people and Parks Canada

because of their very differing contexts and views. Aboriginal worldviews focus on land rather than landscape

features, although specific sites certainly have associated cultural significance and oral traditions related to

history. However, given the holistic relationship of

Aboriginal people and the land, such places are seen

primarily not as isolated spots, but as parts of larger

landscapes. Identifiable landscapes may equally be

only parts of still larger cultural landscapes. The

Dogrib sacred sites identified along the Idaa Trail

(Fig. 1 0) illustrate this relationship of sites with the larger

landscape, while the Trail itself is part of the Dogrib

cultural landscape comprising 100,000 square miles. The situation in the Canadian North is little different from the context of the Navajo Nation regarding this

relationship: "the artificial isolation of important places

from the whole landscape of which they are an integral part often violates the very cultural principles that make certain places culturally significant to begin with" (Downer and Roberts 1993:12).

How then are boundaries to be drawn? Aboriginal

cultural landscapes might draw on experience elsewhere

with protected area management. Canada's national

parks use a zoning system to identify park areas requiring different levels of protection and to guide their management use (Parks Canada 1994a: 11.2.2). Bio- sphere reserves also apply a zoning approach that

provides for a core area, a buffer zone, and a transition zone, focused on different levels of protection

and intervention (UNESCO 1 996b: 4). The emergence

of bio-regional planning in protected area management,

applicable to enormous areas such as the 2,000-mile

Yellowstone to Yukon corridor (http://vwvw.Y2Y.net), may

offer some potential applicability for Aboriginal cultural landscapes. Downer and Roberts, who are working with the Navajo Nation in the United States, consider the

"broader context . . . based on landscapes or ecosystems rather than artificially-defined

impact zones ... is emerging from various

disciplines in environmental planning. We are convinced that this is the only realistic approach to meaningful consideration of

traditional cultural properties and the cultural landscapes of which they are integral part"

(Downer and Roberts 1993:14).

Such planning frameworks and co-management ap- proaches (Collings 1 997) may provide opportunities

for developing mechanisms to ensure commemorative

integrity of cultural landscapes such as the designated

area of Nagwichoonjik (Mackenzie River).

In Australia, many Aboriginal sites are discrete areas separated by long distances, but interconnected by

trading routes or the paths of ancestors; they are most

clearly understood when they are recognized as parts

of a network, rather than individual components

(Bridgewater and Hooy 1 995:1 68). "Anangu, whose political system is egalitarian and uncentralised, visualise

places in the landscape as nodes in a network of ancestral tracks. The Anangu landscape is not susceptible

to division into discrete areas" (Layton and Titchen

1 995:1 78). The American "Trail of Tears" National Historic Trail, a multi-route and multi-site network that com- memorates the forced removal, march overland, and

resettlement of the Cherokee (Ani'Yun' wiya) from Georgia, Alabama, and so on, to Oklahoma in 1 838-39, is a

partnership of diverse groups and diverse sites with

linked interpretive programs in nine states. Historian

John Johnston, exploring the adaptation of this concept of nodes to the commemoration of Aboriginal

history in Canada, notes that it applies to "places that

tell an inter-connected story extending over time and

place," such as trails and water routes associated with

seasonal movements for food (Johnston 1 993). Nodes

within a network, each of identified importance, could

be focal points of protection and presentation in a recognized larger cultural landscape.

Noting that there is "sometimes no obviously cor32 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
/ 0/ Kwikati or "Fence Narrows Lake, " on the Idad Trail, Northwest Territories. Dogrib hunters would erect a fence on the spring lake ice to lead migratory caribou to an ambush location, seen at the bottom of the photograph.

rect boundary, " the U.S. National Park Service indicates

that the selection of boundaries for traditional cultural

properties should be based on the characteristics of

the historic place, specifically how the place is used

and why the place is important (King and Townsend

n.d.). In several respects, the American approach can

be recognized in existing national historic site designations of Aboriginal cultural landscapes in Canada. At

Kejimkujik, for example, the existing national park

boundaries defined a sufficiently large and appropriate area of traditional Mi'kmaq occupancy to represent the larger Mi'kmaq landscape. While in this case

administrative convenience provided the basis for accepted boundaries, it is not a recommended selection

approach. At Arvia'juaq and Qikiqtaarjuk, clearly defined geographical features—an island and a point—

with strong spiritual, social, economic, and archaeological values related to the Caribou Inuit culture, identified the boundaries. Given the importance of the adjacent waters to the cultural significance, future consideration might be given to defining site boundaries

that include the key water areas. At Sahyoue/

Edacho (Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass Hills;

Fig. 1 1 ), where the designated sites are also two clearly

defined land areas related to water, the site analysis

and discussion of values effectively articulate the

significant cultural relationships of the larger Great

Bear Lake landscape. Also, the historic values of the viewsheds at this site are particularly significant in

the identification of objectives for the "health" of

the site. While discrete geographical features can be

very useful in identifying boundaries, it is evident that

the values for which the place is to be designated

must dominate in establishing appropriate boundaries.

The scale of Aboriginal cultural landscapes and the

definition of their boundaries provide significant challenges to the approach of commemorative integrity,

which underlies Parks Canada's national historic sites

SUSAN BUCCEY 33
commemorative program. Securing the "health or

wholeness" of these vast areas may require close examination of the current understanding of the concept

as it applies to historic place, historic values, and objectives for large cultural landscapes.

Protection for Aboriginal Cultural

Landscapes

Protection of cultural landscapes in Canada's North

begins with respect for the values, uses, and behaviors

associated with the landscape so that enduring relationships with the land continue. Integrating management of the cultural landscape into the life of the community and using community traditions and practices

for protection and presentation are essential to the long- term "health" of the cultural landscape. The increased

role of communities in influencing how lands, waters and resources are managed relates decision-making

about places more closely to those whose lives and

livelihoods are integrated with them. Land claim agree- ments provide powers and structures which can be applied to cultural landscapes. Co-management, a wellestablished approach to renewable resources, can apply equally to cultural heritage, while long-practiced

economic activities such as traditional harvesting should

be actively encouraged. Conservation and presentation objectives must be integrated with community priorities, community issues, and community structures.

Protection for Aboriginal cultural landscapes needs to be integrated with local planning, economic development, tourism initiatives, and their associated funding

sources. Documentation and identification are important

tools for protecting cultural landscapes. Where legislation exists, it tends to be enabling rather than prescriptive and to separate natural and cultural resources in a manner inconsistent with the values of the cultural landscape. When direct threats to the cultural landscape

occur, the time frame is too short to carry out the

research necessary to respond to them. Without documentation and identification derived from long-term

recording of traditional knowledge and inventory of

sites, the information base needed to apply existing

tools available within planning and environmental as- sessment processes is missing. Designation of a National Historic Site recognizes and commemorates the

historic value of a place, but it does not carry any legal

or protective measures for the designated place. Designation may provide access to financial and technical

assistance, such as the National Cost-Sharing Program,

however, and it may carry moral suasion which builds

public recognition and support and opens access to

the resources of granting agencies. Traditionally, the most common protection technique for National Historic Sites was transfer of land to the federal crown, in

the name of Parks Canada, under the National Parks

Act; this approach is now extremely rare. In the absence of specific protective mechanisms, a number of

planning tools may be applied to the conservation of

places of recognized historic value, and management

approaches which protect the character of a cultural

landscape may be supported through various planning

processes. One direct protective measure, which has recently

been applied to Sahyoue/Edacho (Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass Hills), is land withdrawal for

conservation purposes under a federal Order in Council. In 2000 strongly focused Sahtu Dene community

action at Deline, with coordinated activity by environmental organizations such as the Canadian Parks and

Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and the World Wildlife Fund

Canada (WWF), pushed the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs to withdraw land at Sahyoue/Edacho from development.

This status was accorded in February 2001 for a period

of five years to provide a period of protection while

stakeholders determine the most effective mechanism

for long-term protection of the site. The interim mechanism addresses the ever-present threat to landscape

integrity from mining development by including sur34 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
1 1 / /A campsite at Sahyoue (Grizzly Bear Mountain), a sacred site rich in traditional narrative to the Sahtu Dene,

overlooking the western end of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories.

face and subsurface rights in the portion of the site

that is federal crown land and subsurface rights in the

portion of the site owned by the Sahtu Dene First Nation, currently not covered by the Sahtu Dene and Metis

Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement. The interim land

withdrawal implements the Protected Areas Strategy for

the Northwest Territories, which provides for analysis

and assessment of options as basis for decision-making (CPAWS 2001 ; Canada 2001 ). This process should

result in identification and implementation of how the two peninsulas will be managed for long-term protection.

Recent land claim agreements in the North provide

for various integrated management structures for decision-making related to heritage places. Cooperative

management boards, regional boards, territorial heritage boards, parks planning and management boards

for national parks, and joint working groups are identified mechanisms for achieving participation (Lee 1 997).

Chapters on Special Management Areas (Ch. 1 0) and Heritage (Ch.l3) in the Council for Yukon First Nations'

Umbrella Final Agreement (1 993) and subsequent individual Yukon First Nations' Final Agreements provide

for designation, management planning, and economic

opportunities in sites valued by the respective peoples.

All incorporate the values of Yukon First Nations People,

the equitable involvement of Yukon First Nations and

Government, and First Nations' ownership as key components in managing places related to their culture and

history within Settlement Land. Some agreements include joint management of specific sites, some provide for the withdrawal of prospecting, mining, petroSUSAN BUCCEY 35
leum exploration, and coal rights at specified sites, and some identify culturally valued heritage areas (Canada

1 993: Ch.l 0, 1 3). The Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites

Joint Working Croup, established under the Sahtu Dene

and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement (1 993)

to consider and make recommendations to appropriate

governments and the Sahtu Tribal Council on Sahtu

heritage places, resulted directly from the land claim

agreement (Sahtu 2000:1 1; see Andrews, this volume).

In Nunavut, following from the Nunavut Land Claims

Agreement (1 993), Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreements

ensure integration of the regional economy and Inuit

culture in all planning and development, including national parks.

Land use planning direction and related decisions

that affect cultural landscapes can be key components

of a protection strategy. Opportunities may lie in provisions of the Yukon First Nations Final Agreements:

To identify and mitigate the impact of

development upon Heritage Resources through integrated resource development

including land use planning and development assessment processes. . . . [And] to ensure that social, cultural, economic and

environmental policies are applied to the management, protection and use of land, water and resources in an integrated and

coordinated manner so as to ensure

Sustainable Development.

Some agreements specify that the cultural and heritage significance of an identified list of trails, caribou

fences, fishing holes, gathering places, and spiritual

sites, and any impacts upon them, will be taken into

consideration in land use planning and development

assessment (Canada 1 993: Ch. 1 1, 1 3). These resources

are largely identified as specific features rather than

cultural landscapes, and some agreements are explicit

that there is no commitment by any of the parties to

maintaining them or to guaranteeing their continued

existence in their current state. Tr'ochek Heritage Site on the Yukon River, identified for its cultural significance

in the Tr'ondek Hwech'in Final Agreement (1 998), however, was designated a national historic site in 2002

on the basis of its value as an Aboriginal cultural landscape, and its management plan was completed in 2003

ar'ochek 2001 , 2002; Neufeld 2001 ).

At the Fall Caribou Crossing and Arvia'juaq National

Historic Sites, the Conservation and Presentation Reports and associated data were delivered to the Nunavut

Planning Commission to ensure that information about

the importance, values and objectives of the sites was

available for use in planning processes. Inuktitut place- names, oral traditions, and archaeological sites have

been recorded and entered into geographical information systems (CIS); the Nunavut Planning Commission

will maintain CIS data bases for both sites. Provisions were introduced into the Keewatin Regional Land Use

Plan to provide protection from development in the

historic site area in accordance with the objective that

"low impact land use is practised including the absence

of permanent structures". The Hamlet Councils of Baker

Lake and Arviat, the Baker Lake Hunters and Trappers,

and the Kivalliq Inuit Association all supported the

prohibition of new permanent structures to avoid

damaging archaeological resources and disturbing

movement of caribou (Harvaqtuuq 1997:7.12,7.13;

Arviat 1997:7.12,7.13). A copy of the Conservation

and Presentation Report for the Fall Caribou Crossing was also sent to the Nunavut Water Board because of

concern about developments that might adversely affect the water quality and water levels of the Kazan

River (Harvaqtuuq 1997:7.20; also Fig. 12). For the

Deline fishery, a water and fisheries management plan was recommended (Sahtu 2000:38). In British Columbia a program of traditional use studies in the Aboriginal Affairs Branch of the Ministry of Forests had provided assistance to First Nations to investigate, record and develop data bases of traditional knowledge and

places that enable First Nations to respond to planning enquiries and threats to traditional use sites on

an informed basis (British Columbia 1 996).

Aboriginal communities can also develop certain

protective mechanisms for cultural landscapes within

existing authorities such as land management pow36 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
/ 2/ The Kazan River at Piqqiq, a fall hunting camp in the land of the Harvaqtuurmiut, Nunavut.

ers. As Brian Reeves reports for Ninaistakis (Chief Mountain), regulating non-traditional visitor activities, stopping non-traditional resource use, guaranteeing free- dom of use for traditional religious practices, completing biophysical and cultural inventories, fixing the trail

system, and coordinating land use regulation with

neighbouring authorities are among the strategies that may be applied (Reeves 1 994:285-8). Canada can continue to learn about protective mechanisms for Aboriginal cultural landscapes from Australia's long experience such as the Northern Territory's Aboriginal Sacred Sites Act (1989), which provides blanket protection for sacred sites, and its Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority, which is required to inventory any area,

if requested, to identify the existence of sacred sites in

the vicinity of proposed capital works (Ritchie 1 994:239).

Conservation planning tools may also help to protect cultural landscapes. Based on principles rather than

prescriptive actions, they can be rooted in community

values and encompass community practices. In 1996

the Harvaqtuuq Historic Site Committee and the Harvaqtuurmiut (Kazan River) Elders, with Parks Canada, de- veloped a Commemorative Integrity Statement (CIS)

for the Fall Caribou Crossing National Historic Site. A

CIS describes the historic values and management objectives and, subsequently, directs the core development of a management plan for the designated place.

The CIS for the Fall Caribou Crossing NHS identified a number of values and measures to determine whether

the historic place and its components are unimpaired

or not under threat: Inuit traditional beliefs and practices are respected and the wishes of the elders are

respected in their treatment; oral histories and traditions are recorded, interpreted and transmitted to future

generations; archaeological remains are undisturbed by

human intervention unless related to research; low impact land use is practised including the absence of per- manent structures; and the health of the Kaminuriak

caribou herd and of the Kazan River is properly monitored (Harvaqtuuq 1 996:C.2.0-2.5). A management

SUSAN BUCCEY 37
plan will elaborate how such objectives are to be

achieved. The Plan ofManagement for \J\uru-KataJjuta

National Park in Australia offers a model for managing

a site based on the values of the traditional owners. A

joint management board of Anangu people and other

Australians with relevant knowledge and expertise co- manage the site in accordance with Tjukurpa, "the Law

which governs all aspects of Anangu life." The Tjukurpa

provides the core direction for management objectives and management commitments and is integrated

in all aspects of park decision-making (Uluru 1991,

2000). While the operational scale of Uluru-Kata Tjuta

is very different from cultural landscapes in Canada's

North, the principles of its management plan, which

roots park management in the values of the Anangu

people, and the detailed translation of those principles

into objectives and actions, may prove useful for extending the directions of the Fall Caribou Crossing site's

Conservation and Presentation Report and for man- agement planning for Aboriginal cultural landscapes in Canada.

The 1 997 Consen/ation and Presentation Report,

prepared for a Cost-Sharing Agreement between the Harvaqtuuq Historic Site Committee of Baker Lake and

Parks Canada for the Fall Caribou Crossing NHS, illustrates the attributes essential to the protection of Aboriginal cultural landscapes (Harvaqtuuq 1 997). Its strat- egy for protecting the cultural landscape identifies goals

and actions for oral traditions, archaeological sites, artifact collections, place-names, landscape, the river, and

the Kaminuriak caribou herd. It likewise addresses coordination of heritage activity and cultural tourism potential for the remote site. The agreement, now in effect, provides resources for implementing specific aspects of the strategy. Limited funding in the face of numerous demands for assistance under the National

Cost-Sharing Program is, however, a severe constraint on its accessibility and effectiveness for protecting

Aboriginal cultural landscapes.

Long term integrity of cultural landscapes may be

aided by careful evaluation within established environmental assessment processes of the impacts of pro- posed development on the values of the place. The

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) appears

to offer some opportunities for protection relevant to

Aboriginal cultural landscapes. In the definition of environmental effect, the act includes;

any change that the project may cause in the environment, including any effects of such

change ... on physical and cultural heritage, on the current use of lands and resources for

traditional purposes by aboriginal persons, or on any structure, site or thing that is of

historical, archaeological, paleontological or

architectural significance (Sec.2[l]).

Given the integrated nature of natural and cultural values in cultural landscapes, inclusion of traditional knowl- edge in the evaluation process will be critical to the

integrity of the landscape and to the determination of

actions to prevent or mitigate impacts of exploration,

extraction, and harvesting activities. Most recent land

claims agreements provide for joint federal, provincial

and territorial environmental assessment processes as do federal-provincial harmonization agreements (Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency 1996).

Monitoring can be a useful strategy for protection

of the Aboriginal cultural landscape. At the Fall Cari- bou Crossing National Historic Site, a Guardian Monitoring Program carried out by community members reports on significant changes, threats or looting to the

site observed during occasional visits, including the

river, the caribou, and archaeological sites. Traditional

techniques for monitoring natural resources can also be useful for recognizing and identifying certain

changes in Aboriginal cultural landscapes. Australia's

State of the Environment Reporting includes indicators

for monitoring indigenous places important to the heritage of living cultures which concentrate on "the recognition of the expertise of Indigenous people in managing and conserving their heritage places and objects and their right to be active participants in the

interpretation and management of these places and

objects" (Pearson et al. 1998:72).

38 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
Critical to protection of Aboriginal cultural landscapes is the continued recording of Elders' experience of the land, of its names and places, of its sacred

sites, of the traditional narratives of the culture, and the

transfer of the Elders' knowledge to youth. The importance of the people associated with the place being

active in the interpretation program and in telling their

stories in their own voices is also integral to protection of the cultural landscape and its meaning.

Looking Forward

The measures described above are all soft actions for

protecting landscapes in the North. In recent years, there

has been increasing public dismay and Ministerial concern that federal designation does not imply any legal

protection for national historic sites or any on-going

Parks Canada involvement in protection and presentation of the site. The Historic Places Initiative, an undertaking of Parks Canada's National Historic Sites pro- gram and the Department of Canadian Heritage with provincial and territorial partners, is developing a strategy

with multi-purpose tools for preservation of historic places,

including consultation with Aboriginal groups and tools

for Aboriginal engagement (Canadian Heritage 2003).

The Report of the Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites Joint Working Group observes that existing protective legislation in the Northwest Territories is almost all devoted

to protecting natural landscapes and features. Although

the sites identified through the Croup's research all

include natural landscapes or features, the primary value

of these sites is their cultural significance. The report

urges the federal and territorial governments to develop legislation "which will commemorate and protect cultural landscapes" (Sahtu 2000:25). The Govern- ment of the Northwest Territories has now begun to explore a new heritage policy and revisions to the

Historical Resources Act. The approach outlined in this paper represents work

in progress, part of a much larger and on-going dialogue involving many people. This continuing exploration of documentation, identification, designation.

protection, presentation, and management focuses

upon the symbiotic relationship that Aboriginal people

have with the land. These places are not relicts but

living landscapes; the cosmological, mythological, and

spiritual world of a people who have lived with them

in the enduring seasonal round of day-to-day activities where nature and culture are inseparable. Bequeathed

through oral tradition from generation to generation.

Aboriginal traditional knowledge connects these spiritual relationships through narratives, place names, sacred sites, rituals, and behaviour patterns that are tied

to the spirits of the land.

Protection of Aboriginal cultural landscapes even where there is broad agreement on significance remains

a challenge. The complex interaction of natural, cultural and spiritual values that characterizes these landscapes lies outside most established conservation frameworks. Recent changes are, however, beginning to broaden these processes from "islands" to "networks".

Identifying places people value, documenting them,

defining their significance, and managing them in ac- cordance with those values and significance are key

steps toward their protection. The powers of land claim agreements and the emergence of collaborative processes such as the Protected Areas Strategy for the

Northwest Territories to provide tools for communitybased action offer opportunities for broader use of existing frameworks, such as planning processes, to manage and protect Aboriginal cultural landscapes.

Acknowledgments

This paper draws substantially on a study prepared for

Parks Canada to assist the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in recognizing place as an integral focus of its approach to the commemoration of

the history of Aboriginal peoples. I am grateful to the numerous people in many programs and organizations

who generously shared their knowledge, perspectives,

and experiences on various aspects of this subject. I would like particularly to acknowledge insights shared

in conversations and writings by Thomas D. Andrews,

SUSAN BUCCEY 39
Christopher HanksJoann Latremouille, Ellen Lee, George

MacDonald, Isabel McBryde, Sheryl Smith, and Josie

Weninger.

References

Andrews, Thomas D.

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Canada. Privy Council Office

1 996 Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal

Peoples, vol. IV. Ottawa: Privy Council Office.

Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency

1 996 TheCanadian EnvironmentalAssessmentAct Ref

erence Guide on Physical and Cultural Heritage Resources. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada.

Canadian Heritage

2003 Towards a New Act: Protecting Canada's His- toric Places, http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/ieh-hpi/

pubs/0-622-66831 -6/00_e.cfm

Collings, Peter 1997 The Cultural Context of Wildlife Management

in the Canadian North. In Contested Arctic: Indig- enous Peoples, Industrial States, and the Circumpolar

Environment, Eric Alden Smith and Joan McCarter, eds., pp. 1 3-40. Seattle: University of Washington and

University of Washington Press. Craik, Brian, and Bill Namagoose

1992 Environment and Heritage. The Point-of-View of the Crees of Quebec. ICOMOS Canada Bulletin, l(l):17-22.

Dick, Lyie, and Barbara Wilson

n.p. Presentation, 20 April 1 998 in Cultural Land- scapes course, HA 489G, University of Victoria. Downer, Alan S., and Alexandra Roberts

1993 Traditional Cultural Properties, Cultural Re- sources Management and Environmental Planning.

In Traditional Cultural Properties, Patricia L. Parker,

ed., pp 12-15. CRM 16. Washington D.C.: National Park Service. Federal Archaeology Office [Parks Canada]

1 998a Commemorating National Historic Sites with Aboriginal Peoples' History: An Issue Analysis. HSMBC

Agenda Papers, #1998-A01. Copies available from

National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

1999 Update on 'Commemorating National Historic Sites Associated with Aboriginal Peoples' History: An Issue Analysis. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1 999-1 1 . Copies

available from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Goldring, P. 1998 InuitTraditions: A history ofNunavut for the His- toric Sites and Monuments Board of Canada and the People of Nunavut. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1998-

OBl. Copies available from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Goldring, P., and C. Hanks

1991 Commemoration of Northern Native History.

HSMBC Report to the Cultural Pluralism Committee,

#1991-13. Copies available from National Historic

Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute

1 997 'That River, It's Like a Highway for Us": The

Mackenzie River through Gwichya Gwich 'in History and

Culture. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1 997-30. Copies

available from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

40 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
Hanks, Christopher C.

1 996a Narrative and Landscape: Grizzly Bear Mountain and Scented Grass Hills as Repositories ofSahtu

Dene Culture. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1996-61.

Copies available from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

1996b The 1825-26 Wintering Place of Sir John

Franklin's Second Expedition: A Dene Perspective.

HSMBC Agenda Papers,# 1996-24. Copies avail- able from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

1993 Bear Rock, Red Dog Mountain, and the Windy

Island to Shelton Lake Trail: Proposals for the commemoration of the cultural heritage of Denendeh,

and the history of the Shu'tagot'ine. Canadian Parks

Service, National Historic Sites Directorate, contract

no. 1632-929220.

Hanks, Christopher C, and David L Pokotylo

1 989 The Mackenzie Basin: An Alternative Approach

to Dene and Metis Archaeology. Arctic 42(2)A 39-47. Harvaqtuuq Historic Site Committee and Parks

Canada

1 997 Fall Caribou Crossing National Historic Site Conservation and Presentation Report. On file with Parks Canada

Henderson, Lyie

1 995 Arviaq and Qikiqtaarjuk. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1995-29. Copies available from National Historic

Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada

(HMSBC)

n.p. Criteria for National Historic Significance, http://

crm.cr.nps.gov/issue.cfm?volume=l 6 &number=SI

Johnson, Martha

1995 Documenting Traditional Environmental

Knowledge: the Dene, Canada. In Listening for a

Change: Oral Testimony and Community Development,

Hugo Slim and Paul Thompson, et al., eds., pp. 1 1 6-

25. Philadelphia PA and Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers. Johnston, A.J.B.

n.p. Partnerships and Linkage in Native History In- terpretation: Examples from the United States. Re- port to Historical Services Branch, National Historic

Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Keith, Darren

1 995 The Fall Caribou Crossing Hunt, Kazan River,

Northwest Territories. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1 995-

28. Copies available from National Historic Sites Di- rectorate, Parks Canada.

King, Thomas F., and Jan Townsend, writers and

compilers

n.d. Through the Generations: Identifying and Protect- ing Traditional Cultural Places, Ed Dalheim in association with Pavlik and Associates, video producers.

Available from National Park Service. Layton, Robert, and Sarah Titchen

1995 Uluru: An Outstanding Australian Aboriginal

Cultural Landscape. In Cultural Landscapes ofUniversal Value: Components of a Global Strategy, Bernd von Droste, et al., eds., pp. 174-81. Jena: Gustav

Fischer Verlag in cooperation with UNESCO.

Lee, Ellen 2000 Cultural Connections to Land: A Canadian Ex- ample. Pc?r/(s 1 0(2):3-l 2.

n.p. Aboriginal Heritage Issues in Canadian Land

Claims Negotiations. Paper presented at the Fulbright

Symposium Aboriginal Cultures in an Interconnected

World, Darwin, Australia, 1 997.

Lee, Ellen, and LyIe Henderson

1992 Hatzic Rock Comparative Report. HSMBC

Agenda Papers, #1992-04. Copies available from

National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

McNeely, Jeffrey A. 1995 Coping with Change: People, Forests, and

Biodiversity. The George Wright Forum 1 2(3):57-73.

Mi'kmaq Elders and Parks Canada

1 994 Mi 'kmaq Culture History, KeJImkuJik National Park, Nova Scotia. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1 994-36. Copies available from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Mohs, Gordon

1994 St:oto Sacred Ground. In Sacred Sites, Sacred

Places. David L Carmichael et al., eds., pp. 1 84-208.

One World Archaeology 23. London and New York: Routledge.

Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations

1997 Yuquot. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1997-31.

Copies available from National Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Parks Canada

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Sites Directorate.

1 994a Guiding Principles and Operational Policies. Ot- tawa: Department of Canadian Heritage.

1 994b National Workshop on the History of Aborigi- nal Peoples in Canada, Draft Report of Proceedings.

On file with Parks Canada

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Historic Site Committee and the Harvaqtuurmiut

(Kazan River) Elders

n.p. Fall Caribou Crossing National Historic Site Commemorative Integrity Statement (draft). Payment, Diane P.

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Metis History in the Mackenzie Basin ([Yellowknife

NVVT|: Metis Heritage Association of the Northwest

Territories and Parks Canada, 31 3p., 1998), HSMBC

agenda paper #1 999-49. Copies available from NaSUSAN BUCCEY 41
tional Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Pearson, M., D. Johnston, J. Lennon, I. McBryde,

D. Marshall, D. Nash, and B. Wellington

1 998 Environmental Indicators for National State of the Environment Reporting: Natural and Cultural

Heritage. Environment Indicator Reports. Canberra,

Australia: State of the Environment.

Reeves, Brian

1 994 Ninaistakis: the Nitsitapii's Sacred Mountain.

Traditional Native Religious Activities and Land

Use/Tourism Conflicts. In Sacred Sites, Sacred

Places. David L. Carmichael et al., eds., pp. 265-

95. One World Archaeology 23. London and New

York: Routledge.

Ridington, Robin

1990 Little Bit Know Something: Stories in a Lan- guage of Anthropology. Vancouver: Douglas &

Mclntyre.

Ritchie, David

1 994 Principles and Practice of Site Protection

Laws in Australia. In Sacred Sites, Sacred Places. David L. Carmichael et al. eds., pp. 227-44. One

World Archaeology 23. London and New York:

Routledge.

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2 000 Rakekee Gok'e Godi: Places We Take Care

Of Report of the Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites Working Croup (Yellowknife NWT). http://

pwnhc.learnnet. nt.ca/ re search/Places/

execsum.html

Societe MatciteSeia and the Community of

Pikogan

1996 Abitihi. HSMBC Agenda Papers, #1996-64.

Copies available from National Historic Sites Di- rectorate, Parks Canada.

Stoddard, N.,

1 969 Inukshuks, Likenesses ofMen. HSMBC Agenda

Papers, #1969-60. Copies available from National

Historic Sites Directorate, Parks Canada.

Uluru-Kata TJuta Board of Management and

Parks Australia

2000 TJukurpa Katutja Ngarantja. Uluru-Kata Tjuta

National Park Plan of Management, http://

vwvw.deh.gov.au/parks/publications/uluru-pom.html

Uluru-Kata TJuta Board of Management and

Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service

1991 Uluru (Ayers Rock-Mount Olga) National Park

Plan of Management. Canberra: Uluru-Kata Tjuta

Management, ANPWS

UNESCO

1 996a Clauses 23-42. World Heritage Convention

Operational Guidelines, http://whc.unesco.org/

archive/out/g uide96.htm

1 996b Biosphere Reserves: The Seville Strategy and

the Statutory Framework of the World Network.

Paris: UNESCO.

Appendix 1

Recommendations by the Historic Sites and

Monuments Board of Canada Related to Designated Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes (As

of 1 999)

Abitibi, Quebec [Abitibiwinni] (November,] 996)

"Both a traditional summering area and a sacred

place for the Algonquin;

importance not only to the Pikogan community,

whose origins predate the meeting of the Abitibi and the French in the 1 7"" century, but also by

the Wahgoshing community of Ontario;

vestiges of various periods of occupation by the

Abitibi Algonquin dating as far back as 6,000 years.

. .numerous trading posts which operated there from

the 1 7'^ century onward."

Arvia'Juaq and Qikiqtaarjuk, Nunavut [Inuit]

(July, 1995)

"Speaks eloquently to the cultural, spiritual, and

economic life of the Inuit in the Keewatin region . .

. focusing on . . . coastal activities carried out by

the communit[y] of Arviat . . .site of particular sig- nificance to the community."

Fall Caribou Crossing Hunt site, Kazan River,

Nunavut [Inuit] (July, 1995)

"Speaks eloquently to the cultural, spiritual, and

economic life of the Inuit in the Keewatin region . .

. focusing on the inland or caribou hunt . . . carried out by the communit[y] of Baker Lake . . . site of

particular significance to the community."

Grizzly Bear Mountain andScented Grass Hills, Northwest Territories [Sahtu Dene] (November, 1 996)

"Associative cultural landscapes of national historic significance;

cultural values expressed through the interrelation- ship between the landscape, oral histories, graves, and cultural resources, such as trails and cabins, help

to explain and contribute to an understanding of

the origin, spiritual values, lifestyle and land-use of

the Sahtu Dene."

42 STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
Mi'kmaq Cultural Landscape ofKeJimkuJik National

Park, Nova Scotia [Mi'kmaq] (November, 1994)

"The cultural landscape of Kejimkujik National Park which attests to 4000 years of Mi'kmaq occupancy

of this area, and which includes petroglyph sites, habitation sites, habitation sites, fishing sites, hunting territories, travel routes, and burials."

Nagwichoonjik [Mackenzie River] from Thunder River

to Point Separation, Northwest Territories [Cwichya

Gwich'in](June, 1997)

"Its prominent position within the Gwichya Cwich'in

cultural landscape;

flows through Cwichya Cwich'in traditional homeland, and is culturally, socially, and spiritually sig- nificant to the people;

importance of the river through their oral histories, which trace important events from the beginning of the land to the present.. .names given along the river, stories associated with these areas, and the experi- ence drawn from these stories;

transportation route, allowing Gwichya Cwich'in to gather in large numbers . . . during the summer;

archaeological evidence . . . extensive precontact

fisheries and stone quarries, ensuring Cwichya

Cwich'in survival through the centuries."

Xd.ytem (Hatzic Rock), British Columbia [Sto.lo First Nation] (November 1 997; February, 1992)

Cost-sharing recommended

"The age of the Hatzic Rock site and its close as- sociation to a transformer site of clear importance

to the St6:l6 people."

Yuquot, British Columbia [Mowachaht-Muchalaht

First Nations] (Ji^f^e, 1997)

"The ancestral home of the Mowachaht and the centre of their social, political and economic

world;

continuously occupied for over 4,300 years, the

village became the capital for all 1 7 tribes of

the Nootka Sound region;

also the area where Nuu-chah-nulth whaling originated and developed and the site of the Whaler's

Washing House, the most significant monument

associated with Nuu-chah-nulth whaling;

"focal point of diplomatic and trading activity of Canada's west coast in late 18"' century."

Appendix 2

Recommendations by the Historic Sites and

Monuments Board of Canada Related to Potential Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes (As of

1999)

Deline Traditional Fisheryand Old Fort Franklin, Northwest Territories [Sahtu Dene] (1 996)

"The traditional Dene fishery at Deline. ..its use

over time and the long history of sharing its re- sources, as well as the remains of Fort Franklin, the wintering quarters of Sir John Franklin's sec- ond expedition;

they speak eloquently to the relationship which

evolved in the ]9^^ century between Aboriginal

people in the north and those Euro-Canadian parties who were determined to explore it;

impact of the Franklin expedition and those

which were to follow on the Aboriginal people

of the region contributed to the emergence of the Sahtu Dene as a distinctive cultural group

and the Sahtu Dene see the fishery at Deline as being of particular cultural significance to their occupation of the region."

Hay River Mission Sites, Hay River Indian Reserve,

Northwest Territories (1992)

"Close association with a critical period in Dene/

Euro-Canadian relations;

two churches, rectory and two cemeteries with numerous spirit houses—significant features in a

cultural landscape, rather than the landscape itself."

Head-Smashed-ln Buffalo Jump [Estipah

skikikini kots]. Alberta [Niitsitapi/Blackfoot]

World Heritage Site (1981);

"Bison jump representing communal way of hunting for thousands of years (1 968)."

Appendix 3

Designations/Other Recognitions by Territorial Governments Related to Aboriginal

Cultural Landscapes (As of 1 999)

British Columbia

No designations of Aboriginal cultural landscapes

as such;

SUSAN BUGGEY 43
multi-agency Land Use Coordination Office plays

coordinating role for protected areas, including strat- egy, communications, land use planning;

provincial parks created with historical importance

to Aboriginal groups; some co-managed through

planning processes;

program of traditional use studies under the Aboriginal Affairs Branch of the Ministry of Forests; no

designation, but inventory and recording activities of traditional knowledge and places that enable First Nations to develop information bases from which

to respond to planning inquiries and threats to tra- ditional use sites.

Newfoundland and Labrador

No designations or commemorations of cultural landscapes where the heritage values are primarily

associated with Aboriginal peoples.

Northwest Territories/Nunavut

No designations of Aboriginal cultural landscapes

as such;

extensive inventory and mapping programs have

recorded locations and traditional knowledge re- lated to places of significance to Aboriginal

peoples;

Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites Joint Working Group

established under Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, sec. 26.4, to consider and make recommendations to the appropriate governments and the Sahtu Tribal Council on

Sahtu heritage places; report Rakekee Cok'e Codi: Places We Take Care of(2000);

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre website

with school programs focused on traditional knowledge and an 1

1 ,000-entry geographical names da- tabase ( http://pwnhc.learnnet.nt.ca).

Quebec

No designations of Aboriginal cultural landscapes

as such;

1 1 3 archaeological sites classified under the Loi

sur les blens culturels have at least one occupation

by Aboriginal people; most (84) are identified in category 3 (site, bien ou monument historique ou

archeologique) with many (24) in category 5 (dans un arrondissement historique);

provincial law provides for designations and protection under municipal rather than provincial juris- diction; federal ownership precludes provincial designation on reserve lands;

White Mountain, Lake Mistassini was classified as an archaeological site under the provincial law

when it was first in effect; designation and protection apply to the whole mountain, and the cultural value of the area as a sacred place is acknowledged although the classification applies specifically to archaeological significance;

other places, such as the sacred mountain in Monteregie, are known to have significance to Aboriginal peoples;

Yukon

No designations of Aboriginal cultural landscapes

as such;

authority exists under the Yukon Historic Resources

Act;

identification of Special Management Areas under

the Yukon Land Claim, such as Old Crow Flats and

Fishing Branch (Vuntut Gwich'in) or Scottie Creek

wetlands (White River First Nation), answer in part the need to recognize landscape areas that are in need of special protection/ management by vir- tue of their historical/cultural and present signifi- cance to a First Nation;

First Nations have identified trails to be of heritage

interest; awareness also exists of some other land- scapes of particular significance to Aboriginal

peoples, e.g. Dalton Trail, Beaver House Mountain on the Dempster Highway;

land use planning and development awareness re- view may address development, land use, or other planning issues that involve landscapes of signifi- cance to First Nations.

STATE POLICIES/ CANADA
Protecting; th nog;rap hie

Landscapes in /\las!<:a:

(_J.^. poiicies and practices

RACHEL MASON

Alaska, the "Last Frontier" according to its state motto,

is a special case in the United States perspective on

ethnographic landscapes. Alaska is different from other

states, both in the ways people are tied to the land and

in the laws and policies affecting land uses. Three themes

unique to Alaska characterize the contrasting perspectives on its landscape: subsistence, wilderness, and frontier opportunity.

Subsistence, in Alaska, refers to the traditional harvest, processing, and distribution of wild plants and animals, activities with cultural significance beyond their

nutritional value. The older generation passes down

traditional knowledge about subsistence to younger

people, including geographic information about locations of animals and their migration routes. Native Alas- kan subsistence activities began thousands of years

before Western contact.

Frontier opportunities were launched when the first Europeans came to Alaska. Beginning with the establishment of a Russian fur-trading colony in the eighteenth century, non-Native people have rushed to Alaska

to reap profit from its abundant natural resources. In

addition to fur harvests, other extractive industries have

included fishing, mining, timber, and oil development.

Non-Natives have also come to Alaska to enjoy

recreational adventures such as fishing, hunting,

kayaking, or hiking in its vast wilderness. The scale and remoteness of the Alaska landscape continue to awe visitors and faraway admirers. The Western concept of wilderness is related to the idea of the frontier.

since both are considered untouched, uncharted territories. The difference is that wilderness is to be appreciated in its pristine state, while a frontier must be conquered.

Denali Landscapes

Denali National Park and Preserve (NPP), the state's most popular tourist attraction, illustrates both the appeal of Alaska's large-scale landscapes and the complex problems of protecting and managing them. The

different uses of the Denali landscape evoke the three themes of the Alaska landscape—subsistence, wilderness, and frontier opportunity (Fig. 1 3). The park, centered on the highest peak in the Alaska Range, until

1 980 was called Mt. McKinley National Park.

Alaska Natives traditionally used the park area for many subsistence activities. They concentrated on moose and caribou hunting on the lower elevations of

the region and did not usually have a reason to climb

the big mountain now called Mt. McKinley. Archaeological evidence shows that the Dry Creek site, north- west of the park near the present-day community of

Healy, was a specialized sheep, bison, and elk hunting

camp as much as 1 1,000 years ago (Brown 1991:4).

Like the original users of this site, Athapaskans in the

historical period traveled in small family groups in summer, and gathered in larger bands in winter. Their eco- nomic unit was a two-family household, and the local band was made up of two to five such households.

Fishing was secondary to hunting in their seasonal

45
round. Moose became more important than caribou in

the late precontact period (Brown 1 991 :8-l 0). Speakers of five Athapaskan languages used the

park: Tanana, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim (Kolchan),

Ahtna, and Dena'ina. Koyukon Athapaskans lived in

the northwest part of the area. Tanana Athapaskans inhabited the northern part of what is now the park; the

park's mountains were the southern limit of their traditional hunting areas. An Upper Kuskokwim subgroup

traveled in the Lake Minchumina and Kantishna River

areas to the west of the park. Ahtna and Dena'ina use

areas were south of the park.

The Athapaskans who lived in the region did not

have much reason to climb the big mountain, although

they did hunt on its lower parts and on other mountains. When Judge James Wickersham attempted to as- cend Mt. McKinley in 1 903, he encountered a group of Tanana people hunting in the foothills. The Tanana

hunters shared fresh meatwith Wickersham's party and

showed them how to get to the base of the mountain. Another group of Athapaskans showed the explorers how to get to the glaciers below Mt. McKinley's

summit (Brown 1 991 :32-3).

Before the park was founded in 1917, the Mt.

McKinley area experienced a brief gold rush. After gold was discovered in the Kantishna Hills, prospectors be- gan to work there in 1905. Later in the same year stampeders from outside Alaska arrived by boat and

dog sled. Most became discouraged enough to leave

by early 1 906. Like other frontier profit seekers, miners

had no particular attachment to the land they were working and moved on when the hope of profit was gone

(Catton 1997:103,96).

During the same period big game hunters began a campaign to set aside a national park to preserve Mt.

McKinley's remarkable hunting opportunities. A report on the first official exploration of the mountain in 1 902

interpreted the abundant bear, sheep, moose, and cari- bou populations there to be a result of the area's inaccessibility. The sport-hunter-conservationists who pro- moted the park thought that northern animals, such as

those around Mt. McKinley, were of mythically large

proportions. Although they objected more to market

hunting than to subsistence hunting, the sport hunters lumped both together as "pot hunters." They despised

those who looked for the easiest and most efficient way to hunt, and thought pot hunters selfishly ignored

the long-term effects of their hunting on animal populations (Catton 1 997:90-4).

The supporters of establishing Mt. McKinley National Park wanted it to be a sportsman's hunting paradise, but they also sought to protect the area's thriving

animal populations. They did not want masses of visitors each year. They testified before Congress in 1 916

that the park would benefit from its proximity to the

Alaska Railroad, but they had to admit the park was

thirty miles away from the railroad. The sport hunters had to explain to the Senate committee why they wanted

to protect the park's wildlife while only a few miners

would have access to hunting there (Catton 1 997:1 04).

Finally, with the National Park Service (NPS) director's

backing. Congress created the park in 1 91 7, although it would be four years before the NPS hired the first supervisor (Brown 1 991 :1 35). Most of the non-Natives who hunted in the newly

established Mt. McKinley National Park were miners. In

1 921 , new park regulations required that hunters keep

records of the game they killed and obtain permits in

order to kill game for dog food (Brown 1 991 :1 47). The

miners' strong dependence on wild meat for food Justified their "pot hunting" (Catton 1997:98) in the sport

hunter's eyes. Presumably, Athapaskans' hunting for food was also acceptable.

At first the sport hunters who supported the park

believed the presence of gold miners was compatible

with conserving the area's abundant game. Poaching—

by miners, railroad workers, and construction crewsbecame a terrible problem in the park's early days

(Sellars 1 998:71 ). Soon, the park lobbied to ban miners

from living within its borders (Catton 1 997:1 1 7). Nevertheless, some miners still pursue claims today.

Prospectors, Native Alaskans, and wild animals were

46 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. ; ALASKA
/ 3/ View ofDenali Mountain (Mt. McKinley), in Denali National Par\< and Preserve.

all part of the popular image of America's Last Frontier. The long controversy over the wolf populations of Mt.

McKinley is relevant to landscapes because it shows

contrasting perceptions of humans' role in nature. The

sport hunters' desire to engineer better hunting opportunities, and the conservationists' reluctance to control wolf populations, have seemed in turn compatible

and incompatible. Athapaskans' traditional hunting was

not even part of the picture. Plainly, visitor enjoyment

conflicted with upholding conservation principles

(Sellars 1998:1 55-9).

The NPS wanted to build roads to attract visitors in automobiles. Some early supporters of wilderness

thought the NPS was too enthusiastic about building

roads in parks because of the lure of tourist dollars at

park concessions (Catton 1 997:1 44). After the NPS lobbied aggressively, construction of the Mt. McKinley Park Road began in 1 923 (Sellars 1 998: 1 07). It was not completed until 1938. While it did provide access to the mines at Kantishna, it was built primarily for the benefit

of park administration and visitors. The park wanted to

give visitors to Mt. McKinley NP a frontier experience,

but they also wanted to make it easier for them to visit.

Even the first hardy visitors began to demand more

refined accommodations than tents and platforms. The

NPS preserved the feel of the frontier by constructing

rustic-looking log buildings at the park headquarters.

The construction of the Alaska Highway in the 1 940s

made it possible to drive from the contiguous fortyeight states through Canada to Alaska. Automobile tourism was even more encouraged under the NPS's Mission 66, a ten-year (1956-1966) national campaign to improve park infrastructure. At Mt. McKinley NP, Mission 66 projects included a visitor center, campgrounds,

interpretive waysides, and scenic pullouts. The most

controversial project was a plan to widen and pave the

road into the park. National conservation groups, such

as the Sierra Club, fought against road improvement

because they believed this would destroy the wilderness character of the park. The compromise solution

RACHEL MASON 47
was to "telescope" the road (Fig. 14), paving the first few miles but keeping the upper portion of the road

unimproved—a "wilderness road," as the NPS director

called it(Sellars 1998:192).

Today, unlike most of the National Parks in Alaska,

Denali National Park—renamed at the same time it was

expanded under the 1 980 Alaska National Interest Lands

Conservation Act—is accessible by road. Motorhomes

or RV campers carrying summer travelers are common

sights along the Parks Highway to Denali. The northsouth railroad between Seward and Fairbanks also goes

through the park. Since 1972, visitors have not been

allowed to drive beyond the end of the paved road

into the park, except with special-use limited permits.

They must schedule a time to be shuttled up and down

the road in shuttle or camper buses, stopping briefly

to watch any wild animals that appear. The buses take

their passengers to Eilson Visitor Center (eleven hours

/ 4/ Eilson Road in Denali National Park and Preserve.

round-trip) or farther along the dirt and gravel road to Wonder Lake (eight hours round-trip) for up to an hour

stop, then turn back toward the visitor center in the

entrance area of the park.

Contemporary park visitors see very little of its aboriginal residents, some of whom have now settled in

villages outside the boundaries of the park. In the past,

the Athapaskan people who lived in the park area traveled over a broad territory. Small bands separated into

families during the summer for subsistence pursuits and came together during the long cold winters (Fig. 1 5).

Potlatches, ceremonial occasions for feasting and giftgiving, also included several days of singing, dancing,

speeches, and storytelling.

Athapaskans were expert storytellers and enthusiastic listeners to stories. If the listeners did not seem appreciative enough, the teller might

punish them by telling a pointless story (de La- guna 1995:286). Other stories, however, offered

moral lessons about proper behavior in a spiritual

world that included both humans and animals. Ex- perienced storytellers usually knew intimately the

places and animals they mentioned and added their own experiences to the narratives. A popular kind of story among interior

Athapaskan groups was the "Traveler" cycle, such

as the Koyukon "The One Who Paddled Among

the People and Animals" (Attia 1990; Thompson

1 990). These stories center around a culture hero

who starts by building a canoe, then goes from

place to place and adventure to adventure, en- countering people and animals from mythical and

modern times. In different versions of the Tanana

story, "The Man Who Went Through Everything,"

the traveler visits Otter, Wolverine, Rabbit, the

Gnats, Frog, Mouse Woman, and the Giant, among

other characters (de Laguna 1995:96-104, 121-34,

326-33).

The Athapaskan storytellers contrast with the

contemporary interpreters hired to tell non-Native

bus passengers about the Denali wildlife. Inter48 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. ALASKA
preters are typically seasonal employees from

outside Alaska, hired not for their knowledge of

the park's flora and fauna, but because they are

able to establish good rapport with visitors and

maintain a fairly knowledgeable patter. The buses

migrate up and down the road, as visitors peer out

the windows for glimpses of the "Big Five" species: bear, caribou, moose, sheep, or wolf (Pratt

2002). While almost all the visitors see wildlife at some point in their round-trip journey to the visitor center, considerably fewer get to see the mountain during their visit through the clouds obscuring it. Mount McKinley, at 20,320 feet (6,1 94 meters)

the highest peak in North America, is a favorite

objective for expert climbers. It symbolizes the

difficulties of the frontier. Each year during the

brief spring climbing season, expert climbers from

all over the world attempt to reach the top. Many

failed ascents have ended in rescue or the climbers' deaths. Non-Native visitors and Alaska resi- dents alike are awed by the difficult ordeal of

climbing to its top.

The mountain, however, has different meanings

for the Alaska Natives who lived in its shadow.

The mountain named after President McKinley was

called Denali, "the tall one" by the Koyukon.

Athapaskans rarely name landmarks after people.

They treat the tall mountain with reverence and

avoid talking about it (Kari 1999:7). They would

not climb Denali or other high peaks for recreation or competition. In the far northern part of

the park, Chitsia Mountain, named for its resemblance to a moose heart, is the site of a Tanana

origin myth (Brown 1 991 :33).

Denali NPP is just one example of the intersections and clashes between understandings of

cultural landscapes. Today, Alaska's federal policies are the subject of continuous struggle among

subsistence, wilderness, and commercial resource

extraction. Advocates of each of these views and

practices worry that the other two may override

their interests. The situation comes under the pur- view of federal managers in Alaska because so much of the land is publicly owned.

Subsistence management in Alaska has been

contentious for decades. The Federal Subsistence

Management Program was instituted in 1991 to regulate subsistence uses of wildlife in Alaska on federal

public lands. The federal takeover occurred after the landmark 1 989 McDowell decision in the 9* District

Court declared that the State of Alaska's failure to provide a hunting priority to rural subsistence users was

out of compliance with federal law. Following the

1995 Katie John decision' with its subsequent appeals and delays, and the ensuing failure of the State

of Alaska to enact legislation that gave subsistence

priority to rural residents, the federal government also assumed management of Alaska subsistence fisheries

in 1999.

Unlike "subsistence," the term "wilderness" resonates strongly outside Alaska. Despite the popular Western view that wilderness represents untouched nature,

the opposite of culture, the concept of wilderness is

itself a Western cultural construct. It is perhaps more

important to visitors and outsiders than it is to Alaska

residents, particularly Alaska Natives, to preserve nature in a pristine condition. Toward that goal, wilderness advocates may prefer non-consumptive recreational pursuits such as catch-and-release fishing to subsistence uses. While some wilderness supporters can

accept subsistence uses of natural resources as "hunting to live," few can accept commercial development

at the expense of untrammeled wilderness. Commercial development began in Alaska with the

Russian colony's lucrative trade in sea otter furs. Later,

gold prospectors, fish processors, and oil developers,

among others, flocked to Alaska for a series of extractive industry booms. Like the idea of wilderness, the concept of development comes from outside Alaska,

although many Alaskans have embraced one or the

other of these concepts. The frontier developers had

RACHEL MASON 49
no intrinsic ties to the land itself. They appreciated the

vastness of the landscape, but largely in terms of the

vast potential profits that could be reaped from the

land and sea.

Laws and Policies Affecting Ethnographic

Landscapes

In the U.S.

Cultural landscapes are a relatively new concept in

United States resource management. Ethnographic landscapes are newer still, so it is no surprise that govern- ment agencies disagree about what they are, how they

relate to cultural landscapes, and how they should be

protected. The NPS, the lead government agency in

cultural resource protection and preservation, initiated

its Cultural Landscapes Program in 1 990 after several decades of work on historic landscapes. The NPS's

Applied Ethnography Program, which coordinates cultural anthropology work in regions throughout the

United States, began only a few years earlier, in 1 981

.

Both NPS programs take interest in "ethnographic landscapes," yet the two programs define these phenomena

differently. This is partly because while the Cultural

Landscapes Program operates under historical preservation laws, the Ethnography Program has no similar

constraint. NPS policies define a cultural landscape as "a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein,

associated with a historic event, activity, or person, or

exhibiting other cultural or esthetic values" (NPS

2001:129). Ethnographic landscapes are one of four

overlapping types of cultural landscape in the NPS classification (NPS 1 997:88):

—Historic designed landscapes, deliberate artistic creations reflecting recognized styles. Engineers

may also design them. Examples in Alaska are Denali NP's historical headquarters district, created as an

attempt to provide visitors with a frontier experi- ence, or the Denali road corridor.

—Historic vernacular landscapes, which illustrate

peoples' values and attitudes toward the land and

reflect patterns of settlement, use, and development through time. They can evolve independently

of deliberate human design. Alaska historical ver- nacular landscapes include the Kennecott Mine

complex in Wrangell-St. Elias NPP, as well as other mines. Seward's red light district, researched for Kenai Fjords NP as part of a historical compliance

study for a new visitor center, is another example.

—Historic sites, significant for their association with

important events, activities, and people. The Moore

homestead, at Klondike Cold Rush National Historical Park, is a rare Alaska example of the type of

historic site normally found outside the state. The new Aleutian World War II National Historic Area is another example, although its scale is larger than

what is typically called a "site."

—Ethnographic landscapes, which have contemporary salience to groups the NPS calls tradi- tionally associated people, those who continue

to use the landscapes in the present day. Typically, these landscapes are used or valued in tra- ditional ways, lyat (Serpentine Hot Springs) in North- west Alaska is a sacred and therapeutic site for Inupiaq residents of the area. In Southeast Alaska,

Dundas Bay contains both prehistoric and historic remains and is a seasonal subsistence site forTlingits

from the village of Hoonah. Bartlett Cove, also in Southeast Alaska and part of Clacier Bay NPP, has

mythical significance because of its connection to the Hoonah Tlingits' creation myth.

Unlike other kinds of cultural landscapes, ethnographic

landscapes typically contain both natural and cultural

resources (Hardesty 2000:169), possibly including plants,

animals, structures, and geological features, as well as human structures and artifacts. Those who use and value

landscapes may consider them purely natural, when in

fact there is a strong cultural component. The cultural

modification of the natural landscape may be symbolic

rather than material. Moreover, there may be competing cultural interpretations of the same landscapes:

in California, for example, the Timbisha Shoshone traditionally associated with Death Valley NP object to

the portrayal of their vital homeland as bleak and dead

(Hardesty 2000:1 78-9, citing Fowler et al. 1 995's original research).

Many people may believe their very survival as a

50 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. ALASKA
/ 5/ Chief Deaphon and his band, 1919. This Athapasl<an group was one of those traditionally associated with

Denali National Park and Preserve.

group depends on the continued vitality of ethnographic landscapes. This applies, for example, to the

cultural values Alaska Native peoples associate with

subsistence hunting and fishing. Many feel that the survival of their culture is predicated upon their continued

opportunities to han/est, process, and share wild foods. Non-Native supporters of the wilderness also feel

strongly about their attachment to the land. They might,

however, think of the entire human race as a reference

group, or a beleaguered ecosystem, rather than a single

cultural group.

Nationwide, the NPS Cultural Landscapes Program

has focused primarily on historic preservation of nonindigenous peoples' structures and activities. Examples

of NPS-recognized cultural landscapes include presidential homes and historic ranches, old mines and dams,

missions, roads, prisons, and even tenement buildings.

The developers of the NPS Cultural Landscapes Pro- gram have taken more inspiration from archaeology

than from ethnography, perhaps because archaeologists and historical architects share an interest in structures, material remains, and the past. Many NPS historic landscape projects include a prehistoric component, but fewer encompass contemporary activities.

In the United States, as elsewhere, historical sites designated because of archaeological evidence tend to

be treated as a set of discrete entities, rather than as

part of an integrated landscape (Buggey, this volume).

On the national level. United States government

policies toward ethnographic landscapes come from

several important laws designed to protect cultural resources. Most of these laws require consultation with

the associated peoples affected by management decisions. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

of 1 969, which requires an environmental impact state- ment or environmental assessment for any proposed

work with potential environmental effects, was enacted

to protect both natural and cultural resources. The National Historical Preservation Act (NHPA) of

1 966, as amended in 1 992, requires that places significant to Native Americans be conserved with other culturally significant sites that are part of a diverse naRACHEL MASON 51
tional heritage. The NHPA criteria that determine eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places are: —The quality of significance in American history,

architecture, archaeology, engineering, and cul- ture present in districts, sites, buildings, struc- tures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feel- ing, and association, and:

—that are associated with events that have made

a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

—that are associated with the lives of signifi- cant people, present or past; or

—that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or

that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a sig- nificant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

—that have yielded or may be likely to yield,

information important in history or prehistory

(NPS 1997:2).

Clearly, these restrictions eliminate many culturally

significant ethnographic landscapes used in contemporary times. A property less than fifty years old meets

the criteria only if it is deemed extraordinarily important. Moreover, no cemetery, birthplace, grave, commemorative property, religious property, structure moved

from its original location, or reconstructed historic

building is ordinarily eligible for the National Register. The NHPA focuses on structures and other alterations of the landscape, rather than on the ways

people interpret it. Because an ethnographic land- scape may lack material artifacts or written documentation, its value for preservation can be more difficult to determine than a historical structure (Evans and Roberts 1 999).

To address this gap, the NPS has taken steps to make Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs) eligible for

the National Register. The NPS developed a bulletin

in 1 994 to help archeologists and ethnographers identif/ and interpret TCPs (NPS 1 994). While this has been

an effective way to recognize individual properties, it

has been less helpful in understanding the interrela52

tionship of sites within a landscape.

Another area of legislation affecting ethnographic

landscapes deals with protection of and access to

sacred sites. Over the past twenty-five years, the United

States has built up a unique "legislative package" directly related to Native Americans' freedom to practice

traditional religion. The American Indian Religious Free- dom Act of 1 978 (AIRFA) affirms Native Americans'

rights to worship; but it does not have any implementing regulations; and therefore relies primarily on the

goodwill of landowners or managers to grant worshippers access to sacred sites. However, a later Executive

Order (1 3007), issued in 1 996, more explicitly protects

Native Americans' access to sacred sites. Less directly

relevant to ceremonial uses, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1 979 (ARPA) requires federal

land managers to determine whether potential excavation sites have cultural significance to associated

peoples. The Native American Craves Protection and

Repatriation Act of 1 990 (NAGPRA) requires that hu- man remains and funerary items discovered on federal

lands be repatriated to associated tribes (Hardesty

2000:1 82). These laws, special to Native Americans, all

protect specific components of ethnographic landscapes.

In Alaska

Government management regimes frequently conflict

with indigenous people's ties to the land, and Alaska

has been no exception. Before Western contact. Native Alaskans managed the land and its resources according to their own practices and requirements. Today,

harvests of wild foods are subject to a complex set of

formal regulations that include both federal and state

authorities in different contexts, since more than half

of all lands in the state are federally managed (Fig. 1 6).

Subsistence uses—hunting, fishing, and gathering wild

resources for personal and family consumption and distribution—also co-exist and compete with commercial,

recreational, and wildlife conservation uses of land.

Until recently, most NPS cultural landscape projects

in Alaska did not focus on subsistence landscapes, but

STATE POLICIES/ U.S. : ALASKA
on historical structures and non-Natives' activities. The

current focus on ethnographic landscapes sets NPS

cultural landscapes work in Alaska apart from the other

regions. Some examples of such work in Alaska are: —Chilkoot Trail and the Dyea Townsite Cultural Landscape Inventories (NPS 1999a and 1999b).

Both sites are located in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park—headquartered in Skagway,

Alaska, near the Canadian boarder—and relate to the routes taken by non-Native stampeders headed

north to the Yukon territory in the 1 898 Gold Rush. They describe the Native groups who lived in the area and refer to their participation in historical events, but do not address the contemporary im- portance of the sites [see Horton, this volume].

—The cultural landscapes report for Kennecott Mill Town in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Pre- serve (Gilbert et al. 2001). Kennecott was a nonNative community that grew up around a copper

mine in the early twentieth century. It is now abandoned. The report emphasizes developing plans

to restore and preserve the historic buildings and

structures at the site.

The ethnographic landscape report is one of the

NPS Applied Ethnography Program's standard types

of reports:^

This is a limited field survey to identify

and describe the names, locations,

distributions, and meanings of ethnographic landscape features. . . . Community members will be involved in site

visits and ethnographic interviewing.

Studies will be coordinated with the

cultural landscape program, which has

primary responsibility for cultural landscape identification and management (http://www.cr.nps. gov/aad/

studies.htm).

At the time of this writing, the Alaska region of NPS

has not produced any ethnographic landscape reports. However, many earlier ethnographies are eloquent state-

/ 6/ Federal lands in Alaska. Shaded areas are federal public lands.

RACHEL MASON 53
merits of Alaska Natives' attachments to place (e.g., de Laguna 1 972; Nelson 1 969, 1 983; Ellannaand Balluta

1 992; Burch 1 981 , 1 994, 1 999; Coldschmidt and Haas

1998). Recent examples of NPS-contracted work that

focus on ethnographic landscapes of specific value to

Native Alaskans include:

—The Shared Beringian Heritage Program's study

of Ubiasaun, a past reindeer herding community

and subsistence settlement near the village of Shishmaref in Northwest Alaska was published in 1996 (Schaaf 1996). Other NPS-sponsored studies of the same region include Simon and Cerlach (1 991

)

and Fair and Ningeulook (1994). The abandoned

settlement at Ubiasaun is a "memory landscape, " a

once-vital place that remains in people's hearts and

minds (Fair, this volume).

—Place-names studies around Denali National Park and Preserve (Cudgel-Holmes 1991; Kari 1999).

These reports are based on linguistic and oral his- tory work with Athapaskan language speakers.

Special circumstances in Alaska affect NPS and other

federal agencies. Indirectly, they affect ethnographers'

interests. The Alaskan ethnographers' focus on subsistence harvests, use areas, means of access and place names derives in part from the 1971 Alaska Native

Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA),^ but most importantly

from the 1 980 Alaska National Interest Lands and Conservation Act (ANILCA)." ANCSA and ANILCA set guidelines for managing federal lands in Alaska and set the

standard for government recognition of ethnographic

landscapes there. ANCSA, by creating thirteen regional Native corporations and allotting certain lands to shareholders, superimposed Western property and business

concepts, along with political territories, upon Alaska

Natives' ties to the land. An indirect product of

ANCSA was the Bureau of Indian Affairs' 1 4(h)(l ) Pro- gram,^ an office of the agency which oversaw the

collection of more than 2,500 taped or written interviews with Alaska Natives about significant sites throughout Alaska (Pratt 2002). The records, stored

in the BIA office in Anchorage, represent an important archive of Alaska Native traditional knowledge.

/// Game Management Units in Alaska. The Alaska Department of Fish and Came divided the state into 26

geographical units to facilitate management of hunting and trapping.

54 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. : ALASKA
The impetus for settling Alaska Native claims in

1971 came from the biggest frontier opportunity of

all, the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay. ANCSA extinguished all current Native claims, but it left the door

open for ANILCA to establish priority for subsistence

harvesting for qualified users. Originally, Title VIII of ANILCA gave subsistence hunting priority to Native

rural residents. As a last-minute compromise with the

State of Alaska's interests, however. Congress approved a version of ANILCA that gave subsistence priority

to all qualified rural residents, both Native and nonNative. Other portions of ANILCA set aside 32.4 million acres (131,118 square kilometers) of land in Alaska

as wilderness, not to be touched for development.

ANILCA focused more directly than ANCSA on

land conservation. ANILCA created six new national

parks, along with several monuments, preserves, wildlife refuges, and wild and scenic rivers. This new law

also brought the lands used by Alaska Native corporations created under ANCSA, under federal man- agement and protection (Hardesty 2000:182). ANILCA

was groundbreaking legislation because it also created a new management model for protected lands

that recognized contemporary subsistence uses by

living Native cultures. Robert Arnberger (2001 :1 -2), MPS

Alaska Regional Director, wrote that because of

ANILCA, "Alaska is serving as a laboratory of how in- digenous peoples and their cultures remain and are

joined with the landscape—inseparable from it."

By creating a subsistence priority for rural residents on federal public lands. Title VIII of ANILCA eventually led to the establishment of the Federal Subsistence Management Program in 1 991 . This interagency

program includes representatives of five federal agencies. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the lead

agency; the others are the National Park Service, the

Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and

the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Government management of subsistence focuses more on uses of particular resources than on reading the landscape. Established in 1978, the State of

Alaska's subsistence research branch, the Alaska De18/ The ten Alaskan regions represented by Federal Subsistence Regional Advisory Councils. The geo- graphical regions are roughly separated along cultural lines.

RACHEL MASON 55
partment of Fish and Game Division of Subsistence

has documented subsistence harvests and mapped

traditional use areas. Because of the practical need to

resolve management concerns, the government agency

perspective also de-emphasizes the cognitive aspects

of the cultural landscape. State and federal management of resources for subsistence, commercial, and recreational uses cut up the landscape in peculiar ways,

by creating several conflicting networks of management units.

Dual management by state and federal subsistence programs further re-organized the Alaska land- scape in a new and foreign way. To minimize confusion, the federal program adopted the state's system of

twenty-six Game Management Units, designating them

"Wildlife Management Units" (Fig.l 7). Game or wildlife management units are not traditional territories, any more than it is traditional for Native Alaskans to have

harvest seasons and catch limits. In addition, the federal program established ten federal subsistence regional

advisory councils (Fig. 1 8). The composition of the

regional councils, whose members are appointed by

the secretaries of interior and agriculture, is intended to

reflect the cultural groups and the different interests of

subsistence users in each rural area. Both Natives and

non-Natives are eligible to be on the councils, in keeping with ANILCA's insistence on including non-Native

subsistence users.' The 1 999 addition of fisheries to the federal subsistence management of wildlife heightened subsistence

users' Interest In the landscapes created by rivers. Athapaskan groups living in Interior Alaska have a particular focus on rivers. Some Athapaskan languages

render directions as "uprlver" or "downriver" (Kari 2000),

in addition to "toward the water" or "away from the

water" (Tilley 1994:57), instead of using the Western

cardinal directions. At a fall 1999 meeting of the federal Southcentral Regional Advisory Council, an Ahtna

Athapaskan resident of the area proposed that wildlife management units be replaced by river drainages as

the main units for subsistence fisheries management.

Such a focus would be closer to the traditional man- agement already in use in rural Southcentral Alaska. Although the regional council found the suggestion

appealing, this practical and culturally appropriate suggestion did not advance any further in the regulatory

channels than that discussion.

Subsistence management regimes in Alaska have

contributed to two significant recent developments in

scientific research and natural resource management.

One is the need to treat traditional ecological knowledge on an equal footing with Western science. Along

with scholars' heightened interest In traditional knowledge, scientific research has become more of a collaboration between Western scholars and tribal groups.

Traditional ecological knowledge frequently centers on landscapes. Landscapes are an integral part of traditional worldviews (Buggey, this volume) where animals

and humans belong to the same spiritual world. Geographic features may also play a part. In Southeast

Alaska, for example, some Tlingit clans are named after

nearby mountains. Kawagley's study of world-views of

the Yup'ik people of Western Alaska begins with a creation myth about humans emerging at the YukonKuskokwlm delta (1 995:1 3). Many other Alaska Native

creation myths tell how the first humans were placed in

their landscape.

The second and related development, influenced

by progress toward shared power in resource management decision making In Canada, is the movement in

United States government agencies toward co-management by stakeholders, including users and managers.

Both in Canada and the U.S., efforts to institute co- management regimes have focused on specific natural

resources, not landscape preservation. In both countries, however, indigenous people have become more

involved in managing historical or cultural sites (Buggey,

this volume). Research involving Native peoples or

their lands must now be conducted in consultation with

and with formal approval of tribal entities.

Since its inception in 1 991 , the Federal Subsistence

Management Program has made progress toward

56 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. : ALASKA
co-management, in the sense that subsistence users

participate meaningfully in wildlife management decisions affecting them. The Federal Subsistence Board is

obligated to follow the recommendations of the Regional Advisory Councils, except under special circumstances. Community residents participate and have influence in Regional Council meetings, which are often

held in rural Alaska. Other examples of shared decision making include the development of user-manager

groups to make regulatory decisions on caribou hunting and the introduction of community quotas for cari- bou in the Southern Alaska Peninsula herd. In areas

outside the purview of the Federal Subsistence Program, legislation affecting oversight of marine mammal and migratory bird hunting has made specific allowances for local users' involvement in management.

In Alaska as elsewhere in the U.S., government

management agencies and their scientific advisors have

begun to pay more attention to local knowledge and

concerns. Despite the movement toward co-management, by their very existence land managing govern- ment agencies represent the dominant non-Native culture, not the indigenous people. The concept of land management imposes a legal and political system that may contradict indigenous views of land use rights.

Ethnographic Landscapes

In the U.S.

In the United States, much of land management agencies' interest in attachment to place, and hence in eth- nographic landscapes, comes from efforts to protect

Native Americans' sacred places (Evans and Roberts

1999:1). Federal land policies, intended to prevent or

restrict access to public lands, have incidentally pre- vented Native Americans and others from visiting sacred or meaningful sites (Hardesty 2000:180). On the

other hand, Native Americans may wish to prevent outsiders from disturbing sacred sites or visiting them during ceremonies.

Those accustomed to Western religious concepts

may not easily understand why Native Americans view

some sites as sacred. Instead of recognizing a few

discrete sacred shrines. Native Americans may imbue

a more broadly defined landscape with meaning. The

journey itself may be more sacred than the landmarks

along the way. Sacredness can also be temporary; a

site's sacredness may not outlive a specific use. There is a connection between sacred sites and those

important for subsistence uses. Hunting and gathering

have spiritual as well as economic and political aspects. Research on the social impacts of the 1 989 Exxon

Valdez Oil Spill showed significant differences between

Alaska Natives and non-Natives in the spiritual meanings attached to the environment (Callaway, this vol- ume; Jorgenson 1995). The value non-Natives placed on their favorite hunting and fishing sites differed from

the culturally based spiritual significance Natives identified.

Place-names are another arena of conflict between

indigenous people and politically dominant managers. Ethnographic landscapes, as constructed by the people who use them, may clash with the dominant

group's vision of the same area. Fair (this volume) reviews the literature on toponymy in Alaska and outside the state. In Alaska, substantial NPS ethnographic

work focuses on Native attachment to place (CudgelHolmes 1991; Kari 1999; Fair and Ningeulook 1994;

Fair 1 996). Collecting this knowledge adds critical detail to ethnographic documentation of a world-view.

For example, indigenous place-names in Denali NPP

grow scarcer as one travels upland, since Atha-paskans

had little reason to hunt in the snowy mountains (Kari

1999:16). Alaska Native people's efforts to return to place-names previously used (e.g., changing Mt.

McKinley's name to Denali) recognize that naming the

landscape expresses sovereignty and identity.

Some anthropologists and historical architects working in federal agencies have experienced institutional

pressure to develop inventories of sites. In the NPS, for example, all programs have been tasked to develop

measurable goals and to document progress toward

meeting them. The Ethnographic Resource Inventory

RACHEL MASON 57
(ERI), Archaeological Sites Management Information

System (ASMIS), and the Cultural Landscapes Inventory (CLI) databases were created with that charge

in mind. All carry the potential danger of merely listing sites, instead of explaining the relationships be- tween them.

The Ethnographic Resource Inventory is still, in 2004,

in its initial stages and not yet fully operational. The

only nationwide ethnographic goal in the NPS Perfor- mance Management Data System* measures the number of ethnographic resources parks add to the ERI

each year. The ERI is expected to become the main measure of work accomplished in the agency's Applied Ethnography Program. Eventually, it is hoped, the

ERI will produce much more information than a list of

resources. At present, however, the ERI does not adequately convey the relationships between ethnographic resources. The Archaeological Sites Management Information System, which serves the NPS archaeology program, has similar problems. The Cultural Landscapes Inventory has the advantage of listing whole

landscapes instead of individual resources and of documenting landscape as a process (Norton, this volume).

However, inventories have a way of making things concrete and discrete that might better be considered continuous. As Smith and Burke (this volume) point out in

reference to Australian indigenous views on time and

space, ethnographic landscapes are not a collection of

dots but the connections between the dots. Another approach to U.S. natural and cultural resource management is the ecosystem model embraced

in the last decade by some federal programs, including

the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service. The Bureau of Land Management has not so explicitly

supported the ecosystem concept, but has adopted some of its features. These steps reflect not only an

interest in the interrelated parts of ecosystems, but an

admission that humans are part of the natural landscape.

Unfortunately, each agency has encountered some difficulties using the ecosystem model. Biologists who

favor species-by-species analysis and management

have opposed the ecosystem approach. Other problems relate to the bottom-up decision making and

focus on partnerships that accompany ecosystem man- agement initiatives. It is not easy to change an agency's

hierarchical power structure.

In Alaska

Ethnographic landscapes are not static; they eventually change across a geographical area. Cultural groups

need varying amounts of space to make full use of

their landscapes. In the past, some Alaskan hunters

and gatherers followed migrating animals and traveled seasonally within the designated group territory.

Sedentary groups had intimate knowledge of a broad

territory because of their journeys for trade or warfare. Today some Alaska Native groups continue to honor "traveling landscapes." Athapaskan, in particular, are very mobile people and have many travel

stories (Mishler 1995). Dena'ina Athapaskan living

around Cook Inlet used and traveled over a wide-ranging territory (Kari and Fall 1 987). As noted above in the

discussion of Denali NPP, some Athapaskan stories

focus on a character named Traveler, who dreamed

in advance about the places he would visit (de La- guna 1995:330). Nelson (1983:242-3) describes how

Koyukon people view the human imprint on the environment:

This imprint can be illustrated by describing

the cultural and personal means with which

Koyukon people vest places on the land- scape. Some of these are founded in the domain of recent human events; others are ancient and more spiritual than human.

Traveling through the wildland, a Koyukon

person constantly passes by these places,

and the flow of land becomes also a flow of

the mind.

Ahtna Athapaskans, too, often tell travel narratives. They describe remembered hunting and fishing journeys, emphasizing survival in the face of hardship. Upper Ahtna travel stories also demonstrate kinship connections across regions (Kari 1986:1 53-215).

Inupiat people in Northwest Alaska share stories

58 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. ALASKA
19/ Telida, an Upper Kuskokwim Athapaskan village and a Subsistence Residence Zone communtiy for Denali

National Park and Preserve.

of traveling, some of them about journeys by sea or

along the coast (Fair and Ningeulook 1994). In regard

to social dimensions of land use in Point Hope, an

Inupiaq community, Burch (1981) tells of individuals'

mobility between settlements, as well as movements

of whole settlements. Both supernatural factors (particularly fear of ghosts) and practical quests for ease of

access influenced settlement choices. The sea dominated the landscape on Alaska's

southern coastlines, and Aleut and Alutiiq people were

fearless travelers by water. They also traveled over land and knew every landmark of certain trails. On Kodiak

Island, at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was common for men from the village of Akhiok to undertake a walk of several days to Kaduk, on the island's west side (Rostad 1 988).

In addition to their geographic aspect, the temporal

dimension of traveling landscapes marks a difference between Western and non-Western ways of thinking.

While this is often seen as the contrast between linear

and cyclical thinking, non-Western temporal views of

the landscape may be more accurately described as

"the past living in the present" (Norton 2002, this volume). The Australian Dreamtime famously exemplifies

a view of moving landscapes, since some Australian

Indigenous people see a group's totemic history embodied in landmarks. Alaska Native traveling stories

also show how past deeds and adventures still exist in

today's landscape.

Before Western contact, Alaska indigenous people

developed complex economies built upon sophisticated exploitation of local plant and animal resources. No group was isolated from other groups; all were traders and travelers who knew varied landscapes by water,

coast or on land. It is not too surprising that Alaska

Natives find it difficult to accept an imposed Western

landscape, or that Western managers would fail to rec- ognize the ethnographic landscapes that co-exist with

management regimes.

Nationwide, the NPS formally acknowledges some

RACHEL MASON 59
traveling landscapes in the form of routes, rivers, and

conceptual units, such as the Underground Railroad,

the Cherokee Trail of Tears, and Historic Route 66. These

monuments or historical trails honor travel and move- ment instead of discrete sites. The Underground Railroad represents the network of helpers runaway African-American slaves encountered as they traveled north

to freedom. The Cherokee Trail of Tears recognizes the

forced relocation of Cherokees from their homeland in

the Southeastern U.S. to Oklahoma. Historic Route 66

commemorates the route Dust Bowl farmers took from

the Central Plains to California during the Great Depression in the 1 930s.

For non-Native Americans, preserved historical

landscapes tend to celebrate the conquest of nature

(Melnick 2000:26). This adds to the ongoing alienation

of Native American values from the existing system

of historical landscape management. At Alaska's Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, for example,

visitors are shown the travails of Gold Rush prospectors as they navigated the Chilkoot Trail. Native Americans, however, were not until recently a significant part

of the NPS interpretation of the Klondike story.

Native American ethnographic landscapes tend to

be more inclusive and more geographically widespread

than those defined by NPS cultural landscape guidelines. A landscapes approach is a better way to show

how cultural sites and resources are interrelated than

the Traditional Cultural Properties approach, which looks

at landmarks in a piecemeal fashion (Stoffle and Evans

1990). Unfortunately, cultural resource managers continue to be skeptical of Native Americans' statements about holistic conservation and their attachments to

sacred places and activities.

Policy Implications

To explore the implications for policy, we now return

to the originally posed three-way struggle among subsistence, wilderness, and frontier opportunities. From

the government management standpoint, all three categories represent competing user groups. There tends

to be little interest in overlapping views, despite recognition that there is much overlap between them.

Land and resource managers tend to assume that indigenous foragers had minimal effect on the landscape. For both the early conservation movement and

for more recent conservationists, the opposite of wilderness was development (Sellars 1 998:2 1 1 ). Both gov- ernment agencies and conservationists viewed Euro- American management as the only form of management (Callaway, this volume). Native Americans' uses

of the landscape were not part of the equation. Today,

while a particular site or area may seem to non-Native

visitors and scientists to preserve nature or commemorate historical events, it may also represent a homeland

to Native people (Buggey, this volume).

Cultural resource managers have embraced the conservation goal of preserving the integrity of the natural

landscape and have applied this goal to preserving

historical landscapes (Howett 2000). Indeed, integrity

is an important criterion for National Register of Historic Places eligibility. Resource managers have not

so wholeheartedly supported preserving the integrity

of ethnographic landscapes. They tend to manage each

species separately, rather than preserve an entire landscape and the activities it incorporates.

An area's designation as wilderness confounds subsistence users as much as do the artificial boundaries

of the federal or state game management unit system.

In non-Native understanding, wilderness land is uninhabited, unused, and untouched. Indigenous people's

subsistence uses are tolerated or ignored largely as

long as they do not seem to modify the landscape.

Consumptive human uses, even for subsistence or for

religious ceremonies, threaten the integrity of nonNatives' perceived wilderness. NPS examples of ethnographic landscapes in Alaska

are mainly those used by Native Alaskans, just as eth- nography in Alaska has focused upon the aboriginal

inhabitants of the state. In Alaska, ethnographic landscapes tend to remain hidden from public view, while

the cultural landscape exemplified in historical monu60 STATE POLICIES/ U.S. : ALASKA
ments and artifacts left by Western culture is widely

displayed and interpreted to visitors. Western historical landscapes are also actively promoted to encourage tourism, public awareness, and commercial rev- enues coming from increased visitorship. Therefore, the

spiritual values Native Alaskans attach to their landscape are neither presented nor properly understood

by most of the non-Native residents and visitors. Most current ethnographic research in Alaska, including landscape studies, involves collaboration be- tween Western scholars and Alaska Natives (e.g., Kari

1986; Fair and Ningeulook 1994; Mishler 1995; Ellanna and Balluta 1992). Anthropologists' heightened interest in traditional ecological knowledge has a parallel

in historical architects' growing interest in the cognitive aspects of landscape. The significant disciplinary

difference may be methodological: anthropologists

learn about ethnographic landscapes using the methods of face-to-face interviews and participant observation, while landscape architects look at features of landscape—particularly man-made structures—before interpreting the values embedded in cultural resources. NPS study of ethnographic landscapes is still in

beginning stages, but it has progressed further than in

other government agencies. Recognition of diverse

contemporary cultural views of the landscape, and of

values placed on landscapes, is gradually making its way through the layers of the U.S. federal land man- agement system. The Forest Service and the Fish and

Wildlife Service have both regarded landscape diversity as axiomatic to the ecosystem approach they have

embraced. Consequently, these agencies have come

closer to appreciating the cultural context of ethnographic landscape and have moved away from a species-by-species or site-by-site approach to biota and

landscapes. The Forest Service has taken special interest in past human roles in altering landscapes, particularly Native Americans' past practices of purposely setting fires to control the landscape (MacCleary 1994).

The Fish and Wildlife Service also acknowledges that humans are active participants in ecosystem change.

The Bureau of Land Management and the Minerals Man- agement Service, both in the U.S. Department of Interior, have developed programs to manage visual landscapes for the protection of scenic values. The Department of Interior agencies and the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture have all endeavored to incorporate traditional knowledge along with data collected by the methods of Western science in federal

decision making (Burwell 2001).

Traditional knowledge is typically tied to a specific

place or locality. An important policy implication is

that managers must reconcile their need to find broad,

one-size-fits-all management (for efficiency, enforcement, or personnel training purposes) with the goals of co-management and use of local knowledge. While

many in the NPS believe that landscape protection is

best accomplished by the people who use the land, the NPS and other federal agencies also have a national and international constituency. Political pressures on

the management agencies may prevent them from

wholeheartedly adopting local knowledge as a guide.

Conclusions

United States government policies to designate and

protect cultural landscapes are primarily driven by historic preservation laws, particularly the 1 966 National

Historical Preservation Act. In NPS usage, ethnographic

landscapes are a specific type of cultural landscapes,

incorporating both natural and cultural elements. They

are significant to contemporary, traditionally associated

peoples. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act

(1 978) and Executive Order 30007 (1 996), which protect Native Americans' access to sacred sites, and National Register Bulletin 38 (1994), providing guidelines

for documenting Traditional Cultural Properties have,

to a lesser extent, also influenced management of ethnographic landscapes.

Both the Cultural Landscapes Program and ethnographers in the NPS have had to contend with an institutional interest in considering distinct sites rather than

ethnographic landscapes as a whole. Pressure on govRACHEL MASON 61
ernment agencies to produce measurable results contributes to a practice of merely listing sites, rather than

describing their interconnectedness. The common goal

of seeing landscape as a process, or a work-in-progress,

instead of just buildings or trees, is a reason for agencies and programs to work together.

Until now, government-sponsored ethnographic or

cultural landscape work in Alaska has had little explicit

reference to ethnographic landscapes. Implicitly, however, ethnography and cultural landscape work in this

region has done much to address Alaska Native peoples'

attachment to landscape. In state and federal land man- agement regimes, management deliberations and decisions impose a Western regulatory vision upon the in- digenous system of land use. Government agencies'

increased reliance on traditional ecological knowledge,

along with increased support for co-management regimes, brings resource managers closer to understanding and working with indigenous worldviews.

Acknowledgments

Janet Cohen, Tonia Horton, Igor Krupnik, and James

Mason provided helpful comments on a draft of this

paper. Cari Goettcheus and the late Miki Crespi kindly

sent an early paper they wrote together addressing collaboration between the NPS Applied Ethnography and

Cultural Landscapes programs.

Notes

1 . Katie John, an Ahtna Athapaskan elder from

the village of Mentasta, Alaska, was one of the plaintiffs in the Johm v. State of Alaska case. She and her

co-plaintiffs sued for the right to fish for subsistence

at her family's site.

2. The others are Rapid Ethnographic Assess- ment Procedure, Ethnographic Overview and Assess- ment, Traditional Use, Cultural Affiliation, Ethnohistory, and Ethnographic Oral and Life Histories

(http;//www.cr.nps.gov/aad/appeth.htm).

3. ANCSA's goal was to extinguish aboriginal land claims in Alaska. The discovery of oil reserves

in Alaska, and the federal freeze on state land selections, made it more urgent to find a quick resolution to Native land claims (Case 1984:14).

4. Following up on certain provisions of ANCSA

regarding unreserved lands, ANILCA enabled the U.S. Department of Interior to withdraw and classify lands

in the public interest (Case 1 984:298).

5. This program takes its name from the section of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which au- thorizes the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw

unreserved and unappropriated Native cemetery sites and historical places located on public lands, and to convey them to regional corporations.

6. A list of technical reports, and abstracts from

the reports, are listed on the Alaska Department of

Fish and Game website: http://wvw.state.ak.us/local/akpages/fishgame/subsistence/geninfo/

publictns/subabs.htm.

7. By the terms of ANILCA, the NPS manages

subsistence uses on its lands a little differently from

the other federal landholding agencies in Alaska. In certain Alaska parks, such as Glacier Bay National

Park, subsistence uses are not allowed. ANILCA es- tablished a Subsistence Resources Commission, comprised of local rural residents, for each park that al- lows subsistence activities. It makes recommendations to park managers and works with the NPS to develop a comprensive subsistence management

plan for the park. Under NPS regulations, a person is

eligible to harvest subsistence resources in a park if he lives in a designated Resident Zone Community

for that park or has an individual subsistence eligibility permit.

8. This goal is optional for national parks.

9. Ethnographic resources are "subsistence and

ceremonial locales and sites, structures, objects, and

rural and urban landscapes assigned cultural signifi- cance by traditional users" (NPS 1997:160).

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64 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
wnting Ethnographic History:

j^istonc preservation, (Cultural Landscapes,

an d Trad itionai (Cultural properties

TONIA WOODS HORTON

In a report released in July 2001, the National Park

Advisory Board articulated its concerns that the national parks "actively acknowledge the connections

between native cultures and the parks, and assure

that no relevant chapter in the American heritage

experience remains unopened" with this recommendation:

[T|he National Park Service should help conserve the irreplaceable connections that ancestral and indigenous people have with

the parks. . . . Parks should become sanctuaries for expressing and reclaiming ancient

feelings of place. Efforts should be made to connect these peoples with parks and other

areas of special significance to strengthen

their living cultures (National Park Service 2001:3,8).

Reinforcing this idea, the report asserted,

"America's national parks were places of human

feeling long before they became parks. They are

ancestral homelands" (ibid.:8, emphasis added).

Without referring to Native Americans in particular, this seemingly commonsensical observation

actually presents a formidable challenge to ways

in which park histories are written and interpreted.

It also highlights the cultural parallax in which the

issue of heritage production resides: the differ- ences in knowledge between parks as homelands

and as uninhabited places in which historical significance is imposed and interpreted "from the

outside," the institutional framework of the National Park Service (NPS). Although the use of the

word "homelands" is an enormous advance in

policy rhetoric, the implications for heritage construction as well as the subsequent implementation and management of these "sanctuaries" are much less clear. From the Braudelian perspective of the iongueduree,

the "long view," this brief statement is a tentative overture toward accepting the contingent and provisional

nature of the past as an accretion of many layers, physical and symbolic, illustrating human interaction with

the landscapes that are now parks. The act of writing

history as an interpretation of the past, then, becomes

both text and texture for an alternative knowledge of

place, a middle ground where the view from within tempers the view from without, negotiating uncertain

terrain. Embedding this imperfect and arguably subjective model of history within a landscape is even more

challenging: there is no stasis, historical or ecological,

possible in a dynamically evolving environment. Landscapes are, at their most essential, compositions of perpetual change.

The historical imperative for parks to include "people

with long and deep connections with our parklands

and cultural landscapes" suggests, in effect, a reordering of heritage preservation priorities to evoke and

interpret the lived experience and cultural association

with American lands as they have been inhabited and

shaped rather than from the perspective of the visitor.

65
"discoverer," or scientist. The invisible tracery of ideological paradigms has negated, misrepresented, or ignored the complexity of Native American history, obscuring not only their landscape presence, but their

very cultural survival. If "history is the essence of the

idea of place," then the translation of history into heritage is indelibly etched with the cultural conservation

of place (Classie 1982:664).

Writing history and constructing heritage from this

vantage point will be an arduous and painstaking task

occurring at a number of levels. It entails, necessarily,

the confluence of social and environmental histories,

of multiple stories, of mosaics of belief and practice

that shift, like a kaleidoscope, depending on the individual and communal experiences in these landscapes

called parks. As a result, writing history in the land- scape vein is profoundly ethnographic in method; it

is culture inscribed, nature adapted. One without the

other is incomplete. And nowhere is this potential

to understand and interpret "ancestral homelands" more integral than in the NPS' attempt to document

and preserve the "ethnographic landscape," defined

as a distinctive resource environment representing

the heritage values associated with a historical cultural group.'

By examining the National Park Service's institutional approach to historic preservation and cultural landscapes—particularly ethnographic landscapes—this

essay examines the rather convoluted process of documenting and preserving landscapes through the National Register of Historic Places administered by the

NPS. This exploration is important because it begins to

illuminate the shortcomings of a historical paradigm

applied not only to cultural groups, such as Native

Americans, but to cultural landscapes as a whole genre

of heritage. The essay concludes with a reflection on how a recovery of landscape as a language and critical

practice can transform heritage production. It hints at a sweeping revision that holds promise for not only the ways in which Native American histories of place are

written but, in the larger context, for a more sophisticated and integrated interpretation of national parks as landscapes of heritage.

An Uneasy Fit: The National Register and

Emerging Cultural Landscape Methodology

In her compelling argument, Anne Whiston Spirn

(1 998:1 6, 22) eloquently articulates the profound relationship between humans and land as an active process in which "reading" and "speaking" landscape as a

landscape inherently associates people with place. Most

importantly, Spirn's description of landscape as an evolutionary process one developed, lost, recovered, reshaped, or forgotten through time—is intrinsically linked

to cultural survival: "The language of landscape uncovers the dynamic connection between place and those

who live there." Learning to read landscapes is "relearning the language that holds life in place." Thus, a dialogue between people and place is intimate and revealing; conversely, a "loss of fluency in the language

of landscape . . . limits our celebration of landscape as

a partnership" (Spirn 1 998: 1 6,22). Thus defined, landscape is essentially a dialogue

between humans and place, articulated in multiple

realms: the artful shaping of land, the active use and

management of resources, the embeddedness of creation stories, and the shapes of enduring heritage. Landscapes are synthetic, integrative, encompassing processes of evolution, mind-boggling in scale. But can

the concept of landscape be institutionalized as a way

of seeing, of reading land and place in ways that continue traditions of land protection and ensure cultural

conservation? How can it transform static histories of

place into a vibrant heritage that not only reflects the

past, but also the future, as a model of cultural knowledge?

In its role as the steward of heritage places, the

National Park Service's responsibility is, first of all, to comprehend, or read, its own landscapes as complex

historical and ecological entities in which valuable resources are to be protected. This, of course, is far easier

said than done, in part due to the complicated history

66 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
of the NPS as an institution whose sense of heritage, a common past, is splintered between an array of depart- ments charged with resource protection along the problematic faultlines of "natural" and "cultural." Chief among

these departments are the various divisions of cultural

resource management, including archaeology, history,

ethnography, historic architecture, and cultural landscapes. Segregated from this mix is the division of interpretation, a key element in bridging the gap between

documented histories and the articulation of places

as repositories of heritage. Additionally, the separation of natural resource management into its own

heritage and conservation model adds to the compartmentalization of landscape values, by now bereft of their cultural origins.-^

The inception of the cultural landscape paradigm in

the NPS gathered momentum beginning in 1981 with

the recognition that parks were composed of landscapes,

a resource type to be inventoried and preserved as part

of the agency's mission. This acknowledgment proved

to be not only a major definitional shift for the parks,

but an ideological and operational one as well. Before implementing the cultural landscapes program,

cultural resource studies and management policies

in the NPS were constructed along disciplinary lines;

history, historic architecture, and archaeology. In the

process, the legibility of the historic landscape and its

critical role in shaping the nature of its embedded resources (such as structures and archaeological sites)

often fell through the cracks. Certain landscape characteristics, such as land use, topography, and vegetation, were generally noted, but not seen as essential determinants for the historic scene. Archaeological relics and monuments, battlefields and sites, were not located in an active field of engagement,

but rather seen as static tableaux that preserved and

interpreted physical vestiges related to central themes

of American nationalism.

The ideological framework for identifying historic

resources for preservation relied on museum-dominated

theories of American material culture embodied in the

original impetus for historic preservation on a national

scale, the Historic Sites Act of 1 935. This critical piece

of legislation capped years of active lobbying and negotiation by the NPS, especially under the leadership

of Horace Albright and, later, the new chief of the History Branch, Verne Chatelain, to move beyond the early

twentieth century legacy of preserved public lands focused on archaeological ruins (almost exclusively

Native American, such as Casa Grande and Mesa

Verde) and battlefield sites designated under the auspices of the Antiquities Act and the Department of War mandates.^

The language of the Historic Sites Act focused on

"historic sites, buildings, and objects" that illustrated a

thematic American history through physical preservation akin to outdoor museums. It also instituted a census approach toward identifying historic properties

worthy of preservation, implying a process that was

both curatorial and prescriptive, and most importantly,

defined by federal standards. With the consolidation of

archaeological sites and battlefields, Director Albright's

vision that NPS would "go rather heavily into the historical park field" and that it was "in business" as a dominant force in historic preservation set the agenda

for the agency as the heritage institution of the nation.'^ More than thirty years later, the creation of the

National Register of Historic Places within the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act (1 966)

further institutionalized national preservation planning

by structuring historic pasts according to strictly defined artifactual typologies within broad thematic definitions of American history, namely the National Register for Historic Places.^

Continuing the initial Historic Sites Act's emphasis

on guiding a national survey of "sites, buildings, and

objects," the National Register reinforced the idea of

interpreting a national history through identifying, documenting, and preserving discrete resources, the "historic properties," as artifacts. As the locus of heritage

construction at its broadest scale, e.g., the federal gov- ernment, the National Register continues to represent

TONIA WOODS HORTON 67
the dominant historical paradigm in American historic

preservation, dramatically influencing how "cultural"

resources are defined, and subsequently included in or

excluded from, the histories, interpretation, and man- agement of parks as heritage places.

The impress of the National Register, its ability to

express a unique character of place in terms of cultural

association is highly subject to the degree of fit be- tween its fixed template of themes, contexts, and recognizable (largely tangible) relics of the past. As a "national census of historic properties," the National Register functions as the prime arbiter of the historical value

of resources ranging in scale from "objects" to "districts." Its conception of the historical "significance" and

material "integrity" of these resources viewed as "property types" relies on an evaluation process consisting

of various levels of scrutiny, which in turn reflects critical relationships that must be addressed in order for a

property to be considered eligible for listing. First, the

property must be designated as a property type, whether

object, structure, building, site, or district. The property

type relates directly to a prescribed thematic context, which sets up a determination of historical signifi- cance due to the property's association with historical events, personages, styles, or its ability to potentially yield meaningful research or information, factors otherwise known as "criteria for evaluation" (National Register 1997).

Within the National Register system, then, constructing the history of a site or district depends on a particular codification of the three-dimensional world as history that:

—Patterns the physical environment into preconceived categories of form; —Adheres to a typological hierarchy of historical events and individuals; and

—Most importantly, determines its future by assigning heritage values.

As a result of its function as a census, the Register's

necessity to draw tight boundaries and strict interpretations are more the exception than the rule. Eschewing

the unique process of evolution that characterizes the

history of particular landscapes, the essential foci of

the National Register are physical vestiges, the artifactual remains, a limitation that obscures, in many ways,

the real efficacy of landscapes as heritage resources

(especially in the case of homelands and cultural memory).

Discrete themes, bounded sites, and periods of significance with prescribed beginning and end dates au- gur to some unavoidable consequences when considering cultural landscapes. Before the emergence of a

cultural landscape framework in the past few decades,

historic preservation professionals in the NPS faced

the dilemma of defining historic resources through the

formulaic rigor of the National Register, thus distilling

historic character and values to discrete entities, the

artifacts, supporting a thematic national history. While

helpful in identif/ing elements of historic fabric, this approach rendered the larger context, the cultural landscape, unrecognizable, if not altogether invisible.

Particularly absent was the interconnection with the

natural environment in which these historic resources

not only resided, but by which they were shaped,

sited, constructed, and influenced through time. The

problem of nature, particularly ecological relationships, constitutes a virtually insurmountable obstacle

in the National Register's static view of history (cf. Cook 1995).

The establishment of the NPS cultural landscapes

program was a response to the inadequacies of national presen/ation policies and laws in acknowledging the totality of resource environments within park

lands. Building on a legacy of cultural landscape discourse originating with Carl Sauer, and incorporating

the vernacular perspectives of landscape historians such

as J.B. Jackson, the NPS now defines a cultural landscape as "a geographic area, including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife or domestic animals therein, associated with a historic event, activity,

or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values" (Birnbaum 1 994:1 ). Cultural landscapes are identi68 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
fled and documented as resources integral to park planning and management. Their importance, according to

federal law and NPS Management Policies, lies in the

statement that:

[A]ll cultural landscapes are to be managed

as cultural resources, regardless of the type

or level of significance. Cultural landscape

management focuses on preserving a landscape's physical attributes, biotic systems, and use that contributes to its historical significance. Research, planning,

and stewardship are the framework for the program (National Park Service 1998:97).

A genuine handicap for cultural landscapes as an

institutionally defined category of resource is the

fact that they are subject to the criteria of the National Register, an administrative decision that is

apparently irrevocable.'' The process by which cultural landscapes are

identified, documented, analyzed, and evaluated—

literally, how their history is written as landscapeshas wide-ranging consequences for their interpretation and management.' In a fairly prescribed path,

NPS landscape histories focus on an interdisciplinary account of the landscape's natural processes and built forms and their evolution through time,

including a thorough documentation of existing conditions. They conclude with an analysis and evaluation based on "landscape characteristics, " largely tangible elements ranging in scale from natural sys- tems and features defining a river corridor to smallscale site features such as stone steps. ^ A glaring

disjuncture exists in the relegation of "cultural traditions" and "ethnographic information" to the level

of a definable characteristic, in deference to National

Register typological description. In reality, these are

the bulwarks of interpreting landscapes as cultural

in the first place (Page 1 998:53).

However flexible and adaptive the documentation

process may be according to the historical circumstances,

its analysis and evaluation rest on a common theme:

the level of change and disruption between a deter- mined "period of significance" based on the legibility

of "contributing" or "non-contributing" resources with

the landscape's present "condition." According to

the National Register, a particular landscape's physical history is primarily a linear chronology in which

a period of significance is established as the benchmark by which all landscape change can be measured. This evaluation of the degree and level of change

between a landscape's period of significance and its

present condition culminates in a determination of "integrity," or its ability to reflect historical values through

the surviving physical resources, and thus its viability in National Register terms. This, in turn, leads to

a statement of significance setting forth heritage

values based on an interpretation that may or may

not fully correspond to the panoply of meanings in any particular landscape.

In spite of the philosophical questions posed by

the cultural landscape paradigm to the National

Register's template of American history, the artifactual

underpinnings of this methodology remain, begging

the still unanswered question: how relevant is a determination of national significance when cast in a largely

predetermined structure of census? In many respects,

this institutional process creates its own alternative landscape history, one that represents an artificial, externally driven typology.

This tethering of cultural landscape work in the nafional parks to the rigid methodology of the National

Register has distinct implications for understanding landscapes as heritage, particularly those with deep ties to

Native American history. It presents, at best, a frail compromise between incorporating some themes of

Native American history (in terms of archaeology, Euro- American settlement contact, and battlefields) and not

including them at all. What the National Register has

not provided is a framework within which Native American history is not only actively written, but commemorated in terms of associated peoples' homelands,

memory-places, and as fields of encounter where land- scape is ethnographically constructed as cultural place—in a word, heritage. This cumbersome alliance

TONIA WOODS NORTON 69
creates and represents histories of place to fit a physical template that is inherently unequal and incomplete

in its understanding of the processes (read: worldviews)

of non-Euro-American cultures and their landscapes.

Despite the policy that all cultural landscapes are to be

managed as cultural resources, regardless of significance,

programmatic ties between the cultural landscapes pro- gram and the National Register heavily influence the way that landscapes are perceived in the National Park

Service. It is an uneasy fit, primarily because of the

juxtaposition between the National Register standards

and the fluid complexity of landscapes as evolutionary processes.

Despite the restrictive conventions, however, deciphering cultural landscapes in the national parks has

broadened the scope of the National Register. While

there is gradual acceptance of cultural landscapes in

the Register formats, the ambiguities inherent in a multidimensional resource, such as a landscape, present

substantial challenges to a typological construction of

history and place; change is slow in coming.'^ As an example, the inclusion of landscape characteristics in

National Register terminology, however peripheral, does

begin to contextualize cultural landscapes as assemblages of artifacts, especially at the scales of land use and spatial arrangement. In other ways, elements such

as circulation and vegetation, and topography now

describe and document salient aspects of physical

landscapes alongside more traditionally associated

material features such as archaeological sites, buildings, and structures. Clearly, the construction of heritage shaped by cultural landscapes is one in which newer definitions of landscape as cultural process,

for example, can play a larger role. But, such definitions clearly threaten the ideological structure of

the National Register as a heritage department be- cause of their very nature as ambiguous, subjective,

and contingent.

The difficulty ensues in the latitude of interpretation and the hierarchy of importance with which certain

characteristics may possess integrity, while others, such

as cultural traditions and ethnographic features, which

clearly continue to have an influence over the con- temporary landscape, do not. Characteristics such as topography and natural systems can be only documented

to a certain degree during the various periods of any

landscape history, especially when pictorial evidence,

such as aerial photographs, are unavailable. However,

the rate and scale of change in these characteristics is

far different than for a set of buildings or, for that matter,

the cultural traditions associated with land use. How,

then, is a standard of integrity for these characteristics

to be measured in a period of significance and beyond,

when incredibly differing sets of variables are in play?

The Register's delineation of property types as "object," "site," or "district" do not reflect basic landscape

processes, which are more appropriately defined in an

ecological context of patch, edge, corridor, and mosaic

(Dramstad et al. 1996:14-6). This is even more the

case when dealing with the processes of cultural formation, identity, and belonging, and how they shape

landscapes in terms of heritage and commemoration,

issues that cannot be simply reduced to a few bulleted

paragraphs.

In other words, what may be significant in the historic value structure of the National Register is more

than likely not as significant when considering the inherent, site-specific qualities of cultural landscapes.

Codification of heritage values in the National Register plays an important role in the protection of historic

properties, but as a method by which history is written,

its internal semantics and syntax do not reflect the diverse richness and the interpretive opportunities, a literacy if you will, that a less culturally exclusive reading of landscapes can offer. The recalling of history in

memory-places, whether in mythic or linear terms, reshapes each landscape in a distinctly cultural footprint

depending on who is telling the story, and how it is

told. Battlefields and territorial trails become the loci

of wildly variant cultural interpretations: conquest or

defeat, survival or extinction, sustenance or loss. All

are heritage.

70 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
Consider, for instance, a definition of landscape as

a mosaic of ecosystems reflecting different degrees of

anthropogenic change, one that critically alters the historical perception of place as it is contextually explored

at different scales and with different vocabularies. The

inherent morphology of landscapes is the one historical constant that we can potentially discern; how it

affects the course of history is a matter open for interpretation. Utilizing environmental history as the me- dium in which a site history is forged, for example,

radically changes the landscape story of historic and

cultural events. In this scenario, battlefields become

ecotones, where the patterns of open fields and

woodlots, hedgerows and an internal rhythm of irrigation ditches heavily influence the strategies and out- comes of battlefields. In other places, wildernesses are

hunting grounds, berry-picking patches, sacred healing

sites reflecting a millennial occupation and accretion

of ecological knowledge.

This recognition is particularly salient when considering the potential of cultural landscapes methodology to address ethnographic—in this case Native American—histories of place in the national parks. The case

of Glacier Bay National Park explored later in this volume (see Norton, part 3) reflects the vulnerability of

Euro-American worldviews that frame and interpret land- scapes as consensual heritage. Challenging current

interpretation of the park as a wilderness, the land- scape history of Glacier Bay reveals the persistence

of traditional knowledge, association, and use of these

lands as homelands and places of cultural significance. As with much of the landscape history research tied

to the National Register, the transposition of a generally perceived Eastern mindset (e.g., design-oriented)

to the Alaska and the American West is problematic

because of the scale and dispersed settlement patterns

in these vast landscapes. Adding to this complex brew

is the general bias against acknowledging cultural landscapes in which the material cultural remains are barely

legible, if at all, in physical terms, a prejudicial consequence of the dominance of artifactual typology. This

discrepancy is especially telling in the case of most

historic Native American cultures that were predominantly nomadic or non-agrarian, again particularly relevant to Alaska Natives. Their landscape histories are ones of cyclic movements in large subsistence territories, thus affording little opportunity or need for creating permanent settlements and cultural traces typical

of Euro-American landscapes. It also diminishes the importance and interconnectedness of traditional sites

considered integral to cultural maintenance and survival, such as sacred and mythological places within an

overall territorial landscape.

But map is not territory, or not at least, as Wendell

Berry opined, "the territory underfoot" (Ryden 1 993:208).

Landscape history, although speciously articulated through generic templates defining, analyzing, and

evaluating somewhat discrete characteristics, has a

greater potential than the conventional documentation

proponents will admit at present. What is needed is a

contextual reading of landscape dimensions that have

remained heretofore virtually invisible, uncovering the

patterned complexities, site-specific configurations that

direct our perception of landscape as a repository of

heritage-in-process, rather than the flawed static history

of an artifact assemblage. As we have seen, part of the problem is definitional

in character. The greatest vulnerability of cultural landscapes lies in the institutional mandate to articulate and preserve "resources," in this case, environments

dramatically different in scale and composition from

the more architecturally and archaeologically derived

"sites, buildings, and objects." In delineating the "four

general types of cultural landscapes," as "not mutually

exclusive . . . historic sites, historic designed landscapes,

historic vernacular landscapes, and ethnographic landscapes" (Birnbaum 1 994: 1 ), the fundamental difficulties

in defining landscapes by external categories are clear. One cultural landscape, potentially, could be perceived

as a historic site, a historic vernacular landscape, and

an ethnographic landscape depending on how the

TONIA WOODS HORTON 71
landscape context was developed from tangible, and

sometimes intangible, resources. In many respects, the

least ambiguous cultural landscape type is that of the

historic designed landscape, one in which intention and execution of a formalized plan can be pegged,

without much ado, to a time period, style, master designer, and craftsmen. Historic sites and vernacular landscapes are, by contrast, subject to a greater range of

interpretation, especially when considering multiple

periods of significance in the case of long periods of

settlement history, for example.

The idea of the "ethnographic landscape" in this

range of landscape definitions is much more complicated. Defined as "a landscape containing a variety of

natural and cultural resources that associated people

define as heritage resources," this type of landscape is

also within the purview of the NPS ethnography pro- gram. The key distinguishing element between the two programs is often explained as the determination of

historical significance according to National Register

standards and criteria, as opposed to the more purely

ethnographic conception of landscape intrinsically tied

to a particular culture's association, practices, and recognition of valuable resources. In addition, the mandate that all cultural landscapes are to be managed as

cultural resources regardless ofsignificance is a complication that is rarely argued within the cultural landscapes program itself. Without the ability to identify

and document landscapes as ethnographic in Alaska,

for instance, many cultural landscapes in its national

parks would be overlooked, and silences in the historical record multiplied.

In truth, it is difficult to argue the difference be- tween "ethnographic" and "cultural" when applied to a more holistic and evolving concept of landscape

rather than the staid institutional definitions (Spirn

1998:16; Corner 1999:5). Regardless of the semantic baggage, the inclusion of ethnographic landscapes

as a unique venue of study is critical to the cultural

landscapes program and to the parks as a whole. It

portends recognition, ethnographically conceived in a

landscape model, of the traditional values and associations of a particular community for a certain place. In

the case of the national parks, notably many in the Southwest and Alaska regions, ethnographic landscapes

are most commonly associated with Native American

people; however, the range of ethnographic designations is not limited to indigenous groups. '° The key

question here is whether or not the definition of

ethnographic landscapes reflects a viable portrait of

landscape as heritage from the "bottom up." The sheer

weight of Native American historical involvement

with the lands that are now national parks speaks to

the exigency in understanding these landscapes as

cultural places, especially when considering the matter of "ancestral homelands" (National Park Service

2001:8). Even with the antiquarian context of the National Register and its implications for writing histories of place, the documentation and management of park lands as cultural landscapes is central, albeit imperfectly defined, to the mission of

heritage preservation. The cultural landscape para- digm continues to prove elusive of quantification

primarily because it represents a resource base in

flux. The implications for landscape as heritage,

then, depend on how the landscape is perceived

as a dialogical process between people and envi- ronment, its internal discourse revealed through

stories not bound by external strictures. The more

inclusive and interdisciplinary the landscape history, the more complicated and richly embroidered

the cultural stories told and preserved. In attempting to reveal the scale and complexity of heritage

resources in the resilient landscape paradigm, however, it becomes clear that history, apparently, is a messy business.

Traditional Cultural Properties: The Promise of Ethnographic Landscape Histories

If National Register property types and criteria for

evaluating significance prove an uneasy fit with cul72 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
tural landscape preservation in general, the typological miscasting is even more apparent when considering ethnographic landscapes, especially those

generally associated with Native Americans. In the

NPS, the differing objectives of the cultural landscapes

and ethnography programs with respect to ethnographic

landscapes can hinge not only on the identification of

these landscapes and the construction and significance

of their histories, but also on the means by which

they can be preserved. While National Register eligibility is a thorny issue for both programs, one aspect is clear: it provides some degree of accountability, i.e., legal protection from adverse impacts, in

the typological recognition of certain ethnographic

landscapes as "Traditional Cultural Properties," commonly referred to as TCPs."

In an attempt to increase the diversity of historic

property types, the National Register developed the

designation of traditional cultural property, a category

in cultural associations are "(1) rooted in the history of

a community, and (2) important to maintaining the continuity of that community" (Parker 1993:1). The goal was to expand the definition of significance to include

"traditional cultural significance," thereby setting the

stage for recognition of ethnographic landscapes as

protected heritage resources. By the National Register

definition, the term "traditional" was not meant to be

evocative, but rather to refer to a body of knowledge

specific to a contemporary culture:

"Traditional" in this context refers to those

beliefs, customs, and practices of a living

community of people that have been passed

down through the generations, usually orally or through practice. The traditional cultural significance of a historic property, then, is significance derived from the role the property plays in a community's historically

rooted beliefs, customs, and practices

(National Register 1994:1).

Thus, the central determinant of a property's heritage

value, the assertion of significance, shifted from an externally driven paradigm (e.g., formulas of theme and

context) to one that is communally based, providing

the initial guidance for historic preservation professionals

to acknowledge alternative versions and constructions

of history and its importance as heritage. For example,

privileging oral history as evidence, concepts of traditional time and chronologies of events, and the authentication of place value from within a traditional community's perspective all represent distinctly different methodologies from the standard National Register process.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the

National Register's approach toward traditional cultural

properties and other historic properties centers on a

reformulation of the concept of historic significance

with relationship to time. The significance of a traditional cultural property is predicated on its association

with a community that maintains traditional knowledge.

In other words, that knowledge is integral to the preservation of a unique identity, its heritage, in which the

past, present, and future are all inextricably bound

through stories, songs, genealogy, and most importantly,

places.

This condition of continuity and association with a contemporary culture is essential. It allows the property to be identified, documented, analyzed and evaluated, ostensibly, from the consensual perspective of

the community, or an emic perspective that conflates

the categories of past and present. Here, the past is

never really past, but part of the present. While some

have described this difference as one between linear and cyclic conceptions of time, it is probably more the

case that, instead of a concatenation of events spread

through time, a traditional community is more apt to view the present as a series of layers in which primordial time and everyday, quotidian reality are indistinguishable, defying David Lowenthal's (1 988) description of the past as a "foreign country." Using

J.B. Jackson's analogy, there is no Golden Age period of significance or linear chronology in which

resources must reside (Jackson 1 980:1 00-1 ). Instead,

the resources are as integral today as they were at any point in the past. In a traditional cultural propTONIA WOODS NORTON 73
erty, at least theoretically, the past and present con- verge in the awareness that heritage is an active

process of construction. The maintenance and preservation of traditional cultural properties ensure the

survival of essential knowledge. Without them, the community's history would be impoverished and cultural survival in jeopardy.

And while this represents a significant advance in broadening the scope of protection afforded to cultural places, in many ways it creates more questions

than it answers. Analogous to the uneasy fit between

landscapes and National Register property types, contexts, criteria, and significance evaluations, the argu- ments for the creation of TCPs are also convoluted,

limited by terminology, and not fully expressive of the

heritage values at stake. '-^ Take, for example, the idea

of place embodied in an ethnographic landscape. First,

the place must be defined as a physical "property." For many traditional cultures, the definition of an important place is a measure of its significance in bringing

the present world into being, a compelling difference from mere physical description. Place history cannot

be described solely by geomorphology, natural systems, land use patterns, or, even less, its dates of discovery, exploration, and settlement. In other words, the sense of history in traditional terms seen through

landscape is a radically different model of the past;

its definition of authority, time, and space flies at odds with an arguably antiquarian definition of national heritage embodied by the National Register

(cf. Griffiths 1996:1-2).

In the case of traditional cultural properties, the term

"traditional history" is particularly appropriate, suggesting that "the history that members of an ethnic or other community tell about themselves in their own terms" is

not only associative—in effect, its claim by a contemporary community—but historically legitimate as well.

However, the implications of a traditional history entail a sweeping revision, or at least a restructuring, of

historical values and, ultimately, heritage construction

when fully explored:

A traditional history can encompass beings,

acts, and events that are (in an analytic

sense) plainly mythical or legendary, as well as oral tradition, oral history, and conventional history. The test of validity of a

traditional history is not whether the recounting of events is accurate when taken literally. . . but whether a particular reconstruction is culturally valid and accurate. If a society

accepts the mythic and legendary elements

either literally or symbolically and the reconstruction is culturally valid (that is, consistent with appropriate cultural stan- dards), then it must be accepted as a valid reconstruction of the past, no matter what

literally impossible or fantastic beings or events it incorporates (Downer et al. 1994:42-3).

This entails a heady mix of tangible and intangible ele- ments which begins to turn the neatly prescribed world

of the National Register on its head. Writing a history

of place as landscape always involves a cultural reconstruction. In the case of ethnographic landscapes

or traditional cultural properties, however, generally

accepted categories of definition become suspect. Who

determines the "integrity" or critical mass of tangible

and intangible resources and associated values that

can be materially ascribed to a cultural place so that it

can be read as distinctive? Who, in essence, has the

authority, the authentic voice to write this history, construct this heritage among groups competing for ownership of a particular landscape? Traditional history, as

defined above, relies on a completely different historiography, a genealogy of place with origins in both

physical and spiritual worlds that inform its significance.

What, for instance, constitutes a "property"? How

are its boundaries drawn? More often than not, a sweep

of the hand while a story is being told, rather than a

line drawn on a map, is more indicative of the cultural

delimitations of a traditional place. Mainstream land- scape histories rely heavily on the legal concept of

property ownership based on survey and deed, seen

as an objective, quantifiable standard of measurement.

This is not to say that ideas of property did not exist in

the traditional worldview. In fact, acknowledged territorial rights were key to the functioning of resource

74 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
procurement regions and large trade networks, and

the source of centuries of war among tribes throughout much of indigenous America. However, attempting to determine where an ethnographic landscape,

as a traditional cultural property, begins and ends

can be the grounds for serious contention and divergent interpretations.

How is the concept of "integrity" applied to traditional knowledge of place? The matrix of natural and

cultural resources—the interconnectedness of landforms,

watersheds, corridors, habitats and ecosystems with the

cultural evolution of a people—is, in many ways, a

distillation of the core of cultural ways of knowing and

experiencing place as homelands. It involves preservation of larger narratives, of languages and customs,

embodied in the physical container of landscape, not

just those resources that reflect a certain period of historical time and that have survived to an appropriate

degree of recognition.

And, ultimately, issues of information, confidentiality, and intellectual property become paramount in the

identification of traditional cultural properties. If sites

are identified as sacred, for example, this becomes a

matter of public record. The access to and release of

information, even with the goal of protecting traditional

values in a community's heritage is often, if not more

than likely, at odds with the very public act of designation to the National Register.

Questions abound. In the case of ethnographic landscapes, how is an evolutionary dialogue of people and

place captured in a template such as a TCP nomination? Is the character of the place itself, as defined by

the "associated people," revealed in this process, ensuring that an appropriate definition of "heritage resources"? Are the standards of the National Register

and NFS management policy elastic enough to address

the sophisticated, alternative visions of history and significance that emerge from the perspectives of associated peoples? Is there a common ground for understanding parks as negotiated terrain in which the layers

of a particular cultural landscape can be integrated rather

than juxtaposed as mutually exclusive?

Landscape as Heritage

Certainly one of the most impressive international efforts to deal with the documentation and commemoration of ethnographic landscapes is that of Parks Canada

(Buggey 1999, see also Buggey, this volume). Potential applications of the Parks Canada model within the

National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places would advance the emerging issues of

Native American homelands and the significance of

writing their landscape histories from an ethnographic

perspective.

Tackling the complex issues of aboriginal worldviews and landscape values from an interdisciplinary

perspective, Buggey's landmark study (1999) was not

an academic exercise, but a pragmatic advance in heritage discourse. As a prototype, the study incorporated

international efforts underway to recognize indigenous

history and heritage by reiterating the indivisibility of

natural and cultural place significance. In other words,

places recognized for natural significance were also

significant in terms of the process of cultural association and identification, not relying on static physical

remains as the prime determinant.

Buggey proposed the designation of "aboriginal

cultural landscapes" as away of conceiving indigenous

heritage that could be rigorously documented, evaluated, and protected in terms of culture-specific values

while contributing to Canadian history as a whole:

An Aboriginal cultural landscape is a place

valued by an Aboriginal group (or groups)

because of their long and complex relation- ship with that land. It expresses their unity

with the natural and spiritual environment.

It embodies their traditional knowledge

of spirits, places, land uses, and ecology.

Material remains of the association may

be prominent, but will often be minimal

or absent (Buggey 1999:35).

The language bears some similarity to the National

Register's designation of Traditional Cultural Property

and the NPS definition of ethnographic landscapes; but

TONIA WOODS NORTON 75
the underlying argument represented a major change

toward constructing heritage from a landscape perspective, with or without the critical matrix of physical

remains. In doing so, it reformed preservation discourse

by emphasizing the intangible basis of an emplaced

cultural identity. The idea of aboriginal cultural landscapes rested on the crucible of a sense of belonging,

whether in memory of historic events or in evoking

homelands, as a result of longstanding ties to particular environments regardless of their protected status

as parks. The concept of aboriginal cultural landscapes

recontextualized the production of history as heritage.

It expanded the parameters of how history is constructed, its cultural authenticity, and its physical location in a landscape, portraying a highly unique geogra- phy of time, formation, and belief.

Implicit in this reformulation is the process by which

landscapes would be evaluated for their historical significance in terms of aboriginal history's ability to "illustrate or symbolize in whole or in part a cultural tradition, a way of life, or ideas important in the development of Canada," including their cartographic determination ("boundaries") and the interrelated character of

the heritage values, natural and cultural. Perhaps the most dramatic change toward a landscape-based heritage was the assertion that the concept of "integrity,"

the lynchpin for a site's eligibility for the American

model of a National Register of Historic Places based on physical resources, "will not normally be essential

to understand the significance of an Aboriginal cultural

landscape, and will not therefore generally apply"

(ibid.:38).The implications of this deconstruction of integrity are enormous.

By developing the concept of the "aboriginal cultural landscape" as distinct from other commemorative

landscapes related to Euro-American history, the uniqueness and applicability of this model cannot be understated. While the process may appear, on the surface,

as a reassembling of bureaucratic definitions, the

implications of the new guidelines proposed for Canada's aboriginal cultural landscapes are, in reality, point toward a radical departure from the ways in which history is constructed as heritage in national parks

based on the American model of preservation. Quite

simply, the concept of aboriginal cultural landscapes

as proposed by Parks Canada holds great promise for a new model in the National Park Service, one that would

institute a more sophisticated historical sensibility

with respect to Traditional Cultural Properties. In their

current delineation, the TCPs still respond to the National Register's overall ideological framework of integrity-based significance resting predominantly on

physical evidence recognized with categorical distinctions. Specifically, the ability to determine the historical significance of these indigenous landscapes sug- gested by the Parks Canada definitions, either in

parks or as commemorative sites in themselves, represents a critical leap in thinking because it acknowledges the legitimacy of alternative history, the ability of the landscape paradigm to represent that history as heritage, and by implication, the need to develop preservation and conservation mandates

to protect this unique heritage.

This restructuring of heritage domains suggested

by Parks Canada and its potential for the TCP nominations in the NPS and its National Register process is no mean feat. It holds incredibly rich prospects for understanding the process of landscape as both text and

texture constructed by the people for whom it holds

historical meaning, the essence of the idea of homelands. It is also a cultural project directed toward the

preservation of place knowledge by incorporating indigenous values into the federal purview of preservation in several key ways. First, the proposal of commemorating history by designating "aboriginal cultural

landscapes" eliminates the rather vague conceptual

application across ill-defined and indeterminate cultural groups suggested by the NPS cultural landscape

version of "ethnographic landscapes." The designation

of "aboriginal cultural landscape" focuses specifically on the heritage of First Nations (Native Americans), the

repatriation of cultural knowledge and its validation of

76 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
indigenous worldviews of a given landscape as, for

example, a homelands or memory-place. A new emphasis that establishes Native American cultural landscapes as distinctive will profoundly influence the ways

in which this heritage is documented, preserved, and

interpreted as integral to its institutional mission. This

is particularly crucial at a time when new park units are

created to commemorate Native American history, such

as Washita and Sand Creek battlefields, as well as the emerging recapitulation of long-standing ideologies of

exclusion at places like Mesa Verde and Little Bighorn.

In addition, pitched legal battles over resource use are

increasing the need for histories to reveal the rich associations and legacy of Native American ironically

enough, because indigenous traditional ecological

knowledge may be the keystone bolstering legal argu- ments for natural resource protection in the parks. If

the recent Environmental Impact Statement addressing vessel quotas in Glacier Bay National Park is any indication, the controversies endemic to a conflict of interest between the "pleasuring grounds" of

national parks and the stewardship of the vital resources are far from resolution (National Park Service 2003).

Secondly, writing traditional histories of Native

American cultural landscapes accords the oral traditions,

stories, and beliefs held by associated communities as

the standards by which these landscapes are deemed

significant. This methodology relies on intimate familiarity with forms of traditional knowledge about landscapes, reestablishing cultural geographies and their

implicit values regardless of park boundaries or visible

traces of cultural association. The authenticity of landscape histories, from this perspective, could influence

park planning and management decisions on the ground

floor. Examples could include, for instance, a new understanding of the integrity of ecological processes

(such as the maintenance of previously off-limits natural resource areas as cultural grounds of resource harvesting, e.g., the Tlingit berrying grounds at Dundas

Bay—see Norton, this volume), redefining individual

archaeological properties within a larger landscape context, revising wilderness designations in places where

cultural associations clearly indicate traditional habitation and use, and transforming definitions of historic

"property" and "boundary" into a matrix of interpenetrating zones of interaction and encounter that shift

eventually, such as tribal and clan territories. The com- memoration of Native American history adds a palpable richness and depth to the visited landscapes,

opening an experiential realm that strengthens a sense

of place, even in its most contentious and conflicted

manifestation. And finally, the transformation of the existing ethnographic landscape definition and National Register

paradigm within NPS requires the revision of an artifactual model of historic preservation to one that incorporates a more fluid construction of heritage as cultural difference. Analogous to the recasting of muse- ums as active "keeping places" rather than collection

centers with culture on display, abandoning the objectbased curation of a historical landscape creates the

opportunity to understand parks as critical proving

grounds (Griffiths 1996:219-36). And resonating the

policy statements in "Parks for the 2P' Century," this

transformation embodies an imperative of cultural conservation by restoration in the truest sense of the word,

re-storying place with seamless histories of environ- ment and people, nature and culture.

Notes

1 . The NPS defines an ethnographic landscape

as "a landscape containing a variety of natural and

cultural resources that associated people define as

heritage resources. Examples are contemporary settle- ments, religious sacred sites and massive geological structures. Small plant communities, animals, subsistence and ceremonial grounds are often components" (Birnbaum 1 994:2). Similarly, the NPS ethnography program defines ethnographic landscapes as

"a relatively contiguous area of interrelated places

that contemporary cultural groups define as meaningful because it is inextricably and traditionally linked to their own local or regional histories, culTONIA WOODS HORTON 77
tural identities, beliefs and behaviors. Present-day

social factors such as a people's class, ethnicity, and

gender may result in the assignment of diverse meanings to a landscape and its component places" (Evans

and Roberts 1999:7).

2. Examples include the idea of "wilderness"

and "wilderness planning" along with "habitat res- toration." Such paradigms often insist upon their

scientific rationale as a proof validating management approaches, disallowing their own historicity as theories of nature which have, themselves,

been subject to change (Griffiths 1996; Nelson

1998; Reich 2001).

3. The use of the Antiquities Act waned after

its heyday in the years of the New Deal, but its utility as a way of designating heritage areas continues

to the present day. In 2000, President Bill Clinton

invoked the Antiquities Act to create the Canyons

of the Ancients National Monument in southwest

Colorado, consisting of 1 64,000 acres of the highest

known archaeological site density in the United

States, www.co.blm/gov/canm/html.

4. A number of battlefields, mostly related to the Civil War, were transferred from the War Department to the Department of the Interior in 1 933.

5. "The National Register is the official Federal

list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects significant in American history, architecture,

archaeology, engineering, and culture. These contribute to an understanding of the historical and cultural foundations of the Nation. The National Register includes: All prehistoric and historic units of the National Park System; National Historic Landmarks,

which are properties recognized by the Secretary

of the Interior as possessing national significance;

and Properties significant in American, State, or

local prehistory and history that have been nominated by State Historic Preservation Officers, Federal agencies, and others, and have been approved

for listing by the National Park Service" (National

Register 1 991 :i). See also Murtagh 1 997; Tomlan

1997.

6. NPS policy on the relationship of cultural landscapes to the National Register of Historic

Places, and the enforcement of Register standards

and criteria for these landscapes is outlined in Director's Order 28. The administrative conflict of

interest between the Cultural Landscapes Program

and the Ethnography Program's joint interest in

documenting ethnographic landscapes is underplayed in the discussion of their separate roles and responsibilities (National Park Service 1998:87-

91, 160-70).

7. The two basic research avenues for cultural landscape study within NPS are the Cultural Landscape Inventory (CLI) and Cultural Landscape Re- ports (CLR). Both develop landscape histories to dif- fering degrees. The basic difference between the CLI and CLR is that the Inventory is used as baseline

identification and evaluation of the cultural land- scape as it can be documented. Utilizing much of

the same data and process, the CLR is a management document intensively geared toward preser- vation treatment in light of resource degradation,

loss, threat, or proposed changes to the landscape

fabric.

8. Landscape characteristics specific to cultural landscape histories in NPS include spatial organization, land use, cultural traditions, cluster arrangement,

circulation, topography, vegetation, buildings and

structures, views and vistas, constructed water fea- tures, small-scale features, and archaeological sites (Page 1998:53).

9. For the National Register's institutional re- sponses to defining landscapes as historic resources

eligible for listing see National Register 1 984, 1 987,

1992a, 1992b, 1992c.

1 0. The term "ethnographic landscapes" typically refers to a wide range of cultural landscapes

of regional origin, including places associated with

African American slave culture, urban Chinese

settlements in Los Angeles and San Francisco, nine- teenth-century European immigrant farmsteads in the mid-West, and Puerto Rican barrios on the East Coast (see Alanen and Melnick 2000; Hardesty

2000).

1 1 . By the terms of the National Historic Pres- ervation Act, Section 106 in regard to Traditional

Cultural Properties, "federal agencies. State Historic Preservation Offices, and others who conduct activities pursuant to environmental and historic preser- vation legislation are responsible for identifying,

documenting, and evaluating them [TCPs] in planning" (cf. Parker 1993:3).

12. Consistent with the National Register designations, the guidance in NRB 38, Traditional Cul- tural Properties, does not recognize landscapes as

a property type, much less ethnographic landscapes.

78 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
In fact, the word "landscape" does not appear in the entire document (ibid.: 1 -22).

References

Alanen, Arnold, and Robert Melnick, eds.

2000 Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Birnbaum, Charles

1 994 Protecting Cultural Landscapes: Planning,

Treatment and Management of Historic Landscapes. Preservation Brief 36. Washington, DC:

National Park Service.

Buggey, Susan

1 999 An Approach to Aboriginal Cultural Landscapes. Ottawa: Historic Sites and Monuments

Board of Canada, Parks Canada.

Cook, Robert

1995 Is Landscape Preservation an Oxymoron?

Paper delivered at the National Park Service conference. Balancing Natural and Cultural Issues in the Preservation of Historic Landscapes, http://

www.icls.harvard.edu/ecology/cook2.html.

Corner, James, ed. 1995 Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture. New York:

Princeton University Press. Downer, Alan, Alexandra Roberts, Harris

Francis, and Klara B. Kelley

1994 Traditional History and Alternative Conceptions of the Past. In Conserving Culture: A New

Discourse on Heritage. Mary Hufford, ed., pp. 39-

55. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Dramstad, Wenche, James D. Olson, and

Richard T. T. Forman

1 996 Landscape Ecology Principles in Landscape

Architecture and Land-Use Planning. Washington,

DC: Island Press. Evans, Michael, and Alexa Roberts

1 999 Ethnographic Landscapes. Unpublished pa- per delivered at the 59"^ Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology. Tucson, Ari- zona.

Glassie, Henry

1 982 Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Culture

and History of an Ulster Community. Philadel- phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.

Griffiths, Tom

1 996 Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian

Imagination in Australia. New York: Cambridge

University Press. Hardesty, Donald L. 2000 Ethnographic Landscapes. Transforming Nature into Culture. In Preserving Cultural Landscapes in

America. A.R. Alanen and R.Z. Melnick, eds., pp. 1 69-

185. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press Hosmer, Charles

1 981 Preservation Comes ofAge. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

Jackson, J.B.

1 980 The Necessity for Ruins, and Other Topics.

Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Lowenthal, David

1 988 The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge University Press Murtagh, William

1 997 Keeping Time: The History and Theory of

Preservation in America. New York: John Wiley

& Sons, Preservation Press. National Park Service

1 998 Director's Order 28: Cultural Resource Management Guidelines. Washington, DC: National

Park Service.

2001 Rethinking the National Parks for the 2 1 st Century. National Park System Advisory Board.

http://www.nps.gov/policy/report.htm,

2003 Clacier Bay National Park and Preserve En- vironmental Impact Study. Anchorage:National

Park Service.

National Register

1984 Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Rural Historic Landscapes. National Register

Bulletin 30. Washington, DC: National Park Ser- vice. 1987 How to Evaluate and Nominate Designed

Historic Landscapes. National Register Bulletin 1 8. Washington, DC: National Park Service. 1991 How to Complete the National Register

Registration Form. National Register Bulletin 1 6A.

Washington, DC: National Park Service. 1992a Guidelines for Identifying, Evaluating, and

Registering America's Historic Battlefields. National Register Bulletin 40. Washington, DC: National Park Service. 1992b Guidelines for Evaluating and Registering

Cemeteries and Burial Places. National Register Bulletin 41 . Washington, DC: National Park Service. 1992c Guidelines for Identifying, Evaluating, and

Registering Historic Mining Properties National

Register Bulletin 42. Washington, DC: National

Park Service. 1994 Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties. National Register Bulletin 38. Washington, DC: National Park

Service.

1997 How to Apply the National Register Cri- teria for Evaluation. National Register Bulletin 1 5. Washington, DC: National Park Service.

TONIA WOODS HORTON 79
Nelson, Michael P. 1998 An Amalgamation of Wilderness Preservation Arguments. In The Great New Wilderness Debate.]. Baird Callicott and Michael P. Nelson, eds.

Pp. 1 54-98. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Page, Robert

1 998 A Guide to Cultural Landscape Reports: Contents, Process, Technique. Washington, DC: National Park Service. Parker, Patricia

1993 Traditional Cultural Properties: What You

Do and How We Think. Cultural Resource Management 16. Washington, DC: National Park

Service.

Reich, Justin

2001 Re-Creating the Wilderness. Environmental

History 6(1):95-1 1 7. Ryden, Kent C. Ryden

1993 Mapping the Invisible Landscapes: Folklore,

Writing, and the Sense of Place. Iowa City: Uni- versity of Iowa Press. Spirn, Anne Whiston

1998 The Language of Landscape. Cambridge:

MIT Press. Tomlan, Michael A., ed.

1 997 Preservation of What, For Whom? A Criti- cal Look at Significance. Ithaca: National Council

for Preservation Education.

80 STATE POLICIES/ UNITED STATES
M^n^Bging the ^aami

(Cultural l^'ientage in {\]orwa

~y~he L,ega! Landscape

INCEGERD HOLAND

Like many, perhaps even most, other countries, Nor- way has over the last ten-to-fifteen years tried to implement a cultural heritage management system that preserves not only objects, but also their contexts. This

includes cultural landscapes where no single object

may deserve preservation on its own, but where the whole landscape does. The theoretical criteria for considering landscape preservation are very much the same

as those used by other countries. Since these are presented in some detail by other contributors to this publication, this article will concentrate on how such principles have been incorporated into Norwegian cultural

heritage legislation and to what extent this has changed

practices, with special regard to the Sami cultural heritage.The Sami [also spelled as Saami, Sami, or Same]

have, since 1 990, been recognized as an indigenous

people within the state of Norway. The estimated number of Sami in Norway and elsewhere today varies from

publication to publication. Aarseth et al. (1 990) assume

that there are about 30 to 40,000 Sami living in Norway, while another 1 7,000 live in Sweden, about 5,700

in Finland and about 2,000 in North-Western Russia. Most of the Norwegian Sami live in the two northern- most counties, Finnmark (25, 000) andTroms (1 2,000),

but there are also more or less distinct pockets of Sami

settlements further south, in the counties of Nordland,

Nord- and Sor-Trondelag, and even in Hedmark in

Southern Norway (Fig. 20). Historically, these should

probably be seen as the remnants of a more continu- ous Sami settlement and population, that has either

been integrated into the majority Norwegian culture or

left to occupy niches that were of little interest to a predominantly agricultural Norwegian population.

Linguistically, the Sami speak a Finno-Ugric lan- guage, or rather, several varieties of such a language.

These are usually called dialects, but the differences

between the southernmost and north-easternmost dialects are, in fact, so great that their speakers do not understand each other, and they ought therefore to be classified as different languages. This also probably indicates that they became separated a long

time ago.

The Norwegian cultural heritage management system

Organizational Framework

Organizationally, the present Norwegian heritage man- agement system is based on a three-tier administrative

structure, consisting of national, regional, and local authorities. The national level consists of the Ministry of

the Environment, which is responsible for defining and

issuing national policies and guidelines concerning

heritage protection and management, as well as providing the legal framework.

Some of the goals of Norwegian cultural heritage

management, as laid down by the Ministry, are that:

—The distinctive character and variety of cultural monuments, environments and landscapes (be protected), to ensure that information about them is collected, safeguarded and disseminated,

81
—Cultural monuments and cultural environments

are safeguarded as a resource and basis for experiencing historical continuity, cultural history and ar- chitectural diversity, recognition and belonging in everyday life in keeping with sustainable develop- ment.

The practical implementation of these policies is the

primary task of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage

(Riksantikvaren), which is the executive arm of the Ministry. The Directorate is thus responsible for the man- agement of all protected archaeological and architectural monuments and sites, including those that are part

of valuable cultural environments, in accordance with

the relevant legislation. The work includes

—the practical implementation of the objectives

laid down by the Norwegian Parliament and the

Ministry of the Environment,

—advising the Ministry as well as other parts of the

cultural heritage management system, the public

and industry on matters relating to cultural heritage

management and protection,

—ensuring that cultural heritage considerations are taken into account in all planning processes,

—that the interests of cultural heritage are safe- guarded at all levels in the same way as the inter- ests of society as a whole,

—that a representative selection of monuments

and sites is preserved for present and future

generations,

—and helping to increase awareness among the

general public of the value of their cultural

heritage.

The regional level consists of county heritage officers

dealing with Norwegian remains, while the Department

of Environmental and Cultural Heritage within the Sami

Parliament is responsible for Sami remains. This department has four sub-offices, covering all parts of the country with a Sami population. The regional level is the main level for supervising and controlling the day-today interaction between developments of all sorts and

the principles of the cultural heritage laws.

Finally, the local level consists of the municipalities, which have the main responsibility for planning

and structuring developments in such a way that the

principles of the Cultural Heritage Act are followed. They also have the opportunities and means to implement protection orders according to other laws, in particular the Planning and Building Act (see below).

Norwegian Cultural Heritage Legislation: A

Historical Overview

Before concentrating on the present legislation, a brief

overview of the history of cultural heritage legislation

in Norway will serve to put the existing Cultural Heritage Act into context. The earliest law protecting Nor- wegian cultural remains was the Church and Churchyard Act, which was introduced in 1897. In 1903-04,

the discovery and excavation of the Oseberg Viking

ship and the fact that the Norwegian authorities had to

negotiate a deal with the landowner in order to buy

and secure this important archaeological find for the

nation, highlighted the problem of the existing private

ownership of cultural remains on somebody's land. In

1 905, which was also the year when the political union

between Sweden and Norway came to an end and

Norway regained national independence, the first Norwegian Ancient Monuments Act was passed. This

Act provided automatic legal protection for cultural remains older than the Reformation, i.e. 1 537 A.D., and was primarily intended to protect grave mounds. It was,

however, not the monuments themselves that were the main concern of the Act, but rather the objects they

contained; in fact, work that necessitated excavations

of interesting grave mounds should not be prevented.

The Act also applied to publicly owned medieval

buildings, but neither to those that were privately owned,

nor to post-Reformation buildings. In 1 920, therefore,

the Listed Buildings Act was introduced, providing a

legal basis for the listing (designation) of buildings and

building parts over one-hundred years of age, or even

younger. Approximately 1 ,200 buildings were quickly

listed during the 1 920s, and they still form the core of Norwegian listed buildings.

In 1 951 , the two acts were incorporated into a new

82 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
and revised Ancient Monuments Act, which provided

automatic legal protection for all monuments and buildings older than 1 537 A.D., and also the right to designate monuments, historic places, old roads, bridges and

other technical remains, irrespective of age. In addition, it introduced the concept of "disfiguring" (i.e., de- velopments having a negative visual impact on monuments), and gave the authorities the right to schedule an area of land around any monument in order to protect its visual impact in the landscape.

In 1963, boats and ships over 100 years old were

included in the Act as the property of the Norwegian

state and, in 1 965, a new Planning Act was introduced,

which simplified the inclusion of conservation areas in

public planning, in order to protect valuable building

environments.

None of these early laws addressed the question

of Sami remains separately from the Norwegian ones. However, with the changing political climate of the

20/ The number ofSdmi living today (Hcetta 1996:6)

The darker area represent the densest concentration of Sdmi settlements.

1950s and 1960s came a greater awareness and ac- ceptance of minority rights and state duties toward

minority populations. Among the international conventions that Norway signed in this period, and which

also had an impact on the national cultural heritage

legislation, was the UN Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights, 1966 Article 27:

In those States in which ethnic, religious or

linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging

to such minorities shall not be denied the

right ... to enjoy their own culture, to profess

and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.

It was incorporated into Norwegian legislation in 1 988

through Amendment 11 Oa to the Norwegian Constitution:

It is the responsibility of the Norwegian state to ensure favorable conditions to enable the Sami people to maintain and develop its language, culture and social structures.

In the late 1 960s, another revision of the Ancient Monuments and Building Acts was initiated, resulting in rec- ommendations in 1970-71, from the committees on

ancient monuments and buildings respectively, for a new and revised law. It took until 1 978, however, before the current Cultural Heritage Act was introduced,

and with it came the first specific legal protection of Sami cultural remains in Norway. The Act has since been amended several times, a new version was, for

instance, introduced on January 1 , 2001 , but the basic

provisions have remained unchanged.

Since 1 978, Norway has also ratified several international treaties relating particularly to the recognition

of minorities and indigenous peoples, thereby accepting the basic principles laid down in these with regard

to the protection of minority cultures. The most important of these international treaties are: —ILO Convention No. 1 69 concerning indigenous

and tribal peoples in independent countries, 1 989,

ratified by Norway on June 20th, 1990, Article 2:

Governments shall have the responsibility

for developing . . . measures [which

promote] the full realization of the social.

INGECERD HOLAND 83
economic and cultural rights of these

peoples with respect for their social and

cultural identity, their customs and

traditions and their institutions.

—Agenda 21 from the World Conference on Envi- ronment and Development, Brazil 1992: Chapter

26.3, Objectives:

(a) Establishment of a process to empower indigenous people and their communities through measures that include (ii) Recognition that the lands of

indigenous people and their communities

should be protected from activities that are environmentally unsound or that the indigenous people concerned consider to be socially and culturally inappropriate.

—Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992, rati- fied by Norway on July 9, 1 993, Article 8(j):

Subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and

local communities embodying traditional

lifestyles relevant for the conservation

and sustainable use of biological diversity

and promote their wider application with

the approval and involvement of the

holders of such knowledge, innovations

and practices and encourage the equitable

sharing of the benefits arising from the

utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices.

—The Council of Europe's Framework Convention

for the Protection of National Minorities, 1995, rati- fied by Norway on June 18th, 1998, Article 5.1:

The Parties undertake to promote the conditions necessary for persons belonging to national minorities to maintain and

develop their culture, and to preserve the

essential elements of their identity,

namely their religion, language, traditions and cultural heritage.

Norwegian Cultural Heritage Legislation:

The Present Legal Framework

Today, there are three main groups of Norwegian laws and regulations that govern the work of the local, regional and national agencies and authorities that deal

with cultural heritage management in Norway. Each

group contains a number of different laws covering

specific areas, the main ones being:

—Specialized cultural heritage management legislation, including The Cultural Heritage Act (1978)

with later amendments.

—Planning legislation of importance to cultural heri- tage management, including The Planning and Build- ing Act (1 985) with later amendments.

—Legislation regulating the conduct of state agencies and the rights of the public, including The Public Agency (or Administration) Act (Forvaltningsloven) (1 967/83), and The Freedom of Information Act (Offentlighetsloven) (1 970/89).

The first two groups contain a number of regulations

and more specialised laws, which have not been included here. The Cultural Heritage Act, however, is the most important piece of legislation, in that it sets out

the basic goals and means of Norwegian cultural heritage legislation. The Planning and Building Act functions as the main tool for reaching some of those goals

through active use of planning regulations at the local

level, while the last group lays down the formal rules

for how the work is conducted, as well as the rights of

the public to access any relevant information.

In addition to the national legislation, Norway is

also a signatory to a number of international conventions and recommendations that provide a general legal basis for the protection of cultural heritage. Among

them are for instance:

—The European Convention on the Protection

of the Archaeological Heritage (revised). La

Valette, 1 992 which states:

[The member States of the Council of

Europe acknowledge] that the European

archaeological heritage, which provides

evidence of ancient history, is seriously

threatened with deterioration because of

the increasing number of major planning

schemes, natural risks, clandestine or

unscientific excavations and insufficient public awareness.

—The European Landscape Convention, 2000,

which states: The member States of the Council of

Europe [are] aware that the landscape

84 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
contributes to the formation of local cultures and that it is a basic component

of the European natural and cultural heritage, contributing to human well- being and consolidation of the European

identity.

The 1 978 Cultural Heritage Act and its Provisions

The main principles behind the present Cultural Heritage Act are the concepts of jurisdiction and age;

that is, the Act applies to monuments of a certain age within Norwegian territory. The general age limit

is the year 1 537 A. D., the year of the Protestant

Reformation, which historically marks the end of the Middle Ages in Norway.

The same principles also apply to Sami remains.

However, since the minority Sami culture was perceived as being more vulnerable than the majority

Norwegian one, and also perceived to have gone

through a different set of chronological changes, the

line was drawn at 1 00 years, at the time meaning about

1880, instead of 1 537. This distinction, however, also

necessitated the introduction of a third principle into

the law, i.e. the concept of ethnicity, since only Sami

remains dating to between 1 537 and 1 880 were to be

automatically legally protected. In other words, all monuments from this period had to be ethnically defined as Sami in order to be automatically protected

by the Act. The purpose of the Cultural Heritage Act as stated

in Section 1 is:

To protect archaeological and architectural monuments and sites, and cultural environments in all their variety and detail, both as

part of our cultural heritage and identity and

as an element in the overall environment and

resource management. ... It is [seen as] a

national responsibility to safeguard these

resources as scientific source material [in particular] and as a permanent basis for the experience, self-awareness, enjoyment and

activities of present and future generations.

Monuments and sites are defined as "all traces of hu- man activity in our physical environment, including

places associated with historical events, beliefs or traditions." This means that both material remains of human activity, as well as natural features and places

with an associated oral or written tradition, are automatically protected if they fulfil the age criterion. Beliefs and traditions will usually be of a religious or mythological nature, which means that, for instance, Sami

holy sites and landscapes are covered by the Act. The automatic legal protection means that, "no person shall . . . initiate any measure which is liable

to damage, destroy, excavate, move, change, cover, conceal or in any other way unduly disfigure any

monument or site that is automatically protected by

law or to cause risk of this happening" (Sec. 3).

Consequently, when any public or large private de- velopment is being planned, "the person or administrative agency in charge of the project is under obligation to find out whether it will affect an automatically

protected monument or site in the manner described in

Section 3" (Sec. 9). This means submitting the plan to

the relevant authority, i.e. the Department for Environmental and Cultural Heritage within the Sami Parlia- ment for Sami remains and the county heritage officers for Norwegian remains. If the authority finds that

the plan will affect legally protected monuments or

sites, but the developer still decides to proceed with

the plan, the developer must apply to the Directorate

for Cultural Heritage, which decides "whether and, if so,

in what way the measures may be carried out" (Sec. 8),

for instance whether the monument(s) may be removed

by excavation, and how extensive such excavations

should be. Excavations have to be carried out by one

of five authorised archaeological museums or one particular research institute for medieval remains of certain kinds. The costs involved at all levels "in investigating

automatically protected monuments or sites or in implementing special protective measures on account of

projects as described in Sections 8 and 9 shall be borne

by the initiator of the project" (Sec. 1 0), i.e. the "user or

polluter pays" principle. Only investigation costs incurred for minor private projects are covered fully or

partly by the authorities.

INCECERD HOLAND 85
The provisions described above give automatic legal protection to certain monuments, when found either alone or in smaller groups. They are, in other words,

primarily object-centered. In addition, however, the Act

allows the designation of larger areas by one of two

different procedures. Since 1 978, Section 1 9 of the Act

gives the Ministry of the Environment the right to

protect an area around a protected monument or site . . . insofar as this is necessary to preserve the effect of the monument in the

environment or to safeguard scientific interests associated with it.

Section 20 of the Act allows "a cultural environment

[to] be protected by the King in order to preserve its

value to cultural history." Cultural environments are

defined as "any area where a monument or site forms

part of a larger entity or context" and is thus analo- gous to the term "cultural landscapes" as used by the

U.S. National Park Service (Evans et al. 2001:53). The

provision to schedule such landscapes has only been

contained in the Act since 1992 (Miljoverndepartementet 1992a, b).

In practical terms, the outcome of using the two

paragraphs may seem much the same, in that they give

the authorities the right to "prohibit or otherwise regulate any activity or traffic within the protected area which

may run counter to the purpose of the protection. The same applies to dividing the land or leasing it out for

the purpose of such activity." However, the underlying

legal principles, as well as the legal procedures, are

very different. Protection after Section 1 9 is in reality

based on the existence of objects that are already protected by other paragraphs of the Act and is applied in

order to preserve their surroundings from disturbing

elements (Finne and Holme 2001:168). It is a protection order that can be implemented relatively easily by

the Ministry of the Environment, either to an area with

archaeological remains or to a built environment. The

level of restrictions applying to objects within the area

follows either from the Act itself, for those that are

automatically protected by other paragraphs of the

Act, or they are laid down by the Directorate for other

objects (ibid.: 1 72).

Section 20 preservation of "Cultural Environments," on the other hand, is not dependent on already protected objects within the area, although such objects

may exist, but may be introduced in order to protect a

landscape that is seen as eligible for protection be- cause of its overall impact and value (ibid.: 173). This means that its value must be thoroughly documented

and defined, while the scheduling procedure itself is

slow and complicated, including thorough consultations

with landowners, local authorities and state agencies,

and leading eventually to a preservation order being

confirmed by the King, i.e. the Norwegian government.

The procedure means that preservation according to

Section 20 is normally only afforded to landscapes

considered to be of national importance and, so far,

only four landscapes in Norway have been preserved

in this way.' The purpose of the restrictions imposed is

to preserve the overall qualities of the area that led to

its scheduling in the first place.

For both types of preservation, an administrative

authority is appointed according to already existing

legal regulations. The role of the authority is to uphold

the restrictions imposed by the scheduling order, to

deal with future maintenance and presentation of the

area, as well as with applications for developments or changes of any sort within the area. This authority will

be either the county heritage officer (for Norwegian

remains) or the Sami Parliament (for Sami remains).

While these are the only two procedures for protecting cultural landscapes contained in the Cultural

Heritage Act, there are other Norwegian laws that offer

opportunities for landscape protection. The Planning

and Building Act gives local municipalities the means

for protecting valuable local environments if they so

wish (Verdifulle kulturlandskap:l 14), while the Nature Conservancy Act also allows the preservation of valuable cultural landscapes, even if valuable in this context primarily means "biologically valuable" (ibid: 1 1 6). However, since cultural landscapes by definition mean

86 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
landscapes that have developed through the intervention of man, they are also likely to contain material

cultural remains of the sort normally dealt with by the

cultural heritage authorities. For example, a study con- ducted in the early 1990s (Direktoratet for naturforvaltning 1994) identified twelve "valuable cultural

landscapes" in the County of Finnmark based on biological/botanical as well as culture historical criteria. One of these landscapes was Skoltebyen in Neiden,

which in 2000 was scheduled through a Section 20

preservation order, based on the religious and cultural

historical importance of the site.^

Overall, however, local municipalities are reluctant

to apply protection orders to areas of any size, while

protection according to the Nature Conservancy Act

(for instance, as National Parks) is sometimes vehemently

opposed since it places restrictions on traditional use

even by local people in order to protect the flora and

fauna of the area. Such restrictions may be even more

strongly felt in Sami areas where the use of natural

resources in a traditional way is seen as a basis for

maintaining the Sami culture and economy, such as was demonstrated in a couple of recent cases in Northern Norway.

This makes the ongoing work of implementing The

European Landscape Convention, which Norway signed on October 20, 2000, as a joint venture between the

Directorate for Cultural Heritage and the Directorate for

Nature Conservancy, even more important when it comes to future landscape conservation work in Sami

areas. A preliminary strategy document from the two

Directorates (Direktoratet for naturforvaltning and

Riksantikvaren 2001) was presented on December 1,

2001, marking the start of Norway's participation in a

four-year project to implement the Convention in

Scandinavia. In it, the two Directorates acknowledge

the "need to develop an understanding of the varying

cultural importance of the landscape, depending on

cultural and social perceptions," and that one of the

tasks must be to "contribute to a better understanding

locally for a multi-ethnic landscape perception and

importance." This should be done by "developing and

implementing procedures and undertakings based on

contributions and participation from indigenous and

minority groups . . . using for instance experiences

from other countries." Acknowledging the need for a

multi-cultural approach to landscape preservation in

Norway, and hopefully also in Scandinavia as a whole,

at such an early stage of implementation, should ensure that these aspects are incorporated into the national and Scandinavian strategies for future work.

Ethnographic Landscapes

The term "ethnographic landscapes ' as used by the U.S.

National Park Service (Evans et al. 2001:53) has not

hitherto been an active part of the legal or management language in Norway. However, it may well be

seen to exist as a theoretical concept in the practical

work done by the Sami Parliament when fulfilling its

role in the cultural heritage management system of

Norway. Unlike the archaeological surveys carried out

according to Section 9 of the Cultural Heritage Act by

the Norwegian county authorities in order to establish whether developments may interfere with protected

cultural remains, the Sami Parliament and its predecessor, the Sami Cultural Heritage Council, have always

insisted on establishing the broader context of any

Sami remains within a planning area, the Sami traditions connected with them or the area itself, and the

history of any Sami involvement with the area. This has meant carrying out not only a traditional, visual survey

of the area, but also interviewing local people and recording oral traditions and "invisible" knowledge. In

this way, many landscapes have probably been defined as "ethnographic landscapes" by the local inhabitants or users, such as the migrating reindeer herders and their flocks. It is as yet not clear how these different narratives are being, or should be, incorporated

into the management of both Sami as well as other

cultural remains and landscapes, especially when there

are competing narratives constructed by different user groups and even different ethnic groups about the

INCECERD HOLAND 87
same landscape. The task of safeguarding Sami remains

is formally placed with the Sami Parliament, albeit in cooperation with the Norwegian authorities both at

regional and central level. At present, however, there is probably a tendency towards mutual exclusivity at

the regional level when attempting to establish an official narrative about an area, be it small or large. This

can be seen to originate from the wording of the law,

with its requirement for an ethnic definition of cultural remains and the ensuing division of responsibility be- tween two different authorities. Inevitably, this leads

to a certain polarization where any multicultural narrative tends to lose out. When it comes to divulging traditional knowledge,

many Sami communities prefer to keep such knowledge secret from those who are considered outsiders,

and this may well include the central heritage agencies

as well as the regional Norwegian ones. The choice of

secrecy is made either because the knowledge traditionally has been sacred and therefore available to only

a few, or because of fears about the consequences of

divulging the location of sites (Husby 2001:179). Al- though such a view must obviously be respected, it

creates its own problems with regard to the legal protection of Sami remains, since the law, although in

theory affording automatic legal protection to all Sami

remains more than one-hundred years old, whether

known or unknown, in practice may require monuments

to be known in order to successfully prosecute any

violation of this protection. For Norwegian remains,

this requirement will soon be met by a new national

register of both archaeological and architectural monuments, as well as protected areas and landscapes,

through work that is currently being finalised by the

Directorate for Cultural Heritage. This register will

contain information from a number of smaller databases, but access to the information will be graded

according to the questioner's status. The fact that

a monument is listed in the register will, however,

count as making it "known." The Sami Parliament

has so far chosen not to incorporate its own databases for reasons described above.

Protection of Sami Remains in Particular

The basis of the management of cultural remains in Norway can be seen as a legal landscape, where the

articles of the law constitute the physical landscape. In

this landscape, the concepts of jurisdiction and age are

normally objectively verifiable and thus undisputable.

The added provision of ethnicity as a criterion for Sami

remains, however, introduces a cognitive and subjective concept, which the law has difficulties dealing with

in an adequate manner. This difficulty is therefore often transferred to those maintaining the law and creates a fertile ground for negotiations and sometimes

even conflicts when the legal landscape is perceived

in a totally different manner by the Norwegian and

Sami authorities.

In many ways, this situation mirrors the way in which the geographical landscapes of Northern

Scandinavia have been seen and described by the

different ethnic groups. The Norwegians have tended

to see them as wild and untouched landscapes consisting only of geological, botanical and faunal features, which could be mapped and described relatively accurately in scientific terms. For the Sami living there, however, the same landscapes functioned

at a very different level, as an economic as well as a

cultural and mythological framework for their life and work. Translating these two opposing perceptions of the same landscapes into an easily applicable legal framework has proved difficult, unless a

great degree of pragmatism is exercised when maintaining the principles of the law. This article is an attempt to describe some of these difficulties.

The Norwegian Cultural Heritage Act and Sami

Remains

The Norwegian Cultural Heritage Act is often described

as particularly beneficial to the protection of Sami re- mains because of the one-hundred year limit for automatic legal protection of such remains, while Norwe88 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
2 1/ The old Coastal Saami communities ofSorstraumen (in the foreground) and Nordstraumen in the municipality

of Kvcenangen, Northern Troms. The landscape contains settlement remains from the Ice Age to the present day,

place-names, Saami and Christian religious sites, folklore and stories.

gian remains must be four to five hundred years old in

order to benefit from the same sort of protection. The

reasons why a limit of one-hundred years was chosen

for protected Sami remains are contained in the original committee recommendations from 1 970, which

passed more or less unchanged into the new law itself. In the recommendations, the committee described

certain Sami cultural remains, such as sacrificial sites,

large pitfall systems for hunting reindeer, burial grounds,

etc., as "non-functional" elements in a modern Sami

culture, in the same way as such ancient elements are

in the majority Norwegian culture. The difference was

that these elements became non-functional at widely

differing times, since "the development involving a change to Christian cult, the establishment of Christian

cemeteries and the end of the hunting society is greatly

retarded in the Sami areas," as the recommendations

put it. In other words, cultural elements that were abandoned in the Middle Ages or even earlier in Norwegian

areas were perceived to have survived so long in the

Sami areas that it was necessary to draw the line at one-hundred years instead of 1537 A.D. in order to

protect similar remains.

Later government publications from the 1 980s (e.g.

Miljoverndepartementet 1 987, 1 988) expanded on the

reasons by describing Sami remains as

—Representing a different culture and adaptation

from that evidenced by Scandinavian archaeology

and ethnology,

—Being part of a still living tradition, but perhaps

not for much longer,

—Identity markers for a people with a special need

for such markers,

—Widespread but modest,

—Prone to being overlooked and destroyed, especially since it takes knowledge of the Sami culture

to recognize them, and since they are mostly lo- cated in harsh environments.

The main objectives for Sami cultural heritage man- agement were therefore seen as 'locating and protecting' Sami cultural remains; objectives that still remain

INCECERD HOLAND 89
valid, since our knowledge of where legally protected

Sami remains are located, how many there are, and

what state they are in, is still patchy.

However, while the intentions may have been the

best, the introduction of the concept of Sami ethnicity

into a legal framework had two consequences:

—Any monument dating between 1 537 (in exceptional cases 1 650) and the present minus one-hundred years must be defined as Sami in order to be

protected by the Act, —On the other hand, all monuments olderthan 1 537

are automatically protected irrespective of ethnicity.

This means that only monuments younger than 1 537

need the ethnic label "Sami" in order to be legally protected, and it has more or less unwittingly led to a

perception of the term "Sami" applying only to monuments younger than 1 537. The problems are thus how

to define monuments as Sami, and also what to do

about the monuments that are not defined as Sami in

the present Sami areas.

What is a Sami Monument?

The immediate need—once the 1 978 Cultural Heritage

Act had been introduced—to define Sami monuments

as such does not seem to have been realized by the

law makers, since neither the law, nor the documents

associated with it made any serious or stringent at- tempt at defining what constitutes a Sami monument,

as opposed to the other monuments covered by the

Act. For a number of years after the introduction of the

Act, Sami remains and monuments were therefore defined as more or less restricted to those left by the

reindeer herding Sami. On the whole, these remains were younger than 1 537, they occurred in areas not occupied by Norwegians or any other non-Sami ethnic group, they took a form that clearly set them apart

from Norwegian remains, and were not of particular

interest to Norwegian archaeologists or historians.

It is easy to see, however, that this narrow definition of Sami remains left scope for an eventual expansion to all sides. As soon as you include the Coastal

Sami and the Sami inland farmers in the definition of

"Sami," you literally move into territories which for a

long time have been occupied by several ethnic groups:

Norwegians, Sami, and Qvens (Finnish immigrants

mainly from the eighteenth century and later). The law, however, treats the remains of these groups very differently, necessitating ethnic labels in order to establish whether a house site is Norwegian (and therefore

only protected if it is olderthan 1 537), Sami (and therefore protected when it is one-hundred years old) or Qven (not protected by the law). About ten years after the introduction of the Act,

the discussion about Sami cultural heritage management was mainly focussed on administrative problems:

how a future dedicated Sami cultural heritage man- agement system should be organized (e.g. Marstrander

1 987); and the required educational and cultural back- ground for those working within the system (Fjellheim

1 991 ; Rauset 1 990). Both subjects were, of course, important, but—just like the law itself—the discussion seems to have assumed that a general consensus as to what constituted a Sami monument existed. For instance, Marstrander (1987:4) defines "ancient monuments" as "stationary monuments which are protected

by the law," and includes Sami monuments in the definition. He then goes on to define Sami monuments as

"material remains left by Sami ways of life."

By this time, however, the difficulties should per- haps have been realized on the basis of trying to

define Sami in a politically meaningful way. With the establishment of the Sami Parliament in 1989 and

the ensuing elections to choose its members, a formal

electoral register had to be established which gave

selective voting rights to the Sami. This meant identifying who the Sami were, i.e. who would be allowed

to register. The accepted definition of a Sami (Helander

1999) according to the Sami Act (1987) thus became someone who:

—Speaks Sami as their first language, or had one

parent or grandparent who did so

—Considers himself or herself a Sami,

90 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
22/ Reconstructing the frame for a traditional Saami turf Inouse (gammed at Nordstraumen in Kvcenangen,

Northern Troms.

—Lives in entire accordance with the rules of the Sami society,

—Is recognised by the representative Sami body

as Sami,

—Has a parent who satisfies these conditions.

The official legal definition of a Sami thus places the

greatest importance on the use of the Sami language.

This, however, is problematic since perhaps half the Norwegian Sami today do not speak the language

any more. The Sami Act therefore had to acknowledge this historical development by extending the use

of the language back to a parent or even a grandparent.

Today, approximately 10,000 people have registered

for the right to vote in elections to the Sami Parliament, but any publication on the Sami will tell you that

there are at least as many as 35,000 Sami in Norway

(Aarseth et al. 1990; Haetta 1996), more likely 40 to 45,000 (Helander 1 999), or perhaps as many as 60,000

or even 1 00,000 (Lorenz 1 981 ). The discrepancies between these figures may also say something about

the difficulty of ethnic definitions, be they self-applied

(subjective) or imposed (objective).

An example from the municipality of Kvaenangen

in Northern Troms^ (Fig. 21) shows the gap between

a self-confessed ethnic identity and the unrealized

potential resulting from using the criteria above. In

the 1891 census, 1,016 people (or 57.4 percent of

the population) in Kvaenangen identified themselves

as Sami. Nearly one-hundred years later, in 1970, a

theoretical calculation based on the language criteria

used in the Sami Act showed that 895 people (42.9

percent) still fulfilled the formal criteria for calling themselves Sami (Bjorklund 1985:403, Table 44), but only

twenty-four people (1 .2 percent) did so in the census.

Today, Kvaenangen is part of Electoral District 7 for

the Sami Parliament, together with five other municipalities in Northern Troms. The population of these six

municipalities totalled 16,759 on January 1, 2003

INCECERD HOLAND 91
(Statistisk Sentralbyra 2004), but only 741 (4.5 percent) of them were registered on the Sami electoral

rolls in 2001 , the latest election year (up from 442 at

the start in 1 989), and only 492 actually voted (Norut

NIBR Finnmark 2004). It is difficult to say whether the

figures show a general reluctance to register oneself on an ethnic basis, or, more specifically, on the ethnic

basis now used for the Sami electoral rolls, i.e. the lan- guage criterion. Other researchers have tried other definitions of

"Sami-ness." Lorenz (1981:15) says that the simplest

definition of a Sami is "someone born to Sami parents,"

but this only defers the definition and raises slightly

unpleasant questions about a pure-blooded Sami or

not. What if your mother was Sami, but your father

only half Sami? Or perhaps an academic study classifies your parents as Sami, but they themselves do not,

having chosen to become Norwegian at a time when

being Sami was a stigma that made life difficult? What

does that make you? The same goes for the language

criterion. When your mother spoke Sami as her first

language, but now considers herself Norwegian, should

that entitle you to claim Sami ancestry based on her

linguistic abilities? One could also choose occupation as a criterion and say that only those still employed in the traditional Sami livelihood of reindeer herding qualif/ as Sami,

as the Swedes have done. In the Swedish case, this means that only 2,700 of Sweden's 1 7,000 Sami can

officially be classified as such (Aarseth et al. 1 990: 1 4). Reindeer herding is also an industry that is generally

portrayed as vital to the survival of the Sami culture

in Norway today. That, however, raises the question

of how characteristic it is of the modern Norwegian

Sami. In 1 987, only 2,1 51 people, or about 1 percent

or less of the Norwegian Sami, were employed mainly

in the reindeer industry (Aarseth et al. 1990:187), despite it being an industry restricted to the Sami only.

No livelihood figures exist for the rest of the Norwegian Sami, but studies suggest that a larger proportion

of the Sami than of the Norwegians were employed in

other primary industries, such as agriculture and fisheries, while fewer were employed in the service industries. Many of these non-reindeer herding Sami, who

for hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years have

lived as fishermen and later small farmers, find it difficult to define themselves as Sami today, when the

reindeer herding Sami are commonly used as the most

potent symbol of Sami ethnicity. This, in turn, may also

lead to a narrow view of which parts of prehistory will be defined as Sami or proto-Sami.

The Sami Parliament itself, in its Samisk kulwrminneplan 1998-2001 (Sami cultural heritage plan

1998-2001), defines monuments as Sami when —A living or recorded Sami tradition is associated

with them,

—Local Sami knowledge associates them with a Sami cultural context, —Research results indicate that they document

Sami history and prehistory.

Monuments can also be defined as associated with

Sami prehistory, i.e. they are seen as the physical manifestations of those processes that led to the establish- ment of the historically known Sami cultural traits. This means that monuments dating to the earliest prehistory must be seen as the background for both a Sami

and a non-Sami ethnicity. When they are elements of a

present Sami cultural landscape, the Sami Parliament

finds it natural to treat them as part of the Sami cultural heritage associated with that landscape. Consequently, the Sami Parliament defines part of its role

within Sami cultural heritage management as promoting a long-term view of Sami history within certain

areas. They realise, however, that since monuments

and landscapes have different meanings to people with

different cultural backgrounds living within these areas

today, this presents a challenge to the cultural heritage

management system.

In a recent and comprehensive work on Norwegian

cultural heritage management and its legal basis,

Schanche (2001), expressing the views of the Sami

Parliament, defines Sami monuments as

92 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
23/ The old church at the island of Skorpa in Kvcenangen, Northern Troms, one of only three buildings in the municipality to survive World War II. A chapel was built around 1 795 as a missionary station for the still pagan

Coastal Saami population, while the present building dates back to 1 850. The churchyard was established in 1 851

.

—Monuments with living or recorded Sami tradi- tions, be they physical traces or places without any

observable human influence,

—Monuments that by general scientific consensus

are defined as part of Sami history and prehistory.

At the same time, she acknowledges that definitions change over time, and become progressively more difficult the further back in time one goes. To Schanche,

however, it is natural to include both

—Monuments belonging to those prehistoric roots from which the Sami culture grew;

Monuments that are not the result of Sami activity, but to which Sami traditions have been attached.

In the same study, Curibye and Holme (2001 :55), who

represent the Norwegian government position, present

a subtly different argument by stressing that a "Sami"

monument must have both an ethnic and a culture historical basis, i.e. a Sami monument must be physically

located within a present Sami context or environment

in order to be legally recognized as such. A couple of examples may demonstrate the practical difficulties involved in such ethnic classifications more clearly. One example concerns standing Sami buildings over one-hundred years of age which, more or less by default, became legally protected by the 1 978 Cultural

Heritage Act, Section 4, as discussed above. Reading

the original recommendations for the Act today it is

doubtful whether an automatic legal protection of all Sami buildings older than one hundred years was intended. As stated earlier, the recommendations were

concerned with "non-functional" elements, but when it comes to buildings, still functional houses and buildings are also covered by the Act, with the often severe

restrictions this involves with regard to repairs, modifications, modernizations, etc. This creates the need to

INCECERD HOLAND 93
define buildings as Sami, but by which criteria? Does it

require being built in a Sami technique, such as the gamme shown in Fig. 22; built by a Sami; used by a

Sami; or found in a Sami area? And what about official Norwegian buildings in Sami areas, such as schools

and churches (Fig. 23): should they be regarded as Nor- wegian or Sami in this respect? These questions were

studied in a three-year project initiated by the Sami

Parliament and supported financially by the Directorate. Although the project final report (Sjolie 2003) lists

a number of criteria which can be used to establish the

ethnic affiliation of a building, it also leaves some of

the questions unresolved, not least those that relate to

the establishment of Norwegian central institutions in Sami areas, such as churches, schools etc. The same confusion can also be said to apply to

the more recent architectural landscapes of Northern

Norway. During World War II, the whole of Norway,

right up to the border with Russia in the north-east, was

occupied by the German army. In 1 944, however, the Germans conceded defeat in the north and started retreating south. The retreat was accompanied by so-called

"scorched earth" tactics, which meant that the vast majority of buildings in the County of Finnmark and in

Northern Troms were burnt down, while the population was forcibly moved to other parts of the country. The

devastation coincided with the main Sami population

areas of the country and meant that very little of pre- war material Sami culture in most of Finnmark and

Northern Troms survived the war. After the war, these

districts were rebuilt by the Norwegian authorities, using mainly standardized housing, developed by centrally employed architects. Today, it is this post-war

architecture that characterises large tracts of Finnmark

and Northern Troms, in Norwegian, as well as in Sami

and Qven settlements (Fig. 24). In forty years, therefore, the question will arise whether these standard

houses should become automatically legally protected

in Sami areas, but not in Norwegian and Qven settlements. Even the remains of German fortifications in the Sami areas could end up as protected "Sami monuments," since they represent a part of history that forever changed Sami culture in the north.

Yet another example are the Sami graves in Christian churchyards. Although the Cultural Heritage Act seems to accord automatic legal protection to all Sami

graves more than one-hundred years old, Guribye and

Holme (2001:55) claim that this protection only applies when the whole churchyard can be classified as Sami on cultural historical grounds. In other words, a

single Sami grave in an Oslo churchyard will not be

protected—over the years many Sami have been buried in such Norwegian contexts—while had the same

person been buried at the Kautokeino churchyard in

the County of Finnmark, the grave would have been

legally protected as part of an overall Sami context. Another project has therefore been undertaken by the

Directorate in order to establish which churchyards, and

therefore graves, should be defined as Sami and therefore be legally protected if more than one-hundred

years old. So far, the project has carried out surveys in

those municipalities in Finnmark and Northern Troms

where at least twenty-five percent of the population

still called themselves Sami in the official census around

1900 (Svestad and Barlindhaug 2003; Holand forthcoming). It has located a number of old and abandoned churchyards from the seventeenth, eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries, all of them worthy of preservation since they mostly represent the introduction of

Christian burial rites in their respective areas. However,

only those that are identified as Sami will, in the end,

be afforded the automatic legal protection provided

by the Cultural Heritage Act. One of the most difficult aspects of the law as it

stands today, and one which is bound to become even more so in the future, is the definition of remains older

than 1 537 A.D. as archaeological and thus by default

the responsibility of the Norwegian regional and central heritage authorities. This means that all archaeological remains are dealt with by the Norw/egian county

heritage officers and the Norwegian executive officers

for archaeology at the Directorate, even when these

94 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
24/ Typical post-World War II farm buildings atSaltnes in Kvcenangen, Northern Troms.

remains are located in Sami areas.

In those parts of the world where Europeans, in

particular, arrived late in time, there can be no assumption that the prehistoric remains of that area represent

their history. Both Australia and the New World are good examples of this. Norway, however, is different,

in that at least two recognized ethnic groups (the Sami

and the Norwegians) both lay claim to the prehistory

of the same geographical areas. The Sami historian

Haetta (1996:14) states categorically that the Sami

never immigrated into Northern Scandinavia, but

evolved from the Stone Age population of the area and emerged as "Sami" at least 2,000 years ago (see

also Haetta 1980). There is no doubt in his mind that

this makes the earlier history of at least Northern

Scandinavia Sami, in the sense that the Stone Age and

Bronze Age peoples of the area were the direct ancestors of those people that 2,000 years ago or more

were defined or defined themselves as Sami. Aarseth

et al. (1990:20) agree with this view, and the Sami

Parliament, in their website presentation (http://

www.samediggi.no) of the Sami, state that:

The first people arrived in Northern

Scandinavia about 1

1 ,000 years ago. Whether they were Sami, we do not know,

but we do assume that the Sami culture emerged and developed from these first inhabitants and up to this day through

interaction between people and culture. Because the Sami are the people who have

lived the longest in this area, Norway has

ratified ILO Convention No. 169, accepting

the Sami as the indigenous people of Norway. Sweden, Finland and Russia, however, have not yet ratified this convention.

This view, however, is not usually expressed quite as

explicitly in general accounts of Norwegian prehistory.

The two referred to below are both classic works from

the last generation, the one by Professor Anders Hagen

of the University of Bergen (1 967/77), the other by two eminent South-Norwegian archaeologists, Bente Magnus and Professor Bj0rn Myhre (1 986). Both accounts should be seen as typical examples of how

Norwegian prehistory is commonly presented, not as

specific for the authors concerned.

In their account, Magnus and Myhre point to two

factors in Norwegian prehistory that would seem to

have implications for the interpretation of Sami prehisINCECERD HOLAND 95
tory as well: —The existence of two distinct and different cul- tural patterns in Norway going back at least to the

Early Bronze Age, perhaps as far back as the latter part of the Neolithic, the one being an agricultural culture along the Norwegian coast, perhaps stretch- ing as far north as the County of Troms and with

links to continental Europe, the other being a hunting-fishing culture in inland Scandinavia and the northernmost coastal parts of Norway, with links to Eastern cultures. —The continuity in settlement and subsistence pat- terns within this latter area, which seems to coin- cide more or less with the modern settlement areas

of the Sami.

Magnus and Myhre (1986:235, 316) trace the historically known Sami in Eastern Finnmark back to the last

centuries before Christ (the Pre-Roman Iron Age); the Sami in other parts of Northern Norway to at least the

Migration Period (400 A.D. to 550 or 600 A.D.); and

even suggest that the cultural border referred to above

may point to a proto-Sami population as far south as

the County of Hedmark in Southern Norway already in

the Bronze Age (ibid.: 202, 319). This is consistent with

the modern extent of Sami settlements in Norway (see

Fig. 20). A good example of the continuity in settlement

and subsistence patterns found in many Sami areas is

the site of Mortensnes in the far northeast of Norway,

which is described both by Magnus and Myhre

(1 986:234-36) and Hagen (1 967/77:1 1 5). It has an exceptionally large assembly of house sites and graves

in particular, dating from the Mesolithic to modern times

(K. Schanche 1 988; A. Schanche, n.d.). The graves are

of a characteristic Sami type, i.e. located in screes, with some of them dating back more than 2,000 years, and

there are also house sites and religious sites within the

area that are generally accepted as Sami (Fig. 25, 26).

Furthermore, the site is located in a municipality which

even today is considered Sami, and which had an eightyfour percent Sami population one-hundred years ago.

Neither Magnus and Myhre nor Hagen contest the

fact that most remains within the Mortensnes site must

be labelled Sami at least for the last 2,000 years, possibly even longer. They also seem to accept that the Sami generally emerged as an ethnic group from the Stone Age and Bronze Age groups that preceded them

in any given area. Despite this long Sami history in many parts of Norway, both Magnus and Myhre and

Hagen still prefer not to identify a Sami or even "protoSami" prehistory beyond the last 2,000 years, i.e. to

attach this particular ethnic label to prehistoric remains,

and therefore to integrate the Sami into their account

of the prehistory of Norway. Instead, both accounts

settle for a few isolated pages here and there on the

Sami. This approach, which is commonly shared by

most other publications and scholars in Norwegian history, has the effect of defining the Sami as different,

marginal, and not part of the general historical devel- opment of Norway. On the other hand, such a view

could be seen to coincide with the present Sami political wish to establish a Sami history that is separate

and different from that of the surrounding Norwegian

society.

Identifying the Sami as the direct descendants of

the Stone Age populations of certain areas of Norway

would obviously make innumerable Stone Age settle- ments and monuments part of Sami prehistory, in the same way as such monuments are seen as part of Nor- wegian prehistory. In those parts of Norway that do not have the complications of a multi-ethnic population,

there has never been a need to ponder whether Stone Age sites and rock carvings should be seen as potentially ethnically different from the present populations

of those areas. However, when dealing with the same

sort of remains in the present Sami or multi-ethnic areas, there are now competing views about whose history they represent: Norwegian? Sami?,or perhaps just

those groups that eventually gave rise to both ethnic communities, but may not have represented different

ethnicities in the past. One example is the World Heritage Site of the Alta

rock carvings in Western Finnmark (Helskog 1988; cf.

Figs. 26, 27). Professor Knut Helskog from the North96 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
25/ The sacrificial stone (Craksesteinen) at l\1ortensnes in Varanger, County of Finnmark. The stone is sur- rounded by concentric stone circles.

Norwegian University of Tromso, who is the foremost

expert on the Alta rock carvings, has discussed the

question of their ethnic identity (Helskog 1988: 1 10).

Like the authors mentioned above, he accepts the continuity in settlement and subsistence patterns between

the prehistoric populations and the earliest recognised

Sami groups in these northernmost parts of Norway,

and that the Sami emerge as an ethnic group at least 2,000 years ago. This, he suggests, is also the time

when the production of rock carvings in Alta comes to

an end, perhaps to be replaced by depictions of many

of the same motifs on ritual drums similar to those that

are known from later Sami contexts. He is more reluctant, however, to call the rock carvings part of Sami

prehistory.

Even Professor Bjernar Olsen, also from the University of Tromso, who has worked specifically with Sami

archaeology in the County of Finnmark, is cautious

about applying ethnic labels to the prehistory of that

county. In his work on the prehistory of Finnmark (Olsen

1 994: 1 39), he suggests instead:

It may seem that there was not only an ethnic

consolidation during this millennium [i.e. the

last millennium B.C.], but that many of the formal traits that in historic time have been

regarded as typically Sami, were formed

during this period (IH translation).

Another way of dealing with the controversial concept

of a Sami prehistory is to redefine the problem as semantic: "Sami" becomes the ethnic label for a particular group of people; "Norwegian", on the other hand,

just means "within the present borders of Norway" and

carries no connotations of ethnicity. Therefore, everything can be labelled Norwegian until proven Sami!

This argument is often used within cultural heritage

management, since it avoids the difficulties inherent in

a multi-ethnic past.

INCECERD HOLAND 97
Archaeology and Ethnicity

The problem of how to define ethnicity archaeologically

is not one that is confined to Norway, nor to the relationship between a majority and an indigenous population such as the Norwegians and the Sami. It is also a

theoretical question that is part of archaeological history, and perhaps in particular its relationship to the politics of the day, as demonstrated by Jones (1 996, 1 997).

In her study, Jones (1997:56) raises the questions

"What is ethnicity?" and "How should it be defined?",

while pointing out that the word is mostly used without

any form of definition, even in scientific studies. As an example, she quotes a study where sixty-five sociological and anthropological studies of ethnicity were

surveyed, but only thirteen were found to have some

kind of definition of their key subject.

The most common approaches in anthropological

studies have been to define ethnicity either in an "objectivist" or a "subjectivist" way. The objectivists regard

ethnic groups as "social and cultural entities with distinct boundaries characterized by relative isolation and

lack of interaction," while subjectivists see them as "culturally constructed categorizations that inform social

interaction and behavior" (Jones 1 997:57). In other words,

the objectivists define ethnic groups on the basis of

the analyst's perception of socio-cultural differentiation (the outsider's view), while the subjectivists see

ethnicity as the subjective self-categorizations of the

people being studied (the insider's view). Although Jones does not necessarily draw such a conclusion, this could

also be perceived as an expression of the slightly con- descending viewpoint that researchers are normally

objective, whereas the objects of their studies are not.

It is, however, the latter, subjectivist, view that has

prevailed since the 1 960s, based to a large extent on

Barth's theoretical model of ethnicity, as developed in

his Ethnic Croups and Boundaries {] 969). This view has

also permeated legislation and policy dealing with in- digenous groups—as an example Jones (1 997:60) mentions the definition of Australian Aboriginal groups. It

is not, however, an entirely unproblematic definition.

26/ Location of sites in Nortiiern Norway discussed

in r/ie text.

as exemplified by the question of how to differentiate between ethnic groups and other self-defining groups,

if self-definition becomes the overriding criterion.

It is exactly this tension about the definition of

ethnicity generally, coupled with the need for an objective legal definition of Sami ethnicity, both past and

present, which create problems in relation to the Nor- wegian Cultural Heritage Act. The question is further

complicated by the fact that in the case of the Sami, it

is sometimes the researchers that represent the radical

view, labelling objects and people as Sami on an historical basis, while the people themselves do not identif/ with this label any longer. This not only demonstrates some of the difficulties involved in ethnic labelling, but also shows what Jones (1997:64) calls "the

fluid and situational nature of both group boundaries

and individual identification."

In order to explore further the concept and perception of ethnicity, as opposed to other group ties, Jones

describes another two labels, "the primordial imperative" and "instrumental ethnicities," which have surfaced

in ethnicity studies over the last generation. The primordial imperative is a socio-, or perhaps rather, a

psycho-biological, approach which sees ethnicity as grounded in "the givens of birth: "blood," language,

religion, territory and culture." These "givens" form involuntary primordial attachments with a coerciveness

that "transcends the alliances and relationships engen98 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
mm"

27/ The site of Hjemmeluft/Jiebmaluokta in Alta, County of Finnmorl<.

dered by particular situational interests and social cir- cumstances" (Jones 1 997:65). In other words, the individual is born into a set of ties, primarily kinship ties, and values that will define that person's self-identification. The approach has been criticized for romanticizing and mystifying ethnic identity, as well as portraying

it as "involuntary and coercive" (ibid:69), thereby defining it as "an abstract natural phenomenon," while overlooking the "historical and social grounding of particular ethnicities" (ibid.:70). The approach, developed in

the late 1 950s, also carries some unpleasant echoes of

earlier nationalism, the ideology of national identity

based on bloodlines and descent (ibid.:71). More acceptable in academic terms has, therefore,

been the concept of "instrumental ethnicities," which came to dominate the debate during the 1970s and

1 980s according to Jones (1 996:67, 1 997:75), and which

sees ethnicity as "a dynamic and situational form of

group identity" (1 997:72). However, the instrumentalist

perception also has its difficulties. One is a tendency

towards reductionism (ibid.:76), whereby observed con- sequences of ethnic behaviour are interpreted as the

reasons for it. Thus, ethnicity becomes "the mobilization and politicization of culture in the organization of

interest groups" (ibid. :77). This leads easily to "a neglect of the cultural and psychological dimensions of

ethnicity." It also presupposes that "human behaviour

is essentially rational and directed towards maximising

self-interest" (ibid.:79), and, just like the subjectivist ap- proach described above, it makes it difficult to distinguish between ethnic groups and other collective-interest groups. To a certain extent, one could say that the definition of a Sami for electoral purposes in Norway (as

well as in Sweden and Finland) is based on the primordial imperative way of thinking, using as it does the

INCEGERD HOLAND 99
concepts of kinship and ininerited cultural traits, such

as language, for a legal definition. Most researchers working with the question of Sami ethnicity would,

however, rather adopt a view of ethnicity as a function

of a "them-and-us" situation, using Barth's model and

historical developments to explain its emergence and

background. It is doubtful, however, that anyone would

want to label it rational and self-serving, since this would

tend to be seen as negative.

This results in a number of different approaches and

definitions which all carry both positive and negative

aspects, and which are consequently difficult to subscribe to Jones (1 996:67-8, 1 997:84) herself suggests

yet another definition of ethnicity, based on the theories of Bourdieu (1 977) and his concept of "habitus" or those perceptions and practices that guide an

individual's self-identification. This definition claims

that "ethnic groups are culturally ascribed identity groups, which are based on the expression of a real or as- sumed shared culture and common descent" (Jones

1 997:84). The definition attempts to incorporate those

aspects of the others that are seen as positive, while at

the same time portraying ethnicity as a social process

in which "ethnic categories are reproduced and trans- formed" continuously, in order to accommodate ever

changing historical and social circumstances.

While this may be a useful definition of ethnicity

for theoretical academic discussions, it does not, unfortunately, solve many legal disputes. The fluid and porous borders of ethnic groups are reflected in objects

that incorporate aspects of more than one ethnic group

or move between them, while the situational nature of

ethnicity makes it difficult to project modern ethnic

labels back in time. This, of course, applies as much to "Norwegian-ness" as to "Sami-ness," but has much

greater consequences for the latter, since Norwegian is also equated with a state and its borders.

Although the Sami refer to certain parts of Scandinavia as Sabmi (or Sdpmi, The Land of the Sami),

this has no legal definition and its borders cross those

of four nations: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

For the time being, therefore, Sami as a definition of

legally protected cultural remains will continue to be

the subject of interpretations and negotiations whenever the discussion moves away from the politically

promoted core of Sami-ness, the reindeer owning Sami.

As such, one could say that the legal discussions are

part of the ongoing development and negotiation of Sami ethnicity whereby objects, symbols and opinions

fluctuate and change allegiance both in time and space.

It is a dynamic way of looking at disagreements, which,

however, is not easily incorporated into the task of law

implementation.

It also has the effect, as Jones admits (1 997:1 42), of undermining some of those minority claims to land and cultural heritage that have been accepted through,

for instance, the adoption of ILO Convention No. 169,

which gives the Norwegian Sami status as an indig- enous group. The Sami, like many other ethnic minorities, may be left with the choice of establishing an

undisputable continuity between today's generally accepted Sami culture and that of a distant past, suggesting that little has changed in Sami culture over hundreds and even thousands of years. More ironically

even, the Sami may be forced or choose to accept a concept of ethnicity that is closely associated with

nationalism. Within this particular framework, "group

identities are represented as unified, monolithic wholes,

with linear and continuous histories which in turn are

used in the legitimation of claims to political autonomy

and territory," as Jones (1 996:62) puts it. Another choice

is to interpret and accept Sami ethnicity as a process

that at different times and places has presented itself

in different forms, some of which may not be related

to modern concepts of Sami ethnicity. This latter

choice, however, may blur the distinction between Sami

and other ethnicities both in the past and in the present

to such an extent that it becomes difficult to claim

archaeological remains or cultural landscapes as part

of a Sami history.

At the moment, it seems much easier for all sides

to accept a multi-faceted Norwegian past rather than

100 STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
28/ The Eastern Saami site ofSkoltebyen in Neiden, County of Finnmarl<.

a Sami one. The latter will normally have to show linear development and strong continuity and resemblance with modern Sami culture, or at least certain

parts of it, in order to be accepted as Sami. Therefore,

while the academic discourse stresses the fluid and

situational aspect of ethnicity, practice still prefers a

rigid and one-dimensional definition, not least as the

basis for legal protection of Sami cultural heritage. For

the time being, the two approaches are negotiated

from case to case, but some sort of integrated ap- proach will have to be found and incorporated into

law, as well as practice, in the not too distant future.

Protected Sami Cultural Landscapes

The discussion above acquires more than a theoretical

relevance when applied to three protected cultural land- scapes in the County of Finnmark (See Fig. 26):

Hjemmeluft/Jiebmaluol<ta in the municipality of Alta, Mortensnes in Nesseby, and Neiden in Sor-Varanger.

Hjemmeluft and Mortensnes have been protected using Sectionl9 of the Cultural Heritage Act, Neiden

through Section 20, and of these three sites, only Mortensnes and Neiden have been formally defined as Sami cultural landscapes. Together, they offer different

perspectives on the difficulties of ethnic classifications,

from the purely archaeological to the purely Sami.

Hjemmeluft, Alta municipality. The site contains the World Heritage Site of the Alta Rock Carvings (Fig. 27), and its surrounding municipality today is mainly Norwegian. It is formally classified as purely archaeological, and its administrative authority is therefore the Norwegian county heritage officer in Finnmark. Historically, however, the Alta area is commonly seen as a

Coastal Sami area at least from the Middle Ages, probably for much longer, and one could therefore classify

the Stone and Bronze Age populations of the area, who produced the rock carvings, as proto-Sami. Since

the monuments, however, are all prehistoric, the site

has been formally designated as "archaeological," with no ethnic affiliation.

Mortensnes, Nesseby municipality. The site (Fig. 25)

contains a large number of settlement remains, graves and other religious monuments, dating from the

Mesolithic to the nineteenth century. The Nesseby municipality is still considered a primarily Sami municipality. Nearly all remains within the protected area from

the last 2,000 years are also commonly accepted as

Sami, as are some of the older remains. The difficulties

arise when considering the Mesolithic and Neolithic

remains in the area. When the Mortensnes site was proINGEGERD HOLAND 101
tected in 1 988, the University Museum in Troms0 was

appointed administrative authority according to the provisions of the Cultural Heritage Act. However, later changes to the Act meant that this authority became

divided between the Norwegian county heritage officer for archaeological remains and the Sami Parlia- ment for Sami remains. In other words, the site acquired a dual ethnicity entirely due to the letters of the

law. Since this was deemed impractical in administrative terms, the Directorate has transferred sole authority to the Sami Parliament, based on an overall evaluation of the site and its location. This decision met with some criticism from Norwegian archaeologists since it

is seen to assign a Sami ethnicity to the prehistoric

remains in the area.

Skoltebyen in Neiden, Sor-Varangermunicipality. The

Neiden site (Fig. 28) comprises the settlement area of an Eastern Sami group isiida), while the surrounding

municipality today has a mixed population of Norwegians, Sami and Qvens (Finns). The Eastern Sami often

see themselves as a minority within the Sami minority,

having converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity in

the sixteenth century. The site was originally one of

their seasonal settlements, but when the national borders between Norway, Finland and Russia were drawn

in the nineteenth century, the Eastern Sami, who had

until then moved freely between the three states, were

forced to settle in one of them. The Neiden siida chose

to settle at Skoltebyen, their old summer settlement. The site contains a Russian Orthodox chapel from the

sixteenth century, a number of Eastern Sami graves and remains of settlements from the later centuries, as

well as modern buildings and businesses, the latter owned by descendants of the Eastern Sami.

When the site was legally designated in 2000, the Sami Parliament became sole administrative authority

since there are no known Norwegian or archaeological

monuments within the area. Ironically, this has met with

criticism from some of the local Eastern Sami, who

regard the Sami Parliament, which is dominated by other Sami groups, as yet another a colonial power.

1 02

Conclusion

The three sites thus exemplify many of the difficulties

inherent in the present Norwegian cultural heritage legislation when it comes to defining monuments—and

even more so sites and cultural landscapes with a variety of monuments—as Sami. The difficulties are historical, in the sense that they reflect a heritage management system that has evolved over one-hundred years

or more. This system in turn reflected a view of history,

which, in the twentieth century, tended to regard the Sami as immigrants to Norwegian territory, especially

in the southern parts of the country, and also to equate

"the Sami" only with today's reindeer herders. Modern

research has demonstrated that the Sami have an

equally long history at least in certain parts of the country as the Norwegians have in other parts, but also

that there were and are a number of Sami adaptive

strategies, with the modern form of reindeer herding

being one, but not the only one. The obligation to identify cultural remains ethnically in order to decide their legal status has, on the one hand, led to a greater awareness and acceptance

of Sami history generally, but also to a polarization of

the debate and a sometimes monolithic view of what

constitutes Sami-ness. In this rather antagonistic legal landscape, perceptions have a tendency to appear

either black or white, while promoting the greyscales

of the picture often brings wrath from both sides of the

debate. This may seem surprising in a modern world

where so many people juggle multiple identities on a

daily basis, but it is not something that can be resolved

through heritage legislation. For now, however, it has

been left to the practitioners of the heritage laws, on

both the Sami and the Norwegian sides, to negotiate

the borders and consequences of the law, as knowledge, perceptions and aspirations change.

Notes

1. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not necessarily those of

her employer.

STATE POLICIES/ NORWAY
2. These include a medieval monastery and

the surrounding farm on an island in South-Western

Norway (Utstein in the County of Rogaland), a traditional multi-family farm in Western Norway (Havra- tunet in the neighbouring County of Hordaland), an

Eastern Sami settlement in North-Eastern Norway

(Skoltebyen in Neiden, County of Finnmark), and an

old silver mining landscape in South-Eastern Nor- way (Kongsberg Silver Mines, County of Buskerud).

A few more cases are being considered at the moment, none of them in Sami areas.

3. The author was born at Sorstraumen in Kvaenangen and comes from a Coastal Sami background.

4. The examples have been chosen from the

author's own family. The author belongs to the first generation with Norwegian as their first and only

language.

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1 04
(Concepts and practices in

th nograpiiic Landscape preservation

/\ Russian North perspective

PAVEL M. SHUL'GIN

The problem of preserving historical and cultural legacies occupies a significant place in the social consciousness of Russia and in contemporary Russian scientific

discourse. During the 1 990s, radically new concepts were developed and established about this subject. New

legislative decrees were adopted, and many practical

policies were launched to protect the rich cultural heritage of the Russian Federation. In many ways, these

initiatives were linked to the significant political and

social changes that had been occurring in Russia since 1985 and, especially, after 1991. This evolution entailed greater freedom and the ability to express diverse social opinions, with the country engaged in a

rapid transition from self-imposed ideological seclusion to international cooperation.

Recent Public Attitudes and Their Reflection in Scientific Approaches

Between 1 970 and 1 990, the conditions for preserving the cultural and natural heritage of the former

Soviet Union had deteriorated sharply. The deterioration was related to ever-increasing ideological pressure in the Soviet regime, a drive for unified cultural and social life that was actively promoted "from the

top down." The government vigorously promoted its aims to unif/ individual ethnic cultures and fuse them

into a new, quasi-ethnic community labeled "The Soviet People" (i.e., Bromlei 1981:329-55). In that ideological setting, culture was relegated to a secondary—

if not insignificant— role, in view of the absolute priority given to industrial development and economics in

general, as the fundamental factors in the country's de- velopment.

With industry the center of concentration, development projects with the potential to devastate indig- enous homelands and cultures were perceived as perfectly acceptable goals for the nation's economic

progress. For example, monumental projects were undertaken for redirecting waters from northern rivers to

the south of the Soviet Union to create huge reservoirs (and to flood large agricultural and forest areas in

the Russian North and Western Siberia). The reservoirs were considered necessary to provide for the needs of

industry and agriculture in the southern regions. Seizure of huge territories inhabited by indigenous minority peoples (such as Khanty, Nenets, and others) for

exploring oil and gas fields was common, especially in

the eastern and northern regions of the USSR. Staterun industries confiscated traditional ethnic areas without compensating local residents or providing adequate, new living conditions.

Social changes occurring in the Soviet Union with

the start of perestroika [policy of economic and governmental reform after 1 985-1 986] could not skirt these

problems. It was natural that the issues of ethnic consciousness and protection of the cultures and rights of

indigenous peoples and other minority groups became

so extraordinarily pressing at the end of the 1 980s. The

idea of cultural and ethnic unification as the primary

path for the country's development was repudiated and

replaced by the goal of preserving and reviving the many national cultures in the Russian Federation. Cor105
respondingly, a new crucial task emerged: the identification and documentation of the variety in Russia's

ethnic and historical heritage. Public interest in and

awareness of one's native land, ethnic origins, religious

traditions, and family roots skyrocketed. For a long

time, such concerns about heritage had been considered insignificant, had not been encouraged in official

Soviet propaganda, and at times, had been openly suppressed.

This trend coincided with the beginning of a powerful and popular environmental movement. Many

grassroots environmental groups, organized beginning

in the second half of the 1 980s, asserted the rights for

citizens to live in a clean environment and for complete disclosure to local constituencies of risks associated with existing manufacturing or planned construction projects (Litovka 1 989).

It is no accident that one of the more prominent

expressions of the 1980s, in fact, a widely shared

slogan in the public and scholarly community alike, was the concept of "the ecology of culture," as ad- vanced by the late Academician Dmitrii S. Likhachev

(1980; 2000). Having coined this new term,

Likhachev—then the most authoritative and popular Russian historian—linked the two central issues

of the time. The first concerned the continuity of

social consciousness and the role of historical roots

in the ongoing transformation of Russia (and of the

then-Soviet Union). The second issue was the interaction and spiritual interrelationship of nature and

society. Likhachev's concept assumes that the key

conditions for the preservation of a culture include

not only the protection of its historical treasures,

cultural traditions, and cultural education of the public, but also the protection of nature, without which

a modern nation cannot exist. According to

Likhachev, if preserving the natural environment is

a condition for man's biological existence, then preserving the cultural environment is the most important condition for man's moral and spiritual life.

1 06

New Trends in Russian Heritage Research

During the perestroika years (1985-1991), new concepts were advanced in Russian cultural politics and

scholarship related to the preservation and documentation of cultural heritage. It is important to note the

following three basic transitions.

Individual to Diversified:

The transition from the once-established practice of separate (isolated) research and protection of

cultural and natural monuments to preservation of

heritage in its integrity and diversity.

This new approach was based on evolution from the

protection of individual monuments to the preservation of an entire historical and cultural heritage that subsumes the heritage objects themselves, the envi- ronment in which they exist, and people (or better, the

local community) as carriers of heritage. This shift was

probably the most important trend in Russian scientific and sociocultural practices of the 1 990s and would define many other changes for several years to come.

Specifically, this type of approach allowed work to begin for preserving the face of the territory's common

cultural landscape and its historical environment, instead of protecting a selected individual monument as

an object of cultural heritage.

New programs are being formulated—and many are

already being implemented—to identify the entire scope of heritage, including not only historical and

cultural monuments, but also other, very important

elements. Such elements include, but are not limited to, folk culture, traditions, ethnic crafts and trades,

the historical urban environment, agricultural development and the system of settlement, the ethnocultural

environment, the natural environment, and traditional

nature management (subsistence economy). These

phenomena are no longer viewed merely as necessary background or conditions for any prominent monument or significant historical phenomenon. They are

seen as direct, significant parts of a common ethnic

STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
legacy—as special elements that define the originality

of the culture of a particular country or region.

The trend toward preservation of heritage in its integrity and diversity initially became visible in new

efforts to identify and document historical and cultural monuments. Work to inventory monuments in various

parts of the country has intensified, and previously existing lists of cultural or historical monuments now include thousands of new entries. Their numbers include

not only prominent archaeological, architectural, and

historical sites, as well as monumental art, but also objects that never had been considered in any detail.

Public buildings in historical cities, objects of industrial architecture, the entire complex of the historical

ensemble, and other objects and structures were among

those included under the newly expanded definition

of heritage objects.

After the new inventories of historical and cultural

heritage were performed in the early 1 990s, the number of monuments placed on the government register

and under protection in Russia increased exponentially.'

In many small historical Russian cities, the number of protected objects increased by virtually an

order of magnitude {Istohcheskii gorod 1 997). This escalation is reflected in the publication of a collection (begun in 1 997) of historical and cultural monuments, a

kind of Russian "national register of monuments" (Svod

pamiatnikov 1 997; 1 998-2001 ).

Historical and Cultural Context:

The transition toward viewing heritage as a reflection of historical experience in the interaction be- tween man and nature.

This new perspective on cultural/historical heritage as

a systemic phenomenon is extremely important. Under the new approach, individual objects of heritage cannot be preserved apart from each other or apart

from their environment. Consideration not simply of an individual monument, but of the entire historical and cultural complex in all its variety, offers the best

path to acknowledge the integrity of cultural and natural

heritage. This tenet refers both to the situational unity

of the monument and the environment in which it was

created (and which comprises its natural landscape

surroundings and the functional unity of monument

and environment). As a rule, every cultural monument

is tied by innumerable threads of its functional intent

to its surrounding environment, which forms a unique

ecological niche for the monument.

Unfortunately, this new, integrated approach has not

yet been implemented adequately through specific,

conceptually consistent programs for protecting cultural and natural heritage. As in the past, rigid bureaucratic barriers remain between Russia's state cultural

institutions and environmental protection agencies. In

particular, virtually all functions of the national park

network established in Russia as a special form of protection for nature, culture, and ethnic traditions, are limited to environmental protection. To date, most expectations that had been conferred on this integrated net- work back in the 1980s (Maksakovskii 1998) remain

unfulfilled. However, quests for such integration are underway.

Territorial Approach:

The importance of the territorial approach to re- searching and preserving heritage, when the primary

objects of protection are territories.

Prior practice has made it clear that the protection of

isolated historical and cultural objects cannot be effective apart from the preservation of their surrounding

historical and natural spaces. Preservation of the broader

space, or environment, is necessary from the point of

view not only of how a monument—whether a natural

system, architectural complex, or ethnic communityis perceived, but, most importantly, of its long-term

sustainability. Thus, the creation in Russia of historical/cultural and natural protected areas calls for the

simultaneous resolution of problems in both the preservation and rational management of historical, culPAVEL M. SHUL'GIN 107
tural, and natural monuments. The status of such protected areas has not yet been clearly defined under

Russian legislation. However, their creation has gradually advanced from theoretical discussions to practical

implementation. Consequently, several large museumconservation areas and many national parks have

emerged, per se, as territories with single natural-cultural spaces [see Wiget and Balalaeva, this volume].

A "historical-cultural territory" may be defined as

"an integral spatial object where several natural, historical, and cultural objects of exceptional value and

significance may be found." Such a designation is conferred based on the existence of a local complex of monuments and territories objectively linked by ethnic, economic, historical, or geographical factors. The

existence and combination of a complex of memorial,

architectural, or archaeological objects determine the

territory's uniqueness. Other possible determinants of uniqueness are ethnic traditions and economic activity, folklore and ceremonial ethnic culture, and natural

points of interest or historical forms of nature management' that represent exceptional value from the point

of view of the history and culture of a separate people

or of Russia as a whole.

The best examples of such historical-cultural territories may be small, historical cities (home to numerous monuments and architectural structures from the

sixteenth through eighteenth centuries), including the

surrounding, old villages and natural grounds; old manors or Russian Orthodox monastery complexes, where

nature, architecture, and local community make up a

single whole; and great historical battlefields. Ethnographic landscapes are related, in particular, to the habitation of minority ethnic groups, and Russia's northern

indigenous peoples also fall into this category.

In all these trends, the unity of three factors that

are carriers of heritage—historical and cultural heritage, the natural environment, and the inhabitants of

these territories— is apparent. It must be stressed that

protection and use of heritage are viewed today as

organic parts of the modern sociocultural and eco1 08

nomic development of every territory.

It is these new approaches in Russian scientific discourse and practices in heritage preservation that al- lowed the introduction, in the 1 990s, of the pioneering

(for Russia) concept of cultural landscape. The closely

related concept of "ethnographic landscape" also emerged, and the two terms frequently are discussed

together.

The Concept of Cultural Landscape in Russian Heritage Studies

The contemporary understanding of cultural landscape

is ambiguous in both international and Russian scientific discourse. Three basic approaches to the interpretation of this term must be distinguished.

The first approach is based on the concept that a

cultural landscape is a locale that has been inhabited

over a long historical period by a certain group of people

who are the carriers of specific cultural values. Minority

ethnic groups and/or local communities based on religious traditions (such as Russian Old Believers) are

cited often as examples of such groups. A similar approach to defining a cultural landscape

and its study is characteristic of the school of cultural geography established by Carl Sauerd 925/1 963; 1 927).

In this approach, a cultural landscape is an artificial

landscape created by the long-term settlement and other

interrelated activities of local communities and cultural groups. In this sense, the term "cultural landscape"

is virtually equivalent to the term "ethnographic landscape." Moreover, despite the fact that the latter term is

practically absent from Sauer's work, much attention is

devoted to factors and results associated with the transformation of the natural landscape by various ethnic

populations. At the same time, significant attention is

devoted to the structure of the settlement, features of

land utilization, and local architecture whose creation was influenced by local and other factors (Salter 1971).

In Russian scientific discourse, the concept of the

cultural landscape as a modification of the natural landscape developed gradually during the course of the

STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
twentieth century. In the nature-centric approach, the

geographic landscape is the set of natural phenomena

that, ideally, has not been touched or changed by man

(Isachenko 1 965). Its antithesis is the anthropogenic

landscape, which has been changed/transformed by man

and, sometimes, even "spoiled" by human intervention.

In this latter approach, the cultural landscape is seen as

a "good" anthropogenic landscape that has been trans- formed by human activity, according to a specific program. Such a landscape commonly exhibits high esthetic and functional properties (Mil'kov 1 973, 1 978).

Still another perspective has become established

in Russian landscape research during the past decade

and is even more widely accepted. This perspective

considers the cultural landscape an integrated, territorially localized set of material components and phe- nomena formed as the result of interaction between

natural processes and diverse human activities. Within

this framework, the notion has developed that the results of human action, embodied in objects of material and spiritual culture, are an intrinsic part of the cultural

landscape (Vedenin 1997).

The basis of this approach is the notion of the active role played by intellectual and spiritual human

activity in the formation of a cultural landscape. In this

approach, the role of the intellectual and spiritual component of the landscape is specifically acknowledged.

It is stressed that

spiritual and intellectual values, preserved

and passed down from one generation to another in the form of information, not only

define the formation and development of a

cultural landscape, but are also an integrated

part of it and are subject to the influence of

other, material components of the landscape

(Vedenin 1997; Vedenin and Kuleshova 2001).

This perspective clearly argues that the manifestations

of a cultural landscape are not limited to its scenic

values; it also emphasizes the aspect of territorial differentiation (spatial diversity) of cultural phenomena.

Thus, the results of changes occurring in traditional eco- nomics and nature management also become components of every cultural landscape. Such changes usuPAVEL M. SHUL'CIN

ally interfere with specific ethnocultural features of a

local population (such as language, religion, daily and

artistic culture, and other factors) as well as with the many forms of "invisible" cultural legacy, such as historical events of great significance and related cultural memory. Through these interactions, the cultural landscape accumulates and manifests the intellectual and

spiritual potential of a nation or given regional group.

It is under this third interpretation that cultural landscape becomes the main theoretical concept for de- velopment of a new framework for preservation and

management of Russia's cultural resources. It is hoped

that "cultural landscape" is also destined to become a

basic term in practical activities and in the emerging

national system of documentation and protection of

cultural monuments and historical and cultural territories. A similar approach has been adopted as the basis

of activity at the Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage (RRICNH), a research center established in 1 992 and named after Dmitrii S. Likhachev

(Russian: 'Institut kul'turnogo i prirodnogo naslediia'). The government decree that created RRICNH set

forth two main goals for the new state scientific agency:

—Implementing in Russia the primary provisions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and

Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convention regarding the protection of cultural and natural heritage;

—Substantiating and developing regional programs

for preservation and management of cultural and

natural heritage (for diverse types of regions and

local communities).

In its work, RRICNH attempts to address issues related to both methods and management of a unified

policy for preserving cultural and natural heritage.

Its work has served as the basis for the creation of new

museums, museum-conservation areas, and national

parks. RRICNH has initiated the development of integrated programs for heritage preservation of historical

cities, rural settlements, and territories. The institute participates in numerous research programs on living traditional culture and organizes heritage surveys and re1 09
search expeditions (Shul'gin and Shtele 1998; Vedenin

2000; Shul'gin 2002; Vedenin 2003).

RRICNH research is based on the cultural-landscape

zoning of various regions of Russia. It promotes the

establishment of a network of historical and cultural

territories as primary objects for development and implementation of heritage preservation projects. One of

these territories is the so-called "ethno-ecological area."

This term usually refers to the area populated by a

minority ethnic group, an indigenous community, or a

specific group (subdivision) of a larger ethnic population (Vedenin and Shul'gin 1992; Shul'gin 2000).

The term "ethno-ecological area" was introduced in

the Russian scientific discourse in the late 1 980s (Ler and Lebedev 1989; Bogoslovskaia 1990), thanks to a few pioneer interdisciplinary studies conducted by Russian biologists and ethnographers. The purpose of the

studies was to protect the traditional cultures of minority groups and their unique natural environments. During 1 989-1 990, proposals were set forth for establishing protected areas in Primorskii Krai and the Chukchi

Autonomous Area (Chukotka), so that indigenous na- ture-management practices, traditional subsistence

economies, and customary ways of life would be maintained. Anthropologist Igor Krupnik advanced a closely

related term, "ethno-ecosystem," using the example of

indigenous sea-mammal hunters and reindeer herders

of the Russian Arctic and Subarctic (Krupnik 1 989, 1 993).

According to Krupnik's definition (1989:24), an ethno- ecosystem includes stable ethnic communities (populations) that are linked by their common use of lands,

their common labor, and the habitation of a specific

territory. Another influential, integrated approach to the

identification of cultural and ethnographic landscapes was advanced by a team of physical and economic

geographers from Moscow University (MGU)

(Kaganskii and Rodoman 1 995; Kalutskov et al. 1 998;

Turovskii 1998). MGU has held an annual seminar

"Cultural Landscape" since 1993. Recently, a spinoff of the seminar, a special lecture course called

"Fundamentals of Ethnocultural Landscape Studies," was offered at the Department of Physical Geography and Landscape Studies of the MGU School of

Geography (Kalutskov 2000). For several years, field

surveys of the ethnographic landscape of the local Russian population have been conducted under this program in the Pinega District of Arkhangelsk Province in the Russian North (Kul'turnyi landshaft 1 998).

In the MGU approach, ethno-ecological territories

largely are lands inhabited/used by indigenous peoples

of the North. Ethno-ecological territories may also include relatively isolated habitations of other, small ethnic communities. In these territories, a traditional culture and a particular system of settlement and manner

of colonization have developed. There are traditional economic holdings and holy places. In such cases, a

relatively small territory often contains the entire history of an ethnic community or minority nation and, at

the same time, is itself the economic and cultural basis

for its modern residency. In such territories, many natural objects have a historical or mythological character and an animated significance for the local people. Ex- amples include rivers, lakes, hills, and even individual

trees [see Wiget and Balalaeva, this volume].

The preservation of a given historical space, its identification, and its protection from abrupt external disturbances function as a pledged security for preserving

the culture and traditional forms of economic, spiritual, and religious distinctions of the local population. This

particular kind of territory can receive special status and legislative protection as a guarantee of preserving,

as a whole, not only the historical and natural heritage

of the given area, but also the ethnic group that inhabits it. For such territories, the related concept of ethnographic landscape is directly applicable.

Ethnographic Landscape Preservation in Russian Legislation

Although Russian heritage studies set forth several new concepts and approaches during the 1990s, the

current situation in Russia with regard to protected

110 STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
status for historical and cultural territories, and ethnographic landscapes in particular, is still cause for concern. One important obstacle that prevents implementation of a landscape approach to preservation of

historical-cultural heritage (and ethnographic landscapes

as its constituent part) is the inadequacy of an appropriate legislative basis. Russian legislative practice

does not keep pace with social and economic

change. Because of the great inadequacy of legislation to effectively address issues of economic regulation, land ownership, and taxation, new legislation aimed at protecting cultural heritage often is

relegated to second place. Some laws introduced for

deliberation and legislative approval by the Russian

Duma [Federal Parliament] undergo a long period of consideration—sometimes up to six to eight years.

For example, a law concerning historical and cultural monuments and culture has been debated in the Russian Duma for more than six years. Several variations

of this law have been considered, but none has ad- vanced to the final stage of deliberation, much less to

a vote. Passage of this law was put off until 2001,

although the first half of year 2000 was used to consider other legislation. Almost the same situation occurred with a law on traditional nature management.

The proposed law was discussed for seven years and

enacted only in May 2001.

It should be recalled, however, that Russia under- took perhaps the first legislative attempt directly related to preserving ethnographic landscapes of in- digenous peoples as early as the nineteenth century.

The action was related to passage in 1 822 of the Russian Imperial Law entitled "Regulations for the Administration of Aliens" [that is, of the various non-Russian

and non-Slavic ethnic communities]. Former governorgeneral of Siberia and prominent reformer Mikhail M.

Speranskii played a leading role in preparing this legislation (Polnoe sobranie 1 830). The "Regulations" se- cured for the indigenous population—especially the

Native peoples of Siberia and the Russian North—the

traditional territories of their settlements, their forms of

PAVEL M. SHUL'CIN

economic activity and of the local self-government.

Thus, the issues of sustainable habitation for indigenous

peoples and preservation of their environments were

addressed under one law nearly 200 years ago. The pioneering nature of these "Regulations" of 1822 in establishing a new approach and set of relationships between the government and Russia's indig- enous peoples has been acknowledged (Murashko

2000). Unfortunately, this law, a nearly ideal legislation

for its time, failed—like many other "good laws" in Russia. In addition to being abused by local authorities,

the law was eroded by many subsequent legislative

initiatives. It should be noted that the legal system that developed in Soviet Russia a century later, in the 1 920s,

implicitly expressed many provisions that were surprisingly similar to those of the "Regulations" of 1 822. However, by the mid-1 930s, a new government

policy for industrial development in Siberia and the

Russian Arctic was being developed in the USSR. The new policy embodied the principles of a totalitarian

administrative approach, which prioritized economic

interests over cultural and human values. For indig- enous peoples of the North, the mid-1 930s and subse- quent periods were times of compulsory cultural and

social assimilation. Relocations of indigenous populations from their original places of inhabitation were common in the Russian North (as elsewhere), beginning in the 1940s. The closure of hundreds of small

Native settlements and forced relocation of their residents to larger communities was practiced on a mass

scale. Relocations were related to development of mineral resources, use of forced labor (the infamous GULAG

prison system), military construction, and testing of

nuclear and other weapons. Such policies led to distur- bance of traditional management practices in many areas and degeneration of the cultural landscape, sometimes even to the extent of depopulation.

During those times, efforts to preserve Native ethnic territories could be accomplished through protection of natural sites, usually in the form of nature

conservation areas and reserves. Thus, despite the

1 1 1
clearly insufficient attention devoted in the USSR to

protecting the cultures and traditions of its many indigenous nations, a network of protected natural territories (called nature reserves, Russian: zapovedniki) de- veloped steadily between 1 930 and 1 960. This net- work included several reserves established across

Russia's northern regions. The development of this net- work established a practice under which attempts at

preserving cultural landscapes of indigenous peoples

could be channeled exclusively under national legislation for protection of natural areas. This situation re- mains unchanged to the present day.

The new federal law "On the Status of Protected

Natural Areas" (Federal'nyi zakon 1995), adopted in

1995, is marked by a substantially enhanced level of

detail compared to other Soviet legislation. The law

also allows certain articles and provisions to be used

for preservation of traditional management practices

and cultural landscapes of indigenous peoples. However, this law focuses on nature conservation, by definition. Thus, protection of indigenous cultural landscapes can be accomplished somewhat under the auspices of Russia's network of national parks and nature

parks. Among the many tasks it assigns to these parks,

the legislation includes "the preservation of the natural environment and natural objects, and the restoration of

disturbed natural and historical and cultural complexes

and objects."

Russia's national parks are more strictly protected

than nature parks. The former (national parks) are under

the federal management system and are financed

through the federal budget. This classification includes

territories that have national importance because of

their unique natural objects, but also have high historical and esthetic value. The latter (nature parks) are

administered by local governments of territories that

are constituent members of the Russian Federation and

financially supported under the local area budgets. This

administrative structure allows, to a certain extent, the

inclusion of specific local features in management and

economic activity. Like national parks, Russia's nature

1 1 2

parks are aimed at preservation of natural landscapes

that have high ecological and esthetic value. However, these areas are also intended to be used for recreational, sociocultural, and other purposes. Thus, recreation, tourism, and cultural and educational activities are, to a greater extent, permitted and even en- couraged in nature parks.

The provisions of the federal law for both national and nature parks, nevertheless, generally do not address traditional management practices of indigenous

peoples. Correspondingly, they are not, in any defined

way, legally aimed at protection of areas inhabited by

minority indigenous nations and ethnic groups. Such

issues had not been addressed in Russian legislation

for a long time. It was not until the new law, "On the Fundamentals of Government Regulation of Socioeconomic Development in the North of the Russian Federation," was adopted in June 1 996 that the actual term

"traditional management practices" (of indigenous

people) was established in Russian legislation

(Clubokovskii 2000).

Thus, the protection of cultural (and ethnographic)

landscapes in Russia urgently requires the adoption of new legislation under which preservation of ethnic lands and cultural diversity is combined with support for and

revival of ethnic cultures and indigenous economies.

A draft proposal for a new law for protection of historical and cultural territories in Russia was introduced in

1 990, first within the framework of the Russian Cultural Fund and, later, by the RRICNH (Proekt statusa 1990).

This federal law, "On the Objects of Cultural Heritage

(Monuments of History and Culture) of the Peoples of

the Russian Federation," was finally adopted in 2002.

It could be viewed as the most serious attempt thus

far to address the problem. However, this and other

similar attempts remain unrealized—to date, no follow- up regultaions and policy acts have been developed

in Russia for protection of historical and cultural monuments. Instead, an old 1 976 law from the Soviet era is more or less still in place and it in no way addresses

the new political and social realities of the country.

STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
In light of this evident legal vacuum at the federal

level, individual republics and provinces of the Russian

Federation have developed some important documents. In this context, several legislative acts (or proposals) that concern historical and cultural territories,

including the homelands of minority indigenous and/

or local populations of the Russian North, can be cited. Examples include the Republic of Karelia law, "On

Unique Historical and Natural Landscape Territories" of 1992 (Zakon Respubliki Kareliia 1994); a regulation by

the legislative assembly of Nizhegorod Province on

the historically and culturally designated lands associated with Old Believers (1 995); and a number of similar,

regional acts. These acts assume the protection of specific historical territories, but simultaneously advocate measures for preservation of significant ethnographic

(cultural) landscape characteristics of the locale. Another example is a regulation enacted by the Head of the Administration of Vladimir Province in

Central Russia (as of April 1999) on the establishment

of a particular type of protected territories, called "historical-landscape complexes." The first such historicallandscape complex was established around the famous

Church of the Intercession at Nerl. The landscape, including the church, built in the twelfth century, was named "Bogolyubovo Meadow." To a certain extent,

these local legislative decisions are prototypes of future federal actions that are necessary to preserve ethnographic landscapes.

Probably the most far-reaching effort in such local

legislation has been undertaken in the recent draft law "On Traditional (Native) Subsistence Management Areas" in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area {Okrug) \n Western Siberia (Bogoslovskaia 2000). This draft law attempts

to combine the present-day system of administrative

division of the Russian Federation (with three levels:

province, area, and district) and the principles of territorial self-government and land and resource management by the indigenous communities.

The adoption of these and other local legislative

documents, as well as the growing general awareness

PAVEL M. SHUL'CIN

of the need to preserve ethnographic landscapes in

Russia as a special category of heritage, were remarkable events of the 1990s. These events have helped

create conditions that eventually will advance the de- velopment of similar legislation at the federal level.

The Current System of Cultural and Natural Landscape Protection: Structure and

Resources

It is clear that no legislative regulations concerning

preservation of ethnographic landscapes are in place,

and, essentially, that no Russian government agency

considers these issues directly within its jurisdiction.

Under existing legal practice, the best form of protection that ethnographic landscapes may receive in

today's Russia exists under nature preservation legislation. The current Russian federal law of 1995, "On the

Status of Specially Protected Natural Areas," identifies

seven types of protected territories:

—Natural monuments

—Nature conservation areas —Federal nature reserves

—National parks

—Nature parks —Dendrological parks and botanical gardens

—Medical health-improvement sites and resorts

In terms of overall size, three of these types of protected territories are most significant: federal nature reserves, national parks, and nature parks. These designated types differ in legal status and functions. The national system of government-owned conservation areas, called "federal nature reserves" {zapovedniki) is rightfully considered the pride of Russia's

preservation policy. The first such reserves were established as examples of "undisturbed natural territories"

in 1 91 6. As of the beginning of 2000, they comprise an

overall area of more than thirty-three million hectares

(81.5 million acres), with a network of ninety-nine

federal nature reserves under government control. These conservation areas are strictly protected, and

1 1 3
access is rigidly restricted. Of Russian nature reserves,

twenty-two have international status as biosphere reserves and are certified accordingly. There are more

than thirty federal nature reserves in the various northern areas of Russia, in both European and Siberian sectors (Gosudarstvennyi doklad 2000). The establishment

of nature reserves has led to successful preservation of

large territories of "undisturbed" (rather, lightly disturbed)

natural environment. In practice, however, their functions and practical activities have little connection with

the preservation of ethnographic landscapes.

Two types of protected areas in Russia have the

greatest connection to the preservation of ethnographic

landscapes: national parks and nature parks.

National Parks

National parks are federally protected areas that include natural complexes and objects of particular ecological, historical, or esthetic value and are intended

for environmental preservation, educational, scientific,

or cultural purposes and for regulated tourism. Unlike

nature reserves, Russia's national park system is a relatively recent phenomenon. The first national parks were

established in 1983; by 2000, there were thirty-five. A

large number of these were created in the 1 990s under

newly promulgated post-Soviet social policy. National

parks were intended to occupy a different niche from

that occupied by government-owned nature reserves and to combine the tasks of nature preservation and

cultural heritage protection.

Today, the total combined area of national parks in

Russia is nearly seven million hectares, approximately

0.4 percent of the Russian Federation total. Some 4,000

people are employed in the park system. Four national

parks have been created in the northern regions of the

Russian Federation, all in the European section (Gosudarstvennyi doklad 2000). Until 2000, nearly all national

parks were under the control of the Federal Forestry

Service of Russia. (Only one national park is under

the jurisdiction of the Moscow City government). In 2000, the Federal Forestry Service ceased to exist as a

separate governmental agency, and it now functions

as a subdivision of the Ministry of Natural Resources of

the Russian Federation. Thus, virtually all protected

natural territories of federal significance appear to be

concentrated under the control of the Ministry of Natural Resources. Many Russian national parks, particularly those

created during the 1 990s, have a clearly recognized

ethnographic component and therefore may be viewed

as historical or present-day ethnographic landscapes. A

good example is Alankhay Park in Aginsk-Buryat

Autonomous Area (near Lake Baikal). Established in

1 999, this is one of the most recent national parks. The

park's greatest point of interest is Alankhay Mountain

and its ridges. The park territory is distinguished by

richly diverse animal and plant species, hot springs,

and various mineral objects related to the geological

history of the region. In addition, for hundreds of years,

the area has been a place of worship for the indig- enous population, the Buryat. The Alankhay Buddhist

religious complex, the sixth most important holy place

for Buddhists around the world, is located there.

Russia's national parks have not yet become venues for implementing an active policy for preserving

ethnographic landscapes. During their former subordination to the Federal Forestry Sen/ice, basic problems

related to their cultural policies remained virtually unresolved. Many proposals aimed at preservation of cultural and ethnographic heritage under park system jurisdiction never materialized.

Nature Parks

Nature parks have almost the same status as national

parks, but have greater possibilities for recreational and

economic activities, as well as educational and cultural

programs. Commonly, a local department or committee on natural resource management that is part of the

provincial or local republic government manages nature parks. By 2000, only thirty such parks had been

established (more than half of them in Russia's northern regions), with a combined total area of more than

114 STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
29/ Ostyak (Khcinty) mother and daughter, at their family camp, Salym River, Sivokhrebski Yourts, 1911.

twelve million hectares (29.7 million acres). The total number of nature parks seems unduly small, especially

because creation of a nature park does not require a

federal decision and may be accomplished at a local

level (Gosudarstvennyi doklad 2000).

Russia's network of nature parks is still in its initial,

formative stage. These parks include some very small,

protected areas in cities (for example, some nature parks

are located within the City of Moscow), as well as huge

territories with areas greater than one million hectares

(2.47 million acres) (located mainly in Siberia and the

Russian North). Some nature parks have very little connection with ethnographic landscapes; others are directly connected with preservation of areas that have

specific cultural and ethnographic value to local populations. The latter include Numto Lake and Konda Lakes

nature parks in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area. These

parks are located in the core homeland areas of the Khanty and Nenets indigenous people. Another exPAVEL M. SHUL'CIN

30/ Visiting the Kayukov Family Camp, Salym River,

Punsi Yourts, 1999.

ample, Beringia Nature Park in Chukchi Autonomous

Area in the Bering Strait region, even includes the designation "nature-ethnic" in its name, to underscore both

its natural and cultural preservation functions.

It is obvious that locally managed nature parks may

eventually become one of the primary organizational

forms for preserving ethnographic landscapes, particularly across Russia's vast northern areas. However, the

current subordination of nature parks to local environmental protection agencies remains one of the obstacles

to fulfilling these tasks [see Fedorova, this volume].

The shortage of funding and trained personnel is a per- manent problem, and in many regions, the preservation

of cultural heritage cannot be addressed directly under

the dominant environment protection agenda.

Museum-Conservation Areas

Another type of protected territory that may be instrumental in preserving Russia's ethnographic landscapes

1 1 5
is the museum-conservation area (Russian: Muzeizapovednik). iVluseum-conservation areas are officially

listed as "cultural institutions" and are administered by

the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. A

museum-conservation area differs from a typical mu- seum by virtue of the close connection of the given

territory with its historical and memorial legacy or its

specific geographic location. Examples of museum-conservation areas are historical battlefields, memorial country estates associated with prominent public figures and

cultural celebrities, and the most outstanding architectural complexes or historical cities and settlements.

By 2000 in Russia, there were eighty-eight such

museum-conservation areas, managed directly by the

Federal Ministry of Culture or by regional cultural agencies and departments of provincial and republic gov- ernments in the Russian Federation [see the list of major Russian museum-conservation areas in Vergunov

et al. 2000:170-4]. Many museum-conservation areas

are rather small. They are often limited to the territory

occupied by a historical or architectural monument, a

country estate, or a park complex. However, some comprise significant tracts of land. For example, Solovetskii Museum-Conservation Area, on Solovetskii Archipelago

in the White Sea, occupies 1 06,000 hectares (261 ,820

acres). The existence of a large territory under historical preservation is evidence of both the environmental-protection significance of museum-conservation areas and their ability to protect traditional ethnographic

landscapes within their boundaries.

At present, approximately thirty (of eighty-eight) museum-conservation areas may be considered focused

somewhat on preservation of cultural or historical landscapes. For some, preserving the cultural landscape is

their essential function and the main purpose of their

creation. Examples include the site near Moscow where

the historic Battle of Borodino was fought in 1 81 2, during the Napoleonic invasion;^ Mikhailovskoe MuseumConservation Area, associated with the family estate

(and adjacent) of Alexander Pushkin, Russia's most fa- mous poet; and Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Conservation Area, Leo Tolstoy's family estate. Under a recent

proposal advocating the establishment of the Kulikovo

Pole Museum-Conservation Area (the site of a historic

battle in 1380), the primary objective of activities is

the preservation of the historical landscape. (Muzeizapovednik "Kulikovo pole" 1 999).

Most museum-conservation areas are in the center of European Russia, and their activities are related primarily to preserving the legacies of certain

historical events and/or prominent personalities.

Only a small number of such areas, like the

Solovetskii and Kizhi Museum-Conservation Areas,

are concerned with preservation of ethnographic

landscapes. Both Solovetskii and Kizhi are in northern European Russia (Arkhangelsk Province and the Republic of Karelia, respectively) and thus are possible examples of Russian policies for protecting

northern ethnographic landscapes. Neither area, however, has any indigenous/minority population or any

objects related to indigenous cultural heritage.

This brief review of major types of protected

areas illustrates that preservation of ethnographic

landscapes in Russia cannot be resolved under current protective legislation or existing organizational

structures. The lack of policy coordination between

environmental protection agencies and cultural agencies, both at federal and local levels, further aggravates the situation. A fundamental breakthrough

could be achieved by the adoption of new federal

legislation that would be focused on specific issues

of cultural and ethnographic landscape preservation and management. Until such legislation is de- veloped and adopted, the best venue for sufficiently

effective work to preserve individual ethnographic

landscapes would be under the status of nature

parks. However, such landscapes must be managed

(or co-managed) under a joint policy and in close

cooperation between and among environmental protection and cultural heritage agencies, and not exclusively under nature conservation management

(the most common practice today).

116 STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
31/ Traditional Khanty storage structures at Aidar

Yourts, Salym River, 191 1

.

Ethnographic Landscapes Protection

Programs in the Russian North

Within tile specific focus of iiis review, regional

projects for protection of cultural (ethnographic)

landscapes in regions of the Russian North are of

particular interest. The first pioneering efforts to create such protected territories for northern ethnographic landscapes were launched in the late 1 980s

and early 1 990s. In 1 989, a proposal was introduced

in Primorskii Krai in the Russian Far East to establish

a system of protected natural areas under a new

program of general ecological management/conservation. The proposal may be considered a crucial step for many subsequent efforts to follow. The proposal was developed by a group of natural scientists from the Biology and Soil Institute of the

Far East Branch of the then-USSR Academy of Sciences

in Vladivostok (Ler and Lebedev 1 989). Native eth- nographer Yevdokiia A. Gaer assisted environmental

specialist L Ivashchenko, the primary author of the proposal and the leader of a team of ecologists.' In addi32/ Khanty storage structures (ambars) atPunsi Yourts, Salym River, 1999.

tion to advancing pure environmental recommendations urging preservation of natural monuments and

valuable natural landscapes of the study area, the proposal expressed great concern about the status of the

indigenous population.

For the first time in Russian practice, a goal was set

to create a system of protected ethnic territories, with a

special management policy for areas of traditional subsistence activities of indigenous people (Ler and

Lebedev 1989:33-5). The proposal also advocated

strong support for indigenous people of Primorskii Krai,

preservation of the environment in their traditional areas of residence, and (among other social and eco- nomic measures) restoration of hunting and fishing resources in their traditional subsistence areas. For the

latter goal, four zones of primary indigenous subsistence use were identified in the region. The zones

consisted of taiga (mountain boreal forest) landscapes

and several sections of the marine coastal zone. The

overall protected area was intended to be about 50,000

square kilometers (20,000 square miles), or nearly thirty

percent of Primorskii Krai.

PAVEL M. SHUL'GIN
Unfortunately, those recommendations were not implemented, and no territories for priority subsistence

use by local Native people were established—either in terms of the originally designated status (as Native

ethnic territories) or of the size of the area to be set

aside for protection. Some ideas from this 1989 proposal were considered separately under a later envi- ronmental conservation plan adopted by the regional

government in the 1 990s.

In approximately the same year (1 989 or 1 990), another Russian biologist, Lyudmila S. Bogoslovskaya

(Bogoslovskaia) from the Moscow-based Severtsev Institute of Ecology, advanced a similar proposal. It ar- gued for the establishment of a specially designated,

ethnic-ecological territory for the Native people of Chukotka, in the Bering Strait area. This huge, protected

natural area, to be named Beringia Park (Behngiia), would

be created on the Chukchi Peninsula. According to the

initial outline, this territory would be designated under

international biosphere reserve or national park status and would span both sides of the Bering Strait, one in Chukotka, Russia and the other in Alaska, on the U.S.

side (Bogoslovskaia 1 990; International Park 1 989).

The key purpose in creating a park on both sides

of the Bering Strait was to preserve a contiguous

ethnic territory (including the land and the coastal marine area) and a traditional resource management

system based on sea-mammal hunting and fishing.

The proposal strongly advocated revival of the traditional settlement system and repopulation of several abandoned camps and villages of the Chukchi and Yupik

(Asiatic Eskimo) indigenous people. The proposal also addressed the issue of restoring family and clan contacts among indigenous residents of the two countries. Such contacts had existed for centuries, until they were

interrupted in the 1 940s [they remained disconnected

between 1 948 and 1 988], because of the Cold War isolationist policy of the Soviet government.

Bogoslovskaya's proposal, which was worked out by a team of experts in the early 1 990s, was one of

the soundest attempts formulated for preserving north1 1 8

ern ethnographic landscapes of indigenous people.

Unfortunately, the proposal could not be implemented

in those years, because of the lack of appropriate legislation. Only after the 1 995 adoption of the new federal

law, "On the Status of Protected Natural Areas," was

Beringia Nature-Ethnic Park established in the Chukchi

Autonomous Area. This new park, however, is under

local, not federal, jurisdiction—unlike the adjacent area

across the Bering Strait in the U.S., which is designated

as a federal preserve named Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. Since the new, Russian Beringia Nature-Ethnic Park is under the management of local environmental protection agencies of the Chukchi Au- tonomous Area, few if any ideas from the original 1 989

proposal have been implemented there. However, many

ideas advanced during the development of the park were used later in similar proposals in other regions of

the country and in the formulation of new legislative

initiatives.

In the mid-1 990s, several new proposals for protection of Native ethnic (ethnographic) territories were developed in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous

Area [see Wiget and Balalaeva, this volume]. The

development of new proposals was a by-product of

the intensive oil and gas explorations in the area

that posed a real threat to the region's natural envi- ronment and to the traditional habitation of the

Khanty and Mansi indigenous people.^ The oil- and

gas-rich Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area owns the

bulk of Russia's energy resources; it is one of five

regions of the country with the largest local budgets. Because of this new source of local funding,

the area government is capable of undertaking a

large number of its own environmental and cultural

protection initiatives.

During the 1 990s, the Khanty-Mansi local govern- ment supported (albeit rather reluctantly) two new trends

in environmental protection policy:

—Gradual expansion of the network of protected

natural areas;

STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
33/ Khanty reindeer herders often keep their reindeer in time, such as this one atSalym River, 1999.

—Creation of a system of Native "clan- and community-owned lands" that belong to indigenous

inhabitants (Merkushina and Novikov 1 998).^

The total area occupied by such clan and community

lands of indigenous people is estimated to be nearly

thirty percent of Khanty-Mansi's overall territory. These

lands, as a rule, are territories of priority subsistence

use and traditional resource management.

The legal status of such Native-used lands is uncertain, if not precarious. At this writing, no law regarding

the ownership of Native lands has been adopted by

the local legislative body, the Regional Duma. Two

draft versions of such a law are under consideration,

and both have been in legislative discussion for a

long time. In one version, Native lands are considered

under land-law acts only. In the second version (intro- duced by a team chaired by Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya, now with the Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural

Heritage), clan and community lands are considered

portions of integral ecosystems, together with traditionally used natural resources. These lands are also regarded as the basis for the social, cultural, and eco- nomic well-being of indigenous people who carry on

traditional subsistence economy and ways of life

PAVEL M. SHUL'GIN

smol<y log cabins to protect it from mosquitoes in summer

(Obsuzhdenie kontseptsii 1 999). In this view, clan and

community lands in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous

Area may be considered (to a certain extent) legally

established and legislatively approved Native ethnographic landscapes.

In addition, three nature parks were established in

1 998 in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area. Of those,

Numto Lake Park and Konda Lakes Park are located in

traditional subsistence areas of the Khanty and Nenets

indigenous people. Those two nature parks may be

considered closely associated with ethnographic territories of local Native groups (communities). However,

the actual preservation regime in both parks is based

almost exclusively on protection of the natural envi- ronment; it bears little relevance to the issues of culture and social policy regarding indigenous residents. A more recent initiative is dedicated to the creation of a new type of protected natural and cultural

territory in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area. The

area under discussion is in the Bolshoy Salym River

basin. Under this new initiative, an attempt was made

to combine environmental protection policies with efforts to preserve the traditional management practices

and cultural heritage of indigenous people (Figs. 33-

1 1 9
35). The name of the new protected area, Punsi, is taken

from the name of a nearby lake and Native settlement;

in the local Khanty dialect, the word means "duck

down." The size of the area to be designated for protection is about 6,500 square kilometers (2,600 square

miles).

Proposals to establish a protected natural area in

the Bolshoy Salym River basin were advanced more

than ten years ago (in the late 1980s) by wetlands biologists. The area considered is a combination of relatively undisturbed natural landscapes between the Salym

and Yugan River valleys that are typical for a mid-taiga

(boreal forest) zone. Across Western Siberia, most of

these landscapes have been damaged irreparably during the last few decades by the virtually unchecked

advance of Russia's oil-and-gas industries. The proposals of the 1 980s argued for the creation of a protected

natural territory (as a natural consen/ation area) to preserve undisturbed boreal wetland ecosystems that had

unique value. In the original blueprint, the boundaries

of the protected areas were to be drawn along the lines

of specific river basins. This practice would apportion

not only the large section of wetlands, but also the

rivers and streams that feed them, as a key condition to

the integrated protection of the characteristic boreal

forest bog ecotone. The initial proposal, however, by no means considered this region significant in terms of its unique ethnographic value. Largely unbeknownst to wetland biologists, the traditional boreal forest subsistence

economy of the indigenous Khanty people has been

fully preserved in this area. About ten traditional family

camps and settlements are still used actively (Figs. 31

,

32). The local Khanty families have preserved virtually

all knowledge and skills related to their traditional way

of life, subsistence technologies, and crafts (Salymskii

krai 2000). The area also constitutes a unique habitat

of Western Siberia's southernmost population of domestic reindeer. Because of these factors, the Salym

(and Yugan) River basin offers fertile ground for any

attempts to revive the traditional form of indigenous

1 20

economic activity, taiga reindeer herding (Fig. 33).'' The area also supports sustainable populations

of many fur-bearing and game animals, including moose, river otter, and sable, which are critical for the

survival of traditional ways of life. Here, a traditional Khanty system of landscape use remains intact through the variety of settlement patterns, and living and utility structures—including family and storage cabins, hunting lodges, fishing cabins and ponds, enclosures for domestic reindeer, traps set for wood grouse

(Fig. 34), fishponds, and so on. Each family plot is filled

with a system of paths that pass along solid ridge beds

and over boggy areas; wood planks support many paths

(Fig. 35).« The territory under discussion also has great archaeological value. More than 200 historical sites have been

identified there, including old settlements, abandoned

ancient sites. Native graveyards, and sacred sites of

various ages. This concentration of historical sites and

monuments is very high for any given area within the

boreal forest zone; thus, the Salym River basin may

legitimately be called one of the core areas for the

history of the Khanty nation. A large number of the documented archaeological monuments in the area are

associated with ancestors of the modern-day Khanty

(from the Bronze and Early Iron Ages). Those ancient

settlements and sacred sites are often the basis of Khanty

myths and legends, many of which can be linked with

actual historical events. The area thus preserves a highly unique concentration of historical and cultural monuments, a distinctive

Native local group that has been using the region for

several generations, and a highly developed system of

nature management built of clan, family, and community lands. This northern ethnographic landscape is

exceptional in its naturalness and state of preservation. The combination of unique natural environment and unprecedented sociocultural richness is

the primary reason this region should be assigned

the status of a protected natural and cultural area. Under existing Russian legislation, and considering

STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
34/ The author explores a Khanty wood grouse trap near Punsi Yourts, Salym River, 1 999.

local economic realities, the best way to accomplish this designation may be as a nature park, to be

established, financed, and administered by the area government.

Therefore, unlike earlier initiatives, the new proposals for the creation of Punsi Nature Park advocate

establishing a specific nature-ethnographic complex

(ethnographic landscape) as the primary objective (see

Bolota i liudi 2000; Shul'gin 2003:38). This objective

must be achieved by protecting the unique natural resources of the area and preserving the rich cultural

heritage of the local indigenous people. Several other

types of activities should be encouraged as well—for example, scientific research, museum work, and regulated tourism.

The new nature park may also offer a highly valuable contribution to raising the general educational

potential of the region. Several special classes and pro- grams that supplement traditional school and college

courses can be developed and conducted in the park.

The first of these, of course, should be ecological education, boreal forest ecosystem studies, and study of

the local Khanty lore. A summer educational camp for

local students could be organized on the park's territory, with courses in ecology and ethnography, as well

as field archaeology, as the basic curriculum. Through

cooperation with local schools and visiting scientists,

the nature park will be able to train its own staff of

rangers and workers, with a new sense of dedication

toward the ecological and cultural tasks needed to revive their native land. Organized tourism may also turn out to be an important supplement to activities of the future park. Rather

than promoting mass flow of tourists to the area, the new proposals suggest a specialized program of tours

for a small number of researchers and people who are

interested in studying the unique natural environment

or cultures and languages of the indigenous residents,

the Khanty. A nature park, with its professional staff,

will be able to accommodate these specific requirePAVEL M. SHUL'GIN 121
merits and (considering the low numbers of potential

visitors) service the participants by using either local Khanty buildings or modern models of traditional dwellings. Such a specialized style of tourism could become

an important source of income for the nature park.

Utilizing the richness of potential educational and

tourism experiences, of course, would be one of the

primary goals of the future park's activities, which suggests the need to preserve the ethnic distinctiveness

of its indigenous residents, the Salym River Khanty.

This task should be achieved through support for, and

even reintroduction of, local forms of nature management such as boreal forest reindeer herding, fishing, moose and bird hunting, and collection of local plants,

mushrooms, and berries. In this way, the set of traditional nature management practices and crafts techniques

will be introduced as the components of the unique

cultural heritage of the area. As a related benefit, a new

nature park under such a pioneer design can offer employment opportunities for several local residents; it

can also develop economically viable formats for preserving and marketing local products such as mushrooms, berries, and fish. These and many other ideas about the status and

structure of the future park were first addressed in a more general manner at an international seminar on

"Wetlands and Archaeology" (1 988). A more detailed

proposal for a Punsi Natural and Ethnographic Area was

prepared nearly ten years later by a team of experts

from the RRICNH, in cooperation with other researchers from Nefteyugansk, Moscow, Ekaterinburg, and St.

Petersburg (Bolota i liudi 2000). At present, the govern- ment of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area is preparing a package of legislative documents for the creation of Punsi Nature Park. It is presumed that developing the park's rather complex functional structure will

be a long process. Eventually, the park is to become

not only the key agency for local environmental protection, but also a special organization with a strong

humanitarian orientation and important social functions

in the heavily industrialized Nefteyugansk Region.

The forthcoming creation of Punsi Nature Park as a

protected natural and cultural area in Western Siberia

is one of a few attempts to jointly preserve natural and ethnographic landscapes across Russia. However,

this project may provide a powerful impetus for similar initiatives in other regions. It also may continue to be recognized as an important step in cultural preservation for Russia's indigenous people. Unlike the efforts of the 1 980s and even the early 1 990s, this project

is no longer an isolated venture of a few concerned

environmentalists. Active efforts are under way in the Khanty-Mansi and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Areas

within the scope of the newly created Numto Lake

and Konda Lakes Nature Parks. New programs have

been launched recently in both Khanty-Mansi and Yamal- Nenets areas to document and protect the sacred sites

of local indigenous people (Balalaeva 1999; Kharyuchi,

this volume). An ambitious program in documentation

of historical and sacred sites is being conducted on

Vaygach Island off the Russian Arctic coast under the

leadership of Peter V. Boiarskii (Boiarskii 1 998, 2000).

The staff of Kenozersk National Park is undertaking one of the best-organized efforts in the restoration of

traditional northern landscape. This park is in Arkhangelsk Province, in the northern section of European Russia, not far from the ancient Russian city of Kargopol.

The associated program for restoring local landscapes

is focused on the preservation of traditional land use and management practices of the resident Russian

population. The economy is primarily rural, with traditions of maintaining plowlands or arable lands,

hayfields, and pastures, as well as fishing grounds. Efforts by Kenozersk National Park include restoration

of old roads and residential, agricultural, and religious

structures (wooden chapels and crosses). In fact, the

park's primary goal is restoration of the traditional ethnographic landscape of Northern Russia. This goal is a

significant challenge for a local heritage program, because of recent, drastic depopulation of the territory

and a corresponding decrease in the number of remaining rural settlements.

122 STATE POLICIES/ RUSSIA
35/ A wooden path (putik) through the marshes to the family reindeer pastures and fishing sites, Salym River,

1999.

In recent years, the influential All-Russian Society

for Protection of Nature (ARSPN), Russia's oldest non- governmental public association of environmentalists

and natural scientists, has similarly been changing its

focus. Moving beyond its traditional initiatives for exclusive protection of valuable natural areas and monuments, ARSPN argued recently for the establishment of

a network of traditional nature-management areas. The

proposed list includes some thirty-four areas that represent specific ethno-ecological zones—natural habitats of compact residences of indigenous peoples and

long-time Russian settlers. The areas nominated by

ARSPN for special protection are located not only in

Siberia and the North, but also in the Northern Caucasus

(see Maksakovskii and Nikolaev 1 997).

Conclusion

The idea of identifying and protecting ethnographic

landscapes—as a key component in preserving the richness of cultural heritage of Russia—has been under

discussion by the Russian scientific community for more

than ten years. Russian legislative practices, however,

are lagging severely in meeting the practical needs

that are essential to build viable mechanisms for protection of the country's unique cultural and natural heritage. Until very recently, the lack of appropriate legislation significantly retarded the implementation of even

the best ideas and most advanced local projects. Nevertheless, in recent years, several proposals to protect

ethnographic landscapes have been at least partially

implemented by taking advantage of provisions in some new Russian laws on the protection of natural areas. Such a policy is being pursued most actively in the

Russian North, within the scope of the most recent

efforts (after 1 990 and even after 1 995) for the creation

of new nature and national parks. Many dedicated Russian heritage and environmental scholars are conducting corresponding, vigorous research. The visible, pracPAVEL M. SHUL'CIN 123
tical results of all these efforts have facilitated several new legislative proposals, on both federal and regional

levels, that eventually would help protect ethnographic

landscapes, in conjunction with protection of the richness of nature in the Russian Federation.

Acknowledgments

Since the late 1 980s, the author has participated in many

efforts to preserve cultural, historical, and natural heritage in Russia. This long experience testifies to the

impossibility of achieving any kind of success without

the close cooperation of many specialists, in social and environmental sciences alike. This article is a definite reflection of such continuous cooperation. The

author would like to express special gratitude to professor lurii (Yuri) A. Vedenin, who made the most helpful contributions as a partner in long-term discussions

of the concept of cultural landscape; to Lyudmila S.

Bogoslovskaya, for help in the field of traditional man- agement practices and contemporary legislative issues;

to N.B. Maksakovskii, for many consultations regarding the protection of natural heritage; to Igor Krupnik,

for advancing the idea of this survey article and offering many valuable comments; and to CP. Vizgalov,

who has been the most active advocate for the creation of Punsi Nature Park, and who invited the author

to participate in this exciting project. Ceorgene Sink

translated this paper and Igor Krupnik kindly checked

the translation against its Russian original.

Notes

1 . As of 1 999, the total number of cultural monuments under the Register of Protected Cultural Monuments of the Russian Federation was more than

86,000. Of those, 24,192 were listed as historical monuments, 14,974 as archaeological monuments,

22,500 as architectural and urban monuments, and

2,357 as objects of monumental art (Vergunov et al. 2000:163).

2. A very important new trend in heritage re- search and preservation in the 1 980s was the identi- fication and revival of historical techniques and tra- ditional forms of nature management (Danilova and

1 24

Sokolov 1998). Research into nature management,

as a rule, began to be applied in the study of the

cultural development of northern indigenous peoples or other minority groups of Russia (Raiony

prozhivaniia 1991; Klokov 1997; Zaitseva 1997). Of

course, this field of cultural heritage cannot be associated directly with historical and cultural monuments,

under their present definition. In many cases, it has

not even taken material form as any type of object

that could be preserved in museum collections or

directly at the locality. However, the sociocultural

role of such elements of ethnic heritage is undisputed. In some areas of Russia, especially in its north- ern and eastern sections, these elements play lead- ing roles.

3. This bloody battle has been memorialized

in numerous works of art, including Leo N. Tolstoy's

War and Peace and Peter I. Tchaikovkii's /S/2 Overture, and discussed today on numerous sites on the World Wide Web.

4. In the same year, 1989, Gaer was elected deputy of the Supreme Soviet (federal legislature)

of the USSR from the huge Far Eastern legislative

district. Gaer is a Native political activist and prominent figure in the indigenous rights movement of

Native people of the nearby Amur River region.

5. The development of new proposals probably was connected even more closely with the cre- ation of several local administrative agencies after

1 992. Locally tax-based budgets and policies offered increased independence to these agencies and en- abled them to address many regional issues.

6. Under present-day Russian legislation, in- digenous people "lease" or "use" these lands.

7. Once a widespread practice across the boreal

forest zone, reindeer herding today has virtually be- come a lost art in most other regions of Siberia.

8. On the whole, the system of family land-use

in the Salym River basin is very close to the one documented by Andrew Wiget for the nearby Yugan

River Khanty families (Wiget 1999; see also Wiget

and Balalaeva, this volume).

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PAVEL M. SHUL'GIN 127
36/ Two Yamal Nenets men making sacrifice at the Khagen-Sale sacred site, Yamal, 1 928.
PROTECTING THE "INVISIBLE": STORIES FROM THE ARCTIC ZONE

~]"l^e of the |<C.hanttj (^^uiturai (Conservation frogran)

ANDREW WICET AND OLCA BALALAEVA

Through the vagaries of history and politics, much of

the world's land is controlled by states whose majority

populations are culturally different from the resident,

minority populations whose traditional lands they control. Management regimes, even "conservation" ones,

originated in the interests of the dominant culture and

often began with the peculiarly Western distinction between nature and culture. In the preservation context, Cultural Resource Management (CRM) emerged

from a recognition that culturally significant places and

objects both encode and express the body of traditional knowledge and values distinctive of a particular

culture. Understanding the nature and role of such cultural resources is important for developing culturally

compatible resource-use policies because cultural resources encode the framework of beliefs and values

that motivate behavior. The advantage that the concept of "ethnographic

landscape" brings to cultural anthropology, preservation discourse, and CRM is that it invites the dominant

culture to understand in local terms the functional and

semantic interrelationships among elements that are

often understood and managed separately. Adequately

translating this concept into practice thus should result

in a management program that is not only more equitable, because it is adapted to the needs of both dominant and resident cultures, but one that is more effective, since it accounts for more complex interrelationships that motivate behaviors. The present experience

in northern Eurasia, however, suggests that ecological

rather than anthropological issues dominate cultural

landscape policies (Domke and Succow 1 998). In the broader conservation vision, what is needed is a means

of balancing ecological, historical preservation and

cultural conservation priorities.

This paper describes an ongoing effort to strike such

a balance by incorporating elements of ethnographic

landscape study into a plan to define the boundaries

and zonation scheme for a proposed, co-managed protected area in the territory of the Yugan Khanty people

of Western Siberia.

The Context for the Khanty Cultural Conservation Program

The Khanty are one of Russia's forty-five northern tribal

peoples whose total population is less than 200,000.'

Some of these tribes, like the Khanty, survive in territory that has been their home for thousands of years

since before the Russians came. Khanty culture was

born in and is specifically adapted to the forest-and- swamp ecosystem of the West Siberian boreal forest. Western Siberia is dominated by the Ob-lrtysh River

system, the third largest river system in the world in terms of volume of water. The limits of the Middle Ob

River basin correspond roughly to the northern and

southern boundaries of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area,

or okrug (KMAO; see Fig. 37). Today the low sand hills and higher ridges dotting and edging the floodplain,

which, until the 1 950s, supported a unique, heavily acculturated Khanty cultural formation, now support most

of the area's urban population and the transport and

petroleum production infrastructure. From the city of

131
Nizhnevartovsk on the east to the area capital of

Khanty-Mansiysk on the west, a distance of approximately 1 ,000 kilometers (or 650 miles), the Ob River

drops only fifty meters (1 64 feet).

North of the middle Ob River valley, the land slopes

gently in a southeastedy direction drained by several major Ob tributaries—the Lyamin, Pim, and Trom-Agan

Rivers. Except for birch-dark conifer and aspen-cedar

forests along the rivers, most of the landscape between

the highlands and the Ob River floodplain consists of

lakes, ponds, and muskeg swamps. Perhaps more than

fifty percent of the surface area is water. South of the

middle Ob, the land slopes gently, dropping less than

sixty meters in the 500 kilometers (310 miles) between

the highlands and the Ob floodplain. Highland muskeg

swamps drain into large river systems—the Bolshoi (Big) and Maiyi (Little) Yugan, Salym, and Balyk Rivers. The

proportion of higher land and pine-green moss forests

to swamp is much greater than in the north. Rapid freezing leads to a winter period of uninterrupted frost for 145 to 1 55 days, with an average low of -20 to -35°C. and maximum lows near -5 5°C. This is followed by rapid

thawing, flooding, and hot summers, heavy with mosquitoes, with average high temperatures around -i-20°C and maximum highs around -i-37°C. The whole region

has permafrost about six meters (twenty feet) below the

surface. Among the 22,000 or so Khanty, three groupsNorthern, Southern, and Eastern—can be distinguished

by differences in dialect, subsistence patterns, and material culture. Northern Khanty live in the Beloyarsk

and Salekhard Districts. The Eastern Khanty, the focus

of this project, are located principally in Khanty-Mansi

Autonomous Okrug. The Khanty still maintain their clan system and their traditional way of life in widely separated extended family settlements in traditional hunting territories. Everywhere they support themselves

through hunting and the trapping of furbearers like sable and fox. Fish constitute a large part of their diet, but

reindeer herding is common north of the Ob, hunting moose and wild reindeer south of the Ob River.

1 32

Most Khanty are literate in Russian and fluently bilingual, but prefer to speak Khanty. And despite the

efforts of the Orthodox Church, which in some areas

has gained converts of varying degrees of allegiance,

and despite the suppression of Native religion under

the Soviets, traditional belief and ritual still flourish. The Khanty believe in a three-zone cosmos with this middle world existing between an upper sky world

and an underworld. Each of these is divided into seven

levels. The high god, Numi Torum, cannot be ap- proached directly, but only through addressing one or more of his seven sons and seven daughters, each of whom became a patron of some dimension of the natural world: rivers, fish, animals. The youngest son in his human incarnation was elevated to the senior position

among the sons, and in his animal incarnation became

Bear, the master of the forest. As with many northern

peoples, a special Bear Festival is occasionally celebrated to honor a bear that has been killed (Schmidt

1 987, 1 989).

Because the patrons of the major tributary river sys- tems are also lineage-founding deities, different Khanty

clans claim traditional use rights to different river sys- tems tributary to the Ob. Most Khanty extended families live on traditional family hunting territories protected by family gods who are considered offspring of

these lineage-founding deities. Khanty thus believe that

sacred power has been historically invested in both

the landscape and the lineage. These gods are said to

live in specific sacred places and often have shrines marking these sites. The gods are worshiped through

blood sacrifice (yir) of animals, especially reindeer,

and through bloodless sacrifice (porK) of boiled meat.

Prayer and sacrifice ensure protection from and healing of disease and injury, long life, tranquility, fertility, and prosperity. A variety of factors contributes to this

cultural persistence (Rushforth and Chisholm 1 991 :1 6-

1 7), but there continues to be enough acculturative

pressures that some are redefining their cultural heritage in ways that have been called neotraditional (Pika

1 999).

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
37/ The Middle Ob River Basin. Tine dotted line marks the area of Eastern Khanty

settlement. Their communities are associated with different river systems.

Now, after millennia, Khanty land and culture are

threatened with destruction. In the late 1960s, oil was first discovered in West Siberia. At that time,

the town of Surgut had less than 10,000 people. By

the late 1 980s all but a few areas (Kazym River, Yugan

River basin) had been seized by the Ministry of Energy

and the government oil monopoly, and the region virtually supported a collapsing Soviet economy by providing cheap domestic petroleum and petro-dollars

generated from export. Today the Khanty-Mansi Au- tonomous Area is the site of one of the world's most

extensive petroleum developments, Surgut has

280,000 people, and the area's population has swelled

to over a million, swamping the less than 1 0,000 Khanty

and Mansi indigenous people (Wiget and Balalaeva

1 996).

The process of production during the Soviet period was characterized by a minimal regard for en- vironmental protection, preservation of cultural properties, and effective consultation with indigenous

peoples. Khanty families, like those on the Agan River, were forcibly relocated into villages from their traditional family hunting territories, or driven into villages

by the destruction of their

land's subsistence productivity, as on the lower Pirn and

Trom-Agan River systems.

However it may be re- garded elsewhere, the collapse of the Soviet Union has

been devastating socially,

culturally, economically,

and ecologically for the

Eastern Khanty and their

land. Profiteering by privatized oil companies coupled

with the internal debt crisis

has meant that deteriorating

pipelines and aging equipment have not been replaced.

The low productivity of individual well clusters (some

leave more than fifty percent of the oil in the ground)

and spillage (more than 3,000 pipeline breaks occur a

year) drives the expansion into new territories for

production.

Recognizing the extent of the environmental destruction that had resulted from petroleum development, and pressured by Russian environmentalists and

scientists, the Soviet government in 1 982 authorized

the establishment of the Yugan Zapovednik (Nature

Preserve) in the territory embraced by the two arms

of the Bolshoi and Maiyi Yugan Rivers, to preserve some of this magnificent and unique boreal forest ecosystem (Fig. 38). The Khanty families who live

along these rivers in more than fifty extended family

settlements were compelled to sacrifice their winter

hunting territories for the new nature preserve. Nothing addressed the cultural conservation needs of the Yugan Khanty.

At the 1 987 meeting of Yugan Khanty hunters and

fishermen, Vladimir Kogonchin of Ugut proposed that

the community apply to the Supreme Soviet [of the

ANDREW WICET AND OLCA BALALAEVA
former Soviet Union] to designate the Yugan basin a zone of priority land use, a "green zone." Attempts were made to advance this proposal informally, even

at the highest levels; but nothing came of this effort. On May 6, 1 990, Khanty representatives to the KMAO

Council of People's Deputies worked to pass through

the Council of People's Deputies a bill that, building on

the "green zone" concept, gave special status to the Khanty family hunting territories and that assigned traditional uses of the land priority over other forms of development, including industrial uses such as petro- leum production and timber harvesting. On the Yugan,

such a "zone of Khanty living" was defined and a proposal to set aside a zone of special land use was sent

to the government, but again nothing came of it.

History of the Khanty Cultural Conservation Program

In 1 993 we were asked to review a draft of the environmental impact assessment for the World Bank's Sec- ond Oil Rehabilitation Project in Khanty-Mansi Au- tonomous Okrug. That document claimed there was

only one site of any cultural and historical significance

in the entire eastern half of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous

Okrug. By its silence, the document seemed to proclaim that Eastern Khanty culture, for all practical purposes, was non-existent, not a factor to be seriously

calculated in the development equation. Unlike the

situation in many densely populated regions of devel- oped countries, where publication of the location of

culturally significant places combines with ease of access to hasten looting, vandalism, or destruction of such places; in Siberia it is silence, not publication, that

contributes to the destruction of the ethnographic landscape. Because the nature and extent of the Siberian

boreal forest is an obstacle to general access, only oil companies and other entities with helicopters and other

specialized means of transport can threaten the cultural landscape. And they can do it in the absence of

witnesses, appealing disingenuously to the lack of information concerning these places. Our first projects,

1 34

therefore, were born from the real need to restore to

public consciousness both the historical and the con- temporary presence of the Khanty on the land and to

create conditions underwhich deniability is impossible.^

The 'Sacred Trust' Project (1 994-95) aimed to develop the basic data needed to support any plan for

preserving Khanty sacred places and guaranteeing access to them. Given the limitations and unsystematic

nature of previous ethnography in the area, we focused on identifying sacred places and determining the criteria by which the Khanty assign religious significance to

features of the landscape and river systems. In this, we

followed established western models, especially comparable work among Native American tribes (Kelly and

Francis 1 994; Basso 1 996).

A scientific classification of Eastern Khanty sacred

places has not yet been developed. Our more modest

task has been to formulate a working typology, based on our materials from extensive field surveys, the work

of folklore-ethnographic expeditions to the Kazym region from Urals State University, and a review of the

ethnographic literature (Balalaeva 1 999). On this basis, we can distinguish two main categories of sacred places:

(1) unmodified features of the natural landscape, and

(2) landscape features modified by the addition of cultural elements. The first type—natural sacred placescan be classified according to their basic elements into two groups, water features and landforms. Water forms include a variety of phenomena connected with water: lakes, swamps, small rivers, ponds,

whirlpools, confluences, rapids, and turns in the river

(Fig. 38). Khanty believe that they depend on the spirits living in these places for luck in fishing and good

fortune generally, and try to make the spirits more beneficent by throwing offerings of money or dried bread

into the water. The size and nature of the offering differ

in each case, and the importance of the offering de- pends on the reasons for making the offering.

Large natural features in this category are lakes,

rivers, and swamps. Often the place name of the sacred water reserves includes lexemes such as yimyng

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
38/Aenal view of the Bolshoi Yugan River basin. The area is a rich forest-riverine environment for which the local Khanty community has spent the last / 5 years trying to secure a protected status.

(sacred). On the Yugan River, Lake Larlumkina is considered sacred. According to myth, warrior gods had a

fight above this lake. When the local god was

wounded, the reindeer drawing his sled dived into the

water and now they are there, underneath the lake, two reindeer bulls. The local warrior god flew up into

the sky, transformed into thunder, and became the god Chuv Iki. When the fishermen set the nets, sometimes the nets are stuck, and the fishermen say that

the nets are stuck on the antlers of these reindeer. It is taboo to cross this lake directly; one must make a

circle along the shore. The belief that different kinds of

spirits live in these lakes is widespread. The basins of Kazym, Vakh, and Yugan Rivers have sacred lakes

where, according to local beliefs, water spirits live that

look like very big pike with horns. A subgroup of smaller

water features includes ponds, as well as whirlpools.

rapids, turns, and confluences of rivers. In the upper

part of Maiyi Yugan River, above Achimovy settlement,

there is also a whirlpool that is connected with mythological legends of Tondor Iki, the main deity of this river.

According to local beliefs, one should throw two or

three pieces of dried bread into this whirlpool. "If one

does not throw the dried bread, this god, this Tondor

Iki, won't like it; and he might punish you."

Landforms comprise the second major category

of natural sacred places. Most prominent here are high

places that include hillocks, hills, ridges, and very high

hills. Another subgroup consists of promontories and

islands, a group including higher, dry places in swamps.

A third, smaller group consists of groves, mostly birch,

small patches of forest. A fourth group consists of individual sacred trees of unusual shape or rare types and

individual stones, also with unusual size or shape.

ANDREW WIGET AND OLCA BALALAEVA 135
High places in the Ob River basin are relatively rare.

This singularity and the dominating character of such

formations naturally predispose the sacralizing, or sanctifying, of these objects. Almost all the distinguished

high places have sacred status and, accordingly, ritual and mythological significance. On the Yugan, TromAgan, and Pirn Rivers, sacred high places are most often called kot myx, meaning "earth house." A kot myx

is a god's house. On Trom-Agan, above the mouth of

its tributary, Ai-Trom-Agan, there is a sacred place for

all Ob Khanty, a hill called Tomm Yaoun Kot Myx. Offerings are taken there regularly at the beginning of seasonal activities and sporadically for other reasons. On

the top of the hill is a high, distinguished pine tree on

which Khanty hang pieces of fabric. The Trom-Agan

Khanty say that the mountain with the pine tree is

nothing other than the house with the chimney pipe.

Newly married Khanty follow custom by going to this

place to pray and make an offering at the beginning of

their married life. Women are prohibited to go to the

top of the hill. In this case, the husband climbs to the

top to make the offering, and the new wife stays in

the boat by the shore. Also, usually, it is taboo to re- move something from a kot myx. There is a whole

group of stories concerning people who violated this

39/ Map of sacred sites of the Yugan Khanty area, 1998.

taboo, for example, by breaking a branch of a tree on

a kot myx, with the result that the offender's arm withered or he died. The owner of a kot myx could be not

only one of the river patron deities, venerated by the whole community, but also a family spirit. Thus, on

Kanterov family land in the Pirn River basin, there is

sacred Ochet Vut Mutikh Kot Myx. This is a Kanterov

sacred place where their family hlung (spirit) lives. Women

of this family take wood from this place for the images

they make of their personal protecting spirits. Kot myx are a particularly threatened group of

sacred sites. In the lower part of Bolshoi Yugan, it is

said, there was a sacred place for all Ob' Khanty

mentioned long ago by Dunin-Corkavitch

(1 995:1 50), Yegutskaya [Evutskaya] Cora. Khanty from

different places came here to make offerings. In the

1 970s this sacred mountain was in a territory of oil development and almost leveled, but there are still

stories devoted to this hill in local oral tradition. On

Trom-Agan River a high place dedicated to Yaoun Imi,

the Old Woman of the River, was destroyed entirely.

Now only a large hole in the ground exists where once

a hill stood. This is because the hills are made entirely

of sand, which is dug up as the material for the road- bed construction throughout Western Siberia (Fig 40).

In the end our fieldwork identified more than seventy-five

Khanty sacred places in the

Surgut region alone (Balalaeva

1999; Fig. 39). Maps of sacred

sites in different Khanty residence

areas were produced using Geographic Information System (CIS).

This work was the only report on Siberia presented at the

UNESCO Conference on Natural

Sacred Sites in Paris in September 1998.

The Khanty Traditional Land- Use Atlas Project (1996-98) was

a two-year, international collaboFamily Hunting

Territory Boundary

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
rative research project in applied social sciences with

Russian colleagues from Urals State University in the

city of Ekaterinburg (Yekaterinburg) and supported

by the then called Ministry of Nationality Affairs and

Regional Policy of the Russian Federation.

The project grew out of our increasing concern

that petroleum development was threatening Khanty

culture by destroying the physical environment to which Khanty subsistence-based culture was specifically adapted (Wiget and Balalaeva 1 996; Wiget 1 999b).

The entire region suffers from soil, water, and air pollution, which degrade the land upon which Khanty subsistence hunters and fishermen depend. One of our informants told us that in spring the Agan River is "just one big oil slick." According to men who formerly

worked in the fishing collective on Agan, 200 tons of

fish a year were brought out of the river; by the 1 980s

after the onslaught of oil development, that had

dropped to 1 00 tons a year; in 1 995, when we talked

to them, that figure had diminished to only twenty

tons. On the middle Trom-Agan River, Khanty report

that furbearers (fox, wolverine) and predators (bear,

wolf) have virtually fled the area in the last five to

eight years as a result of oil development. One

woman reported that her son-in-law lost his entire herd of TOO reindeer when they drank polluted

water. To demonstrate the effect of oil development on

Khanty life, the Atlas project aimed to provide the first

contemporary, broadbased, and integrated documentation of many categories of Khanty traditional land use:

—Traditional and contemporary settlements, both

individual extended family settlements and villages;

—Individual family hunting territories;

—Places of cultural significance, including cultic sites, sites with mythical associations, traditional cemeteries;

—Archaeological sites;

ANDREW WIGET AND OLCA BALALAEVA 137
Yugan Zapovednik

Sacred Place

Gravesite

Summer House

Transit Camp

Winter House

Berries Cedar Nuts

Fox Grouse

Mink

Moose

3 Projected Oil Development

Sable

Winter Fishing

i Hunting Terr Boundary ^ ' Surgut Region Boundary

4 // yassWy Kaimysov's hunting territory, on Moiyi Yugan River, showing subsis- tence areas, sacred places, and projected oil license territory.

—Other land use features, such as reindeer trails, communal hunting lands, fishing, hunting, gathering, and pasturing areas, and so on.

Additional maps highlighted the development of industrialization and infrastructure associated with these

lands. All identified sites were accompanied by an

ethnohistoric description. All data were compiled into

a computerized database integrated with an ArcView

CIS computerized mapping program. The specific objectives of the project were to pro- duce cartographic representations of the many types

of data, linked to a comprehensive computerized database, and framed by interpretive, scholarly essays:

1) regional settlement patterns, either archaeological or historic (abandoned or contemporary);

1 38

(a) individual, extended family settlements, and (b) villages;

2) regional traditional religious resources, especially: (a) places of cultic activity, in- cluding (al) sacrificing places

and (a2) shrines; (b) landforms

with cultural value derived

from specific mythological,

legendary or historical association; (c) landforms with cul- tural value derived from association with classes of spirits;

(d) cemeteries;

3) regional traditional eco- nomic resources, including: (a) boundaries of family hunting

territories; (b) hunting, fishing,

berry picking, pasturing (rein- deer) resources; (c) communal

lands; (d) reindeer trails, por- tages, and other transportation routes;

4) microstudies of traditional land use in six Khanty family

hunting territories representing variations in ecosystems,

subsistence economy, family

size, and proximity to devel- opment territories.

As a complement to these comprehensive area maps

of the region, intensive studies of traditional land use were undertaken on six family hunting territories, reflecting the wide regional differences in Khanty cultural patterns (Wiget 1999a). Figure 41 is a resource

exploitation map drawn with the help of one large

Khanty extended family numbering about thirty people

living on the upper reaches of the Maiyi Yugan River.^ The map illustrates the principal types of flora and fauna

harvested in the hunting territory, as well as the per- manent winter and summer residences and the transitional camps used during the spring and fall movements between the permanent houses. Note that the

oil license territory impinges on their main source of

winter food, both fish and moose, and harvestable

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
furs. The results of the project were published in 1 999,

with several family hunting maps attached (Wiget

1 999a; Ocherki 1 999); the book was distributed without charge to Khanty leaders and regional and area

administration officials to serve as a fundamental planning document. It is already playing an important role

in support of the efforts to gain a protected area status for the Yugan Khanty community's traditional lands

in the Yugan River basin.

At approximately the same time the Sacred Trust

Project was being completed and the Atlas project was being prepared, the co-authors, working with the head of the Yugan Khanty community association "Yaoun Yakh" and the staff of the Yugan Zapovednik

(Federal Nature Reserve), began to prepare a strategy

for preserving the Yugan basin based on the creation

of a UNESCO-type Biosphere Reserve. The plan aimed

to create a complex, co-managed territory that linked

the 600,000-hectare (2,300 square miles) Yugan

Zapovednik (an existing Russian Federal Nature Reserve)

as a core area to a newly created, federal-status area

consisting of the 1.7 million hectares (6,500 square

miles) of Yugan Khanty family

hunting territories comprising

most of the watersheds of the

Bolshoi and Maiyi Yugan Rivers. Working with local govern- ment authorities, leaders in the Khanty community, and

Khanty families, we defined reasonable boundaries for the vari- ous areas in the proposed biosphere reserve (Fig. 42). Because of a variety of

negative consequences that

could result from linking the Khanty lands to the

Zapovednik, as well as the political unwillingness of the local administration to cede more

land to federal government

control, the original plan has been amended. The current plan was worked out in consultation with the Khanty community, the Surgut regional and KhantyMansi Autonomous Area administrations, representatives of Ecojuris (a Moscow-based environmental law NGO [non-governmental organization]), and the authors.

It abandons the entanglement with federal jurisdiction

by avoiding a formal connection with the Yugan Federal Nature Reserve and envisions a two-step process. The first step is the creation of a protected area composed of Khanty family hunting territories along the

Bolshoi and MaIyi Yugan Rivers (OTTP, Russian - Okhmniaemaia Territohia Traditsionnogo Pnrodopol'-

zovaniia [Protected Territory of Traditional Land Use])

with protected status awarded by Khanty-Mansi Au- tonomous Okrug; after establishment, application

would be made to UNESCO for international recognition as biosphere reserve (Wiget and Balalaeva 1 997,

1998b, 1999).

To provide the scientific data necessary to develop

effective co-management policies for the Yugan protected area, we engaged in two projects. The area

Limited Protection,

IVIonitored Industry

Strict Protection, No

Industrial Development

/V^ Family Hunting

' Territory Boundary

42/ Proposed Yugan Khanty "Protected Territory of Traditional Land Use"

ANDREW WIGET AND OLCA BALALAEVA
Ethnoecological Survey (1 998-99) represented the necessary first step in the transformation of the previously

supported scientific research, network building, and

community development into concrete strategy to realize the cultural conservation goals of the proposers'

prior work among the Eastern Khanty. Extending models of gathering data for the traditional land-use study

first piloted for the Khanty Atlas Project, the project

developed the ethnographic, socioeconomic, and

ecosystemic data necessary to establish baseline parameters for common planning of scientific and community development projects in the proposed Yugan

Khanty Biosphere Reserve. As described below, over

the course of those two years, we visited every family

hunting territority, administering a comprehensive survey instrument and working with the landholding families to map their land use. By 2002, we completed a

Cultural Resource Inventory and Assessment of the Pro- posed Yugan Khanty Biosphere Reserve. This project

provides for an inventory and assessment of cultural

resources in the Yugan Khanty community necessary

to supplement the inventory of traditional economic

resources and practices completed in the previous

project. Taken together, these two projects offered a comprehensive representation of the cultural and ecological conservation issues that will be the focus of

the comanagement plan governing the administration

of the proposed protected area. This paper explores

these projects and the lessons being learned from them.

Methodology

For our work, we began with the hypothesis, central

to ethnographic landscape studies, that all uses of landscape are cultural, that treating traditional land use as something separate from understandings of landscapes

will result in false conclusions that undermine attempts

to create effective management policies (Brody 1981).

An ethnoecological survey attempts to create an

organized body of data on how a traditional cultural community uses the land and resources on which it depends. The necessity for developing such an under1 40

standing has been confirmed by the practical experi- ence of conservationists around the world who know

that, despite popular stereotypes, the conservation practices of indigenous peoples, who do have an interest

in sustainable harvest, nevertheless are not always consistent with the best conservation practices of Western

science. Insofar as conservation activity impacts resources, economies, and populations, it serves a variety of political interests; and conservationists continually strive to find mechanisms to effectively negotiate

"best practice" from among these interests. Moreover, one of the interests against which conservation of the

physical environment, its flora, and fauna, must always

be balanced is the preservation of cultural practices

that contribute to a specific historic and sociocultural community identity.

An ethnoecological survey gathers data on: —Kinds of natural resources on which a community depends

—Amounts of resources required for a self-identi- fied "acceptable" standard of living in specific types

of economy

—Patterns of land use in which individuals are en- gaged to secure the natural resources they need

—Relationships between fundamental needs such

as family size and health, the claim on resources made in the name of these fundamental needs, and

the instrumentalities (material base) used to secure

satisfaction for these needs.

The kinds of data gathered enable the discovery of

broad patterns of behavior that reflect community practice. Although these kinds of data are most economically gathered through an interview instrument that

will generate a coherent data set (Table 1 ), even in the

best of circumstances (working with a small village

population, for example) confirmation of survey results

should come from field observations.

At the same time, because the practices described

have a geographic dimension, affecting specific populations in specific ecosystems, it is impossible to understand the data without mapping. Consequently, in

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
Table 1 : Sample Entry in the Yugan Khanty Sacred Site Register

Site Name:

Site Number;

Category:

Specification: Location (Decimal degrees):

River System:

Extended family settlement: Administrative Unit:

Village Administration: Keeper:

Description: Location

Description: Access

Description: Site

Description: Boundaries

Significance (Provide Oral,

Historical Information,

Local Toponymic Legend):

Status:

Condition:

(Khanty) Torum Kur Pur Wethlem Wantvng

(English) Where Torom Put His Foot Down

58

IV, Modified Landscape

Landform with izbushka [sacred log house] N 59.1 5, E74.21

Bolshoi Yugan

Kolsomovy

Surgut Region

Ugut None. The former keeper passed away. Now access is unregulated, though

it is customary to inform Yefim Kolsomov, the owner of the local hunting

territory on which the site exists, of the intention to visit the site. The site is on the west bank of the upper Bolshoi Yugan River, just

above Kolsomovy extended family settlement. The site is not visible from the

river. One would have to know its location to know where to take the boat to shore. Yefim Kolsomov took me there. The site gets its name from a depression in the skyline formed by the treetops against the background of the western sky.

There is a wide, shallow cove in the west bank of the river. The land slopes

gently from the forest edge to the water, a distance of about 20 meters, with

tall grass rising out of the sand the entire way, fallen willow saplings, and

other flood debris. Once in the forest, there is a very narrow, but visible trail. Still,

it is hardly worn. The trail crosses through the forest a distance of no more than

1 00 meters. The trail comes to a small izbushka or cabin (see Fig. 44), about 2.5 meters

long on its front, short side and 3 meters on its long side. The roof peak is no more than 1.5 meters. A black cloth covers the door opening. Inside is a bare plank floor with a single shaitan, or idol, standing against the back wall. There

is also a glass jar in which people have left paper money and coins. Following a trail from the doorway along the left side of the izbushka, behind

it into the forest no more than 1 meters, one finds a single "retired" shaitan,

left to decompose and return to the forest. About 20 meters north of the clearing

where the izbushka sits is a small stream, also a significant feature. The significant area is a geophysical depression "where Torom put his foot down."

The small stream (summary of toponymic legend, below) bound this area on the

north, Bolshoi Yugan River on the east side, and by locally elevated heights of land

that form the rim of the depressed area on the west and south side. Torom (The Khanty high god) wanted to see how things were on earth. He leaned

over from the sky and put one of his feet down, stepping onto the earth. That's how this place was formed and still keeps the shape of Torom's foot. Where

Torom stepped down, a stream emerged. People are prohibited from looking at this stream under penalty of being blinded. This is a summary of a toponymic

legend, now forgotten. It was compiled from elements provided by Yefim

Kolsomov and Pyotr Vassilievich Kurlomkin.

According to visual evidence of money deposited and oral testimony by Yefim

Kolsomov, the site is still being used, especially by families in the upper part of Bolshoi Yugan and by travelers. Good. No vandalism reported.

addition to completing the survey instrument, hunters themselves are asked to mark particular kinds

of land-use patterns on maps brought into the field. The statistical data would then be compiled into databases, which would be imported into a CIS and linked to digitized cartography for the purANDREW WICET AND OLCA BALALAEVA

poses of both analyses and representation. As extensive as the ethnoecological survey was, we understood that it was incomplete in itself. We

knew that to understand both Yugan Khanty hunting

and conservation practices, we needed a clear sense

of their cultural values and how those values are

141
put into play in decision-making and norm-mainte- nance behaviors. This required on-site documentation of oral traditions, both folkloric and historical, which

encode Khanty cultural values and practices; both structured and unstructured interviews; and as well as observation and documentation of seasonal practices.

We also needed to complete gathering basic data on other kinds of cultural resources, such as archaeological resources, which were very poorly understood

and yet beyond our competency. Trying to accomplish these goals while also gathering the statistical

information was simply logisticaliy impossible. We are

in the process of integrating this cultural data, although

gathered separately, with the ethnoecological survey

data, acquiring the necessary base layer satellite imagery to map both ethnoecological and cultural resources in a usable CIS format.

Community Engagement

Often overlooked in community relations is that most

of these relationships are formed and sustained in discursive contexts, where key terms like "tribal," "culture," "minority," "ecology," "subsistence," and other

less obvious ones like "dependence" and "necessity"

and even "science" have been assigned different definitions and values by the parties involved. Three discourses, which have a heightened potency in Russia,

have substantially affected the representation and interpretation of our work with ethnographic landscapes

and indigenous peoples (Wiget and Balalaeva 1 998a).

Perhaps more than any other country in the experi- ence of both co-authors, Russia is committed to the

ideology of progress, which, when dealing with its in- digenous northern minorities, at best emerges as a willful paternalism and at worst as the most brutal and

self-serving kind of rationalization for exploitation. Certainly much of this is rooted in a Marxist ideology of

the inevitable succession of economic systems, which

consequently views Khanty and others like them as doomed archaisms. More importantly, however, the

effects of centralized thinking still linger in bureaucratic

and administrative paternalism: in the preference for

industrialization over other forms of development; in

the assumption that indigenous peoples ought to be

"modernized," though, of course, in as accommodating a manner as possible, because they will be inevitably modernized, in any case; in the legal legacy of statecontrolled land. This complex of paternalism and selfjustif/ing fatalism is also reflected in the emergence of

Russian populist conservation ideology, in general.

Preservationists might appear to be logical allies, because a strict preservationist philosophy protects

historical resources in the territory of potential devel- opment. Nevertheless, the opportunities for indigenous

peoples to seek protection under Russian historic preservation law is practically limited in several ways. First,

as in the West, this protection is extended principally

to monuments or structures of cultural and historical

significance. The emphasis on the built environment

predisposes preservationists to undervalue sites of historical and cultural significance to traditional peoples

and which are often unmodified landscape features,

—high places, sacred groves of trees, river confluences,

sandbars, and so on (Fig. 43)—or, if modified, are distin- guished by structures without apparent architectural

significance. Secondly, for all practical purposes, determination of significance is based on the role of the

site in the development of the ethnic Russian cultural

formation, the Russian state, and the Russian Orthodox

Church, all of which preclude assigning significance to

cultural or historical sites of importance to indigenous

peoples. Third, the law on protection of places of

worship is also almost uniformly interpreted to apply

to Orthodox churches and excludes indigenous peoples'

concerns.

Environmentalists might seem even more natural

allies than preservationists." Although the former Soviet Union adopted very strong nature conservation

legislation, which won both internal support (rooted in

a peasant society, Russia has a deep historical and

cultural ideological investment in nature) and external

praise, a series of dramatic and highly visible catastro142 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUCAN
the philosophy undergirding

what might be called "the compensation model of environmental management" is one of mu- ^^^^ tually agreed upon absolute sacrifices. This differs considerably

from a multiple-use, joint man- agement model based on

mechanisms to elicit and manage compromises.

Relationships with the East- ern Khanty

43/ Forested high places in swamps, called 'Islands, ' are often sacred sites

phes of centralized planning—the heavy metals pollution of the Lena and Yenesey Rivers, the desiccation of

the Aral Sea, the pulp-mill pollution of Lake Baikal, the

petroleum horrors of Samotlor, the radioactive waste

in Novaya Zemlya—created an activist environmentalist movement. Now Native organizations increasingly

are broadcasting their claims to this constituency with

the familiar slogans about the economic and cultural

connections of Indigenous peoples to the land, of cultural formations specifically adapted to particular environments, of "noble savage" philosophies based on

sustainability and mutuality, rather than unilateral exploitative extraction. Nevertheless, efforts to rally support along these rhetorical lines have generally failed. The conservation philosophy, which one hears even from high-placed academicians and bureaucrats, is that

the strictest preservation of exemplary instances of

key ecosystems must be ensured. Nevertheless, this

strategy appears something of a tradeoff, for it was

only in 1996 that the Russia Duma adopted environmental management criteria for development projects

that met Western standards, and several years later

those criteria are still poorly enforced. What goes unsaid in conversations about nature preservation is that

that which is not protected will be destroyed. In short,

During the course of this work, we established good relationships with several truly representative, effective, and

competent Khanty local leaders, and consult regularly

with them as they try to develop forms of representative self-government within the legal structures authorized by the statutes of the Russian Federation. We

have been closely monitoring the development of this

Native leadership as it seeks to form national communities and national corporations, and we have provided

them with information about and contacts with Native governments in the U.S. and Canada. To develop

their interests and strengthen their competencies in

1995, 1996, and again in 2001, we brought local Khanty leaders to the United States so that they could

experience firsthand the structures of self-government

within which Native Americans live and manage their

lands and resources. In July 1996, after a site visit to

the Yugan by a representative of COSKOMSEVER (State Committee on Northern Development of the Russian

Federation) found local support for the concept, we

spent many days traveling by boat on both the Bolshoi and Maiyi Yugan Rivers, stopping at each family settle- ment to explain the nature of the biosphere reserve

concept and collect signatures to establish one in the Yugan region. Every adult in every family we approached

signed eagerly.

ANDREW WIGET AND OLGA BALALAEVA 143
Relationship witin the Yugan Khanty

As our focus on the Yugan Khanty developed, we took

steps to establish that relationship more formally. To- day we have represented ourselves to the federal, area, and regional governmental officials, NGOs, and other concerned parties as independent scientists providing

technical assistance to the Yugan Khanty community

association, Yaoun Yakh, working under their formal

invitation, with an agenda and itinerary registered by

them with the Surgut Region administration and operating under a jointly signed Letter of Agreement, specifying work, resources, and responsibilities of both parties.

Although this level of formality belies the intimacy

of personal relationships developed in ten years be- tween the researchers and the Yugan Khanty, it has

proven useful in positioning us as "independent," though

engaged, in the subsequent political interactions be- tween the Yaoun Yakh Community Association and

the officials of the area and regional governments. The

formalization of this relationship also had the effect of modeling for them how, in the absence of defined

treaty rights, they might nevertheless find other mechanisms to assume control over access to community

lands, population, traditional knowledge, and intellectual property. It has also bolstered the political pres- ence of Yaoun Yakh by demonstrating that they have

continued access to international audiences and resources. We also facilitated for them a grant application that enabled them to obtain legal counsel from

Ecojuris, a Russian environmental law NCO.

Relations with Responsible Government Entities

We have been careful to acknowledge all protocols,

required by law or custom, and, within the limits of

confidentiality, share results of our research regularly

with government officials and NGOs, not only to quiet

suspicions concerning the nature of our work, but to

raise consciousness and to create conditions under

which deniability is impossible. Toward this latter goal, we maintain a website and have occasionally used

our access to the Internet to publicize protests from

the Yugan Khanty community association, Yaoun Yakh,

at the community's request.

Project Implementation

During this project, the co-authors traveled by out- board motorboat along the entire 1,800 kilometer

(1,1 70 mile) combined length of the Bolshoi and Maiyi

Yugan Rivers to complete an extensive house-to-house,

family-to-family survey. We visited every hunting territory, extended family settlement, and Native village or camp. Combining map-assisted structured interviewing with the eight-page questionnaire, the survey has

provided data in three major areas—traditional land

use; material base and domestic economy; and health and social organization—so that we can begin to establish a baseline against which the impact of devel- opment on the Bolshoi Yugan River basin and on the

traditional way of life of the Yugan Khanty can be measured. We had planned to survey the MaIyi Yugan River and part of the longer Bolshoi Yugan River in 1998,

and the reminder of the Bolshoi Yugan in 1 999.

As the following summary log of the project suggests, an important logistical constraint for us in this

process was the great distance between Yugan Khanty

settlements, often four or five hours by boat, and the

limited amount of time available for fieldwork. These

limitations meant that simply ensuring a thorough, representative, and reliable response to a simple sur^/ey

instrument became a daunting task in itself. This project also raised two constraints peculiar to the former

Soviet Union. First, all maps under 1:500,000 scale, a

scale far too big to be useful for our work, are still

considered state secrets; sponsorship of our work by

the now-defunct State Committee of the North of the

Russian Federation (GOSKOMSEVER) enabled us to pur- chase 1 :200,000 scale maps, allowing us to partially overcome this initial obstacle, though even this scale

is too large. Ideally, 1:50,000 scale maps should be

used. A second constraint is the limitation on the use

of handheld GPS (Global Positioning Systems) in Russia, but these, too, we were able to overcome.

144 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
/ 998 Field Season

July 8. We departed for the Yugan, from Chornaya

Rechka, the oil industry base, in a helicopter that took

us directly to the Kurlomkiny extended family settle- ment on the upper Bolshoi Yugan River, where we were

able to confirm some nineteenth century land use practices described by historical literature.

July 9. We departed by motorboat to Larlumkiny,

the highest settlement on Bolshoi Yugan River, about

four hours of travel above Kurlomkiny. Larlumkiny is a complex settlement of six families, four of whom are

related; its territory is huge. We administered our survey instrument and mapped land use in this hunting

territory. We continued on to visit one of the most

important Khanty sacred places, two archaeological sites, and a Khanty cemetery near Lake Larlumkina. We returned to Kurlomkiny around 1 1 :30 in the evening.

July 10. We did additional interviewing at

Kurlomkiny. At 3 p.m. we flew out by helicopter to

Ugut.

July 10-15: Ugut Village. We began by meeting

with the local principals involved in the project. We

reviewed the plans that we had made for the survey, engaging fully the head of the Yugan Khanty community, Vladimir Kogonchin, and two members of the interviewing team, Igor Kogonchin and Anna Baikalova

from the Yugan Zapovednik. Baikalova made useful

additions for ecological data to the survey instrument we were using. While arranging for our longer trip on

Maiyi Yugan River, we made a short motorboat trip on

the lower Bolshoi Yugan River near Ugut. This was only

partially successful, because at a couple of the ex- tended family settlements at the village of Ryskiny,

the residents were drunk, a result of recent cash distribution from the oil company; this is a situation that we

have never met with on the middle and upper parts of

either Bolshoi or MaIyi Yugan Rivers. Both Baikalova

and Igor Kogonchin accompanied us on this trip to observe and practice the survey/interview/mapping

techniques that we were using for data collecting.

July 1 5-20: MaIyi Yugan River. We left Ugut by motorboat on the morning of 1 5 July and arrived around

midnight at Surlomkiny extended family settlement,

the first above Kinyamino. During this first part of

the trip, we were able to administer the survey and

map land use at one intermediate family settlement. On Julyl6, we administered the survey and mapped

land use at Surlomkiny. We continued upriver on 1 7

July. Between 1 7-19 July we stopped at every yurta

(camp) on MaIyi Yugan, administering the survey and

mapping land use, reaching the highest point,

Asmanovy settlement, more than 500 river miles

from Ugut. Some of the documentation was accomplished on the way back. We arrived in Ugut at 2 a.m. on 20 July. After finishing up business in Ugut, and

arranging with Kogonchin and Baikalova on a work

plan for winter, we returned to Surgut on 22 July. Over the winter, Kogonchin and Baikalova administered the survey at Kinyamino and Ryskiny, both of which could not be done in the summer. Wiget and

Balalaeva began CIS data entry and mapping.

/ 999 Field Season

June 24. We traveled by helicopter to Ugut, staging

point for our 1 999 field season. There we met with

Vladimir Kogonchin, head of the Yugan Khanty community and developed plans for our cooperative work.

Our task was to administer the survey to all the Khanty

families from Kolsomovy near the top of the river (we

had done Kurlomkiny and Larlumkiny settlements the

previous year). Because we had with us Konstantin

Karacharov, an archaeologist of the Institute of History

of the Russian Academy of Science, Urals Branch in

Ekaterinburg, whom we had invited to Join us to conduct the first archaeological survey of the Yugan basin, we still needed to return to Kurlomkiny and Larlumkiny.

The plan was to send us all ahead by helicopter to

Kurlomkiny; with local help, we would take care of the

archaeological portion of survey work there in a couple

of days. By the time we returned from Larlumkiny,

Kogonchin would have arrived at Kurlomkiny by motorboat from Ugut, and we ourselves would start down

ANDREW WIGET AND OLGA BALALAEVA 145
river, continuing the survey. We expected a grueling

trip from the uppermost settlement on the river back

to Ugut, more than 500 miles by outboard motorboat.

June 26. We arrived at Kurlomkiny. From the very

beginning things went well. The archaeological survey

of the upper Bolshoi Yugan River was very productive,

and we developed an excellent and efficient working

relationship with Karacharov. We could anticipate that

the data he was providing would assist us immensely

in strengthening arguments for preservation of the Yugan

for its historical and cultural value. June 29-July 6. We started down river. The Bolshoi Yugan River differs from Maiyi Yugan River in that there

are many more Khanty, they live farther apart, and there

are several Native villages, in which some Khanty families live permanently though they travel to fishing areas and avail themselves of "common" (unassigned)

hunting grounds. We visited, interviewed and did map

work with more than twenty families living on fifteen

different extended family settlements, as well as interviewing and doing map work with an additional fourteen families living in the villages of Tailakhova, Taurova,

and Kayukova. In the larger villages, we worked as two teams, with the co-authors forming one team and

Karacharov and Kogonchin the other. Map work and

interviews with other residents of Kayukova and

Ryskiny had been concluded in 1998, the first season

of fieldwork. Along the entire length of the river, while

the authors were doing map work and interviews,

Karacharov also did interviews, site mapping, and testing, for the preliminary archaeological survey. In the

end, he had identified by inspection or report thirty- one sites, including several multilevel complexes of enormous importance, as well as a complex of prehistoric trails and roads. We returned to Ugut very early on the morning of 6 July 1 999. We spent the next several days in Ugut. Additional

interviews and map work were done with Khanty families we had missed at their extended family settlements

but who were in Ugut to purchase supplies. We also developed with Vladimir Kogonchin a revised draft of

the charter for the proposed co-managed Yugan Protected Territory; we were especially concerned about two elements, a zonation scheme that would provide

for designations of different kinds of uses and forms of

protection, and a usable co-management structure. We

met with Anna Baikalova and Konstantin Karacharov,

not only to compare preliminary findings, but also to

describe the kinds of reports we would need from the

MaIyi Yugan. Finally, we defined work that remained to

be done, especially the few families that we had missed on either river. The interviews and maps were sent to

us in the U.S. in November 1999.

Gaining protected area status for the Yugan requires successfully passing through two commissions

(regional and okrug). As a result of the authors' previous work as well as the assistance of the Moscowbased legal NCO Ecojuris, the administrations of

Surgut Region and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

are now formally taking up the proposal to establish a legally protected area on the traditional homeland of the Yugan Khanty. This project thus has entered the critical phase.

In August 1 999, we accompanied Vladimir Kogonchin, the head of the Yugan Khanty community, to

Khanty-Mansiysk, the capital of the okrug, where we

met with a number of area officials whose responses

to the project varied. Finally, the group met for more

than a half-hour with Governor Alexandr Filipenko, who

appeared to be generally supportive of the project

and invited us to submit materials directly to his

office. He had been surprised at the volume and nature of communications he had received from around

the world on his office fax machine in support of

preserving the Yugan; these resulted from our dissemination of information about the Khanty and the

current state of the project on our internet website

(http://www/nmsu.edu/~english/hc/hcsiberia.html) In mid-November 1999, we had sent to him an initial

packetof materials. While in Khanty-Mansiysk, Balalaeva,

Wiget, and Kogonchin briefed Tatiana Gogoleva, the

president of Spasenie Yugry {Save the Yugra), the major

146 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
Khanty cultural association, on the project.

At the regional level, the Surgut regional commission, the formation of which was resisted for so long, was finally called into meeting at the end of 1998. It met only once and briefly, to approve the general

idea of establishing some kind of protected territory on the Yugan River. From beginning to end, however, this regional commission process has been heavily

biased in favor of administration interests and the history of unilateral administrative decision-making. Thus,

for the Khanty community to realize their social and

political aims, it is necessary that they compel a dialogue with the administration over the organization,

and management of the OTTP. A package of documents that was provided to the okrug officials in midNovember was also sent to the Surgut administration. The data gathered on these two field trips were combined with ethnographic data gathered previously

at selected extended family settlements and with

ethnohistoric data compiled from a survey of nineteenth

and early twentieth century literature. Confirmation of

survey results should come from field observations;

but clearly, the same constraints that were factors in

administering the survey made direct observation of

the relevant behaviors in every household impossible.

A second concern, then, was to identify a few representative households with whom we could establish

a long-term relationship that permitted direct observation under the relevant conditions. In the Cultural

Resources Survey and Assessment now underway, we

have identified specific extended family settlements on the Bolshoi and Maiyi Yugan Rivers, which our own

previous fieldwork or the survey indicated had one or more family members who were known to the community as cultural specialists or who were likely to have a substantial body of knowledge concerning

Khanty beliefs and practices associated with the landscape. Especially sought after were oral traditions, especially toponymic and local legends, etiological stories, memorates, and oral historical narratives, from hunt44/At Lake Larlumkina near the top of the Bolshoi Yugan River is a complex cultural heritage site, consisting ofan

active cemetery, two nearby archaeological sites, and this sacred place with labases which serves as homes for three spirits and their helpers.

ANDREW WICET AND OLGA BALALAEVA
ing and traveling to homebuilding, all of which might

dramatize Khanty values, beliefs, and practices associated with the landscape.

2000 Field Seasons

The co-authors went to the field twice in 2000, each

time identifying a specific extended family settle- ment for confirming data gathered on the survey and better understanding seasonal uses of the land.

In July 2000, the team traveled to the Kuplandeyevy

settlement on the middle part of Bolshoi Yugan River,

to interview two brothers, both sons of a shaman,

and the elder, Nikolai Petrovich, also one of only

two remaining singers of Bear Festival songs. We

subsequently learned that two months after we had

left Nikolai Petrovich, he passed away. In December, we traveled again to Kurlomkiny, this time to observe winter hunting practices, as well as to discuss the findings of our survey. Kurlomkin is the only

person on Bolshoi Yugan River beside Kupland-eyev

who knows Bear Festival songs.

Findings

All ethnographic findings concerning Khanty values,

beliefs, and practices associated with the landscape

disclosed so far by the Khanty Cultural Conservation

Program have implications for the development of co- management policies for the planned protected area

in the Bolshoi Yugan River basin.

Ethnographic Findings

The project has produced a number of findings significant for understanding the West Siberian boreal forest

as a Khanty "cognized" landscape. It confirmed our

governing hypothesis: Khanty conceive of a complex,

but direct and roughly isomorphic connection between

the multiple layers of their religious pantheon and the

different levels of land use. The relationships are:

(a) The High Gods : Sky, Earth Surface, Underworld

generally

(b) Their Children : Major Tributary Rivers

(c) Their Children's Children : Family Hunting

Territories

Using toponymic and ethnographic data from our own

work and the work of others, we developed a typology of sacred places that distinguishes between unmodified geophysical features—such as lakes, whirlpools, sand bars, high places, and sacred groves—and

those geophysical features that have been modified

by the addition of constructions. Such sites are "sacred" because a mythological event is associated with

them.

We can assert that the Yugan Khanty recognize that some sites that they might not classif/ as "sacred" are

nevertheless seen by them as "culturally significant."

This is especially true of some archaeological sites to which oral historical legends are attached.

Fieldwork interviews, archaeological survey, and a

review of the ethnohistoric literature all confirm that wide forest trails, marked on contemporary maps as

"reindeer roads," are often of great age and of enor- mous significance to the cognitive map by which Yugan

Khanty establish their social and historical connections

to Khanty communities on other river systems.

Khanty thoroughly understand ecosystems as fish and game habitats, as well as the concepts of microenvironments and population cycles, and differentially

value each of the four major ecosystem types found in

the Middle Ob River basin relative to the contribution

of their resources to the traditional economy.

While Khanty understand their family hunting territories as bounded entities, that single boundary does

not adequately express their appropriation of landscape.

Our earlier ethnographic work confirmed that certain

traditional practices represented in nineteenth century

ethnohistoric literature still pertain: Khanty landholders partition their territory into fractions that they allocate to other family members; they transfer use rights

to resources even while retaining claims to the land; and they still permit "hot pursuit" onto their territories

of animals chased from neighboring lands. As we found

out in our December 2000 trip to the Kurlomkiny settle148 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
ment, and it is a datum never reported before, Khanty

hunters perceive different levels of exclusivity in "holding" their lands: areas for trapping are the exclusive domain of the landholder, known in these circumstances

by the Russian-Khanty epithet, pyt'//c/or"[trap]line man,"

where trespass is severely approbated, while other

areas are less exclusively claimed, and hunting-fishing

trespass less approbated.

Yugan Khanty families often hunt beyond their

family lands, a historical situation aggravated by the

creation of the Yugan Zapovednik. This has meant

that Khanty conceptualizations do not coincide with

( either governmental administrative boundaries or

with natural definitions, such as tributary drainage

i systems.

Policy Implications of Findings

In ethnographic landscape studies, all findings of ethnographic significance will have direct implications for

the management of behaviors, lands, and resources, which will often emerge as problem areas highlighting different conceptions of landscape. For example,

the development of national or international regimes

of legal protection requires generalized categories of

sites that can accommodate the dynamic character of

tradition. Nevertheless, generalized categories have the

potential for missing the site-specific or culture-specific features of a place from which its sacred character

derives. One solution might be to generate simple lists

or registers of identified sacred places, but such lists

require some generalized principles to justify the inclusion of places in the register. They also lack the

ability to guide planners in terms of what to consider in

the development process and tend to be generated

by the development projects that disclose the exist- ence of sacred places at the last minute. This tension

between generalized (emic) typologies and culture-specific (etic) typologies is especially felt in developing

protection regimes for natural sacred places of indig- enous peoples. Our concerns focus on three main areas of confusion.

ANDREW WICET AND OLGA BALALAEVA

Problems of Form

It is typical to identify natural sacred sites according

to particular elements of landscape. For the Khanty,

these would include: lakes, rivers, swamps, uris, whirlpools, rapids, turns, and confluences of rivers, hills,

ravines, islands, promontories, sacred groves, individual sacred trees, and stones. Two difficulties emerge with such a simple strategy: the problems

of Complexity and Scale.

Complexity. Such a simple model of identification does not consider that natural sacred places may often be composed of several natural elements. On the Yugan,

Pim, and Kazym Rivers, for example, the majority of

sacred swamps include different kinds of high places:

hillocks (Russian: bugor), ridges (Russian: gryady), "islands" (Russian: ostrov), or isolated trees, although there

are several examples that indicate that simply swamps

themselves can have special status. Sometimes different toponyms point to the same place. Local people

call Iming Soyem (sacred creek)—located in the TromAgan River basin near Yubileinoe village (Russian:

Svyatoy Ovrag, Sacred Ravine). The problem is even

further complicated when one considers that such natural sacred elements may also include cultural elements,

such as constructions to house the spirits. The region

of Lake Larlumkina on the Yugan River is considered

in its combination of several natural and cultural elements: the lake itself and high places near the lake

shore, as well as a three shrines, a cemetery, and two

archaeological sites. One very knowledgeable Khanty

person suggested that the entire basin of the Pim River

is considered by many Khanty to be sacred.

Scale. The complexity of such forms raises the question of what exactly should be protected in a site- based regime of legal protection. This is a matter of

both area and access. Area questions have to do with

establishing boundaries of sites to be protected; in

very large areas, like Larlumkina, this may involve developing zonation strategies. Access questions are

raised by the scale of a site as well as its function: Does access require a special route to the site that

1 49
should be incorporated into a protection plan? Do the

functions need to be protected from observers?

Problems ofFunction

We found it very difficult to strictly categorize sites

according to their presumed function. When a place is

referred to as sacred, what attributes of it are actually

being pointed out. Our experience with the Siberian

Khanty, as well as reports from several Native American groups (Kelley and Francis 1 994), suggests that a

place is typically referred to as sacred because of its

association with religious belief (myth) and/or cultic

practice. Yet, even these terms acquire a certain flexibility as tradition begins to shape itself out of the seeds of an origin long since lost to cultural memory.

Cultic Functions. Because of the high visibility of and anthropology's bias toward cultic activity, sites associated with offerings, sacrifices, or other forms of cultic

behavior are often foregrounded in typological systems, in a manner parallel to the foregrounding of sites marked by constructions, as opposed to sacred natural features. This poses several problems, not the least

of which is the fact that the sacredness of cultic sites may be reconfigured. Cultic practices may persist even

after any memory of the mythic event or association

that focused attention on the place has been lost. We

have contemporary data that the religious power that once energized recently destroyed sacred places can be communicated to newly revealed sacred places,

or, simply, new sacred places, hitherto unknown, may

be revealed to the community through dreaming or

other culturally sanctioned channels. These places have no mythic associations.

Mnemonic-Iconic Function. As American anthropologist Keith Basso (1 996) has demonstrated, the association of place with myth and legend often gives sites a

substantive mnemonic function as a culture's beliefs,

values, and normative practices are mapped onto a landscape filled with stories. For example, on Bolshoi Yugan River, near Kykalevy settlement, a sacred whirlpool is marked by the following legend:

1 50

When people came and began to travel along the Yugan, and the [god's] wife was

probably very ill-natured. She began to confuse people to delay them. Later, the grassy bank there, when it dried entirely

[after the water lowered later in summer]

became like stone. Her husband became

angry and kicked her. Below this place

appeared a deep, deep whirlpool. 'If you

don't want to look at people, then you

should live in a deep whirlpool,' [so the

husband addressed the wife].

It is important to understand that even if no cultic

practice emerges from this association, the association is functional in the strictest sense. Nevertheless,

there is as much flexibility with this mnemonic-iconic

function as with the cultic function. Religious belief

can be enlarged from a mythic association to include

associations with legend. An archaeological site, Vosh

Vort Pay, on the upper Maiyi Yugan River is considered

sacred because of its legendary, quasi-mythic associations: To this place sand had been brought to create an

island in the middle of the swamp on which a fortress had been built of large, palisaded logs. Other logs were

dragged up the slope and stacked for defense; when

the enemy attacked, the logs were released to roll down

on them. According to legend, people known as Aryx

Yakh, "The People Sung About" in Khanty epic songs,

lived there: "The people were about three meters

tall. What was strange about them was that they

had no navels. These warrior giants' names were

Nyomyl and Toruk." Interestingly, other texts we re- corded from different sources say that the gods had no navels.

While many countries have a regime of legal protection for cultic places categorized as places of religious worship, as well as a regime of legal protection

for places with a mnemonic-iconic function categorized as places of cultural significance, it is unclear whether the legal systems of most countries comprehend the ambiguity in and linkage between these categories from an indigenous perspective. The result is a

scattershot pattern of protection that focuses on some

sites highly marked by Western standards, while overlooking the broad and complex network of functionPROTECTINC THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
45/ Khanty caretaker, Yefim Kolsomovatthe labas commemorating where the high god Torum stepped down onto

the earth. The site is featured in the model documentation presented in Table I

.

ality that links these more visible sites with the other,

less-visible ones.

Problems of Participation.

The complex relationship between social structure and indigenous religious belief and practice is also a cause for confusion. We have identified more than 1 50

sacred sites in the Middle Ob River basin; but the

fractions of the population who participate, through

knowledge, belief or practice, in the traditions associated with these sites (Fig. 45) vary considerably and

pose problems for developing both typologies and re- gimes of legal protection.

Khanty social organization is based on extended

families or lineages, with related lineages grouped

into clans (Khanty cir). While the present settlement

pattern has been influenced by migration and forced

relocation in the Middle Ob region, evidence from our own fieldwork and the ethnographic record indicates

that different Khanty clans even today claim traditional

use rights to different river systems tributary to the Ob

River, in part because they believe their lineage was

founded by divine ancestors who were also responsible for the creation of the river systems on which the

majority of the clan lives (Pupi [bear] cir. Bolshoi Yugan

River; makh [beaver] cir. Maiyi Yugan River). Most Khanty

extended families live on traditional family hunting territories, protected by family gods who are considered

offspring of the lineage's founding deities. These lin- eage deities are the seven sons of the high god, each

a patron of a major tributary of the Ob River. Roughly

speaking, the principal deities are responsible for cosmological-level events, their first-generation offspring

for the watersheds of the major tributaries, and the

second-generation offspring for individual family lands

along each watershed. Traditional Khanty thus believe

that sacred power has been historically invested in

both the landscape and the lineage.

ANDREW WICET AND OLCA BALALAEVA 151
This, however, creates an apparent and problematic hierarchy of interest. Khanty do distinguish be- tween communal (Russian: obshchie) sacred sites, clan

sacred sites, and family sacred sites. Nevertheless, be- cause each category is embedded in the one above it,

all, even a particular extended family's sacred place, is

said to have a bearing on the success and prosperity

of the Khanty community as a whole. Consequently, it would be incorrect to view community-wide sites as somehow more significant than the sacred places of

individual, extended families.

Recommendations and Conclusions

The definition of familiar cultural resources, such as sacred sites, cemeteries, archaeological sites, and historical monuments, as very narrowly circumscribed locations is inevitably flawed, especially when dealing

with the cultural resources of indigenous peoples. In

our experience, among indigenous peoples:

—"Site" implies a boundedness or localization of phenomenon that may not obtain,

—"Sacred" is a category of inquiry that is less useful than "cultural significance"

—"Cultural significance" is very locally determined

and cannot be presumed without intensive field- work

—"Cultural significance" is less likely to be signaled

by a preservable characteristic of objects or places

than by a set of proscribed human behaviors

Based on our experience, we believe that ethnographic

landscape projects should:

—Identify the ways in which local uses of key terms

of environmental, preservationist, and other social science discourses differ from the way the terms

are used by advocacy and interest groups

—Link "site" and "behavior" through "discourse" by

focusing principally on documentation of personal

narratives, oral history, and folklore

—Integrate "sites" into networks based on ethnographically determined patterns of human behavior or conceptualization, not on typologies of form

—Combine the documentation of conventionally

1 52

recognized forms of culturally significant sites with the documentation of social and economic uses

of land

—Understand ethnographic landscape as a "lay- ered" not just a "partitioned" complexity

The effort to create a co-managed, protected territory

for the Yugan Khanty is ongoing. Our work on the Cultural Resources Survey Project concludes next year;

the charter for the Yaoun Yakh Community Association

is being redrawn to conform to new laws on community associations. We continue to pursue other legal,

social, and scientific approaches to preserving the lands

of the Yugan Khanty, such as nominating archeological sites, singly and in networks, for protected status. The effort to save the land and culture of the Yugan

Khanty represents an initiative of great importance for

Russia. For indigenous people in a country that has no

tradition of recognizing indigenous peoples' sovereignty, nor as yet has any laws recognizing the unique

status of indigenous people or providing for private,

individual or communal land ownership, the proposed

protected territory provides a legal basis for local self- government and control of land use in their traditional

territory. For conservationists, it represents the first opportunity to effectively monitor with the close cooperation of the local population the human impact on a complex ecosystem and manage with them its sustainable development. Grounding cultural conservation

programs among indigenous peoples in policies based on a dynamic model of human ecology, rather than on

a static and more easily contested model of historical

preservation, has several advantages. It means at once

a more comprehensive program, based on the concept of "landscape," rather than "site," and a more effective program, since it manages behaviors ('uses')

rather than structures or things. Moreover, under this

banner, conservationists can become allies, instead of

antagonists of Native interests. The successful establishment of a protected area

for the Yugan Khanty now depends principally on extraordinarily powerful petroleum magnates and on the

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUGAN
will of government authorities, who are also responsible for the sale of oil licenses. Though the financial

costs of oil production in the Yugan basin are extraordinarily high, to say nothing of the tragic and irreversible human cost to the Khanty, pressure from oil companies continues, and tracts of the Yugan River basin,

which the Khanty use to feed their families, are still

being sold. Unlike the situation in the West, where local constituencies might find government instruments

to exert political pressure on their own, and where

the greatest threat to cultural landscapes often comes

from trespassers, poachers, and grave robbers, silence

is not the best conservator of cultural value. In the

political and economic environment of Siberia, the scientific gathering and public dissemination of ethnographic information is essential. First, publication

makes deniability impossible for policymakers. Second, it demonstrates the complexity and indispensability of the cultural landscape in ways that expose

the weak, exploitative nature of stand-alone cultural

programs, such as festivals and museums, sponsored

by Russian officialdom. Third, dissemination of information on cultural landscapes can frame an alternative

discourse to those of natural resource exploitation and

contested rights that may powerfully serve the interests of cultural conservation.

For Russia—a country with many nature reserves

but a poor record of protecting the environment and

sustaining the internationally acknowledged rights

of indigenous peoples—the proposed Yugan Khanty

Protected Territory thus represents a unique

initiative.

Notes

1. The official listing of these peoples is pro- vided in "O yedinom perechene korennykh malochislennykh narodov Rossiiskoi Federatsii" (On the

unified list of indigenous minority peoples of the

Russian Federation), 24 March 2000. For overviews

of Khanty culture, see Levin and Potapov 1956;

Kuiemzin 1984; Kulemzin and Lukina 1992; Balzer 1994; and Golovnev 1995. Balzer 1999 is a very

ANDREW WIGET AND OLCA BALALAEVA

valuable ethnohistorical work. Earlier works include

Karjalainen 1995 [1922]; Chernetsov 1987 [1927];

and Dunin-Corkavitch 1995 [1904].

2. The authors thank The John D. and Catherine

T. MacArthur Foundation for their support of field- work among the Western Siberia Khanty in the mentioned projects. Further information about the projects can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www/

nmsu.edu/~english/hc/hcsiberia.html

3. Data based on authors' fieldwork at the

Kaimysovy extended family settlement. Upper Maiyi

Yugan River, Surgut Region, Khanty-Mansi Autono- mous Okrug, June 1996.

4. Alliances between environmental interests and indigenous interests are widely proclaimed in the international arena, but they have a mixed record

of success, if measured by amicable cooperation in the pursuit of mutual interests (see Stevens 1 997).

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PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUCAN
[Njenets ^acred ^ites

as Ethnographic Landscape

GALINA P. KHARYUCHI'

In the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area {Okmg) in North- west Siberia—as in many other regions of arctic Russia—the problem of preserving cultural sites and monuments related to local Native people is quite acute

[see Fedorova, this volume]. Environments are changing and many habitats are being broken up under rapid

industrial development, mainly for oil and gas, of the

indigenous population's lands. The traditional system

of wildlife management, subsistence usage, and land

preservation is deteriorating. In the near future, devel- opment will begin in the northernmost section of the West Siberian tundra and may even include the High

Arctic coastland and offshore grounds, where proven

oil and gas deposits exist. In conditions of such rapid

industrial development, the preservation, registration,

and governmental protection of ritual sites as monuments of the ethno-cultural heritage of indigenous

people are acquiring greater urgency.

In 1 990, a new research unit, the Laboratory of Eth- nography and Ethnolinguistics, an offshoot of the InstiWt Problem Osvoeniia Severn (IPOS; Institute of Problems of Development in the North), was established in the city

of Salekhard, the regional center of the Yamal-Nenets

Area. Since 1998, it has been transformed into the

"Center for Humanitarian Research on Indigenous Minority Peoples of the North of Yamal-Nenets Au- tonomous Area" (CHR). Representatives of the region's

indigenous peoples—the Nenets, Khanty, and Selkup—

became staff researchers and scientific collaborators. One crucial field of CHR activities became the mapping of sacred sites (or "ritual places") of the area's

indigenous people, which was named a key heritage

goal by the local Association of Indigenous Minority

People of the region, Yamal—Potomkam! (Yamal: For Our Descendants!). In 1994, two CHR staff research- ers—Leonid Lar and I—began surveys under this pro- gram. Lar made a draft map of the Yamal District

sacred sites and prepared it for publication (Lar 1 995).

He later used it for his Ph.D. dissertation, 'The Traditional Religious Worldview of the Nenets," which he

defended in 2000 (Lar 1 999). As a Native researcher and a Nenets woman born

into a nomadic reindeer herding family on the Cydan

Peninsula, I was responsible for mapping Nenets sacred sites in my native region, the Cydan Peninsula

(Fig. 46), which is territorially a part of the Taz District

of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Both Lar and I were sharply aware of the scientific

importance of this work, and the impacts of industrial development spoke to its practical urgency and value. The immediate task was to identify and document the

remaining monuments of spiritual culture forthe Nenets people—because the destruction of Nenets sacred sites

in areas that had undergone oil and gas development,

road construction, and other industrial activities was

taking place before our eyes. We did not know how to

create a system for protecting sacred sites, but we felt

that a special administrative ruling or legislative act was essential to prevent their damage and destruction.

Extensive oil and gas exploration has taken place on the Cydan tundra since the 1 970s, and several known

Nenets ritual places and sacred sites have already been

1 55
destroyed during the early geophysical and exploratory surveys. The indigenous tundra residents, the

Nenets herders and fishermen, have been powerless

against these intruders. The geologists were drilling

holes in our land,-^ and were disturbing the peace of

the Lower World's inhabitants and the spirits of sacred

places. Where possible, Nenets people have restored

the damaged sites and conducted ritual "cleaning"

of the area. But they did not know how to protect

their sacred places.

In December 1 994, 1 first reported on this project at

the Third World Archaeological Congress in New Delhi

in a paper titled "Mapping Nenets Sacred Sites of Gydan

Peninsula" (Khan/uchi and Lipatova 1 998). In 1 999, I defended a Ph.D. dissertation titled Traditions and Innovations in the Nenets Ethnic Culture, later published as

a book (Kharyuchi 1999a, 2001). Its second chapter,

"The Sacred Sphere of the Traditional Nenets Society," was dedicated to Nenets beliefs and rites related to or performed at sacred sites, and to their modern transformation. The map I made of Nenets sacred places on

the Gydan Peninsula (at the scale 1 :2, 000,000) was attached as an appendix to my dissertation (Kharyuchi

1 999b; 2001 ;21 6a). Some seventy traditional sacred sites

of the Gydan Nenets that still exist and are revered

today are designated on the map (Kharyuchi 2001 :216-

7). For each sacred site, the following information was

recorded: traditional site name and its interpretation;

origin of the site; events and legends (stories) related

to the site; and its modern preservation status (condition). Many Nenets traditional sacred sites in the study areawere first documented more than seventy-five years ago by V. Toboliakov, a participant of the Gydan Expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1 926-

1 927 (Toboliakov 1 930). This made it possible to compare the state of preservation, functionality, and

changes of various sacred sites over almost eighty

years, as well as the preservation of the rites and

oral traditions related to them. This chapter dis- cusses my work in surveying and documenting

Nenets sacred sites and some of the results.

Sacred Places: a Personal View and Features of the Ethnographer's Work

Beginning my work, I experienced a deep internal emotional conflict. I, a Nenets woman, born and brought

up in a traditional family of reindeer herders, knew well

the complexity of the task and the challenges I faced. As a Nenets woman, it was difficult for me to collect

information about sacred sites, because of the traditional gender roles prescribed from childhood and the many taboos still practiced in the nomadic Nenets society, especially in the sacred sphere. Sacred rituals are

still almost exclusively the men's area of knowledge

and activities. Women are rarely if ever included and as

low-level participants at minor rituals only. All information pertaining the origins, clan and family ownership,

and the rites to be performed at sacred places is still

strictly controlled by men. Therefore, women, even

senior ones, are often quite ignorant about sacred sites and are presumed to be such under traditional system

of beliefs. The initial stage of my survey was especially arduous. During my first field trips, or while on short holi- day visits to tundra camps with my relatives—who are

practicing reindeer herders~l collected some data, in no way advertising my main interest. I feared the con- demnation of the elders among my family and clan

people; because of that, I felt that I should address

only youths. The young people assisted me with pleasure. As a Nenets woman, I could not ask questions

of the elderly men, nor demonstrate any interest in

sacred places, much less visit and describe them (except for special female sites). I also faced many special

obstacles in approaching the sites, because I had not

achieved that advanced age when a [post-menopausal] woman again becomes sacredly pure, and many taboos,

including those on a woman visiting ritual sites, no

longer apply to her.

It started to change once an elderly shaman from

my clan told me that I should "hold the drum in my

hands" [that is, could and should practice shaman rituPROTECTINC THE INVISIBLE/ SAVE THE YUCAN
als myself]. I was surprised by his words, more so because this was our first meeting and I was not personally acquainted with him, although he knew about

me. I therefore took his words merely as a joke, as I had no extrasensory or other special abilities whatsoever. Most of my adult life had been spent in an

urban environment and in another culture. I had graduated from a high school and a teacher's college under

the Soviet system of government education and, as an

adult, continued to live in the city and communicated

less with my people on the tundra.

Probably, in a traditional society, I would have had

an unusual destiny. After this memorable meeting with

the shaman, it somehow became psychologically easier

for me to engage in documenting Nenets sacred sites.

It seemed as if I had received a "blessing" and could now approach even elderly men and other senior persons. Not everyone can relate to this theme; maybe, I

thought, it means that it is written in my destiny to do

this work in the name of protecting Nenets sacred

sites and for the sake of my people. And so, although

I have not become a shamanka [female shaman] myself, I could approach this sacred field from another

angle—the scientific.

I belong to the community of tundra Cydan Nenets,

a special ethno-territoriai grouping living on Gydan Peninsula (Figs. 46, 47). The Gydan Nenets have a special

dialect [of the Nenets language], and they live sepaBarents Sea

Kola

Peninsula

J Kara Sea

o

Arkhangel'sk/YNaryan MarJ^^^S^

o"^7/-'

y 5 /

udinlca v

KOMI REPUBLIC

> > /

H (

^ ^ ,^"»^_Novyi Urengoy '"Oi

Tazovskiyv /

to \

\ Khanty-Manslisk '^O.

\

/

46/ /Area populated by the Nenets people in Arctic Russia (dotted line). The study region, the home of the Cydan

tundra Nenets on the Cydan Peninsula, is shown by a diagonal pattern.

CALINA KHARYUCHI 157
rately from other groups of tundra reindeer Nenets by

virtue of our land's remoteness. My parents were reindeer herders employed by the Cydan State Fisheries

Processing Plant. Throughout their life, they cared for a

large herd of government-owned reindeer, and upon

retirement, they became private reindeer herders. The

family herding operation is carried on now by my brothers, who live in a tundra camp; they inherited my parents' reindeer together with our family guardian spirits.

I, to the contrary, left the tundra at an early age, gradu47/ Calina Kharyuchi (center) during a winter field survey.

ated from Tyumen University, worked for many years

as a schoolteacher, became engaged in anthropological research, and defended a dissertation on the history and culture of my people. Although I live in

Salekhard, I try to visit my relatives on the tundra every

year, to spend some time in my native environment

and with my community. As an anthropologist (ethnographer), I am supposed to take a detached view of my native tradition, observe changes in the lifestyle and spiritual culture of my people, and to gather field

data, from which I have to make

conclusions and write scientific papers. This is a challenging path. I am

especially interested in today's

changes to Nenets spiritual culture, and in the attitudes of modern young

people toward family relics and ritual

sites, and their own performance of ceremonies and rituals.

It is not easy to get to my native

"roots." First, I fly from Salekhard, to

the city of Novyi Urengoy, and from

there, to the district center, the town

of Tazovskskiy. From Tazovskskiy, I

fly by helicopter to the small northern town of Gyda(in Nenets: Nedya—

a pen for wild reindeer). I leave town

on a reindeer sled, traveling with my

brothers on a long trek across the

tundra to our family camp. Forty kilometers (25 miles) from the town

of Cyda is the Kliel<lne l<lnan soteya

site, literally "hill of the sacred sled."

Sacred sleds with ritual objects [images of guardian spirits] are left at

this sacred site after the death of

their life-long owners. Two such

sleds have been left on Kliet<lie l<lian

soteya. One of them belonged to the

father of my fellow countryman Port

Salinder (1 91 7-1 998). A former rePROTECTINC THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
48/Active Nenets sacred site in Southern Yamal, / 996.

indeer herder and chair of the herders' collective farm

in the 1950s, he moved to town upon his retirement,

lived there until the end of his life, and had no reindeer

of his own. He could not keep his family ritual objects

in a wooden house that was considered spiritually "unclean." After his death, his son brought his father's old

sled with all his guardian spirits to this sacred site, where

it remained until recently.

In addition to sacred sleds, antlers and heads [old

skulls] of sacrificed reindeer are left at this place, as

well as traces of "bloodless" sacrifices, such as offerings of food and other gifts (Fig. 48). We stop so that

the reindeer can rest, and we rub our numb arms and

legs. My brothers walk up the hill and leave their offerings at the site. They sip and then pour a drop of

vodkaon the ground regaling the spirit of the sitethen leave the bottle there, placing it among the antlers of sacrificed reindeer. Aloud or mentally, they talk

with the site's spirit, asking for clear weather and a safe

road. I always stay below: a woman cannot go up to

this sacred site. We travel farther on our reindeer sled across the

snow-covered white tundra. Coming toward us along

this route are other herders from their family camps,

going for supplies or picking up their children in town. They have been traveling for twenty-four hours or more. We stop, greet each other, exchange news, and go

our separate ways. Their sled reindeer are tired, but

ours are anxious to head home. But any time they pass

the Khekhe l<han soteya site, all Nenets stop their sleds

without fail and conduct an offering ceremony. Once I

tried to photograph the site from a distance, but this

particular shot failed. So, I do not know what it looks

like in detail and have no recorded image of the site. A legend about the genesis of this ritual site exists. Once, a large caravan of reindeer sleds (in Nenets, myud) was moving across the tundra from north to south. The day was clear. The leaders of this long caravan had already reached the hill that designated a watershed. Suddenly the sky darkened, the wind rose, and a

GALINA KHARYUCHI
whirlwind of snow began to spin. The reindeer were

falling and fighting about the sleds; the people were

ready to drop. Then they began to ask Num (the Nenets supreme deity)^ to save them, sacrificing a white bull

reindeer as a symbol of the white whirlwind. But the

weather did not calm down; Num had not heard the

people's supplication.

Then an old Nenets, the head of this clan, having

loosened a sacred sled from the reindeer and sleds, began to drag it toward the north, from whence the

blizzard was blowing. But it was hard for him; he was

old. Suddenly from out of the snowstorm his small grandson appeared. The two of them dragged the clan's

sacred sled to the hilltop. Before their eyes, the hill began to grow toward the sky, thus lifting the sacred

sled. Having risen to the height of a medium-sized

khorey [a wooden pole for driving reindeer, three to

four meters long], the hill seemed to stop moving. At

that very moment, the weather changed, as though there had been no snowstorm. Like partridges, the people

began to shake off the snow. Having collected the rest

of their reindeer and belongings, they sacrificed three

bull reindeer. The people stood the heads and antlers

of the sacrificial reindeer on the hill near the clan's

sacred sled. The caravan moved off. For a long time, in

the distance, people saw the clan's sacred sled that had

been left behind.

I heard this legend in the early 1 990s from Boris C. Shushakov, who is close to me in age. Born in 1 950, he

lives in the town of Gyda and was about forty years old

at the time. The knowledge of traditional stories connected with the history and spirits of a certain site, even among the town residents, is evidence of the

reverence for sacred places that is held by modern

Nenets people of middle and even quite young age.

I happened by this site two more times. In the sum- mer of 1 997, after my father's funeral, we moved deep

into the tundra with the family herd and set up our

family herders' tents not far from this sacred place. Our

family was in mourning, and for an entire year, none of

us could visit sacred places. I was surprised that even

the reindeer and dogs did not go very close to that

place. The next time was in the summer of 2000. 1 had

arrived at my family camp in the middle of July to make

a map of sacred sites. A neighbor from another family

at our camp, coming from the Salinder clan, made a

sacrifice to the sacred sled and ancestral spirits. Nenets

people of the Salinder clan are called khabi and are

considered of Khanty origin. In the middle of summer,

they usually make a sacrifice to ancestral spirits. Inhabitants of all neighboring tents must come without an

invitation and participate in the feasting, together with

the spirits. I had my own professional interest in the ceremony; besides the fact that, as a guest, it was mandatory that I show respect to the ancestral spirits. The

host of the ritual was a private reindeer herder who had

graduated from an agricultural institute. At one time, he

had worked as a veterinary expert with the collective farm herd. Now there are many such private reindeer

herders on the Gydan tundra, with high school and even

higher education, who have their own herds with up to 500 to 800 reindeer. Having moved our family camp from the site

closer to the village, we set up our tents near an abandoned oil rig (Fig. 49), which was in the middle

of the beautiful, blossoming tundra. Remains of the

rig's metal construction, sticks, boards, and torn bags

from cement and some unknown powder were sticking out of the ground; this place carried a stench. However, a lot of good wood suitable for making

sled parts was available. On the tundra, only dwarf

birch and rose willow grow, and the only available wood is driftwood from the shores of the great rivers and the Ob Bay. During free shifts from herd

watch, our men spent time at the abandoned rig and

made sled parts. I photographed this terrible place

and asked a few general questions about tundra sacred sites. Work on my map could only be done

fitfully, as the men were busy with the reindeer and

were going to the rig. But my main informant, sixtyyear-old Khatibi Ivanovich Yabtunai, came for me as soon as he had free time and said, "Let's play map."

160 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
49/ Nenets children at an abandoned oil rig site.

We went to the back part of a tent, and I spread a map on the ground and started to mark and write on it. The other herders came over in stages, and

everyone who knew sacred sites identified them,

and told stories about them.

Traditional Nenets Views of Spirits and

Sacred Sites

In Nenets views, the earth (the ground) is alive, and

each hillock, hill, river, lake, and sea has a custodial

spirit. All spirits, regardless of their function, are valued

as forces that unite the Nenets people. This has been

noted by many authors as a characteristic not only of

the Nenets—both tundra- and forest-dwelling—but also

of their neighbors, the Khanty people [Wiget and

Balalaeva, this volume]. A place inhabited by a spirit was visited not only by the social group to which the

given spirit "belonged" (or was guardian of), but also

by many of their neighbors, sometimes from very re- mote areas. Native informants assert that the presence

of sacred sites is an indication of an area belonging to

a given people forever. Among the Khanty, the desecration or destruction of any ritual structures was considered a trespass on one's clan territory (Kulemzin

1995:70). Although this statement was made in connection with the Khanty people, the concept is fully

applicable to the Nenets as well. On the tundra, elders frequently warn young people

about adopting a respectful attitude to the earth and

any hill or lake that has its own guardian spirit. In winter, in the white silence of the tundra, especially in gloomy weather or on a sunny spring day when the

horizon merges with the ground, these places orient

travelers. They are visible from afar and seem to point

the way. The same purposes are served by a burial ground or cemetery in a high place. If it is the burial

location of an older person, it is often said that "my

grandfather or grandmother has shown me the way."

Places that are sacred in their own nght—Khebidya

(literally, sacred ground: khebidya means sacred, ya means the ground)—are marked by the highest sacred

importance. Nenets place names signif/ing sacred sites

CALINA KHARYUCHI 161
frequently contain direct information about the sacredness of a certain land feature. Khebidya ya is added to common place name-formants, such as Ai^o(an island),

to (lake), soti/suti {a plateau with a wide base and gentle

slopes), syeda (a hill), yakha (a river), sokho (a highpeaked hill with a wide base). Apparently, natural features that contain spirits make up the most basic category of Nenets ritual sites.

Sacred sites have no precisely established borders

and no marked transitions into the nearby non-sacred

landscape. Usually such sites are located in noticeable

places, near a stone of some special shape, on top of a

hill, or on the shore of lake (Fig. 50). A lake, too, can be

sacred; and, therefore, people are forbidden to fish in it,

or it is mandatory that the first catch be sacrificed to the

spirit of the sacred lake. A shaman determined when a

sacred site should be revered by everyone or by a

particular clan or family, as well as what needed to be

placed there or was considered khekhe (spirit). The sha- man also determined which image this spirit—the custodian of the given sacred place—has.

Thus, sacred places are actively used cultural sites. They are usually located in the areas where reindeer

herders live continuously and use for their economic

activities, although particularly practices, such as herding, fishing or trapping, are traditionally limited or often completely forbidden at or near the site. This clearly

puts Native sacred sites to the category of "monuments

of spiritual culture." They accumulate significance

through a long history and are characterized by a conservatism of form and ways of practicing/performing

certain ritual activities. Such functions allow us to define a ritual site as a nomadic people's equivalent to a

temple. Actually, northern sacred sites are true open-air

temples for my people. Here one can find all major

spatial and spiritual components of a temple, such as a

strict layout of the sacred space; a sculpture or an object of religious significance; the developed attributes

of a ritual at the site focused on this central object or

sculpture; specified norms and rules of behavior for

participants; and a sustained tradition about the for1 62

mation and reasons for emergence of the given sacred site. The basic difference between a sacred place

and a temple, characteristic of major world religions, is

the obvious esoteric nature of the ritual site (Gemuev

1990; Gemuev and Sagalaev 1986:154); that is, its

visitation, and even knowledge of it, is open only to a

small circle of devoted or chosen persons. As other peoples go to pray in a temple, for the

Nenets, such sacred places are temples: "special places

delineated in oral tradition or legends, having a special

sacred value, and possessing power over the people

who belong to a traditional community" (Balalaeva

1999:142). As Balalaeva has noted (ibid.), these places

are sacred in the broadest sense: they connect the traditional way of life of a people with sacred myths, the most ancient cosmological planes of mythology, and

religious ritual.

Sacred islands are given special importance by

the Nenets. As ethnographer Andrei Golovnev has

pointed out,

[l]n contrast with the major world religions,

under the Nenets religious beliefs, the most

important temple is not considered the one

that people visit most often, but that (place) that is nearly inaccessible or is accessible

only to the chosen few (2000:208).

And as Nenets elder Awo Vanuito has stated (Golovnev

2000:232), "the major gods live at the ends of the Earth."

Sacred islands are difficult to access, and this circumstance begets the appearance of new customs. Sometimes there is a transfer from the island to the mainland,

to the continental coast adjacent to the island, not of

the sacred place itself, but of all the intended special

rituals to be performed there. Thus, another sacred site

for carrying out a ritual appears on the mainland, and

the coast adjoining the island should also be protected.

For example, the Ngoya-khebidya-ya site has already

been "transferred" in such a manner from Shokalskyi

Island in the Kara Sea to the mainland, and the Yamngon

khantalba sacred site has been similarly transferred from

the nearby Sibiryakov Island.

Restoration of Nenets sacred sites destroyed by

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
50/ Nenets sacred site at Cape Tiutey-Sale ("Walrus Cape"), Northwestern Yamal, 1928.

surveyors and geological prospectors is becoming another new phenomenon. The Nenets people place scattered sacrificial antlers, animal skulls, stones, and other

objects on the original location. In the Nenets' views

of the spirit world, a magic force exists in features that

have an unusual appearance. If a stone sits on a given

place, a shaman could "recognize" that this stone is none other than one of the forms into which the spirit

has become manifest. When I was twelve years old, I once went with the children to cut tundra grass, which

is used as insoles for footwear and for mats. A fog came up unexpectedly, and we lost the way to our

tents. We were lost for a long time, but behaved

quietly and did not panic. We became tired and decided to rest on a hill. On this place, we saw a stone

that looked similar to a seated person. While sitting

around it, we decided that this was not an ordinary

stone, but the spirit of this hill. While we were resting, the fog passed, and we easily found the way to

the tents. We took the stone with us, and our father put it [with other sacred objects] on the sacred family sled.

The Survey Area

Cydan Peninsula is the northeastern-most extension of

the West Siberian plain, roughly between 68°N and

73°N and between the mouths of Taz and Ob Bays on

the west and Yenisey Bay in the east. A large part of

the peninsula is related administratively to the Taz District of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The district

also includes the northern part of neighboring Taz Peninsula, which is washed on the north and east by the

waters of Taz Bay. The total area of Taz District is

1 73,4000 square kilometers (66,950 square miles); its

administrative center is the town of Tazovskiy—in

Nenets, Khalmer-sede, which means "Dead Men's Cape."

Three large Native communities, the towns of Cyda,

Antipayuta, and Nakhodka, are in the district territory.

Also on Cydan Peninsula proper are several small villages and trading posts: Matyuy-sale, Yesya-yakha,

Khalmervonga, Yuribey, Razvilka, Mongatolyang,

Nyakhar-yakha, and Tanamo. The area under the Cydan

Town Council authority has more than 3,000 residents

(3,279 as of January 1 , 2004), mostly Nenets, including

several hundred nomadic families living in tundra camps.

CALINA KHARYUCHI
By decision of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug administration,

and with the consent of Russian federal agencies, Gydan

Peninsula was given the status of a "specially protected

ethno-natural territory," in which only traditional subsistence activities such as reindeer herding, hunting,

and fishing are allowed.

Surveys and ethnographic research focused on

drafting a map of traditional Nenets sacred sites and

adjoining areas are regarded as critical components

to creating an appropriate legislative base for their future protection, which is an ultimate goal of our work.

This should solve several problems. The legislative actions will protect the homeland of the Northern indig- enous peoples, and thus will facilitate the preservation

of an ancient civilization of nomadic reindeer herders. The actions will create additional protected areas for

preserving the flora and fauna of northern regions, which

will facilitate the continuity of natural landscapes and

sustainable development of the North.

In the territory of the Gydan Peninsula, several

"specially protected natural areas" have been established by various legislative actions during the last few decades.

—Gydan Federal Nature Reserve {Cydanskii gosudarstvennyi zapovednik)

878,1 74 hectares (3,390 square miles) in area,

this reserve of national significance was established by Decree No. 1 67 of the Government of the Russian Federation on October 7, 1 996. Its purpose was "the preservation of genetic stock

of the plant and animal species, discrete types

and communities of plants and animals, and the

typical and unique ecological systems of the

North." —Yamal State Wildlife Preserve, {Yamal'skii prirodnyi

zakaznik)

Of regional significance, the Gydan site, 1 62,000

hectares (625 square miles) in area, was established by Resolution No. 322 of the Tyumen

Regional Executive Committee on May 1 9, 1 977,

for a period of ten years. A ruling (No. 66) by

the governor of the Yamal-Nenets Area on February 11,1 997, extended its validity until 2006.

Its purpose was "[t]he maintenance of the integrity of natural communities; preservation, re- production and restoration of disappearing species of animals and birds; and preservation of

their habitats, flora, and fauna." —Gydoyamovskiy State Nature Preserve {Gydoyamovskiy phrodnyi zakaznik)

Of regional significance, this 765,000 hectares area (2,954 square miles), is also being planned

for a large section of the peninsula. According

to the preserve's prospectus, it is designated as a "zoological-botanical" site; that is, it preserves

the arctic flora and fauna.

In the district territory, the creation of two more preserves has been proposed, the status of which will be

specified during the design phase: —Taz Bay Fishery Preserve

Encompasing Taz Bay, including the mouth and

lower watercourse of the Taz River, a 300,000

hectares area (1,158 square miles), its goal is preservation of a valuable fishing basin. Pros- pecting, exploration, and commercial drilling for

oil and gas will be prohibited. —Messoyakha Preserve

In the middle and lower courses of the

Messoyakha River, 5,000 hectares in area (20

square miles), its goals are the same as listed for the Taz Bay Preserve.

Besides the existing and planned natural preserves,'' the Taz District features two smaller "natural monuments":

—Nyamboy, a forest "islet" on the arctic tundra,

considered "a botanical monument"

—Messoyakha, 600 hectares (1 ,482 acres) in area,

in the Lake Lysukai-to area. Renowned for nu- merous discoveries of fossilized animals: mammoths, musk oxen, and so on, it has been designated as a "paleontological natural monument."

The Russian federal "Regulation for Natural Preserves" also established an additional two-kilometer secure zone, extending outward from the established border of protected areas.

Several Nenets sacred sites exist on the Yavay (EvaySale), Oleniy, and Mammoth Peninsulas; on Sibiriakov,

Shokalskiy, and Oleniy Islands, which are part of the

164 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
Gydanskiy Federal Reserve, on the Gydan site of the Yamal State Nature Preserve, and on the projected

Gydoyamovskiy Preserve. In accordance with the official Russian designation of protected areas (nature preserves, monuments, and parks see Shul'gin, this volume), geological exploration, construction, and other

industrial activities are forbidden or strictly limited within

their boundaries; but the traditional subsistence activity of the indigenous population is allowed.

Several large fields of fuel and energy deposits have

been mapped and explored in the territory governed

by the Gydan Town Council: —Shtormovoye (Storm) field, 24,000 hectares (93 square miles) in size, with gas and gas condensate

deposits

—Utrenn'ee (Morning) field, 1 22,000 hectares (471 square miles) in size, with gas, gas condensate, and

oil

—Cydanskoye (Gydan) field, 65,000 hectares (251 square miles) in size, with gas and gas condensate.

Legislative Basis for the Protection of

Nenets Sacred Places

In April 2001 , the Federal Duma of the Russian Federation enacted the federal law "On the Lands of Traditional Subsistence-Use of the Indigenous Minority

Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Russian Far East," which had been discussed by the Russian Federal Duma

(Parliament) for many years. According to this law, priority areas used for traditional subsistence are designated to provide conditions for the preservation and

development of "historically established" economies

that are the basis for the daily activities and spiritual

culture of Northern indigenous peoples. Priority subsistence use areas include reindeer pastures, clan and

ancestral hunting-and-fishing grounds, natural monuments, and ritual-cultural places. In the neighboring

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug [to the south of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug], where the majority of the Native

lands are under industrial development, it has been

proposed that a part of the lands now under industrial development be withdrawn and designated as priority

subsistence-use areas of the Native population [see

Wiget and Balalaeva, this volume]. A paradoxical situation thus arose: it is necessary to "withdraw" ancestral

Native lands from industrialists and oil companies in

order to return them to their owners. According to the enacted laws, "priority subsistence-use areas" in the North are to be secured for

registered "enterprises" of traditional economy(ies)—

that is. Native family or clan herding and fishing cooperatives, communities or other economic institutions employing Native people. In the area under consideration, which is administered by the Gydan Town Council, no new registered community or family "enterprises"

have been created by or of local residents as yet. Therefore, Gydan local authorities or the management of the Gydan State Fisheries Processing Plant allocate pastures

and assign reindeer migration paths to individual reindeer herders or families who graze public reindeer herds

(herds owned by Okrug and local agencies).

In Yamal-Nenets Okrug, the local legislative and

executive authorities think that the actual economic

life-sustaining base of these people is the land in the

so-called "traditional subsistence-use areas." The total

area of these lands in the Yamal-Nenets Okrug is 76,925,000 hectares (297,000 square miles). It is essential to secure traditional subsistence-use lands for local

residents before any active industrial development takes

place so that the lands do not need to be withdrawn

later, as has been recently proposed for the neighboring Khanty-Mansi Okrug.

On October 1 , 1 997, a law was enacted in the Yamal- Nenets Autonomous Okrug titled "About the Regulation of Land Use in Places of Residence and Traditional Economic Activity by Indigenous Minority

Peoples of the North on Lands of Yamal-Nenets Au- tonomous Okrug." The creation of communities and

the securing of ancestral lands are being carried out based on the recently enacted Culy 2000) Russian federal law, "About General Principles for Establishing Communities of Indigenous Minority Peoples of the North,

Siberia, and the Russian Far East," and Chapter 6 of the

GALINA KHARYUCHI
Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Law, "About Local Self-Management in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug,"

which is titled "The Form of Providing for the Local Self-Management of Indigenous Minority Peoples of the

North in the Areas of Their Compact Residence." This

law was enacted in December 1 996.

The version of the "specially protected natural areas" that is known as "Ethno-Natural Parks" is another

form of protection for the indigenous population's lands

in the Russian North [Shul'gin, this volume]. The legal

basis for establishing ethno-natural parks is found in

Section 1 U, "On Natural Parks," of the Russian federal

law (No. 33-F3) of March 14, 1995, "About Specially

Protected Natural Territories." In the Yamal-Nenets

Okrug, a law titled, "About Specially Protected Natural

Territories of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug,"

also was enacted on October 14, 1997. A federal law

titled "About the Bases for Government Regulation of

the Social and Economic Development of the North of

the Russian Federation" (Article 1 2) was enacted June

1 9, 1 996. Another important legislative act is the YamalNenets Autonomous Okrug Law of October 21,1 998,

titled, "On Reindeer Herding." This law establishes the

legal, economic, environmental, and social bases by

nominating reindeer herding as one of the key traditional economic activities for Northern indigenous

peoples, it also created conditions for support of effective economic practices of Native herders and for the

preservation of their traditional lifestyle and culture {Sbomik zakonov 1 999:493). The federal version of the same law pertaining to the reindeer herding activities

of the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Russian

North is still under deliberation by the Russian Federal Duma (as of 2004).

Presently in the Yamal-Nenets Okrug, lands under

heavy industrial (oil and gas) development are, for the most part, located in the Pur, Yamal, and Nadym Districts, and in the southern section of Taz District, where

major oil and gas deposits have been under exploration and industrial exploitation since the 1 970s. In these

areas, the traditional habitat of the indigenous peoples

is being severely damaged, and several measures are

being taken for restoring traditional economic sectors,

for example, by creating clan- and family-based Native

"communities" [cooperatives or other economic units].

Establishing such communities and registering them as economic units is one form of securing traditional-use

lands for individual families or clan- and territorial-based

groups. However, by 2001 , in the entire Yamal-Nenets

Okrug's territory, only five "indigenous communities"

had been registered, with a total population of 1 ,251

.

Of those communities, four were in the Pur District and one was in Priural'sk District. That is why adoption of

the Russian federal law "About the Traditional Use Lands

of Indigenous Minority Peoples of the North" is so

essential for resolving problems related to the land

rights and land ownership of the Russian indigenous

peoples. By the year 2004, the number of registered

"indigenous communities" in the Yamal-Nenets Okrug

grew to twenty-seven, but they still constitute the minority of the okrug's Native population.

Matters are more favorable in my native area, on

the Gydan Peninsula. The development of oil and

gas deposits there has been put on hold since the

early 1990s, and at this time the industry has no

visible impact on the daily life and the economy of

local indigenous people. Both public sector Native

employees of the municipal enterprise "Gydan State

Fisheries" and individual nomadic families are en- gaged primarily in traditional economic activities,

such as reindeer herding, fisheries, trapping, and so

on. On January 1 , 2003, there were 1 ,050 Native no- madic families in the entire Taz District (with a combined population of 5,188); of those, 787 nomadic

families, with a combined population of 2,373, are under the Jurisdiction of the Gydan Town Council.

As of January 1 , 2004, the total number of domestic

reindeer in the Gydan Peninsula is about 92,000, of

which but 4,000 are owned and managed by the

Gydan State Fisheries Processing Plant [which is a

holdover from the old Soviet economic system] and

about 88,000 belong to individual families of Nenets

166 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
private reindeer herders.

The Program "Cultural Heritage of Indigenous People of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug":

Some Preliminary Results

However, the days will eventually come when prospectors and company workers will return to our lands

to resume the aborted industrial exploitation of the

Storm, Morning, and Cydan oil and gas fields, where

dozens of active sacred sites and cultural monuments of the Cydan Nenets are located. We are aware

that such a development may be resumed at any

time, and we should be prepared in the future to

face this challenge to our traditional economies,

lifestyles, and culture.

Preserving the historical heritage of Northern people,

including their reindeer-herding culture and way of life,

is a complicated problem for which the governmental

agencies, scientific institutions, and public organizations of Russia should bear (and share) responsibility.

Many new federal and local laws support these purposes. Under these new Russian laws, direct responsibility for preserving sacred sites lies with the companies and organizations that explore and develop the

areas where indigenous peoples reside.

Northern sacred sites symbolize both the unique

core and the most important component of cultural

heritage of the Nenets, Khanty, Selkup, and other Native people. This core can be easily damaged and even

destroyed by industrial development if left unchecked

and without special means for preservation. Therefore,

the system of protected natural areas that exists now in

Russia should include both natural protected areas and

sacred sites of the Native population. Unfortunately, in

Russia in general and in the Yamal-Nenets Okrug in

particular, very few people are engaged in the study

and documentation of Native sacred sites, much less in

their protection; and current efforts in this field are utterly insufficient [see Fedorova, this volume].

The protection of sacred sites in Russia and the

designation of special status for them were discussed

CALINA KHARYUCHI

publicly for the first time in the mid-1990s only. The

issue was raised repeatedly by representatives of public organizations, leaders of Native communities, and

heads of the Russian Associations of Indigenous Minority Peoples of the North (RAIPON). In 1 998, at the

Eighth General Assembly of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Nuuk, Greenland; July 29, 1 998), the President

of RAIPON, Sergei N. Kharyuchi, argued for the need

to include sacred sites and ritual places of Northern

indigenous peoples in the system of protected areas

(Kharyuchi 1 998, 1 999:69-72). Sergei N. Kharyuchi, as do I, comes from a Nenets herding family from the Taz

District. Soon Kharyuchi approached the governor of

the Yamal-Nenets okrug, Mr. lurii Ne'elov, with a request for the assistance of the okrug administration in documenting and protecting these sacred sites. In reply, in 1999 Governor Ne'elov signed a special regulation in this regard (see below).

Until then, only two programs for documenting the

sacred sites of indigenous people had been in operation across the entire northern section of Russia: on Vaygach Island in the Barents Sea—by a group from

the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage of Russia,

under the direction of Petr Boiarskii (Boiarskii and Liutyi

1 999; Boiarskii and Stoliarov 2000)—and, in the Surgut

District of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug [Balalaeva

1 999; see also Wiget and Balalaeva, this volume]. On

Vaygach Island, where the Native population is virtually absent and there are hardly any tourists or

geologists, the preservation of Nenets sacred sites

is probably not threatening to anyone. In Khanty-Mansi

okrug, the situation is much worse, and despite a large

amount of work on documenting sacred sites and Native ritual places, the protection of these places has

not yet been legislated.

In the Yamal-Nenets Okrug, the official documentation of sacred sites for their preservation was started;

but in the most recent years, Governor lurii Ne'elov

issued the special regulation, "About the Creation of a

Historical-Ethnographic and Scientific Research Center

for Indigenous Minority Peoples of the North" (No. 786,

1 67
December 20, 1 999). Under that regulation, provisions were made, in particular, for financing the construction

of historical-ethnographic and scientific research center (or "complex") in the city of Salekhard. The Scientific Center for Humanitarian Research on Indigenous

Minority Peoples of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous

Okrug (CHR), an ethnographic museum with collections on Native peoples, an exhibition hall, souvenir workshops, and a store, would be housed in its building.

Simultaneously, the Department of Affairs of Indigenous

Minority Peoples under the Okrug administration was

tasked with drafting a Yamal-Nenets Okrug law titled, "About the Ritual and Religious Places of the Indig- enous Minority Peoples in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous

Area." Together with the CHR, the department was tasked

to prepare a map of Native sacred sites to be included

in the list of cultural and historical monuments located on the Okrug territory [see also Fedorova, this volume]. In the year 2000, a new research and survey pro- gram, "The Cultural Heritage of Indigenous Minority

Peoples of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug" was

launched, which developed and implemented special measures for protecting cultural heritage monuments,

including traditional sacred sites and ritual places.

For this purpose, it was necessary to produce detailed maps of Native sacred sites. In 2000, preliminary

surveys for identif/ing and researching Nenets sacred

sites on the Yamal and Cydan peninsulas were conducted, under a contract with the okrug administration.

I was put in charge of the surveys on the Cydan Peninsula, and Leonid Lar was named the principal investigator for the Yamal District. At first, we used available

handwritten and published schematic maps, which both

Lar and I made during our previous research and in

preparation for our Ph.D. dissertations (Kharyuchi 1 999,

2001 ; Lar 2000). These first maps of sacred sites were

incomplete, as they were executed in fits and starts in

the course of other field trips and short-term visits or

vacations. For the starter, I used the small-scale maps

from my dissertation and the initial text from the section devoted to traditions and innovations in the sa1 68

cred sphere of the Nenets (Kharyuchi 1999, 2001:81-

1 01 ). Lar also relied on his own materials, including his

sketchy map of Nenets sacred places on the Yamal

Peninsula published in 1 995 (Lar 1 995: 1 67). Only thirtyeight sacred sites on the entire Yamal Peninsula were

featured on this earlier map, accompanied by a short

text, although Lar has been collecting materials on sacred sites since 1986 (Lar 2000:166). Since 1995, Lar

collected more extensive field data and made a much

more complete map of sacred places. He personally

surveyed many sacred sites featured on the map, whereas

others have been documented from the words of his Nenets informants who live nearby. In total, Lar has

identified more than fifty Nenets sacred sites in the Yamal District, with detailed descriptions, site name identifications, and analysis of their modern conditions.

For the 2000 program, new tasks were formulated, more sophisticated methods for sacred sites documentation were determined, and the first annual report was composed in 2001. All our field reports and materials were submitted to the Department of Affairs of Indig- enous Peoples of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous

Okrug, which sponsored this program. As soon as financing was available in July 2000, I left for the first

field trip in the Taz District. It was necessary to work

onsite with the local Nenets assistants who had critical

information about the sacred sites. Information about

why these maps were being made was disseminated

widely; therefore, the charting of maps and recording

of data on sacred sites involved the nomadic Nenets

population for the first time in the process of state- sponsored protection of places of cultural significance

and lands of traditional subsistence (Fig. 51). We hope

that, in the future, local residents will be able to participate directly in land management (security measures)

and development of traditional land use. This is especially important in light of any future actions on the development of the oil-and-gas industry on Cydan Peninsula and in northern Yamal.

The maps of Nenets sacred sites that Lar and I are

developing will be submitted to the register of cultural

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
51/ Nenets herders work on the map of traditional sacred sites, summer 2001

.

and historical monuments of the Yamal-Nenets Autono- mous OI<rug. The final stage will be preparing a research report and creating a map titled "Sacred Sites of Gydan Peninsula" as a classified document "for agency

use." It is worth mentioning that no modern topographic

maps were given to us for the project and each of us worked with old maps that we had scrambled together on various occasions in Salekhard. I used an old map

of the Gydan Peninsula produced in 1 960, with a scale

of 1 :300,000 (1 centimeter = 3 kilometers), which featured several incorrectly located rivers and lakes, as my informants indicated. During trips and work in herders' tents, the map became scuffed and torn. Unfortunately, I had neither more detailed maps nor any other modern equipment on these trips [such as GPS and/or

satellite and air imagery]. In December 2000, when

the preliminary maps of sacred sites were delivered

together with the report, they registered some 125

sacred sites, possibly less than half of all the existing

ritual sites of the Gydan Nenets. The revision and update of the materials collected under the program was

reserved for the 2001 field season. My map of sacred

sites, with the attached descriptive materials, is to be

submitted "for agency use" only; Lar plans to publish

his data eventually as a monograph.

Final maps of sacred sites will be delivered to the okrug administration and to the Inspectorate on Protection and Use of Monuments of History and Culture

(created in January 2000). Additional copies of maps

will be submitted to municipal agencies of the Taz

and Yamal Districts, and, through them, to local village

administrations, and to the oil-and-gas and other enterprises working in the two districts. The program "Preservation of the Cultural Heritage

of Indigenous Peoples of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous

Okrug" has been the first positive experience in collaboration among the Okrug administration, local researchers, and indigenous people. For the first time

professional ethnographers— natives to their districts and members of the very same indigenous communiGALINA KHARYUCHI
ties (Fig. 52) who are interested in and worried about

the preservation of their people's heritage—have been

involved in this work. Knowledge of Native language

and traditional culture is helping us observe ethical and moral standards while gathering materials on the

delicate topic of sacred sites, their modern uses, and

the preservation of ritual traditions connected with them.

Of course, the results of the one-year program were

limited, considering the modest funding. In 2000-2001

,

the okrug administration allocated just 40,000 rubles

[about $1400 USD] to Leonid Lar and me for our surveys; we were able to accomplish little for this amount.

In my plans, I had outlined continuing the surveys and

searching for additional or new financing. But our research unexpectedly received international support. In

April 2001, a seminar took place in Moscow with the

participation of representatives of the International Secretariat of Indigenous Peoples, and an agreement for a new pilot project was signed, called "The Significance

of Protecting Sacred Sites of the Indigenous Population of the Arctic: Sociological Research in the North

of Russia." The project was supported by the Russian

Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North

(RAIPON), the Danish Environmental Preservation

Agency (DEPA), the program "Conservation of Arctic

Flora and Fauna" (CAFF), and the Indigenous Peoples'

Secretariat (IPS). For the 2001 surveys, a small amount

of funding was allocated to the Taz District of Yamal- Nenets Autonomous Okrug, as having some experi- ence in such studies. Additional funding was given to

surveys in the Olyutorsk District in the Koryak Autono- mous Okrug in the north of Kamchatka.

This joint international project emphasized that sacred sites of northern indigenous peoples are often

located in areas where the preservation of nature is

also important. Therefore, preservation of such sites would promote protection of the environment as a

whole. Great attention was given to the ecological value

of indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge about

sacred sites. In the course of the project, the biological

characteristics that make a site "sacred" to local people

1 70

were to be established.

With the 2001 funding, some sociological research was also conducted and over seventy local residents

Native reindeer herders, hunters, and fishermen—were

interviewed. Plans were made to extend the existing

maps of Nenets sacred sites for the entire Gydan Peninsula that includes Gydan and Antipayuta tundra. My

former student, Michael Okotetto, of the reindeer Nenets

origin, was appointed as the lead researcher for the

project. Michael used to work as an inspector for the

protection division of the /Vesey farming enterprise of

private reindeer herders in his native Seyakha River

region in the Yamal District. Today he is a staff researcher of the CHR and he is also the head of the

herders' cooperative (obshchina) called llebts, which means "giving life" in the Nenets language. His knowledge of English was one of the selection criteria for

participating in the project. I became his advisor and

regional supervisor for the fieldwork in the Taz District. Together we composed a sociological questionnaire for interviewing local residents. Our fieldwork was

conducted until September 2001; then we analyzed

the collected materials, questionnaires, and site reports.

By that time, dozens of local residents were involved

in one way or another in reporting information on sacred sites through our survey; and, simultaneously, we

informed local people about our tasks and disseminated materials on our previous work. Altogether, some

260 Native sacred sites have been mapped and documented within the study area, including data on the

current status of the sites; its origins; associated traditional rites; natural environment (such as, physical landscape, vegetation, etc.). Our preliminary project report was produced in 2003, in both Russian and English

versions, and it will be published shortly. Brief results

of our 2001 survey were also published elsewhere

(Kharyuchi 2002a, 2002b, 2003).

Conclusion

In summary, I want to share some personal considerations about the results of my work in the documentaPROTECTINC THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
52/ Nenets reindeer herders from the Gydan Peninsula, 2000. These men, now mostly in their 30s and 40s, are

the keepers of the life style and cultural traditions of their ancestors.

tion of Nenets sacred sites in the Yamal-Nenets Okrug

for more than a decade. In my view, personal characteristics of a given researcher are very important to

this type of worl<. IVIale ethnographers have a much

wider access in studying rituals, traditions, and stories

related to sacred places (and even more information

may be open to a Native artist, such as my colleague

Leonid Lar). What is most important is the ability to

visit sacred sites and (engage in) the graphical documentation and identification of the ritual objects located there. Certainly, even to a Native researcher who

grew up in a traditional family, it is hard, both physically and psychologically, to visit each and every known

sacred site, even for the sake of science; it is less possible (even for a male Native researcher), to make

sketches and measurements, and take photographs

there. Such actions at sacred sites usually elicit con- demnation from local people, especially from elders. According to traditional norms, no woman, including a female Native ethnographer, can visit a sacred

site, except for female sites and those that are accessible to everyone. Even today, this taboo is still applied strictly, even to Native scientists of local origins.

In addition to the restrictions on visiting, there are

restrictions on the specific questions a woman can pose

to men, especially to elders. Naturally, the old men did

not share with me what I could not ask them about.

Also, the attitude toward scientists even from indig- enous peoples has a dichotomy of "ours / not ours,"

"from our region or an outsider," which has great importance. For example, in my case, my long and enduring

connections with my native region have helped my

research on Nenets sacred places on the Gydan tundra.

In my native district, most of the people in their forties and fifties ("the middle generation"), that is, my contemporaries, know me well—from the boarding school,

teaching college, and/or my earlier work as a teacher. Youths and children of school age know my name from

GALINA KHARYUCHI
the curriculum. Elderly people refer to my father's memory respectfully; and they esteem my mother, who

raised my brothers and sisters, who are also well known

and respected people in the district. The kind memory

of my husband's late father, Nikolai Maximovich

Kharyuchi, who worked during World War II as the head

of the Red Tent Brigade on the Gydan Peninsula [educational and medical teams that offered services to the nomadic families before the establishment of local

hospitals and schools], is still alive. His sons are now

well-known people in the district; and, they are my

relatives. 5 This also facilitated my access and worked

greatly to the success of my surveys of sacred sites.

In our tundra district, no one, especially of the Nenets

origin, has ever collected information about Native sacred places, even during earlier campaigns aimed at

the persecution of shamans [in the 1 930s, 1 940s, and

1 950s]. In our area, the attitude toward visiting ethnographers has always been positive and a little bit indulgent because, from the Nenets viewpoint, they usually

are interested in "funny (if not foolish) questions and

things;" but no harm has ever been seen from them.

Leonid Lar, ethnographer, artist, and my partner in the documentation of traditional sacred places, has talked about how Nenets women laughed at him when he

asked them to show their needlework pouches so that

he could make sketches.

It is sometimes believed that more can be told to a

"foreign" researcher—that is, to a visitor, an outsider

(i.e., Zen'ko 2000)—than to one of "our own," particularly if such a researcher is a woman, and especially if a

visiting ethnographer is going to pose some delicate, even intimate (personal) questions about which "one

of us" would never dare to inquire directly. But most

likely, vague and often incorrect information would be

given to such an outside researcher, simply to be rid of

him. We find references to such obviously incorrect

information even in many solid scientific publications.

Of course, the most negative attitude of the local

population is toward oil and gas workers and geological prospectors. Nenets elders are afraid of these newly

1 72

arrived, inconsiderate people and of their evil acts in

relation to the tundra and its inhabitants. At the same

time, they think with pity about "those who do not know sin" and believe that these people will someday

be punished for their desecration of Nenets sacred

places and defiance to their spirits. However, I also

think with some apprehension of the archaeologists

preparing to engage in describing and studying Nenets

sacred sites and burial places (Fedorova 2000:11-2;

Kharyuchi 2000:78). It is difficult to say whether the

tundra people will understand and cooperate with them.

As a Nenets woman, I have a responsibility to follow my native traditions that prescribe certain rules of

behavior (as well as certain restrictions and taboos on

the possession and distribution of sacred knowledge).

But I also recognize my huge responsibility to my

people. Frequently doubt arises about whether I am, in

fact, doing the right thing by being so actively en- gaged in this work on documenting sacred sites and

traditional ritual places. Will this some day hurt me and

my family, my children or even my grandchildren? Have

the spirits of these places become enraged? Still, I believe that this work has to be performed in this time; it happened that this mission fell to me as a Native ethnographer. And how else could we protect the most

sacred cultural property of my people? Any deliberate

policy of hiding information on sacred sites, of withdrawing it from outsiders (such as confidential databases, confidential information only "for our own

people" and so on) is possible on reservations or on

tribal lands. There, people are entitled with the rights to

their land; they control to whom and how access to

their territory is given. In our Yamal-Nenets Okrug and

everywhere in Siberia, there is none of this, which means

that anyone can come to our land (without asking our

permission) and destroy our monuments, pleading their

"ignorance."

Under traditional Nenets society, there was no need

for special protection of sacred sites: people lived by

the customs of their ancestors and did not visit sacred

places without a special purpose [such as to make rituPROTECTINC THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
53/ Traditional Nenets sacred site on Yamal Peninsula, 1928.

als and offerings]. People from other groups who lived

in the villages or traveled through the tundra feared

these places and avoided them altogether; there was

never an incident of defilement or vandalism on their

part. Native people still strictly follow these rules today. But times have changed: geologists, gas, and oil workers have arrived; and we are not alone in our lands.

In the boundless tundra, we cannot put a protective

plaque at each and every sacred place (Fig. 53). Thus,

local residents themselves must protect their sites,

should put up notices, and must actively protest if their

sacred places are exposed to destruction. However,

many local people are still passive or shy with the

authorities. When they see that their sacred sites are

pilfered from, damaged, or destroyed by the new arrivals, all the tundra people can do is to rely on those

who are more educated, literate, and who are more

skilled in talking to the officials. Many of my rural kins- men still view such educated Native professionals as

the only defenders of their culture and way of life.

This means that some system of governmental protection for Native sacred places and other ritual sites is

absolutely necessary. In principle, those Native sacred

sites that are located on the lands of federal nature

reserves or local preserves (and there are quite a few of them in our region) fall under some protection, inas- much as access to such areas is strictly limited. At any

rate, that is what is written in federal and okrug regulations about protected natural areas. Accordingly, it is

essential that the regulations on security measures and

limited access to sacred sites be applied widely and more strictly. To put such sites under governmental

protection, it is important to identify them as sacred

places, position them on a map, and document the navigational/positioning coordinates. A survey should confirm whether the site is located within the borders of a

specially protected natural area (preserve, reserve, biosphere reserve, etc.), and determine its dimensions and

biological characteristics (such as landscape, type of

vegetation, and so on).

GALINA KHARYUCHI
All other information about sacred places is identified and recorded exclusively in accordance with the

wishes and with the full consent of the local Native

population. For example, the keeper (owner) of a family or clan sacred site has his full right to withhold

certain information from recording and to share only

the portion he considers necessary. I believe that there must be some sort of classified information for the

preservation of sacred knowledge and of Native cultural tradition. The recent survey and documentation of Nenets

sacred sites on the Vaygach Island [in the Barents Sea]

conducted by the Marine Arctic Interdisciplinary Expedition of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage

of Russia can be cited as a model for such an approach.

A mockup map of sacred places on Vaygach Island has been prepared and a catalogue/directory of local cultural monuments has already been published (Boiarskii and Liutyi 1999; Boiarskii and Stoliarov 2000). Altogether, some 1 50 natural monuments and more than

230 monuments of local history and traditional Nenets

culture are shown on the map and described in the

catalogue. The significance of Vaygach Island, which is

sacred to the Nenets and is referred to in the Nenets

language as Khekhe ngo (Island of idols), is that this

island has had no permanent Native residents during

the last few centuries. At the same time, this was the main location of several important Nenets sacred sites

that were visited periodically. The sacred sites of

Vaygach Island held a critical place in the hierarchy of

ritual centers of the Nenets' sacred world. According to Nenets tradition, the island was the place where the

key Nenets spirits (ancestors or major gods) used to

live and the figures or effigies (wooden sculptures) of

these main spirits were once located.

in 1827, these wooden images were destroyed

(burned) by Russian Orthodox missionaries; on Vaygach

Island alone, more than 400 wooden and twenty stone

idols were destroyed (Lekhtisalo 1 998:64-6; Veniyamin

1855:125). The Nenets believe that after the images

of the main Nenets gods were destroyed, their "spirit

children" flew off the island and settled in many places

throughout the areas of Nenets migrations, from the

Kola Peninsula to the Yenisey River. Many legends

exist related to this dispersal of the Nenets spirits from

the island and across the Nenets area. In the beginning, two stones—idols of Vaigach-Vesako (Old Man) and -

Khadako (Old Woman)—were venerated. They had four

sons, "who dispersed to various places on the tundra." Nyu-khekhe (Son-idol / Son-spirit) remained as a small

rock on the Vaygach Island. Minisey was a peak of the

Polar Ural Mountain Range; Ya mal khekhe moved to

the western side of the Ob Bay; and Khar Pod was a

larch glade or Kozmin Coppice in the Kanin tundra

along the White Sea shore (Veniyamin 1855:125). In

1 983, Vaygach Island, with adjoining small islands and

a three-kilometer offshore area, was declared "Vaygach

State Hunting Preserve" of regional value (total area 333,000 hectares or 1 ,285 square miles).

Sacred sites that are not located in the specially

designated natural preservation areas [such as in federal and local nature preserves, parks, etc.] and, in general, all sacred places and burial sites of indigenous

peoples, should be protected as highly valued monuments of cultural heritage. Here the mechanism of protection is knowledge about their special status and value

to indigenous peoples, that is, education and cultivation of respect for heritage monuments and for others'

cultural tradition(s). This is especially crucial in areas of

active industrial development and oil and gas explorations, where there are many visitors, and, frequently,

transient people coming in large groups, such as geological parties and exploration and rig crews. Both ways

of protecting our heritage monuments—either by restricting access to the lands designated under some

natural protection status or via dissemination of knowledge, public education, and cultivation of respect to

Native heritage—should be effective and should supplement each other.

Notes

1 . Translated by Georgene Sink. Edited by Igor

1 74 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
Krupnik and Cara Seitchek. Krupnik's editorial comments are added in brackets.

2. According to Nenets traditional beliefs, the surface of the ground is a thin border between "this" and the Lower World. Therefore, to the Nenets, it was strictly forbidden to dig, excavate, drill or simply pick at the ground - ed.

3. "Num" also means "sky" and "weather."

4. As of 2004, there were altogether 1 5 areas under various forms (regimes) of federal or local pres- ervation in the Yamal-Nenets Okrug, including the two recently established units, Kharbey "geological

monument" and Syn-Voykar "ethnic territory," with

its special land-use status. Several more units are

currently under planning or preparation, including the Taz Bay Fishery Preserve, Cydoyamovskiy State Nature Preserve (both in the Taz District), and National Park "Yuribey" in the central portion of the Yamal Peninsula, Yamal District.

5. Galina Kharyuchi's husband, Sergei Nikolayevich Kharyuchi, is the president of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia,

and the Russian Far East (RAIPON), and also the Chair- man of the Duma (local legislative body) of the Yamal- Nenets Area.

6. Nevertheless, the proposed measures for protecting Nenets ritual monuments on Vaygach Is- land, and especially for development of limited tour- ism on the island, aroused alarm among the local residents and protests by the Yasavey Association,

which represents the Native population of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug — ed. References

Balalaeva, Olga E. 1999 Sviashchennye mesta khantov Nizhnei i Srednei Obi (Khanty Sacred Sites along the Middle

and Lower Ob River). In Ocherki traditsionnogo

prirodoporzovaniia khantov (Materialy k atlasu). A. Wiget, ed., pp. 1 40-56. Ekaterinburg.

Boiarskii, Petr V., and A.A. Liutyi, eds.

1 999 Ostrov Vaigach. Kheibidia ya - sviashchennyi

ostrov nenetskogo naroda (Vaigach Island Khebidya

ya - Sacred Island of the Nenets People). Cultural and

Natural Heritage. Indexes, explanatory text to a map,

reference data. Moscow: Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage.

Boiarskii, Petr V., and V.P. Stoliarov, eds.

2000 Ostrov Vaigach. Kul'tumoe iprirodnoe nasledie (Vaigach Island. Cultural and Natural Heritage). Vol. 1

.

Moscow: Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural

Heritage.

Fedorova, Natalia V. 2000 Sem' let Yamal'skoi arkheologicheskoi

ekspeditsii: proshlye rezul'taty i zadachi na

budushchee (Seven Years of the Yamal Archaeological Expedition: Past Results and Tasks for the Future). Nauchnyi vestnik3A~] 2. Salekhard. Gemuev, Izmail N. 1990 Mimvozzrenie man 'si: dom i kosmos (The Mansy

Worldview: Home and Cosmos). Novosibirsk: Nauka

Publisher. Gemuev, Izmail N., and A.M. Sagalaev.

1986 Religiia naroda man'si. Kul'tovye mesta (XIX- nachalo XX vv.) (Religion of the Mansi People. Sa- cred Sites, 1 9th Century and the Beginning of the 20th Century). Novosibirsk: Nauka Publishers. Golovnev, Andrei V. 2000 Put' k semi chumam (AJourney to Seven Tents). Drevnosti Yamaia 1 :208-36. Yekaterinburg and

Salekhard. Kharyuchi, Galina, P.

1 999a Traditsii i innovatsii v kul'ture nenetskogo etnosa

(vtoraia polovina 20 v.) (Traditions and Innovations

in the Ethnic Culture of the Nenets, Second Half of

the 20th Century). Summary of the Ph.D. Dissertation. The author's abstract of a dissertation as a Candidate of Historical Sciences. Tomsk: Tomsk University.

1 999b Traditsii i innovatsii v kul'ture nenetskogo etnosa

(vtoraia polovina 20 v.) (Traditions and Innovations

in the Ethnic Culture of the Nenets, Second Half of the 20th Century). Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation manuscript. Appendix 3: List of Sacred sites of Gydan

Peninsula. Salekhard: author's personal archive. 2000 Nenetskie sviatilishcha i ikh klassifikatsiia (Nenets Sacred Sites and their Classification). Nauchnyi

vestnik3.77-9. Salekhard. 2001 Traditsii i innovatsii v kul'ture nenetskogo etnosa

(vtoraia polovina 20 v.) (Traditions and Innovations

in the Ethnic Culture of the Nenets, Second Half of the 20th Century). Tomsk: Tomsk University.

2002a Zhertvennyi kompleks kul'tovykh mest (Sacrificial Complex of (Native) Ritual Sites). Nauchnyi

i/esm//cl 1:48- 5 I.Salekhard. 2002b Kul'tovye mesta nentsev: sviashchennye land- shafty (Nenets Ritual Sites: Sacred Landscapes). In Sev- ernyi Arkheologicheskii Kongress: Tezisy dokladov,

pp. 1 57-8. Yekaterinburg and Khanty-Mansiisk: Nauka.

2003 Ob izuchenii nenetskikh sviatilishch (On the Study of Nenets Sacred Sites). In V Kongress

etnografov i arkheologov Rossii. Tezisy dokladov. V. Tishkov, ed., pp. 315-6. Moscow: Institute of Eth- nology and Anthropology.

Kharyuchi, Galina, and Lyudmila Lipatova

1998 Traditional Beliefs, Sacred Sites, and Sacrificial Rituals of the Nenets of Gydan Peninsula in the

GALINA KHARYUCHI
Modern Context. In The Archaeology and Anthropology ofLandscape. Shaping Your Landscape, P.J. Ucko

and R. Layotn, eds., pp. 284-97. One World Archaeol- ogy 30. London and New York: Routledge.

Kharyuchi, Sergei N.

1 998 The Necessity of Governmental Protection of Sacred Places and Ritual Sites of the Indigenous

Peoples of the North. Paper presented at the 8th General Assembly of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. Nuukjuly 26, 1998.

1 999 Sovremennye problemy korennykh narodov

Severa (Doklady i vystupleniia ) (Contemporary Prob- lems of the Indigenous Peoples of the North. Reports and Public Presentations). Tomsk: Tomsk University.

Kulemzin, Vladislav M. 1995 Mirovozzrencheskie aspekty okhoty i rybolovstva (The Worldview Aspects of Hunting and

Fishing) In Istoriia i kul'wra khantov, N.V. Lukina, ed., pp. 65-76. Tomsk: Tomsk University.

Lar, Leonid I.

1 995 Bogi i shamany nentsev lamala (Gods and Sha- mans of the Yamal Nenets). Narody Severo-Zapadnoi

S/i'/n 2:1 61 -71 . Tomsk; Tomsk University.

1999 Traditsionnoe religioznoe mirovozzrenie

nentsev {Nenets Traditional Religious Worldview and

Beliefs). Summary of the unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. St. Petersburg: Peter the Great Museum of An- thropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera).

2000 Sviashchennye mesta nentsev. In Problemy

vzaimodeistviia cheloveka i prirodnoi sredy 1 :66-71

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Tyumen: Institute of the Problems of Northern De- velopment.

Lekhtisalo, Toivo

1998 Mifologiia iurako-samoiedov (nentsev) (Mythology of the Yurak Samoyed (Nenets). Translated from German edition by N.V. Lukina.

Tomsk: Tomsk University.

Rezolutsiia

2000 Rezolutsiia nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii po itogam polevykh arkheologicheskikh i etnograficheskikh issledovanii (Resolution of the Sci- entific and Applied Conference on Results of Field Archaeological and Ethnological Research). Nauchnyi

i/esm;/c 3:94-5. Salekhard. Sbornik zakonov

1998 Sbornik zakonov Yamalo-Nenetskogo okruga (s sentiabria / 995 g. po inn ' 1 998 g.) (Collection of Laws and Legal Documents of the Yamal-Nenets Autono- mous Area. From September 1995 through June

1998). St. Petersburg: Publication of the State Duma

of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area. 1999 Sbornik zakonov Yamalo-Nenetskogo okruga

(s sentiabria 1998 g. po dekabr' 1999 g.) (Collec- tion of Laws and Legal Documents of the YamalNenets Autonomous Area. From September 1998

through December 1999). St. Petersburg: Publication of the State Duma of the Yamal-Nenets Au- tonomous Area. Toboliakov, V.T.

1 930 K verkhoviiam ischeznuvshei reki (To the Upper Reaches of a Disappearing River). Sverdlovsk. Veniyamin, Archimandrite (Smirnov)

1855 Samoedy mezenskie (The Mezen Samoyed).

Vestnik Russkogo Ceograficheskogo obshchestva 1 4.

St. Petersburg.

Zen'ko, Aleksei P. 2000 Traditsionnaia dukhovnaia kul'tura iamal'skikh nentsev v sovremennykh usioviiakh (iz polevykh

materialov) (Contemporary Status of the Yamal Nenets

Traditional Spiritual Culture. From Field Observations).

Nauchnyi vestnik 3:83-6. Salekhard.

176 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ NENETS SACRED SITES
Land.scapes orif T^radit) j raaition,

Landscapes of Resistance

DONALD G. CALLAWAY

Fifteen years ago, in mid-winter, I took a taxi ride from

Bethel south to Napaskial<. The taxi left down the boat

landing near the Alaska Commercial Company store in

Bethel, drove up an intangibly marked ice road formed

by the frozen Kuskokwim River, and ended by driving

up a bluff into Napaskiak. Halfway through this ride I chanced to look south and was jolted by a panoramic

view of a layered landscape. The greenish gray of the Kuskokwim ice, the off white snow on the river-banks,

the nearly black vegetation on the tundra, and the light

buff slice of the sky's horizon pushed down by gunmetal clouds are all indelible in my memory. I suspect

that almost anyone from any culture would share the

emotional impact of viewing similar landscapes with

such layered contrasts (Fig. 54).

It would be difficult to find a cultural heritage that

views the rivers, streams, and mountains of their envi- ronment as a simple inanimate backdrop for biological

processes and cultural activity. Admittedly, variation

exists within any society. Many individuals in our society have a primarily instrumental view of the environment, valuing natural resources primarily for their commercial potential (Fisher 2001 :264). Others have devel- oped a complex aesthetic with deep roots in our cultural history. In fact, many philosophers of environmental ethics imbue the landscape with picturesque,

sublime, and scientific values (e.g. Carlson 2000).

However, despite the widespread aesthetic experiences that bind us all to landscapes, there are divergent perspectives, resulting from differing cultural values, that are contested in contemporary regulatory

regimes that manage human relationships with their

environment. This chapter describes conflicts between two different cultural resource management traditions,

forced by history and circumstance, to occupy the same landscape. It will focus on Alaska and will contrast indigenous perceptions and management regimes

with those of Western government agencies.

The concept of "landscape" has manifold interpretations. Mason (this volume) considers some of the

definitions codified in the U.S. National Park Service

(NPS) policy. For example, the NPS uses two generic,

but not necessarily mutually exclusive, types of landscape concepts—cultural and ethnographic landscapes.

This chapter borrows from both in defining a landscape

as a geographic area that includes cultural and natural

resources. These landscapes can exhibit cultural and

aesthetic values and can be associated with historic

events or with traditionally associated people or other

actors (e.g.. Western resource managers). In addition,

our consideration of landscape attempts to understand

the relationship between man and "animal,' as well as

the spiritual and ethical connection these entities have

with and in landscapes. While we do not attempt an

exhaustive typology of landscapes, our working definition includes the relationship of humans to geomorphic features, biological domains, and other human

agents.

Indigenous Alaskans' perceptions and experience

of landscape contrast with the Western tradition of defining and managing landscapes. Both cultures' positions are landscapes of tradition, albeit very different

1 77
traditions. The political reality that empowers the

tradition of Western resource managers to make the

rules creates the context for landscapes of resistance.

In Alaska, as among indigenous groups throughout the

world (cf. Cuha 1 990; Scott 1 985), a landscape of resistance is frequently characterized by a conscious failure of Alaska Natives to comply with the regulations

of Western management regimes.

This chapter describes how indigenous communities (liiupiaq, Yup'ik, and Athapaskan) name their landscape, articulate their relationships to animals (animal/

persons), and express spiritual values and attitudes. Local

cultural processes form the ethical and epistemological basis for landscape management. Our comparison

of Native and non-Native values and attitudes concentrates, perhaps unfairly, on non-Native resource managers in government agencies. The competing views can

be reconciled, not necessarily in the sense of concurrence, but in the sense of an agreement to work together, an accommodation generous enough to respect

and encompass multiple views. While some may regard these overlapping areas of agreement to be an

incomplete, perhaps even unsatisfactory compromise

(Soule 1995), these partial areas of agreement do al- low for the maintenance and support of the underlying objectives that sustain both worldviews—the respect for and conservation of the natural resources that

sustain us all. A major caveat is required here at the beginning of

this narrative. Constraints on chapter size, coupled with

a lack of comprehensive information, will by necessity

force the offering of assertions and generalizations as

if there is a homogenous ethnic and cultural attach- ment to landscape. It is essential to realize that values and attitudes vary not only between cultures but also

within cultures. Gender, age, life experience, education,

income, and "role" all influence perceptions, attitudes,

and values about the landscape from an indigenous or

Western perspective.

One empirical study, to be described below, shows

significant differences in knowledge, attachment to place

and commodity, versus spiritual values of the land found

in a sample of indigenous community residents, long- term non-Native residents of Alaska, and non-Native newcomers. Thus, while there are statistically significant differences in measures between cultures, there is

also considerable variability among individuals within

the same culture.

Subsistence as more than an Economic

Endeavor

It is helpful to briefly discuss the underlying political and legal structures that frame the "subsistence" issue

in Alaska. The 1 980 Alaska National Interest Lands

Consen/ation Act (ANILCA) provides the most important parts of that structure. Title VIII of ANILCA, Subsis- tence Management and Use, details the federal

government's regulatory regime. Section 803 of Title

VIII defines subsistence use as:

[T]he customary and traditional use in Alaska

of fish, wildlife and other renewable resources

for direct personal or family consumption, for the making and selling of handicraft articles from the non-edible by-products of fish and

wildlife taken for direct personal or family

consumption and for customary trade, barter, or sharing for personal or family consumption.

This bureaucratic definition focuses on economic

processes. Subsistence resources do provide suste- nance and are a major portion of the diet, especially

in small communities where the costs of shipping

store-bought foods are prohibitive. However, nu- merous research efforts show that from the (predominantly Native) local actors' point of view, the

harvest of subsistence resources does more than

supply nutrition.

Collective subsistence activities, whether gathering

clams, processing fish at a fish camp, or seal hunting

with a father or brother, often provide the most basic memories in an individual's life. These activities define the sense of family and community. They teach how to identif/ and harvest resources and how to process them efficiently and without waste into a variety

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
54/ Sunset on the Yukon River.

of food items. Distribution of resources promotes the most basic values of Native and rural culture: generosity, respect for the knowledge of elders, self-esteem

for a successful harvest, and public appreciation for

sharing the harvest. No other set of activities provides

a similar moral foundation for continuity between generations.

Moreover, food preferences are the most conservative behaviors in any culture. The unique preparation

and special taste of foods children encounter as they

grow up stays with them forever. Years later, the taste and smell of certain foods evoke memories of family

and belonging. The preservation of subsistence as a

valued cultural activity depends on the continued transmission of knowledge about the landscape: where to

find resources and how to ethically obtain them, process them, and share them with others.

An Athapaskan Sense of Place

Keith Basso, who has worked for many years with the

Cibecue Apache', concludes that "Apache constructions of place reach deeply into other cultural spheres,

including conceptions of wisdom, notions of morality,

politeness and tact in forms of spoken discourse, and

certain conventional ways of imagining and interpreting the Apache tribal past" (Basso 1996:xv). Similarly,

Athapaskan groups in Alaska have distinct constructions of place.

Tanana

Howard Luke, an Athapaskan elder, is originally from

the Tanana River town of Nenana. In 1937 he lived in

the small community of Chena Village just southwest

of the contemporary city of Fairbanks. Howard has written a book. My Own Trail (1 998), a personal history of

his family and community in the Tanana Valley. It contains a map of place names and stories of the region. As William Schneider (1 998:1 00) writes in his Afterword,

The map is also a natural history of old channels, good fishing eddies and Howard's

DONALD C. CALLAWAY
record of changes in vegetation and animal

populations. Glimpses and images from this historical spectrum are the subject of his stories and the setting for his lessons of how

to take care of the land and water.

About Toghoteelee, a hill just north of Nenana, Howard

says, "If warm weather is coming they could tell, you

could hear it on top of that hill. That used to be their weather report right there." With reference to the Chena

River that runs through Fairbanks, he notes:

Chena River used to be a wide river, high

water, at one time. Water never did drop. We

don't respect the water and that's the reason

we're losing it. At that time people respect

the water and water just stayed right there (Luke 1998:103).

These examples provide a small sense of how place- names are more than mere geographical markers. Places

provide information about or note changes in the environment, changes that may be caused by failures in

ethical behavior. Ray Barnhardt (1998:xii) observes:

The Athabascan people, who have occupied

the Interior region for well over 1 0,000 years, have developed a sense of place that is deeply rooted in cultural traditional and

spiritual ties linked to the natural environment on which they have always depended

for their livelihood and their life. The hills, creeks, bogs, and sloughs that show up under

English names on the (JSCS maps of the area, take on new names and significance when

referred to in the stories by Athabascan

elders.

Dena'ina

The Dena'ina, Athapaskan speakers of the Cook Inlet

region, live a couple of hundred miles south of

Fairbanks and the Tanana River. The city of Anchorage, with about a quarter of a million people (over half

of Alaska's population) is located on Upper Cook Inlet. Most of the territory described in the book, Shem

Pete's Alaska: The Territory of the Upper Cook Inlet

Dena'ina (Kari and Fall 1 987), is no longer used by the

Dena'ina people. It is ironic that most Alaskans who

live on a landscape of their own contemporary construction have little awareness of previous occupation

or use. The book contains maps, stories, songs, and

about 720 Native place- names. One of the authors,

James Kari, notes that:

The names and commentary presented here

convey important information about the

traditional economy, population centers, transportation, and beliefs of the Dena'ina . . . place names and the stories associated with

geographic features are fine examples of the Dena'inas' rich and varied oral heritage. . . . Here, in the south-facing basin beneath the

tallest mountains in North America, the Dena'ina can demonstrate that they have

used virtually all lakes with food fisheries, all the major stream basins, all of the most

accessible passes through the Alaska range, and all lands below 5,000 or 6,000 feet in elevation (Kari and Fall 1987:4).

The last speakers of the Upper Cook Inlet dialect of

Dena'ina learned place-names while traveling on the

landscape or by hearing the oral traditions of their elders. The Dena'ina speakers reported the place-names

with affection, noting their associations with ancestors and the land (Kari and Fall 1 987:29). The country Shem

Pete knew covered about 26,500 square miles. The section below compares place-names from Shem

Pete's Alaska with selected entries from Orth's Dictio- nary of Alaska Place Names (1 971 ). To facilitate comparison between these two naming traditions the following typology was developed, although it is not exhaustive nor does it contain mutually exclusive taxa:

—Place-names describing geological features; —Place-names associated with subsistence activities;

—Place-names that mark an event that happened in the past;

—Place-names indicating mineral deposits;

—Place-names that act as trail guides or maps;

—Places that reflect non-edible wildlife;

—Place-names associated with spiritual aspects of the landscape;

Kari (1 999) notes some underlying contrasts between

the Athapaskan and Western naming conventions. For

example, Athapaskans virtually never name places after people. In addition, while no peak in the magnificent Alaska Range lacks an English name, Athapaskan

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
place-names dwindle in number as altitude increases because seldom-used areas are rarely given names.

Athapaskan place-names define important use areas and

provide an evocative topological index to their cultural history. For the sake of brevity we will illustrate

the typology mentioned above with only one example

(out of many) for each of the taxa.

Place-names describing geological features

~-Dena'ina(Shem Pete 1 987:41 ): Nadudiltnu Li'a, Glacier of River That Streams Join' [McArthur Glacier] —Western (Orth 1 971): Mushroom Reef (on Kodiak

Island), named by USC&GC in 1 929 "because of the mushroom shape of the reef." [Note: Like other English "mushroom" places this is more indicative of

the shape of the structure rather than a guide to good eating.]

Place-names associated with subsistence activities —Dena'ina (Shem Pete 1987:44): Ch'k'e'ula Betnu,

'River Where We Chew Something (waterfowl)'

[Chuitkilnachna Creek, prime waterfowl hunting area.]

—Western: Orth (1971) lists no less than 35 "Fish Creeks" and 19 "Fish Lakes" in addition to 17

"Salmon Creeks" across Alaska.

However, many of those 'Fish Creeks' have little or no

reference to fish or fishing, like the one on the Aleutian Islands that received an arbitrary name beginning

with "F" to correspond to "F" grid by the U.S. Army for

tactical purposes during World War II (as published on a

1 954 Army Map Service map).

Place-names that mark an event of the past

—Dena'ina (Shem Pete 1 987:42) Tach'nach'ninchett,

'Where Someone Put a Man's Head Underwater [south

fork of Cottonwood Slough]. This name derives from a

story about a fight between two men over a single fish. —Western (Orth, 1971): Murder Cove (Admiralty

Island). Named in 1869 because "traders occasionally anchor here and one small party, while

asleep on the beach, were murdered by natives,

their boat rifled and bodies left to be destroyed

by wild animals."

Place-names indicating mineral deposits

—Dena'ina (Shem Pete 1987: 128): Chish T'el'iht,

'Where Ochre (cinnabar) is gathered,' [Three mile creek]. —Western (Orth 1971): Cinnabar Creek [SW of

Sleetmute "stone people" "people of the whetstone

people"]. Local name reported in 1944 by USGS; name derived from the deposits of cinnabar, a mercury ore, which were found there.

Place-names that act as trail guides or maps —Dena'ina (Shem Pete 1987:41) Tubughnen

Nuch'utdali, 'Let's go back to Tyonek.' A sled trail follows this stream between Tyonek and the base of the Alaska Range.

—Western (Orth 1 971 ): none

A thorough perusal of Orth (1971) could not provide

examples of Western "trail guide" place-names in Alaska,

suggesting a major difference in the linguistic and conceptual construction of the landscape between indig- enous and Western actors. The contrast is illustrated

by an oral history I conducted in spring of 1998 with

Alex Tallekpaiek in Levelock, a Yup'ik-speaking community on the Alaska Peninsula. Alex was a gracious

host and out of many memories from that discussion two stand out: the seriousness of mind and purpose

that is required to find, harvest, and consume food; and

the absolute requirement to always know where you

are. Alex, speaking of the training he received from his

grandfather in the 1930s, constantly underscored the

survival lessons of knowing where you are:

Oh, I started from ten, when I was ten years

old. He used to tell me to, 'You go ahead

and go. I'll watch you while you go. And

then give you help. I'll time you, see how far you travel. And make sure when you, when

you go, you remember that tree over there. You mark it, and you go somewhere remember that tree, that little hill, you mark that, too. That's your, your marker where you, where you travel. So when you come back, you, you know where, where you go. And

steady your hand. Your mountains, your

trees, your creeks and all that. He teach me

all them things, you know. Every time you

travel with dogs and come up on top of the

hill, you stop. Look around. And you look

DONALD G. CALLAWAY 181
where you came, your landmarks, don't

forget. That creek you came across, don't

forget that. ... I never did forget . . . but

when we travel, oh, every time I travel with

him he always tell me, 'Where are we now?

Did you study your landmarks?' I [just say]

'Oh yeah, I remember that little house, that creek right there.' 'You're right.'

A couple of hundred miles northeast of Levelock,

several Athapaskan groups—Koyukon, Lower Tanana,

Upper Kuskokwim, Dena'ina and Ahtna—have shared

boundaries in what is now Denali National Park. Karl's

(1 999) work on place-names in this area identifies 1 650

features from the five Alaska Native groups who used

the park area. He describes numerous rule-driven features of Athapaskan place-names. In many names, prefixes and suffixes systematically orient the speaker's

and the listener's positions on the landscape. A prefix

might indicate the headwaters of a river, canyon, mouth

of a stream, and so forth. Suffixes might indicate upstream, downstream, or either bank. Karl shows how

Athapaskan place-names, functioning as signs on a mental map, are vital for orientation in the band's large

land use area. The names cluster around stream drain- age systems and a few prominent features (Kari

1999:11).

Place-names that reflect non-edible wildlife —Dena'ina (Shem Pete 1987:284): Yuditnu 'Golden

Eagle Creek, '[creek on north shore of Ekiutna Lake].

There were few entries in this category, for reasons

that can only be speculated upon. First, the Dena'ina

considered almost all animals to be edible. Ravens,

eagles, coyotes, and wolves were all probably in the

non-edible category. The absence of such names may represent a sampling artifact, reluctance to name

features after creatures with great spiritual power, or simply disinterest in naming features after animals

with little utility. —Western (Orth 1971): Eagle Bluff [near Eagle,

Alaska]. Local name given in the late 1 890s; so named because of eagles nesting there (Henning,

1965:204).

1 82

Place-names associated with spiritual aspects of the landscape

The spiritual aspects of landscape reside most

uniquely with individual cultural values and attributes.

This section amplifies the concepts of Dena'ina place- names with material from the Han, an Athapaskan group now residing north of Alaska's second largest metropolitan area, Fairbanks. Interestingly, Athapaskan place- names that reflect spiritual aspects of landscape can be

readily found in the literature, but this category of place- names is substantially underrepresented in Western landscapes. While spiritual construction of the landscape,

through concepts of wilderness or sacred ground (e.g.,

battlefields, cemeteries, and memorials), can be

found in the histories of various landscapes, they

are not easily obtainable from the Western place- name vernacular.

—Dena'ina (Shem Pete 1 987:57): Ch'chihiKen, 'Ridge

Where We Cry, [sloping ridge south of Mt. Susitna]:

That big ridge going downriver from

Dghelishia [Mount Suisan] all the way to Beluga, they call Ch'chihi Ken. They

would sit down there. Everything is in view. They can see their whole country.

Everything is just right under them. They

think about their brothers and their fathers and mothers. They remember that, and

they just sit down there and cry. That's the

place we cry all the time, 'cause every- thing just show up plain (Kari and Kari 1982:1).

—Han (Mishlerand Simeone 2004): Eagle Bluff, near

the village of Eagle (Fig. 55) is known to Han as Tthee Tawdlenn or "water hitting right in to it."

In contrast to Western painterly or scientific values the

Han, who live on the upper reaches of the Yukon River,

view the landscape as animated with spiritual presence.

Mishler and Simeone (2004:36) explain that this name

conveys more than a physiographic description. Sarah

Malcolm, a Han woman, recalled that the chief "always

said lots of things about the bluff," especially in

speeches; he would even say he was chief of Eagle

Bluff. The authors speculate that these recollections fit

into a common Athapaskan practice where established

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
55/ Eagle Bluff, known to the Han as "Water hitting right in to it. "

settlements are associated with hills that are named

and honored in potlatch songs and oratory as

"grandfather's face":

As dominant features on the landscape,

these hills were symbolic of the strength

and wisdom of the old chiefs or leaders. The people were said to live beneath or under these hills as they would live under

the guidance of a strong and moral

leader. The hill, like a good leader, is there

to stand as an example or reminder to people of how they should conduct their

lives (De Laguna 1 975:91).

—Western (Orth, 1971): A Western sense of the metaphysical nature of place is conveyed by Lonely

Lake, in the Brooks Range, so named in 1 966 by

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert F. Staender because when they

set up a base camp at this lake they were completely isolated. No Athapaskan place-name that I have come across

provides a sense of abandonment or isolation. This

difference between being on and being of the landscape is nicely illustrated in Desperation Lake, a placeDONALD C. CALLAWAY

name in the Brooks Range Orth obtained in 1 956. Orth

thought wolf hunters probably named it in the 1940s.

In contrast, the Inupiaq (Eskimo) name for the same

place is Tupichalik, meaning "new tent" in reference to camping along the lake's dry gravel beach.

Non-Indigenous Spiritual Views of the

Landscape

Cemeteries, battlefields, and memorials all have significance as sacred and spiritual landscapes in American culture. We all have memories of locations visited on family vacation and the places where we

grew up may have special and perhaps spiritual

importance. In addition, farm families may have a strong spiritual connection to the landscape they

have tilled for generations.

Of course, it is no surprise that America, the benchmark of world capitalism, has numerous commodity

values for American landscapes. In addition, from certain perspectives even spiritual values may be cyni1 83
cally regarded as being thinly disguised commodity

"fetishes." For non-Native New Age spiritualists, the land

resonates with newfound animism that some view with

skepticism (Lippard 1997:147). One Western spiritual

view of the landscape, however, has a direct feed into landscapes of resistance: wilderness.

Wilderness

Ansel Adams' photographs present a closely cropped

view of landscape as the sublime.' For some, the beauties of landscapes represent "the last trace of the religious experience left in materialistic America." Cussim

and Lindquist-Cock 1 988, quoted in Lippard 1 997:1 79). One might suspect that for wilderness advocates

Ansel Adams pictures capture, in a visual form, those

transcendental qualities of landscape often encountered

in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, and Muir. As Callicott

notes:

The first notable American thinkers to insist, a century and a half ago, that wild nature might

serve "higher" human spiritual values as well as supply raw materials for meeting our more mundane physical needs. Nature can be a temple Emerson (1 989) enthused, in which to draw near and to commune with God. Too

much civilized refinement, Thoreau argued, can over-ripen the human spirit; ... [building on their philosophy]. John Muir (1901)

spearheaded a national, morally charged

campaign for public appreciation and preser- vation of wilderness. People going to forest groves, mountain scenery, and meandering

streams for religious transcendence, aesthetic

contemplation, and healing rest (1 998:340).

Whatever its etiology, it seems reasonable to consider

this construction of the wilderness landscape as having

spiritual underpinnings.

One problem with the currently received view of

wilderness is its ethnocentrism; it ignores the presence

of indigenous people (Callicott 1998:348). Some critics of wilderness consider the idea "museumized nature" (Talbot 1 998). From another point of view, implementation of the wilderness ideal displaces indigenous

people from rezoned "wilderness areas" or restricts their access to resources in such areas (Guha in Callicott

1 84

1 998). A subtler outcome of excluding humans from

the landscape, but perhaps more devastating in the long

run, is the alienation of local people who can be crucial

to the conservation process. Their exclusion, if their

situation is desperate enough, can lead to resistance

as they actively poach "protected" resources (Talbot

1998:339-40).

Although the situation has not reached an impasse

in Alaska, there is considerable potential for conflict. The federal government manages nearly two-thirds of

all lands while Native entities now occupy only about

ten percent of their former land base. Lands controlled by indigenous entities now represent less than twothirds of all the wilderness acreage in Alaska (Tables

2 and 3).

Thus, there is a palpable tension as to what are the

attributes of a "wilderness landscape" in Alaska. Considerable finesse is required of land managers as they

seek a compromise between the wilderness advocates' and local communities' concepts of spirituality and the

landscape. Wilderness advocates are especially con- cerned about the potential aesthetic impacts to the land- scape from the technologies (e.g., all terrain vehicles,

or ATVs) rural residents use as they harvest wildlife

resources (Fig. 56).

The National Park Service, ATVs, and "Natural"

Landscapes

Most of the Alaska wilderness areas designated

by ANILCA provide for continued access for rural populations:

The Secretary shall ensure that rural residents

engaged in subsistence uses shall have

reasonable access to subsistence resources on the public lands. (Section 81 1(a) of ANILCA). . . .The Secretary shall permit on the

public lands appropriate use for subsistence

purposes of snowmobiles, motorboats, and

other means of surface transportation tradi- tionally employed for such purposes by local residents, subject to reasonable regulation.

(Section 81 1(b) of ANILCA)

The section-by-section analysis of the title further

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
56/An ATV trail through a meadow in bloom.

Table 2/ Ownership of Land in Alaska

MILLIONS

OWNER OF ACERS

Bureau of Land Management 85.0

Fish & Wildlife Service 72.4 National Park Service 52.9 Forest Service 22.5 Department of Defense and

other Federal lands 2.3 State of Alaska 90.3 Native corporations 37.4 Other Private Lands 2.7 Total acreage in Alaska 365.5

amplifies the intent of the phrases "other means of

surface transportation" and "traditionally employed"

to include the

[U]se of new, as yet unidentified means of surface transportation, so long as such means are subject to reasonable regulation necessary to prevent waste or damage to

fish, wildlife or terrain (ANILCA Chapter

Vll:275).

The National Park Service may apply additional restricTable 3/ Alaskan "Wilderness" Status Land

% OF

AGENCY

MILLIONS TOTAL U.S. AGENCY OF ACRES ACREAGE

Fish & Wildlife Service 18.7 97

National Park Service 33.5 91 Forest Service 5.8 17

Total 58.0

tions with respect to access to its lands. Only specified "resident zone communities" or residents with special permits are allowed to harvest park resources. The

designations are usually liberal enough to incorporate

most of the active hunters. The NPS may also restrict

the types of technology used to harvest subsistence

resources. ATVs are an efficient and convenient form of transportation for harvesting resources, but they can also

create trails of denuded vegetation. Those trails provide little threat to conservation of nature resources. However, with respect to aesthetics—and being unDONALD G. CALLAWAY
miles 40

57/ Noatak Shaded Relief and Hydrology, with the imposed boundaries of the Cape Krusenstern National

Monument. Western land managers often draw boundaries across watersheds and other geomorphic features. These boundaries may have little overlap with

traditional land use.

questionable evidence of man's presence—they can

create considerable conflicts about what a landscape can or should contain. The trails are anathema to Western visitors who

want to have a "wilderness" experience in a national

park. To traditional subsistence users, who consider

themselves participants in the landscape, the trails are

a small price for doing business. Although subsistence

users evince discomfort when the issue is formulated

in the context of respect for the land, their misgivings

are usually set aside when balanced against

practicalities. In essence, as one man noted, "We are

not going back to carrying these loads out by foot."

This is especially true in the contemporary context where people live in sedentary communities and the

distances involved are much greater. Seasonal camps

once located near available resources no longer exist.

Nor are subsistence users much swayed by preservationist arguments, for in many cases their extensive

current use of ATVs is occasioned by sports hunting

pressures on local resources that were formerly obtained adjacent to their home use area. Most local

hunters would be happy for shorter ATV trips if the

1 86

resources could be obtained nearby.

Neither side condones damage to the landscape,

although one side views humans and their technology

as an impairment of the landscape's spiritual qualities

while the other sees humans (and their pragmatic use

of efficient harvest technology) as an integral part of

the spiritual landscape. Part of this conflict lies in the

divergent perspectives both sides have on human-animal interactions. Wilderness advocates assume that land managers need to prevent human interference with the

"natural" animal populations. In fact, the total exclusion of a human presence is illogical, illegal, and impractical.

It is illogical because most wilderness advocates

are themselves at least temporary consumers of the

wilderness landscape. It is illegal in that ANILCA guarantees reasonable access to these lands for subsistence

purposes, effectively modifying the Wilderness Act in

Alaska's wilderness areas. Finally, it is impractical because wilderness areas are not islands. Caribou migrate on and off such designated areas, and most bird species in these areas are neotropical migrants who leave

for the winter. Pollution, climate change, and the invasion of exotic species are all impacts on wilderness

areas. In the absence and perhaps impossibility of strong

enforcement, local communities resist the imposition

of outside management in a variety of ways. Much of what Western land management personnel perceive as

resource management is really management of a virtual landscape.

Geographic Information Systems (CIS), a Western "Resource" Management Tool

Federal and state land managers in Alaska use a variety

of tools in their regulatory process. The tools structure and constrain how they perceive Alaska landscapes. In

this chapter landscape is loosely defined to include

physical features, biological populations (flora and

fauna), and the cultural definitions of the relationships

between the physical, biological and human. Interestingly, indigenous perspectives often truncate this tyPROTECTINC THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
pology by not drawing a distinction between animals

(or even geological features) and consciousness. Thus,

animals are aggregated with the social, sentient decisions often relegated only to humans in the Western

perspective.

In contrast, federal and state land managers separate landscape components into geological, biological, and cultural components. This disaggregation can

be illustrated by considering the CIS themes used by

land managers in Alaska. These layers include topography (Fig. 57), river and stream systems, roads, boundaries of conservation units (Fig. 58), boundaries of game

management units, vegetation maps, and ecozones.

For some regions of Alaska, social and cultural

information is also plotted using CIS technology,

e.g., community traditional harvest areas for a variety of species (e.g., moose, caribou, bear, fish, berries), or use areas during different time periods. Such

information is critical for documenting customary

and traditional uses for eligibility and access decisions. Despite the tremendous amount of information that CIS can convey, traditional indigenous views

of the landscape are only weakly reflected in use

area and place name data (Fig. 59). Instead, the data

is abstracted and transformed to meet the decision

context, comfort levels, and expectations of Western

land managers . One kind of information that westerners

often overlook is the indigenous values related to ani- mals and animal-persons.

The Yup'ik Landscape of Human—"Animalperson" Relationships

Central to indigenous traditional views of the landscape is the issue of human relationships with the resources they depend upon. Some of the best descriptions of these values come from the Yup'ik speakers

ofthe Yukon/Kuskokwim region of West Alaska (FienupRiordan 1990). Yup'ik cultural values prescribe the

proper treatment of "animal-persons" and the conse- quences of violating these rules. Animal souls are infinite, and what humans' harvest are only their "clothes."

In fact many Yup'ik believe that when animal-persons

offer themselves in great numbers, it is clear that hu- mans are fulfilling their side ofthe bargain by showing

respect. The Yup'ik belief that there is no relationship

between a decline in an animal population and overharvesting is in dramatic contrast with Western concepts of game management.

In fact many Yup'ik hunters face a difficult decision when they come across any animal (Morrow and Hensel

1 992:40). A Yup'ik hunter who is out looking for caribou, but comes across an older male moose out of

season is required by Yup'ik

belief to harvest that animal.

Failure to avail oneself ofthe

gift presented is a profound

Deenng Canbou

I I Game Mngm: units. Subunits

Inuptaq Place Names

Gen. Land Status- Owners

miip Private [Z3 ^^^^^ Eiv] Native

Slate & Native

[''"71 Major Military

["'

'

'j National Park Service [v^ U.S. Fish 8, vviidtite Service gggg Wild & Scenic Rivers

U.S. Forest Service

^iJ^tfi Bureau of Land Management

58/ Present-day land-status owners, Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Traditional

subsistence users are con- fronted with a bewildering

variety of land statuses,

each with their own regulatory framework. For ex- ample, the community of

Deering's traditional cari- bou harvest area now ex- tends across federal, state, and Native lands.

DONALD C. CALLAWAY
mark of disrespect that will be noted by the animalperson and communicated to other animal-persons.

It may lead to the unavailability of that species in the

future. Thus, under Western precepts, to harvest the moose is to put pressure on the moose population

and ensure its continual decline. Under traditional Yup'ik

precepts, failure to harvest the moose leads to the same outcome.

Yup'ik are also taught that if they "play" with fish,

the fish will not return the following year. These beliefs have led to serious friction with catch-and-release

fishermen. By the Western conservation model, catchand-release fishing ensures the survival of the fish

stocks. Local Yup'ik believe that this disrespectful practice will lead to the eventual disappearance of the fish,

after the fish tell their relatives how they were treated and discourage them from making the same journey.

Traditional Yup'ik elders believe that the more you

harvest, the more that will return. However, the pre-

• CRNA- Ahtna Place Names (point) • Towns /V Roads

Ferry, auto AV Rivers

Park Boundary

Park Preserve im Park & Wilderness

Preserve & Wilderness Canada Coast

cept to harvest resources that present themselves is

overridden by a stronger sanction: harvest no more

than you need. One must exhibit respectful behavior

after the ultimate gift is bestowed, but checks and

balances are also present in the Yup'ik traditional man- agement regime. Thus, the hunter who comes across

a moose, mentioned in the example above, would not

harvest the moose if he felt the meat would go to waste.

Fienup-Riordan's (1990) depiction of the Yup'ik

worldview presents a problem of idealization and compression of these dynamic beliefs. In one household

that I talked with in the Yukon/Kuskokwim region of

Alaska, the senior members held (in the main) to traditional values, the middle-aged and younger adults respected but did not necessarily practice them or agree

with them, and the teenagers and younger members

hardly reflected upon them.

To avoid generalizing one set of values and beliefs about the landscape to a whole community, we turn

to the results of a formal

social science survey with

a large sample, controlling

for differences in age, gender, ethnicity, and some

facets of personal history.

Such an empirical and rep- resentative picture of

peoples' behaviors and values, while less in depth, suffers less from idealization

59/ Ahtna Place-Names

Each black dot represents an Ahtna place name, and

black dots in park-shaded

areas indicates the tradi- tional use of park re- sources. CIS projections

such as this are used in the regulatory process as evi- dence in decisions that

grant eligibility to conduct

subsistence activities on

park lands.

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
and compression.

Knowledge of the Environment

A multi-method research methodology designed to

study the social and cultural impacts of the Exxon

Valdez oil spill (EVOS) involved interviewing 2,728 residents of communities in the Gulf of Alaska/ This research indicated that personal, psychological, and community impacts resulting from the EVOS varied dramatically with the values imputed to the landscape.

And while these values cannot simply be ex- plained by Native/non-Native differences, it is

clear that significant differences in degree occur between these groups. Jorgensen's (1995) analysis of the consequences of the EVOS demonstrates

that Natives' and non-Natives' ideas, sentiments,

and acts were organized quite differently concerning environmental and other ethics. These differ- ences had an important effect on how the out- comes of the spill were perceived. Jorgensen (1 995)

notes that in the same environment Natives know

more about wildlife resources than non-Natives;

that Natives more frequently identify spiritual val- ues rather than commodity values as the preemi- nent attribute of the environment (Table 4); and

that Natives more frequently report that places in the environment have special meanings for them

and their relatives (Table 5).

Sixty-nine percent of the 388 key informants in the EVOS survey were non-Native and thirty-one percent were Native. Each was asked to identify seventy-seven

natural resources (including marine and land mammals,

fish, marine invertebrates, birds, and plants) in the areas

that person used. Researchers asked which species were

available locally in sufficient numbers. Ninety-five percent of Natives responded to all seventy-seven questions about resource sufficiency, but not one non-Native responded to all seventy-seven questions.

The survey research results clearly showed that

nearly half the Native respondents viewed the land- scape as possessing only spiritual values whereas less

than six percent of non-Natives felt the same way (Table

4). When these findings were presented to a Yukon/

Kuskokwim elder and spokesman, he indicated that in

his region three-quarters, not half, of respondents would

assert only spiritual and no commodity values to the

landscape. His assertion is based on the perceptive

insight that indigenous communities in the EVOS region have a longer history of repression of traditional

values and the forced introduction of other behaviors

—e.g., commercial fur harvests. Another question asked whether the respondent had

memories about special places in his area. As Table 5 shows, both Natives and non-Natives have strong symbolic attachments to the landscape, but Natives accu- mulate many more such symbols. Jorgensen's multivariate analysis seems to indicate that long-term nonNative residents and high-income Native residents

seemed to have borrowed more heavily from the other

culture's repertoire.

Landscapes of Resistance

Both Cuha (1 990) and Scott (1 985) have used the phrase

"landscapes of resistance" in the context of indigenous

resistance to exploitation and management of their traditional resources. Cuha, writing about peasant resistance in the Himalayas, believes that interpersonal relationships and the organization of economic activities are intimately linked to the ecological attributes

of the landscape—plants, animals, topography, climate,

and habitat. He hypothesizes that as ecosystems change,

social and production relationships will also change.

In Cuba's account colonial powers forced concepts of

individual land ownership to replace the communally

oriented land tenure practices of local inhabitants. In- digenous communities who were denied access to forest resources responded with a variety of forms of resistance, including labor slowdowns, destroying commercial stockpiles, and ignoring a variety of regulations. Largely because of the resistance, the Western

forestry principle of "sustained yield," a continuous profitable harvest of forest products, was never achieved.

DONALD G. CALLAWAY
After Indian independence from Great Britain, Guha

documents how these historical underpinnings gave

rise to the Chipko (Hugging the Trees) movement, which

in 1 980 forced the Indian government to agree to a

fifteen year ban on commercial forestry in the area. The Chipko movement also inspired many other indig- enous communities to resist large dam projects and

commercial use of forests throughout the world. Guha concludes that an indigenous ideology (like

Chipko) that articulates a traditional view of the landscape can forestall commodity uses of natural resources.

In addition, any outside interest (commodity or conservation driven) that fails to take into account the

"moral economy" of traditional landscapes (and the

traditional rights embedded in such landscapes) are

also bound to fail.

In Alaska, traditional views of the landscape—including knowledge of place, communal use of resources,

ethical tenets as to the reciprocal nature of human/

animal relationships, and the spiritual sense of topography—have been challenged by a dominant outside

perspective that claimed power to manage and interpret the landscape. This outside perspective saw the

land as property and "animal-persons" as commodities

lacking sentience. The dominant culture that did impute spiritual attributes to the landscape thus excluded

humans as a feature. These opposing perspectives led

to local resistance to Western management practices.

In my research experience in more than fifty rural

Alaska communities, I have always been struck by the

contrast between the formal regulatory regime of Western land managing agencies and actual behavior evinced

by local communities. Western managers depend on

seasons (when a species may be harvested) and bag

limits (how many and what type, e.g., young males only)

to accomplish their conservation goals. These man- agement procedures rely on the willing compliance of

local communities or an effective threat of law enforcement. For example. Morrow and Hensel note that:

Enforcement of waterfowl hunting laws has

always been sporadic, with local resistance

Table 4/ Spiritual vs Commodity Values Associated

with the Environment (from Jorgensen 1998:95)

ETHICS AND SIGNIFICANT SYMBOLS ATTACHED TO NATIVES NONENVIRONMENT (%) NATIVE (%)

Table 5/ Special Meanings Associated with the Envi- ronment (from Jorgensen 1998:94)

SIGNIFICANT SYMBOLS NONATTACHED TO PLACES IN NATIVES NATIVE

LOCAL ENVIRONMENT (%) (%)

1 . None 4 7

2. A Few 24 44

3. Many 28 44

4. Many, which have 44 5 accumulated over two

or more generations

sometimes effectively thwarting agents'

efforts. The most famous incident was the Barrow Duck-In of 1961. When several native men including a state legislator were arrested

for spring bird hunting [banned by regulation

at that time - D.C.] 300 Inupiat (1 38 of them

holding dead eider ducks which they claimed were taken illegally), gathered in the community hall (Chance 1990:146-47). Faced with

arresting much of the community, enforce- ment agents backed down.

Yupiit remember past repression [by law

enforcement officers that fine individual hunters and confiscate subsistence technol- ogy - D.C.] and are discreet about swan

harvesting. The legacy of repression is also kept alive in a large repertoire of told narratives about acts of "civil disobedience"

such as armed stand-offs with authorities. One

ubiquitous story concerns shooting holes in the floats of a Fish and Wildlife sea-plane so

that it is unable to land and arrest offenders

1 . The environment, or 31 features of it (rivers, forests, coal seams, oil deposits, fish, sea mammals, etc.) are viewed

as commodities, that is, items whose values are established

in the marketplace and are

available for purchase or sale.

2. Combination of commodity 54 60

and spiritual views.

3. The environment, or features 46 6

of it, are viewed as being

endowedwith spirits to which

significant cutural symbols are attached (e.g., helpfulness).

Thegeneral environment is not conceptualized as a commodity.

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
MONTH Jan Feb Mar April May June [July Sept Oct. Nov. pec.

Caribou Moose

Sheep

Bear

Rabbit

1

Beaver and Muskrat

Pike and Whitefish

; Ptarmigan and Grouse

Fur Trapping

Traditional Tetlin Harvest Cycle Contemporary Tetlin Harvest Cycle

60/ Contemporary and Historic Annual Cycle for the Community of Tetlin, Alaska. This graph shows that traditional times of harvest for a variety ofspecies in historic time (shaded area) has an imperfect overlap with the regulatory seasons of the contemporary Western management regime (Halpin 1 987:31 ; Guedon 1974:43, 45). Note: Sheep

are not included in the contempory annual cycle regulations.

(with disabled floats, the agents can only fly home, since they must beach the plane after a single landing). Such tales are told with

pride and humor in the vein of "Robin Hood

vs. the Sheriff's men." (1992:44)

The Western regulatory regime requires valid and representative data on the status of wildlife stocks and

the current harvest levels of those stocks. To establish bag limits, biologists estimate the current population

and then, using a variety of statistical models, deter- mine some level of sustainable harvest. However, the

underlying data supports for both these processes are

often questionable. The lack of reliable resource population data is compounded by the fact that self-reporting mechanisms for harvest levels are also unreliable. When anthropologists collect harvest information

in face-to-face interviews, under promise of anonymity, and compare these results with reported tag and

permit data, actual harvest levels are often ten times

higher than the official estimates. As will be detailed below, official seasons, especially in areas away from road-connected communities, are followed insofar as they overlap with traditional behaviors. Usually, employing the efficiencies required of subsistence pursuits, animals are harvested when they are available (or when they present themselves) and in quantities linked to need and processing

capabilities and not to an existing bag limit (Fig. 60).

Federal and state regulatory structures are the principal connection between local hunters and govern- ment land managers. Regulations concerning bag limits, seasons, and harvest reporting are the primary means

by which land managers and their biologist advisors seek to conserve and manage wildlife populations.

Spaeder et al. (2001) document a history of considerable conflict between customary practice and gov- ernment regulation in Northwest Alaska. They show

that throughout this history a significant number of

regulations were incompatible with traditional practices; despite the fact the traditional practices were

non-wasteful and posed no threat to the conservation of the resource. The wildlife regulations applied

to Alaska Native hunters were inappropriately imported from another context where they were used

to regulate sport hunters. A brief example (drawn from Moore 1 984: 1 0) illustrates the illogic and the impracticality of game regulations in the face of customary and traditional views

and behaviors. Only twice a year, for a short period, do

caribou migrations normally bring animals within range

of a local village (Fig. 61). During the spring migration

the animals have little body fat left after the long winter and are considered undesirable by local hunters. If

the official harvest season for caribou does not coincide with the fall migration (when the animals are in

DONALD G. CALLAWAY 191
prime shape for harvesting) then that community, which

may derive half its nutrition from caribou, is out of luck.

Naturally, under these circumstances the community

ignores the seasonal restrictions.

Hunters from rural communities actually see the

caribou on the landscape and note its availability and

condition. Western perspectives of the landscape do

not see the tundra or the caribou; they see a stochastic model that they believe allows them to predict and

conserve the ongoing caribou population. Currently

(since the herd now numbers 500,000) seasonal restrictions are liberal but bag limits could become a source

of conflict. Bag limits are fifteen caribou per day. However, caribou are usually at some distance from a community, and it is expensive to locate and transport the

harvested animals. Customarily hunters take what they

need for their household and to redistribute in the community. Thus, when they chance upon a herd they may

take twenty to forty animals and return to the community immediately to prevent spoilage. Although they

could take a hundred animals in a week without any

impact on the health of the herd, they can only legally

take fifteen animals per day. Because such a restriction

is completely impractical given their circumstances, they

violate bag limits by taking what they need when the

animals are available. A number of potential violations are created in this

harvest scenario. It violates game laws to give away

harvested meat, completely in contradiction to traditional values that demand hunters redistribute and share

their harvest with their extended family, elders and community members in need. Nor can extended family

members pay for the gas used by the hunter without

committing a violation. Almost none of the few hunters who obtain a hunting license actually carry it with

them. Customary practices such as driving animals to- ward awaiting (and hidden) hunter are illegal. Few hunters send in harvest reports. It is not surprising that a hunter

ignores, resists, and resents Western management regulations when his traditionally efficient practices may

net him thirty citations on any given hunt. These cita1 92

tions can result in the confiscation of his snowmachine,

his rifle, and hunting equipment and several hundred

dollars in fines. Although only a limited number of pages apply to any specific community, villagers rarely read the state

(1 12 pages) or the federal (172 pages) booklets on game regulations. Many villagers are unaware that com- mon sense practices such as shooting beaver (they

can only be trapped under current regulations) or chasing

game with a snowmachine violate the law. A survey

of twenty-seven Kiana residents concluded that no

one in the community, except the Alaska Department

of Fish and Game (ADFG) license vendors, understood

the hunting and trapping regulations (Regulation Review 1 989:22). In another study, a Kotzebue resident

said; "Local people have a hard time sifting out the important regulations from the unimportant ones"

(Spaeder et al. 2001 :33). The large number of regulations, a lack of English language or reading skills, and

the fact that regulations are rarely enforced by either

state or federal officials provide little incentive for traditional hunters to learn or follow game regulations.

Compliance with Western management regimes most

often occurs when regulations are consistent with cus- tomary practice.

Non-compliance also has the potential for serious

friction in the community, as newcomers, such as nonNative teachers, have reported season or bag limit violations. However, for many younger subsistence hunters, non-compliance has become a norm and signifies,

among other things, a resistance to outside attempts to

control their perceptions of traditional landscapes. A

number of analysts have suggested self-regulation and

local enforcement as a possible solution to this conflict. Several Kiana residents called for a revitalization

of traditional elder-based authority entities. In a sense

land managers would have to delegate some of their

authority to allow misdemeanor violations to be heard

and ruled on by local leaders. One Kiana respondent

who advocated this approach stated, "I would rather

face the game warden than the elders if I wasted

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
61/ Alaska Native caribou Inunt.

game (Spaeder et al. 2001:39). This solution omits

any mention of the Western management practices

of seasons, bag limits, or reporting requirements, and

instead focuses on violations committed against a shared view of the traditional landscape (i.e., the

overarching prohibition on waste). In an important

sense, this commitment to avoid waste is at the heart

of all conservation efforts, Western or traditional, al- though it may have little to recommend it to many

wilderness advocates.

Landscapes Reduced to Biological Models

The literature on statistical modeling of biological (and

geological) processes is enormous. We focus on the models provided by biologists and ecologists because

it is their advice that land managers seek in constructing resource management plans. Biologists often, but

not exclusively, base their advice on the outcomes of

their modeling efforts. One form of statistical model is termed "density dependent." As Pimm (1991:359)

notes, "Perhaps no other topic dominates traditional

population ecology more than does the discussion of whether density changes are density dependent.""

Two simple examples will illustrate the uses of this

type of statistical model. The first comes from a debate

begun in the 1940s about modeling halibut populations. Essentially one side believes that changes in

population density can be solely ascribed to fishing

pressures. In this density dependent model, the number of halibut recruited each year to the halibut population is directly related to how many halibut fisher- men catch. From a management perspective, decreasing the catch will increase the halibut population.

Burkenroad's competing "density independent" model

states that for any particular year fishing pressures play

only a small part in halibut recruitment and that the major impact on the increase or decrease in halibut numbers is due to "climate forcing." Climate forcing

links changes in the ecosystem to variation in ocean

currents and water temperature (Hare n.d.). These

DONALD C. CALLAWAY
62/ Mentasta Caribou Herd Density Dependent Model. A density dependent model comparing actual harvest

with simulated harvest levels that would have occurred

had the cooperative management protocol been in force at that time.

changes range from annual or seasonal, interannual (El

Nino) to interdecadal (Pacific Decadal Oscillation). Recent evidence suggests that decade-long oscillations

in temperature are related to zooplankton biomass

bloom (i.e. increases in the amount of zooplankton

available) that may, in turn, increase halibut larvae survival as larvae and juveniles feed in near surface waters. The second example deals with a critical management problem related to the Mentasta Caribou Herd,

part of whose range intersects Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The herd decreased from 3, 1 00

animals in 1 985 to fewer than 900 in 1 994. In a cooperative agreement to allow some subsistence harvest,

a simple density dependent model (Fig. 62) was used

to calculate herd size with harvest through time. The

model provided a decision tree for establishing harvest levels: If the two-year mean fall calf recruitment

(number of calves surviving into the fall) was greater

than eighty, a hunt could occur, while a recruitment of

less than eighty would eliminate any hunting. Other

provisos included limiting the hunt to bulls only if the

past two-year mean bull to cow ratio was greater than

35:100 (Mentasta Caribou Plan 1995).

Interestingly, as in the halibut example, a density

dependent model that works for the Mentasta Herd

would not be appropriate when applied to the much

larger Western Arctic Caribou Herd (WACH). Now numbering over half a million animals, the WACH fluctuates

in size from fewer than 75,000 animals to the current maximum in cycles that span decades. However, research in Canada and other areas indicates this boom

and bust cycle has nothing to do with levels of human

or other predation, and is more directly linked to cli- mate change. In this case, precipitation and snow cover

influence the caribou's access to the lichen they de- pend on for food.

In both these examples, resource managers view

the landscape as abstract and in a sense a virtual landscape. When indigenous views of the landscape conflict with model outcomes, a contested landscape begins to occur. A typical outcome is a complete rejection of the resource agencies' landscape, reinforcement

of traditional perspectives, and the creation of a landscape of resistance.

In the case of the WACH, local harvesters' reactions

to what ADFC biologists believed was a precipitous

decline of the herd in the mid-1970s provides an important example of the difficulties of managing wildlife when harvesters and managers have divergent perceptions of how many animals populate the landscape.

In the 1 970s caribou were counted using aerial surveys

without the benefit of recent enumeration techniques

such as radio collars or photo census. Agency managers and biologists believed that the herd had declined

because of human and animal (especially wolf) predation (Fall 1976).

Working from this density dependent model of the

landscape, biologists responded to what they believed

to be a crashing population by severely restricting harvest. Managers were faced with attempting to set a regional harvest quota on the basis of what little harvest

data they could obtain from local residents (some of whom they paid fifty dollars a month to act as village

reporters), or assessments from pilots. After harvest by

humans was determined to be approximately 25,000

caribou peryear between 1 952-1 973, the Board of Came

abruptly limited harvest from the WACH, a herd that had had no seasons or bag limits for seventeen years,

1 94 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
to 3,000 bull caribou for the 1976-1977 hunting season (Davis and Valkenburg 1 978).

Soon after these restrictions were in place, relations between harvesters and the ADFC reached a crisis point.

Local people did not believe the biologists' assertion

that caribou had sharply declined, because many of them saw large numbers of caribou on the landscape, even passing through their village (Davis 1976).

To this day, most local residents do not believe

that a significant caribou decline occurred during

that period. A recent survey in the area showed

that seventy-eight percent of villagers believed

the caribou population had nof declined since 1 970,

while seventy-seven percent of managers believed

that the herd had declined (Man and the Biosphere

1995).

Despite new regulations and the threat of arrest, the local harvest of caribou during that crisis

period probably exceeded the quota established

by the Alaska Board of Game. The majority of harvesters simply did not comply with "compulsory"

harvest reporting provisions. In 1977, ADFC re- ported that for the entire range of the herd, only

nineteen percent of the hunters had returned permits as required by law (ADFC 1977). This is the

landscape of resistance through noncompliance.

It is not completely clear to what degree the

1970s caribou crash reflected a precipitous decline of the magnitude asserted by ADFC or whether it resulted from incomplete surveys that omitted a significant portion of the herd. However, in 1 978, ADFC biologists found 1 06,000 cari- bou in the herd, almost twice the number of ani- mals that agency biologists had believed were

present two years before (Kruse 1995). Since it is

unlikely that the herd size would double in two

years, it appears that inaccurate data manipulated

in an inappropriate model lead to a distorted per- ception of what was happening on the landscape.

Most of Spaeder's respondents did not view

harvest by humans as a key factor controlling the

DONALD G, CALLAWAY

overall size and distribution of a wildlife species.

They widely believed that if local people harvest

only to meet their needs, without waste, animal

populations would be maintained. In Table 6, Spaeder (2001 :66) summarizes differences between

Western and indigenous knowledge as it relates

to "management" practices.

When Differing "Traditional" Views of

the Landscape Meet: A Case Study from

Bethel, Alaska

In the traditional view of the landscape, animals are

sentient, respect requires the remains of animal-per- sons be returned to the water or land, practices con- form to the seasons of the landscape, and words have

power. In the Western view, resources are commodities, animals and the landscape are acted upon, not

with, and bureaucratic rules and statistical models serve

as the basis for conservation efforts. One of the best examples of the meeting of different constructions of

the landscape leading to frustration and resistance is found in Morrow and Hensel (1992:47-9). Using transcripts from public fisheries meetings held in Bethel in

the early 1 990s, the study clarifies opaque exchanges

between regulators and local Native fishermen. Western land managers seem unaware of the nature of traditional landscapes. Whereas the fisheries biologists are

very concerned about fish returns and are actively considering closing the fishery. Native elders, based on

years of observation and experience, counsel that it is an ill-considered decision.

Elders attending the public meetings tried to explain salmon behavior to the regulators. They noted

that there were clear signs of abundant fish, based on

local people's long experience and observations. They

said weir counts were low because the sentient fish

avoid low water conditions. One elder pointed out that on another system where water levels were higher, fish were ascending normally (ibid.:47). The meeting transcripts reveal the biologists' patronizing dismissal of

the elders' observations. The outcome of this subsis1 95
tence closure was dramatic. The salmon harvest, which

forms up to seventy percent of the wildlife diet in these

riverine communities, was lost. The small amount of in- come gained from the commercial fishery—income that

households depended on for cash to purchase boats,

motors, fuel, and nets—was also lost.

Part of this distressing interaction comes from different conceptions about how the environment works.

For the Yup'ik, conservation requires practices that signify respect for the environment. Animals possess sentience and intent. Their absence is by conscious decision, usually affected by human behaviors that breach

reciprocal trust and respect. Changing weather patterns, reduced fish stocks, and absent game are all

attributed to a human failure to respect nature. By contrast, non-Native scientists assume that resource decline is caused by overharvesting, habitat destruction,

or climate change.

Even the way one speaks about the land and its

resources has a dramatic impact on relationships.

Yup'ik speak of the absence of fish as a temporary

consequence of conditions such as wind direction

or water level. Non-Yup'ik managers, on the other

hand, explicitly voice their concerns in terms of declining fish populations. The Yup'ik, who believe fish

can hear and understand human speech, are understandably nervous that the biologists' assertions

would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the transcripts Yup'ik speakers were careful not to say there were not enough fish. Resource managers thought

the Yup'ik response was predictable given their eco- nomic and nutritional investment in keeping the fishery open. Fisheries managers wanted local fisher- men to admit, given sonar and weir counts, that the

fish were not returning. This in turn increased the

anxiety of local people who felt that such an ad- mission was tantamount to guaranteeing the out- come.

In his concluding remarks to the fishery manager, the elder tried to communicate the consequences, from his view, of a fisheries closure.

the fish are coming in response to people's

need. When they come, they must be taken:

a decision to close the fishery will allow

them to pass and they may be offended and

not return in future" (ibid.:49).

This edited quote points out the most important stricture on human/"animal-person" relations. Not to harvest an animal that has consciously decided to present

itself is a profound breach of respect that may lead to

the animal and all its congeners deciding never to return. What wildlife biologists saw as a conservation measure, was seen by Yup'ik as a disrespectful act that could

lead to catastrophe.

Developing a Shared View of the

Landscape

The question of whether to conserve ethnographic

landscapes seems poorly formed. Views of the

landscape vary between and within cultures. However, as Table 6 indicates, all the landscape views

considered in this chapter share a commitment to

the conservation and continued utilization of wildlife (albeit in a non-consumptive mode for wilder- ness advocates). The art in achieving this objective is not to insist on the priority of any view in

toto. With respect to the issues discussed in this

chapter, a number of processes have been identified that allow selective overlap or acceptance of

multiple viewpoints. Cooperative management

techniques lead these mechanisms. If we break

resource management regimes down into four generic activities:

—Research

—Allocation

—Enforcement

—Regulation

one can show how combining multiple views of the

landscape can lead to a shared (or at least agreed

upon) perspective.

196 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
Table 6/ Characteristics of Scientific and Traditional Knowledge Systems

Knowledge System

Characteristic

Mode of data

collection

Temporal Scale of knowledge

Western Resource Management

Science

Based on experimentation and

systematic direct and indirect observations. Knowledge base and

management framework seen to be

Short-term populations surveys providing a synchronic perspective.

Traditional (Local) Knowledge

Based on less systematic groundbased observations. Ecological

knowledge linked to myths and

place-based narratives.

•Long-term observation coupled with intergenerational knowledge providing

a diachronic perspective.

Spatial Scale of knowledgeLarge scale (i.e., for moose, entire watershed; for caribou, herd range)Smaller scale (i.e. traditional subsistence harvesting zones; for some big game species, large portions

of a watershed)

Locus of knowledge Knowledge held by wildlife professionals. Management system

hierarchically organized.

Knowledge diffuses, seen to be

increasing with harvesting experience.

Goal of knowledge

base

Establish generalized principles

explaining and predicting the

status and behavior of wildlife.

Understand the dynamics and behavior

of wildlife in the local area.

Assumptions about

system dynamics

Populations can be maintained at or around a stable equilibrium point.

Populations can be controlled by

harvest, predation and habitat enhancement. (Population models

emphasize density dependent

variables.)

•Many species seen to have population

cycles. Harvest and predation can

affect populations, though animal

population dynamics remain largely

autonomous.

Goal of management

and harvesting activities •Species manipulated or controlledto achieve sustainable yield.

Goal is to respond and adapt to system

surprise (uncertainty).

Ecological systems

structured by:

Bio-physical forces Bio-physical forces and unseen supernatural forces

Preferred conservation

strategies

Regulate uses, control of means,

methods, seasons and bag limits; access open to all user groups.

Control (limit) access to traditional use territories.

Spaeder et al 2001:66. Table adapted from

Wenzel 1987.

Berkes 1995: DeWalt 1994, Feit 1988: Usher 1986: Usher and

Research

As discussed above, a determined effort is underway

to establish a cooperative management board for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd (Western Arctic Caribou

Herd 2003). One management function that all parties

have agreed on is in the area of research. To overcome

the impasse between land managers and local communities about the size of the WACH, a number of

cooperative research arrangements have been put into

place. Two efforts stand out. First, caribou surveys are

DONALD C. CALLAWAY

now carried out with local hunters on board the planes.

Before the current agreement, indigenous hunters regularly complained that observer planes missed pockets

of caribou. Local hunters, who have carefully monitored the migration of the caribou in their area, now fly

with the observers. Both sides benefit from this process: biologists attain more valid estimates of herd

size, and local hunters are more likely to believe the

estimates when their input is an integral part of the

process.

1 97
In addition, biologists are now recruiting hunters

to collect a series of measurements on each caribou

they kill, including proportion of body fat, condition of bone marrow, presence of parasites, and gross body

weight. Local hunters use traditional knowledge to

maintain a dialogue with the biologists (who put these measurements into a variety of models) as they jointly

assess the health of the herd. Efforts such as these

tend to lead to convergence on estimates on herd

size and the health of the herd, although the sides may

still diverge substantially as to why and how these

outcomes have occurred.

Allocation

The Kilbuck Herd, numbering about 7,000 caribou,

ranges mainly in the Yukon-Delta National Wildlife Ref- uge in Western Alaska. In 1990, the Kilbuck Caribou

Herd Co-Management Regime was jointly established. The participants included eighteen Yup'ik Eskimo villages, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Alaska

Department of Fish and Game (Spaeder 1 995). Using a

density dependent model of herd dynamics (an appropriate model given the small herd size), the working

group agreed to a permit-based, bulls-only harvest, limited to five percent of the total herd. The group next addressed the potentially difficult issue of how to divide the initial annual harvest quota of 125 animals

among eighteen villages, which varied in community

size (70-550 people), proximity to the herd, and cus- tomary use of the resource. Once the allocation limit was established, the task

of distributing permits was delegated to the Native

members of the group. Instead of arguing about

need ("our community is larger and needs more permits") or precedence ("our community has harvested

these animals for hundreds of years and you never hunted them"), these representatives decided to divide the permits equally among the eighteen communities. This egalitarian solution reflected the Yup'ik

view of the landscape. For example, interviews with

Native respondents suggest that this decision ex1 98

presses the Yup'ik value of sharing.

Respondents stated that they felt it was

important to share things over which one

cannot extend ownership, such as big game.

No one "owns" the caribou, respondents

asserted, just as one cannot own the fish in the ocean. This decision also serves as an example of one way that native groups

attempt, where possible, to embed their own

values within a regime whose character and

structure is decidedly non-Native (Spaeder

1995:24).

The Mentasta Caribou Herd, mentioned above, provides

another interesting example of the allocation issue. When fewer than thirty caribou are available to harvest under the management plan, permits for these caribou were given to elders in the most traditional and longestablished communities. Designated hunters were al- lowed to harvest the caribou and provide them to the

elders. During one year, only one caribou was harvested because hunters did not make extraordinary efforts to meet the harvest quota as the herd was relatively inaccessible during the year. This fits with the traditional

practice of harvesting only those resources that can be

efficiently obtained.

A compromise landscape emerges in both these

examples. The communities' decision to restrict their

harvests goes along with but does not necessarily agree

with the biologist's view of how caribou operate on

the landscape. In return, the biologists allow the community to allocate how the caribou are obtained and

distributed without necessarily agreeing with the

view of reciprocity between humans and animalpersons.

Enforcement

Non-compliance with resource management is a basic mechanism of resistance for local people. Despite the

fact that several models of cooperative enforcement

exist in Alaska, most land managers believe that en- forcement cannot be delegated to local or tribal entities. In addition, law enforcement personnel tend to

have a very circumscribed view of the landscape linked

to regulation and violations of seasons and bag limits.

PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ LANDSCAPES OF SURVIVAL
Given the vast expanses of Alaska landscapes and

the limited number of enforcement personnel, however, most village residents' behavior is based on their own tenets and values. Enforcement prosecution, including fines and confiscation of hunting equipment, seem to be counterproductive in the long run (e.g., the

1961 Barrow Duck-In).

Regulation

ANILCA mandates the implementation of Regional

Advisory Councils, composed of local subsistence users, who develop proposals to the Federal Subsistence

Board on hunting eligibility, seasons, and harvest limits. The councils' recommendations on their proposals

carry considerable weight with the Federal Subsistence

Board. In fact, the board may only reject the councils' recommendations on proposals for a few circumscribed

reasons, such as potential harm to the resource. Thus,

ANILCA provides for the incorporation of local experi- ence and perspective of the landscape into Western management practices.

While the text of ANILCA assumes that local rural

residents know a lot about local fish and wildlife populations, it also seems to imply that the absence of a Western resource management regime is the absence

of fln/ management regime. This common misconception results in Western land managers' anxiety that without the strong hand of bureaucratic organization, local communities, now armed with Western technology, will over-harvest wildlife resources and threaten their

viability.

This fear is both a product of ignorance, failing to be aware of indigenous conservation practices, and

the classic error of affirming the consequence with respect to the premise. In this case Western conservationists invent a concept, i.e., "the tragedy of the commons," and then project this circumstance into any situation that lacks armed enforcement officers. Recent historical research has called into question the formulation of this concept. Resources held

in common in seventeenth century Europe often had

informal checks and balances. In addition, numerous anthropological treatises have documented the

existence of formal and complex indigenous man- agement regimes (Brightman 1993).

Despite these problems, the Regional Advisory

Councils have provided a forum where divergent

views of "landscape relations" have been able to

co-exist. None of the constituencies have abandoned their views; rather they have expanded their awareness to admit that other perspectives exist. Biologists still use statistical models and eschew the

sentience of animals; traditional harvesters still believe that landscapes are animate, that one must en- gage in reciprocal practices with animal-persons, and

that statistical models are suspect when they conflict with their own experiences on the land. A co- operative approach that leads to a general agree- ment about the size and health of "resource" populations provides the trust or "social capital" that al- lows both sides to ignore the different processes

that lead to similar conclusions.

Postmodern arguments trumpet the demise of a

privileged perspective, however, at the same time;

actors do not have to agree on the "true" nature of

the landscape to respect one another. Co-management and cooperative endeavors require not the same

view but an agreed upon vision. Such shared visions are reciprocal gifts, where both sides sacrifice

their clothes to share the same spiritual journey. I hope this paper has shown that the imposition of

one's cultural view of the landscape on other actors

is, in the end, self-defeating. Active awareness of

other perceptions of the landscape will most effectively allow land managers to achieve their conservation objectives.

Notes

1 . Southern congeners of Alaska's interior Athapaskan communities. Apache and Alaska

Athapaskan languages while mutually unintelligible, are closely related and form part of the same lan- guage family

DONALD C. CALLAWAY
2. This is not to say that current indigenous

practices do not incorporate the latest western GPS

technology in their subsistence practices.

3. Although Lippard (1997:179) characterizes

his pictures as "tranquilizing" and "misleading."

4. The survey was done in 1987-1991 under a

contract to the United States Department of Interior, Minerals Management Sen/ice, Anchorage, Alaska

5. Although we decline to discuss the applicability of these density dependent models, in general we agree with Pimm when he states, "And yet, as

a community ecologist, I find the usual discussions

of these issues incredibly circumscribed." (Pimm

1991:359)

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~y"!ie W!io!e ^tort) of O^r [and":

nog;raphic Landscapes in (janibeii, ^t. Lawrence ]sian A, Alaska

IGOR KRUPNIK

As cultural change and modernization has overtaken

many Indigenous settlements across the North, one of

the most visible signs is the profound transformation

of the physical landscape. When old teachers' reports,

elders' memories, and historical photographs are matched against today's local settings, time and again

it looks as if events separated by a few decades took

place in a different physical and social space—in terms

of the general look of Native communities, their social

composition, dwelling type, and relation to and the use

of the surrounding area. Other changes related to the way(s) people mentally organize their environment are invisible but, nevertheless, profound. An anthropologist checking early

accounts or comparing notes of the same community some ten, twenty, or thirty years later, would easily rec- ognize the difference in types and number of local

place names, nature of stories about the area, set of

local features used as spiritual and identity markers,

and others. Such shifts in socially recognized and culturally organized environment, the "ethnographic landscape," may progress even faster than the real physical

transformation of a given place. Often, such mental projections of the same physical landscape can be surprisingly disconnected, if not worlds apart, particularly in

the cases of population or language shift, rapid acculturation, and/or other breaches in cultural continuity. Because of that, various chronological phases of the

local "ethnographic landscape"—if not clearly distinct

"landscapes" (in plural)— may be identified or construed

at one physical location. Similarly, archaeologists recognize subsequent cultural phases of an ancient village and/or independent local settlements via stratified site excavation. Unlike archaeologists, who uncover physical traces of ancient sites from the ground,

it remains to cultural anthropologists and local historians to retrieve and recreate such old mental constructions, former ethnographic landscapes, from people's

memories and written records.

This paper is an attempt at construing a 200-year

history of the changing ethnographic landscape(s) of one Native Alaskan community, the village of Sivuqaq/

Cambell on St. Lawrence Island. Sivuqaq/Gambell is

by no means unique in undergoing a dramatic physical

and social transition through the centuries. Unlike other

Native Alaskan communities, however, it enjoys one

of the best-documented records of change in its historical environment. This record was accumulated

through extensive archaeological excavations at nearby

ancient sites, and through several recent oral history

and educational programs undertaken by community

members, often in cooperation with anthropologists

(Akuzilleput Igaqullghet 2002; Crowell 1985; Sivuqam

Nangaghnegha 1 985-89; Silook 1 975; Yupik Language

1 989). Voluminous narratives, archival documentation,

and historical photographs produced by early visitors

to St. Lawrence Island are also available. The present

synopsis of the changing ethnographic landscape at Sivuqaq/Gambell is based on such a survey of existing

records; it has been made possible thanks to the dedicated collaboration of many of today's elders, who shared

their knowledge and historical memories of their Na203
tive village (see below, Acknowledgments).

This paper is also an effort in "applied preservation

ethnography." As new types of dwellings replaced old

ones, and the main village site expanded across its

traditional location, huge portions of local heritage were all but abraded, both physically and mentally.

Some sections of the old village are currently under

water; others have been dramatically transformed by new construction. Many more were lost through neglect, abandonment, insensitivity of new construction

projects, and thinning of the once thriving cultural tradition.

In this respect, Sivuqaq/Gambell is hardly different from any other historic town, whose rich cultural heritage is threatened by population growth, modernization, and new living standards. Hundreds of such historic settlements in the U.S. and elsewhere have witnessed their old houses being replaced by modern apart- ment buildings, and their cobblestone streets trans- formed into parking lots and strip malls. As in Sivuqaq/

Cambell, it is often left to fragile human memory to be

the sole guardian of the vanished local scenery otherwise preserved in old museum photographs, paintings,

and historical records. This paper discusses some modern strategies in heritage documentation and the appropriate community policies that may be applied to

preserve the legacy of the long-gone ethnographic landscapes in a living Arctic town.

The Setting

The community of Sivuqaq/Gambell (population ca.

650) is located on a flat gravel spit attached to the

rocky Cape Chibukak, the northwestern tip of St. Lawrence Island, on the Bering Sea coast (Fig. 63). The

island has been American territory since 1 867, although

the village is situated much closer to Asia than to North

America (mainland Alaska). Barely forty miles of water

separates it from nearby Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia, and

the tops of the Siberian mountains are visible from the

village on a clear day. Local residents, with the exception of a handful of contract schoolteachers, are mostly

Native Yupik Eskimo. They call their village (and the whole island) Sivuqaq and themselves Sivuqaghhmiit,

when speaking in their language, Yupik. The official name of the town, Cambell, was designated in 1 899 to honor its first white missionary-teacher who drowned

in 1 898. Native residents use both town names, although

"Cambell" is commonly preferred when talking and writing in English.

The late anthropologist Charles Hughes produced

an emotional image of dramatic changes that were twisting and shaping the old village of Sivuqaq/Gambell.

On his first visit in the summer of 1 954, he called the

landscape he observed "the torn grass:"

Evidence of significant shifts in the Cambell

Eskimos' way of life presented itself even

before we have reached the village on the

mile-long journey from the point of

landing. . . . Fourteen years earlier [i.e., in 1940] the entire gravel spit stretching from

Mt. Chibukak out to the sea was covered

with grasses and other plants, making a

thin matting of vegetation over the loose

pebble underneath. . . . Nothing marred the

smoothness of this green plain except the

two or three archaeological sites—remains

of old villages—in which the Eskimos dug

for specimens. . . . But now most of the

covering was gone, turned over and

churned under by tractors of the construction crews and military bases. . . .The

destruction of the thin edge of green on the seaworn pebbles was merely a symbol of a much larger set of circumstances, which had come to Cambell in the (last) fourteen years. Now hundreds of empty oil drums, rusted

and filigreed by the rains, snows, and sea

spray, dotted the gravel spit. ... As we

approached closer to the village, we came

across twisted and bent sections of steel matting, intended, a couple of years before,

for an airplane runway to link Cambell

regularly with the outside world (Hughes

1960:16, 20).

Today the oil drums and metal debris have been cleaned

up, and scattered patches of meager grass covering

the spit can be seen again. No visible signs remain of

the old military sites and installations that marred the

landscape and epitomized the harsh image of change

as observed in 1954 (Mobley 2001). But the once-

"pristine" gravel spit is now covered with a sprawling

204 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF CAMBELL
63/ Aerial view ofCape Sivuqaq with the Sivuqaq (Cambell) Mountain, Troutman Lal<e, and the village ofCambell

at the bottom right end of the spit.

modem town of some five hundred residents, inhabiting dozens of new family houses, public and store

buildings, and an impressive new schoolhouse. The

gravel cover is again turned over and churned under—

this time, by the tracks of the Honda four-wheelers that

serve as major transportation in the community. In fifty

years, the whole village has literally been on the move:

not only in time, but also in space. Only a handful of

older buildings remain at the former village site a half

mile away. The present-day town of Sivuqaq/Gambell is split

into two distinct parts about a half mile apart. The

"new village," of several dozen modern residential houses and many modern public buildings and warehouses, is located on the flat gravel plain between

the lake and the northern shore of the cape (see

maps and description in: Callaway and Pilyasov

1993; Crowell 1985; Jolles 2002; Jorgensen

1990:26, 28-9; Mobley 2001:10-12, 18-19). The

"old village" made of more traditional houses sits on top of a small ridge that descends to the western shore. The "new village" was established in the mid1 970s; before then, all residents lived at the "old" site.

Judging from several C-1 4 dates obtained from the

ruins of old dwellings and abandoned ancient sites, the

area has been populated for the last 2,000 years, if not

longer. Ancient people lived here very much like the

present-day residents, primarily by hunting walruses,

seals, whales, and other marine mammals, and by fishing, hunting birds, and collecting greens and berries. They traded actively with other communities on the

island and with the villages on the Siberian (and

later Alaska) mainland (Ackerman 1 984:1 08-1 3; Mason

1 998:260-5). The overall shape of the inhabited area at Cape Chibukak (Sivuqaq), however, has changed substantially over the last 2,000 years, as the flat gravel

plain or foreland attached to the rocky cape (Sevuokuk

Mountain) has been gradually expanding to the west and to the north.

Physical Changes in the Sivuqaq/Gambell

Landscape

Henry B. Collins, Smithsonian archaeologist who conducted excavations at and around Sivuqaq/Gambell in

IGOR KRUPNIK 205
1929-1930, produced the first outlines of "historical

landscapes" of the area, based on his surveys of local

ancient sites (Fig. 64):

Immediately to the south of the present

village [today's "old site"] are the pits of

earlier houses of wood and whale bones, some of which were occupied until the end of

the last century. Sunken caches or meat

cellars, built entirely of whale bones, are well preserved, some, in fact, being still in use. Near the head of the lake the ruins of this recently abandoned site merge imperceptibly

into those of an older and more extensive

site, known to the Eskimos as Seklowaghyaget [Siqiuwaghyaaget], "many caches." About half a mile to the northeast a grass- covered midden, marking the site of another

old village, rises conspicuously from the

gravel plain; this site the Eskimos call levoghiyuoq [Ayveghyaget], "place of the

walrus," from its resemblance to a herd of walrus lying on the ice. Some 200 yards south

of levoghiyoq, and at the foot of the plateau,

is still another old site known to the Eskimos

as Miyowagh [Mayughaaq], "the climbing up

place" (1937:33).

According to Collins, these ancient sites were, in fact,

the landmarks of the changing shape of Cape Chibukak,

as the series of successively younger beach ridges were

built by the retreating surf zone and shore currents, so

that the old village sites had to be moved repeatedly

to remain closer to the beach. Thus, the Mayughaaq

site and another ancient settlement. Hillside, higher up

above the slope of the Sevuokuk Mountain, were the

oldest in the area. The site of Ayveghyaget, located some 200 yards closer to the present-day northern shore

and separated from Mayughaaq by four beach lines, should be dated from a later period. The site at

Siqiuwaghyaaget was populated next and was inhabited until the end of the pre-contact period (i.e., about

AD 1 700), when people relocated the village closer to

the expanding western shore. About 1 00 to 1 20 years

later, they moved again to build a precursor of the

historic village on a higher ridge. Since then, the village moved several hundred yards farther northward

along the western shore, as all the historical houses of

the late 1 800s and early 1 900s were located north of

the abandoned underground dwellings

(Collinsl 937:33-4, 1 940:546). These settlement shifts might have caused substantial reconfiguration of the

local ethnographic landscape(s), even if people contin- ued to exploit the same area, with more or less the same type of economy.

It is hard to say whether the old sites at and around

Sivuqaq/Cambell were occupied by one residential

population or by distinct communities that moved from one place to another through the centuries, as the land was physically changing under people's feet. It is quite

likely that, at least, the three latest settlements—

Siqiuwaghyaaget, Collins' "old section" (sometimes

named Mangiighmiit by today's elders), and what is known today as Cambell "old site" (i.e., historic village

of the 1 900s)—were inhabited by related communities. The sheer proximity of three sites argues for their

continuity. The connection between the "old section" and the historic village of the late 1800s and of the

1 900s is also supported by local oral tradition.' According to Collins, at some point during the

eighteenth century, people started to build semisubterranean dwellings at the "old section" site, to the

south of the historic village, along the elevated gravel

bar between the lake and the sea (Collins 1937:189;

Fig. 50). Today's residents call this type of house nenglu

in Yupik, and igloo when speaking in English. Collins

argued that the houses at that "old village" site were abandoned "some forty or fifty years" before his visit,

that is, before 1880 (Collins 1937:190, 261). Today's

elders remember these houses from "grandfathers' stories" only:

My grandfather also told me about the old underground houses, nengiu. They used to

live in these nenglus when they were young. I think he was born in a nenglu house. They

used to make roofing of whalebones and

they put walrus hides on top but particularly very big pieces of ground (sod). It was very warm, just like a good roofing. They put

many whalebones on top, so that it could

keep these big pieces of ground (sod) on the

ceiling. (Who lived in this house?) I think, his parents used to live there, Temkeruu's

206 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF CAMBELL
64/ Outline map of Cambell and vicinity, at north- west end ofSt. Lawrence Island (Collins 1 937: 1 89).

[grandfather's] parents; maybe, also their brothers and family. . . . Maybe, they once

lived in one nenglu but as far as I remember,

they always had different (separate) living

quarters—two or maybe three (residencies) in one nenglu. They called it saaygu. They got a door and they somehow separated this nenglu into (family) living quarters. They used

clay lamps, number of them for light and

heating.

(Have you ever seen such a house?) Yes, in the camp Tapghuq there was a nenglu that used to be of my father's side grandfather's

relatives. It was Aymergen's nenglu. It was not

ruined yet when I first saw it. They used to stay at the Tapghuq camp along with my

grandfather and family. ... But Aymergen's

old nenglu was still staying there, although it was probably many years ago when they used

to stay [to live] there (Avalak/Beda Slwooko

1 999; Akuzilleput2002A09).

At some point about the mid-1 800s, the semi-subterra- nean winter sod-houses at Gambell were swiftly replaced

by a new type of above-ground winter dwelling,

mangteghapik, with an inner chamber made of walrus and reindeer skins (see descriptions in: Jackson 1 903:28;

Geist and Rainey 1936:12-13; Moore 1923:346-9;

Sivuqam 1989:100-5). According to archaeologists

(Collins 1 937:261 ; Geist and Rainey 1 936:1 2), this type

of winter house was introduced from Siberian Yupik

villages across the Bering Strait, presumably because

of increased contacts. Most of the present-day elders age seventy and older were born in such houses and

remember it well. This shift obviously made a great

impact on the overall appearance and the general configuration of the village. As the underground sod-dwellings at the "old site" were abandoned, people were

building new skin-covered houses farther north, along

the beach ridge. Hence, the whole village was gradually moving northward.

This village landscape of dome-shaped, skin-covered houses surrounded by smaller tents or frame cabins, vertical whalebone rafters, boat-racks, and meat cellars is depicted in many early photographs of Sivuqaq/

Gambell from the 1880s and until the 1930s. Unfortunately, no photographs or good accounts of the village exist before 1 881

.

The most significant event in the recent history of

St. Lawrence Island occurred in the winter of 1 878-

1 879, when a terrible famine, probably coupled with an

epidemic, wiped out more than half of the island's population. Several villages were completely destroyed, and

many communities barely endured with few survivors.

With the death of so many people, the pre-famine

social geography of the island made up of several

settlements, clans, and tribes, was almost obliterated. The village of Sivuqaq was less affected by the

tragedy than, probably, all other large communities on

the island (see contemporary reports and estimates in

Doty 1899:187, 217; Hooper 1 881 :1 0; Muir 1917:108;

Krupnik, 1 994; Mudar and Speaker 2003). A portion of

its population survived, preserving some cultural continuity with the earlier residential community. Many

survivors from other settlements hit by the famine

moved to the area. They were joined by several Yupik

families from Siberia, eager to leave their mainland

villages because of a similar combination of bad

weather, poor harvest, and mass starvation. These people

brought with them their specific customs and group

names, as well as memories of distant places and landscapes. This mixture of local and introduced traditions

IGOR KRUPNIK 207
was the foundation on which the present-day community of Sivuqaq/Gambell, and its culturally organized

environment, "ethnographic landscape," was created.

Construction of the government school-building in 1891 and the arrival of residential white teachers in September 1 894 marked the second major documented

event to reconfigure the historic village of Sivuqaq/

Gambell. Carpenters from the ship that transported the lumber from San Francisco (Gambell 1910:3; Jackson

1 903:29; Akuzilleput2002.267) erected the school building ("a strong, plain structure, forty feet in length by

twenty in width") in 1 891 . From 1 894, with the arrival of

the first teachers, and for decades thereafter, it served

as the only public building in the village, combining

the functions of schoolhouse, teachers' residence, Presbyterian mission, and community hall. Vene Gambell, the first teacher, claimed that the schoolhouse was built "on the outskirts" of the village

(Gambell 1 91 0:3); one of his photographs in 1 897 depicts a large empty space at one side of the school Oackson 1 898:36). The practice of the time was to place

schoolhouses (and the teachers) some distance apart

from the Native residential area. Today's elders, however, remember the old school building of the 1 920s

and 1 930s located at the center of the community, sur- rounded from all sides by Native houses. That suggests that the village of the late 1 800s was made of

several dispersed house clusters or neighborhoods, with

plenty of free space in between (Fig. 65). The next significant event in village history was

the "big flood" of 1 914 (or 1 91 3). Several accounts of

the "big storm" of 1914 were first recorded by anthropologists Alexander and Dorothea Leighton in 1 940;

many of today's elders recount similar stories they heard

from their parents (Leighton 1 940; see Akuzilleput2002).

The storm reportedly created a huge wave that flooded

a whole section of the historic village. It wiped out

several houses and an entire small neighborhood located at or close to today's beach. That forced the residents to move out and to rebuild their houses on higher

ground in the central portion of the village, close to

the school building. As a result, the former spatial structure of the village, made of several separate neighborhoods was dramatically transformed:

There were a lot of houses made of walrus

hide (in Gambell). Some of them are under

the sea now, especially two of them that I know belonged to the Tungiyan's and

Anangti's. . . . Our house was where the boat

racks are now. To the north was Temkeru's.

Farther north from Temkeru's was Kaningok's

and to the west of the meat racks was

Nemayak's. These three houses were also located where the boat racks are now.

At that time the beach was farther down and

there was no erosive waves back then. At

least the waves did not go beyond the banks

of the beach.

Back in those days when the waves started getting bigger than normal, we (also) moved

from our original place to where we are now. The waves weren't really that big but every- body decided to move (Lloyd Oovi in Sivuqam^ 985:] 0-] 7).

As some families were forced to move their dwellings

to the center, those who lived at the southern end decided to leave for good. Shortly after the storm of 1 9 1 4, they moved to reindeer herders' camps in the interior

of St. Lawrence Island. Eventually, they settled at the new village of Savoonga, forty-five miles from Gambell.

Anthropologist Riley Moore, who visited the village in 1912, shortly before the "big flood," reported

that some families were already using lumber frame

houses during the summer months "but they (the residents) move into Native houses built of [walrus] hides

and driftwood as soon as cold weather begins" (Moore

1 923:350). It was the prohibitive cost of imported lumber that kept the number of frame houses low. By

the 1 930s, however, the transition to lumber houses was almost complete and the last traditional skin-covered dwelling was dismantled in the summer of 1940

(Hughes 1960:16). Still, an old tradition of using two

types of residences during the year—a winter house

and a summer skin tent (gw/gu)—persisted, as almost

every family kept separate lumber structures for its sum- mer and winter occupation. This combination of wooden

208 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
65/ St Lawrence Island Yupik women and children in front ofa traditional semi-subterranean house, nenglu, 1 889, one of the earliest historical photographs of Sivuaqaq/Cambell, showing the very dispersed nature of the old

village, with plenty ofempty space in between the house clusters.

structures, boat-racks, scattered whalebones, and vertical jaw-poles made a picturesque image of the village, as seen from many photographs (Fig. 66) and

visitors' accounts:

As approached from the direction of the sea, the village was seen as a cluster of wooden

houses arranged roughly in three straggling rows running parallel to the western beach. In front of the houses and typical of practically

all Eskimo settlements were the many whalebone racks within easy reach of the water, onto which whaleboats and skin-covered

Native craft were lashed.

The center of the village was clearly the square bounded by the newly constructed

schoolhouse and teachers' quarters, the community store, the nurse's residence and

dispensary, and the Presbyterian mission, the

oldest building in the village and the first permanent white construction, which dated

from the late 1 890s and for many years served as church, school, and community

meeting hall. The fifty or so Eskimo houses were constructed of lumber imported from the mainland, and they could be grouped by a

casual glance into two types. . . . The first type of house was typically the summer

dwelling place, and the second was the

structure in which a family spent the winter. Most families had a house of each kind

(Hughes 1960:1 5-16).

In the 1 930s, some lumber houses were transformed

into winter dwellings, with old-style sleeping places of

reindeer skins (agra) built inside. Families stopped using seal-oil lamps for heating and cooking, and switched

to coal and oil fuel stoves. Then, the skin-covered sleeping places were dismantled as described in Akuzilleput

(2002:412):

I was born in 1 926, and our old (winter) house was still there. Then my uncle Waamquun

built another house of a similar shape to the

old winter home. The whole frame-house, but

with this (round-shape) front, like the old winter-home. And he put the same agra

inside. But soon after that it was gone, when

they put the heater inside. And after that they just moved to their summer house year- round.

I was probably five or six years old, when my

uncle built this new house and put the agra

inside. But later on there was no more agra. They made a full room and a little door, so

that we could go in and out. And we started

to use kerosene heater or other heater to heat

IGOR KRUPNIK 209
the room. And stopped using seal-oil lamps. I was probably ten years old, when it happened

[1935 to 1938]" (Anaggun/Ralph Apatiki, Sr.,

1 999).

We did the same thing at about the same

time, in the later part of the (1 9)30s. But our

family was using a wood stove. And also kerosene lamp for the light, until we finally

got electricity here. It happened about 1940

(Akulki/Conrad Oozeva, 1999).

Then all people remodeled their homes. They

changed their inner rooms, they put lumber

instead of fur (wall covers) inside. And also made doors and windows instead of these

reindeer skins we used to go under. They made

the same winter houses but just put lumber on

the outside instead of the walrus hides with ropes (Kepelgu/Willis Walunga, 1999).

The 1 940s to the 1 9605 also witnessed several major

construction projects run by outsiders at or close to

the historic village. First, the new housing section for

the personnel of the Civil Aeronautics Administration

(CAA) was built a short distance from the village, beginning in 1 943. After World War II, two U.S. military bases

operated near Gambell between 1948 and 1958 (Hughes

1 960:295-304, 351-3; Mobley 2001 ;8-l 0). A small airstrip appeared to the south of the historic village in

1 940, which was expanded during World War II. Several

old pits, meat-cellars, and whole sections of the "old

site" were destroyed by this construction. Finally, during the 1 960s, a huge new schoolhouse was built in

the middle of the village near the central public place.

The historic school building erected in 1891 and later

transformed into a Presbyterian church, was torn down,

marking a symbolic end to the era started in 1891 to

1894.A far more radical shift happened during the 1 970s,

when new state and governmental funding became available in Alaska due to increased oil and gas tax revenues. Between 1 972 and 1 982, a new town was built on the exposed gravel spit between the lake and northern

shore, about half a mile (500-1 ,000 meters) from the

old village. Some fifty new family houses were constructed, accompanied by several public buildings

Corgensen 1 990:1 54-7). These buildings were erected

in regularly arranged rows, with no linear connection

to the main axis of the old village. Some families, nevertheless, chose to stay in their old houses close to the

western beach. As a result, the overall area now occupied by the community has increased almost tenfold. The system of the "old" and "new" village sites (almost

thirty years old now) is likely to be preserved for years,

since several family houses in the "old village" have

been remodeled and even upgraded for continuous

occupation.

The Social Construction of Landscape

As change swept through the village of Sivuqaq/

Gambell, outside visitors and Native residents kept re- markably different images of the same site. To outsiders, it was a chaotic conglomerate of clumsy skin-houses,

lumber cabins, and boat-racks arranged in irregular groupings and "straggling rows." For the residents, their village was a highly organized universe, a network of

well-defined and tightly knit units and neighborhoods

that influenced every form of subsistence and social

activity. In analyzing historical narratives, one has to

grasp and reconcile those two different mental constructions. Unfortunately, early visitors left few references to the spatial composition of the traditional community, whereas the residents' perspective on the organization of their village was not documented until recently. The first Native account of life in Sivuqaq/

Gambell in the early 1900s was published in 1985

(Sivuqam 1985:10-17, Lloyd Oovi's narrative and

map), while another critical resource, a village census and map made by Paul Silook in 1 930, remained

virtually unknown until few years ago (see Akuzilleput

2002:383-97).

Outsiders until the early 1900s (Moore 1923) did

not recognize the core element of the village social

order, the patrilineal clans (ramket). Otto Geist made

some vague references to "sections," into which the

traditional village of Sivuqaq/Cambell was divided;

these "sections" were reportedly occupied by families

"[that were] closely related by blood or by communal

210 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
66/Cambell's landscape as of summer 1 930, with a modernized lumber house, drying racks, boats, and remains

ofa bowhead whale hunt in the foreground.

interests" (Ceist and Rainey 1936:1 1). Today's elders remember such clusters of houses occupied by related

families as the way their community was organized

spatially and socially in their childhood years (Akuzilleput

2002:400, 407-8):

The relatives, the clans used to live close together all the time, from the old days.

Pugughileghmlit tried to stay together and

Sanighmelnguut on the other side" (Kepelgu/

Willis Walunga, 1999).

As far as 1 remember, we lived together with

my grandparents from my mother's side. My

grandfather's name was Temkeruu. . . . The

nearest house to us was (that of) Aatghilnguq,

my grandfather's younger brother, and his family close-by. And another nearby house was of other close relative, Qanenguq. And

Mangtaquli, another close relative, was close- by too. But Aatghilnguq, my grandfather's

younger brother and family, was the most

close to us (Avalak/Beda Slwooko, 1999).

I think, most of the families, the clans tried to

stick together. But after this big storm, when

many houses were destroyed, they started moving their houses to the higher grounds.

Since that time, it somehow started to be

taken apart [the close kin residencies]

(Akulki/Conrad Oozeva, 1999).

The spatial position of residential kin neighborhoods was not documented until the exact location of most

of the family houses revealed in Paul Silook's and Lloyd

Oovi's maps had been checked against village censuses of 1 91 0, 1 920, and 1 930. In the early 1 900s, the

village consisted of at least six such neighborhoods.

At the southern end, there was a group of skin-houses

belonging to the Qiwaaghmiit clan, originally from Siberia. Slightly to the north of the Qiwaaghmiit, families from two villages abandoned after the famine of 1 878-

80, Nasqaq [Nasqaghmiit] and Nangu-pagaq

[Nangupagaghmiit], formed their own tiny neighborhood. When the Qiwaaghmiit moved to reindeer camps

following the flood of 1914, the site occupied by the Nasqaghmiit and the Nangupagaghmiit became the

"new" southern end of the village.

Members of the Pugughileghmlit clan built at least two more separated house clusters closer to the old beach area and farther north of the NangupagaghmiitNasqaghmiit residences. Both clusters were abandoned

IGOR KRUPNIK 211
after 1914, when several houses were washed away

by storms. The Pugughileghmiit then moved their houses to the central area near the school building.

The area to the north of the old schoolhouse was occupied by a large neighborhood of the Sanighmelnguut

clan, also from Siberia. Finally, the northern end of the

historic village was the residential area of the small

Uwaaliit clan (literally, "the northernmost people"). A

few smaller house groups belonging to other clans

created additional tiny neighborhoods.

Similar clan-based residential neighborhoods existed in many Yupik communities in Siberia, from which

several Gambell clans had originated. In the Siberian

Yupik villages, clans or clan sub-sections (close family

groups or lineages) exerted substantial territorial control over many components of the village landscape

(Krupnik and Chlenov 1 997). These included the boatracks area; sites for underground meat storages, boat

launching, and landing at the beach; areas for clan and

family/lineage rituals off the main village; places where

sled dogs were kept; and lineage and/or clan sections

in village graveyards. Such a spatial organization probably existed in a similarly organized community of

Sivuqaq/Gambell during the late 1 800s and early 1 900s.

It could be reconstructed from today elders' memories

and stories passed from older generations.

There is surprisingly little indication in the early

records of any higher form(s) of socio-territorial division in the community, other than clan and kin residential neighborhoods. William F. Doty, the schoolteacher

in 1 898-1 900, made a brief reference to two "factions"

in the village, one which was affiliated by marriage

with the "Indian Point Natives," or the people from the Yupik village of Ungaziq on the Siberian mainland.

These two factions, reportedly, "two or three years ago

[were] on the verge of fighting, but at present appear to

respect a truce" (Doty 1 900:1 89). The lack of evidence

is even more puzzling, as present-day elders have strong

memories of two former "halves" of their old village,

the Akingaghmiit {people of the southern side) and the Uwatangaghmiit{peop\e of the "farther," or northern side)

that existed during the early- and mid-1 900s (Akuzilleput

2002:404).

The side to the north of the old school building, of the central place was called Uwatanga,

uwatangaghmii, and the other side, the southern

side was called Akinga, akingaghmii.

Uwatangaghmiit—Akingaghmiit. Our family was

from the Akingaghmiit, from the southern side (Anaggun/Ralph Apatiki, Sr., 1 999).

That was how we remembered the old village

[of Gambell]... They probably made this division between the north and the south side

to make it easier to describe (the village), to understand. Otherwise, it would be one whole

big village (Akuiki/ Conrad Oozeva, 1 999).

Because the old schoolhouse was so small, every time they had to bring people together, one half of the village goes in one hour and

then another side, the southern side (of the

village) goes in another hour. Our family was

included into the "northern side" (Kepelgu/

Willis Walunga, 1999).

Such a "south-north" opposition created a well-balanced

spatial system, similar to the one that existed in the

largest Siberian Yupik communities, Ungaziq (Chaplino,

Indian Point) and Nevuqaq (Naukan—see Krupnik and

Chlenov 1 997). The space "in between" thus made the

ideal spatial center, the most logical village public

space. This central place in historic Sivuqaq/Gambell was indeed the favorite community site for wrestling,

racing, and other athletic competitions (Fig. 67); it was

called Qellineq ("something that gets packed down from

pressure"). In /A/ct/z/7/epwf (2002:406) it is described thus:

In the middle of the (old) village, somewhere

in this area, there was a place called Qellineq.

It was the place where they all got together

for wrestling, weight-lifting, running. There were rocks for lifting. But this place is gone

now, all gone (Kepelgu/Willis Walunga, 1999).

We lived very close to the center of the

village, to the old school building. They used

to have a place there, it is "old" new houses

now. . . . where the young people used to build their muscles. It had a lot of big-size

rocks and also a big circle where they used to

run. This place was something like an annex

near the old school building. . . . And many

other people in these old days, they wake up

212 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
67/ Two men wrestle, while other villagers watch nearby, atQellineq, the traditional village public space near the

"old school" building in Sivuqaq/Cambell, St. Lawrence Island, 191 2.

early in the morning and run to that central

area, every morning. Just to watch younger

people running or wrestling or doing something (else) (Avalak/Beda Slwooko, 1999).

One of the most favored men's pastimes at the qellineq

ground, beyond wrestling and racing around a special

running circle (aqfaquq), was rock-lifting. A set of huge

round-shaped boulders used as lifting stones was once

a remarkable social feature of Gambell landscape

(Moore, 1 923:365; Akuzilleput, 2002;1 94);

The traditional recreation area (Qellineq) used

to be where the elementary school is now

located. There were a lot of big round-shaped

rocks (uyghaget). These rocks each weighed

from 60 to 400 pounds each. Maybe even more. These rocks were brought there by only one man, Neghqun. He must have been very strong

because the rocks he carried were huge (Lloyd

Oovi in Sivuqam 1 985;1 2-1 3).

Reconstructing Other Components of

Sivuqaq Ethnographic Landscape

Other landmarks in and beyond the historic village site were parts of shared ethnographic landscape created

by the community over the years. The beach and the

surf zone was always the key component of the village area, as men launched their hunting boats almost

every morning and brought the animals they killed to

butcher, process, and to share the food. The beaches

off the historic village have different names: Aywaa or Paamna, on the northern side, and Uughqa or Saamna

(literally "south side, one down below"), along the western shore. The storage racks for skin-boats (Angyilghat) were built both to the west and north of the tip of the

cape called Singikrak. Three names were used for sections of the beach area: Imun, the lower zone behind

the first beach ridge that flooded during the high storms

only; Aatneq, the surf area where children played; and

Qaasqaq, the highest portion of the beach (pers. com.,

Kepelgu/Willis Walunga 2001; Fig. 68). The boat-rack

area was also used for special spring offering ceremonies, eghqwaaq, performed separately by each kin-based

boat crew (Sivuqam 1989:162-3).

The beach was the main focus of community daily

life for most of the year, but other areas were used

IGOR KRUPNIK 213
farther away from shore. Children needed a place to

play, and women always looked for places to gather

water, collect grass, greens, and berries, and discard refuse. The dead had to be buried. Many family and clan rituals were performed outdoors, often at a significant distance from the village. Finally, there was a need for

both physical and social place for community entertainment, sport events, and meetings with visitors and

guests. In the "old times," there was the never-ending

need for community defense against raids from other

island villages and from nearby Siberia, requiring a sys- tem of look-outs and fortified positions in case of en- emy attack, and protected shelters for defense. Additional "defense perimeter" was created by dog-sled teams

carefully positioned on the village outskirts, so that

the main community area was literally encircled by the guarding ears of the sled dogs (pers. com., Branson Tungiyan 2001 ). The site of the old underground houses {Nenglulluget)

south of the village was famous for its tall grass, picked

in summer by women and girls and used as insulation inside the roofs and walls of skin winter houses

{Sivuqam 1 989:1 02-4). Farther south, and at some distance from the historic village, lies a former meeting

place for the Pugughileghmiit, people who lived in the

village of Pugughileq, at Southwest Cape. William F.

Doty (1900:206, 231) described witnessing a complicated ceremony of greeting the visiting Pugughileghmiit

in the fall of 1 898. A special place used for community

ball games was once located "in back of the village."

There, men would play against men with a wooden

ball, and girls against boys using a softball (ibid. :1 93;

Silook 1 976:24; Sivuqam 1 985:22-3). When visitors from

Siberia arrived at Cambell, ball games usually occurred

in three locations: at the southern end of the west beach

{al<ingan qaasqaa), north beach {uwatangan qaasqaa),

and east of the village (tunutangani [the back area]; Sivuqam 1 987:1 38-9). Other sites for wrestling and racing competitions were located at the western beach,

at the central area (Qellineq), and along the northern

shore. The circular route for foot-racing, Kilgaaqu, nearly

two miles long, was an important component of the

local landscape. During the summer, "often parties of

fifteen to thirty [men and youth] may be seen running

upon this track" (Moore 1923:364).

There was a special place for arrow-shooting practice, off the "old village" site (Nenglulluget) called

Pitegseghaghvik (pers. com., Kepelgu/Willis Walunga

2001 ). Collins referred to "three rows ofjumping stones"

(nanghiissat) located on top of the Cambell Mountain,

about two miles from the village. According to his Yupik

assistants, those stones were once used by young men

while training to become runners or strong warriors

(Collins 1 937:354-5). A documentary made in 1930 and

preserved at the National Anthropological Archives,

Smithsonian Institution, shows Collins' assistants duly

demonstrating such training practices.

Little information exists on the location of the communal graveyard before the move to the historic village. Cambell, the first teacher between 1 894 and 1 897,

claimed that

formerly the dead were interred near the

houses; later they were placed in a cave(?) or an old house, of which there are three or more now partly filled with bones. Now when

a death occurs, . . . four to ten men drag the body over the ground about a mile to a rocky

bluff 600 feet high. Children are placed at the

foot and important persons near the top, while

those of low degree are stationed midway

(Cambell 1898:143).

Ceist reported the same distribution of individual

burial sites along the mountain slope during the

1 920s (Ceist and Rainey 1 936:30). The present-day

community graveyard is located at the same place,

about one-and-a-half miles from the historic village, on the rocky slope of the Sevu-okuk Mountain. There

is even a reference to the special "suicide place"

east of the village, where people used to end their

life near a big rock, brought from the mountain by a

strong man, Neghqun (Sivuqam 1 989:1 67).

Otto Ceist, who spent the winter of 1928-1929

in Cambell, referred to

several places of worship . . . located at

214 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF CAMBELL
many places between the cape mountain

and the village, particularly near the shore of the lake. All had small fireplaces often containing freshly charred wood. Offerings

[to the deceased ancestors] were put under

large rocks, with several reindeer skulls and

antlers from Siberia and polar bear skulls left at these places by worshippers (Geist and

Rainey 1936:30).

Such family or, more often, lineage ritual sites were

used for the fall memorial ceremonies, AghqesaghWq.

In Siberia, each Yupik village had several family sites

or a whole area with many sites located close by

(Krupnik 2001 b: 307-1 5). These sites were still in use

in Sivuqaq/Cambell during the 1 930s (Fig. 69), as seen

from the following story:

Ataayaghhaq would often go to offer

sacrifices (aghqesaghtutuuq) down [from the

old village] where the new housing is now

(about 1 50 yards north of Troutman Lake).

The altar [ritual site (aghqesaghtughvik)] was

along the lake shore somewhere between

where Anangiq's and Kegyuuqen's houses

are now. Ataayaghhaq never used matches

to start a fire at his altar. . . .Ataayaghhaq

would let us know when he was going to be

doing these things. He would call only

youngsters to come along on his sacrificing

trips. Our family place of sacrifice was around

Tapeghaq [a site by the lake] (Nuughnaq/

Ruby Rookok, 1984; Sivuqam 1987:145-7).

Evidence of the ancient fortifications and defense structures was seen in the remains of old

whale jaws "jutting out from the sand between the sea and the

lake" east of the historic village. These bones were reportedly the few surviving remnants

of many such jaws erected as a

barricade for protection in case

of invasion by the Siberian

people (Geist and Rainey

1936:26). Another old defensive structure noted by Collins

(n.p.) was made of whale jaws

to the south from the village

(Akuzilleput2QQ2:227). Today's

residents still remember stories

heard from elders about an old

"fortress" of whale jaw bones

(maniitet)— now completely

destroyed—that was once

built near the lake, so as not

be seen from the beach. It was

reportedly surrounded with

68/ Map ofSivuqaq/Cambell

area, with major local place

names, drawn by Willis Walunga, 2001.

/tp/<^(r^/ zooI

IGOR KRUPNIK 215
stone walls and used as a shelter in case of an attack from the sea (Eskimo Heritage Program 1 979). Stories about such raids by boatloads of warriors from Siberia

figure prominently in the folklore of the Sivuqaghhmiit,

the people of Cambell (Silook 1 976:4, 1 1 3-4). A network of historic trails was another important

component of the local ethnographic landscape. Al- though most transportation was done by boat (in summer) and dogsled (in winter), there were several established traditional trails, some with special names that connected the village of Gambell with the nearby settle- ments (see Sivuqam] 989: 1 76-9).

The adjacent seascape—with its system of shore

currents, tides, ice leads, and established hunting ar- eas—featured prominently in both physical and cultural environment. The sea and ice off Gambell, where

major subsistence hunting occurred, was watched constantly; and it was the focus of daily talks, community

concerns, valued cultural expertise, and knowledge

transmission. Dozens of local terms identified every

variation in sea, ice, and weather conditions, including

many terms for types of shore ice and beach ice formations {Sikumengllu Eslamengllu 2004).

Local ethnographic landscape and seascapes were

also filled with dozens of personal and place names, as

well as with innumerable stories and shared memories.

Such an oral tradition—the body of transmitted stories, memories, names, and images—was the "core" of every documented cultural environment built through generations of human occupation, use, storytelling, and

spiritual affiliation. Transmitted via shared narratives, it

helped maintain a strong bond between the community and its utilized space (Fair 1 999:29). Several dozen

old place names, stories about the origins of the village of Sivuqaq/Gambell, and other historic sites in the

area have been recorded (Sivuqam 1985,1987, 1989;

Akuzilleput 2002; Yupik Language 1 989). Many are still

recalled by today's elders and are now used in Yupik

cultural curriculum at the Gambell village school.

Finally, every successive ethnographic landscape was always but a segment of a larger cognized space

—physical, social, and spiritual— in the minds of its

residents. Before 1878, when St. Lawrence Island was

densely populated, earlier ethnographic landscapes had

been obviously construed as a network of smaller

spaces belonging to individual villages. Of those,

Sivuqaq/Gambell and its nearby communities, such as

Meregta, Nangupagaq, Nasqaq, as well as more distant

villages like Kukuiek, Pugughileq, were the key ele- ments of the islanders' cultural universe. The situation changed dramatically after all other settlements on the

islands were abandoned after 1 880. That left the area around today's Gambell as the only viable social landscape on the island. Nevertheless, the tradition related

to the old sites survived, and many abandoned villages were quickly restored as family hunting and fishing camps. Subsequently, these "other places" were reincorporated into the village ethnographic landscape

of the late 1 800s and early 1 900s. They remained the

sites of family and clan origins and identity; the focus

of constant longing, personal attachment, detailed local knowledge, and of innumerable narratives transmitted over generations.

That traditional ethnographic landscape changed

dramatically when the Yupik people of St. Lawrence

Island, once followers of traditional shamanistic worldviews, became devoted Presbyterian Christians, mainly

during the 1920s and 1930s Oolles 2002). There are few references to those earlier spiritual landscapes where

humans shared the land and the sea with various game

spirits, "site masters," malignant spirits, wghneghat, and

other supernatural beings. One can draw certain parallels with the way(s) the Yupik people in Siberia regarded their universe up to the 1 950s and even in the

1 980s (Krupnik and Vakhtin 1 997:243).

Evolution of Sivuqaq/Gambell Ethnographic

Landscape(s)

Henry B. Collins, a Smithsonian archaeologist, was the

first to outline an almost 2,000-year sequence of ancient occupational sites and major related cultural

stages at and around Gambell (Collins 1931:138-42,

216 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF CAMBELL
69/ Traditional sacrificial site at the outskirts ofSivuqaq/Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, 1 930.

1937:32-5). Collins' approach may be used to build a

similar framework in the evolution of local ethnographic

landscape(s) that followed transition in cultural/occupational stages. Of course, such a synopsis of changes

in local ethnographic landscape is a product of many

guesses. The main challenge here is to find the way

and proper justification for one to identify contigu- ous stages in an age-long transition versus what may

be regarded as separate (independent) landscapes.

This issue will be addressed at the very end of this

section. Whatever scenario may seem plausible to an outsider ethnohistorian, it would never be the only version available, as the saga of village history has—and

probably always had—several interpretations. Some

gaps between the scientists' records and the narratives

shared by today's residents of Sivuqaq/Gambell (only

a small portion of which is written down and available

in English) can be bridged. Other discrepancies, particularly with regard to absolute dates, the size of the

pre-contact island population, and the links between

ancient and more recent communities would be harder

to accommodate. Likewise, the story of the "early days"

in Sivuqaq/Gambell area and of people's relations to

the surrounding landscape remains a work in progress

in the minds of its residents and in anthropologists'

writing alike.

Old "Prehistoric" Sites (Mayughaaq, Ayveghyaget)

The people of Sivuqaq evidently preserved some

historical tradition related to many abandoned ancient sites in the area by the time both Collins and

Geist started their work in 1 927-1 930. Ancient sites' names were quickly recorded and a few stories related to the old villages were documented (e.g., Geist

and Rainey 1936:12). Those ancient sites are still

featured in some narratives related to the origins of the community of Sivuqaq/Gambell {Sivuqam

1989:178-9). The site names, however, are recent

rather than age-old place names and are clearly

based on words from the present-day St. Lawrence

Island Yupik language. Similarly, no present-day clan

IGOR KRUPNIK 217
traces its origins to those ancient sites; nor have

any former associated clan names been reported.

The continuity gap notwithstanding, the ruins of

ancient sites around Sevuokuk Mountain and stories

related to them were somehow (re)incorporated into

the local ethnographic landscape of the late 1800s

and early 1 900s—as they obviously are today.

The Siqiuwaghyaget Village (1 500 to 1 700)

Surprisingly, no similar stories have been recorded re- garding the later village site near the Nayvaaq

(Troutman) Lake that was reportedly populated until

the 1 SOOs-l 700s (cf. Collins 1 937:1 89). No present clan

or family on the island traces its origins to former residents of the village. Evidently, no viable oral tradition

related to the Siqiuwaghyaget community was around

even seventy years ago, when both Collins and Geist

searched for stories about early area settlements. This

is the most stunning gap in the area's continuity; save any focused effort by today's elders to retrieve stories

they once heard from their forefathers, that old ethnographic landscape is lost.

The "Old Site"(l700s to the 1850s)

Very little is remembered of the later community known

as Manighmiit that resided in several underground

houses closer to the beach and south of the historic

village of the 1 900s. The only observation of that community belonged to a Russian Navy captain. Otto von Kotzebue (1 81 7), offering hardly any clue to the physical and social setting of the time (Kotzebue 1821:195-

6, cited in Collins 1937:21). Still, some elders of today

claim that their grandparents or great-grandparents were

born at the "old site" with the underground dwellings,

Nenglulluget, and, hopefully, some memories of that

old landscape may still be recorded.

The Pre-famine "Historic Village" (before

1878)

We know some general facts about the size, physical

shape, and the composition of the pre-famine community and of its landscape. The village was then quite

big and located slightly more to the south, compared

to the village of the 1 900s. It was already composed of

several clans and clan residential neighborhoods, and was undergoing a rapid transition from semi-subterra- nean houses (nenglu) to surface skin-covered dwellings (maiigteghapil<). Thanks to increased contacts with

whaling ships after 1 850, lumber was brought in, so that

the first wooden constructions appeared.

The most important transformation was probably a

spreading-out and a gradual northward advance of the more compact earlier settlement. It was advanced by

the arrival of several distinct clan groups, such as the

Pugugliileghmiit, "people from Pugughileq" at the South- west Cape, and the Aymaraml<et dan from Siberia. Both

groups obviously built their separate clan neighborhoods away from the earlier "old site." There is little chance, however, that we can reconstruct the pre-famine ethnographic landscape in any

detail, unless some yet unknown documentary records

are available. We know almost nothing about the way

the village was organized before the famine and where

the houses of those who perished and of those who

survived have been located. Elders of today are reluctant to share the old "famine stories," reportedly, because their parents and grandparents were unwilling to

talk to them about that tragic experience.

The "Preschool" Village (1880 to 1894)

There are many more general references and little specific data about the village landscape during the short

period between the famine and the arrival of the first

teachers in 1 894. Many old houses and several sections of the early "historic village" might have been

abandoned, as their residents perished during the famine. New houses were built and new clan neighborhoods were established by survivors from other island

villages and by Siberian migrants. Based on today's

fragmentary narratives, the post-famine village was

more a combination of isolated kin (clan) hamlets than

218 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
70/ Beach area in Sivuqaq/Cambell in 1 889, witin sun

tineir sl<in roofs removed for summer drying of the fit

the coherent settlement known from the later days.

The northernmost group, the Uwaliit, lived almost one

kilometer apart from the southernmost cluster of houses

at the opposite end of the village area. Many empty

spaces were available (Fig. 70), which were readily occupied by the incoming clans, with each group trying

to create the network of subsistence, storage, ritual, and burial areas of its own.

The "Skin-house" Village (1894 tol9l4)

This is the first ethnographic landscape of the past for which several records exist, including narratives of early

schoolteachers, historical photographs, village censuses

with personal names (of 1900 and 1910), and elders' memories. The village of Gambell around 1 905 had at

least three main residential neighborhoods or big house

clusters standing quite apart from each other (Sivuqam

1985:10-25). Most probably, the new schoolhouse

erected close to the central area (Qellineq) gradually

emerged as a center of social gravity and community

integration. As more and more winter skin-dwellings were built closer to this new core area, the community

started to look more like an integrated village.

r tents, storage racks, and winter wooden houses, with

area.

Overall, the landscape of the early 1900s can be

reconstructed with substantial details, including personal

stories related to activities and events at specific areas. The stories are still shared by today's elders, despite

the fact that many sections of the early ! 900s village were destroyed through the flood of 1 91 4, beach erosion, and house relocation.

The "Early Lumber-house" Village (1914 to 1935)

This is presently the core ethnographic landscape of

the so-called "historic village" that is solidly documented in many photographs, village censuses, and

elders' narratives. Its basic spatial feature was the bipolar and almost linear structure of the village, with the schoolhouse and the community area, Qellineq, at its

center. Several new houses had been built at and around

this central public area, so that by the late 1 920s there was no visible gap between the Uwatangaghmiitinonhern) and Akingaghmiit (southern) sections of the village. Both sections consisted of several clans and family/lineage groups.

Several areas and structures outside the main vilICOR KRUPNIK 219
lage were critical elements of this ethnographic landscape, such as the village cemetery, racing and meeting places, sacrificial sites, trails, and various public spaces

(see above). Whereas many of these features have been

physically destroyed, the virtual landscape is still re- membered in exquisite detail by many today's elders,

born during the early 1 900s.

The Lumber-house Village (1935 to 1 948)

That village is similarly well remembered by an even

greater number of today's seniors. Some evidence exists that its social landscape became more simplified,

as fewer traditional rituals in and particularly out of the

village have been performed (Sivuqam 1985:52-3).

Racing, wrestling, and other traditional athletic competitions became less common, replaced by church

ceremonies and July Fourth public celebrations. The

end of regular summer visits from Siberia eliminated

another key element of village communal life, together

with the sites and areas used for it.

Modernized "Old Village" (1940s to early

1970s)

This was another short-lived landscape that underwent

rapid transformation. The construction of new housing

for the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), a per- manent airstrip, and two military camps outside the village introduced some new and alien components to

the local setting.

Despite that, the village of the 1 950s and 1 960s

still had a general look of a traditional Native community (see pictures in Hughes 1960; Bandi 1984;

Wicker 1993), although parts of its traditional landscape were quickly eroding. Construction of the new

schoolhouse created a major dent in the center of

the historic village site, as the old schoolhouse was

torn down and the central public space, Qellineq, destroyed. The former wrestling and racing area was also

taken away by the new school building, and the huge

lifting stones were dumped outside the village. The

elders reportedly kept gathering at the old public space;

but little by little, this practice ceased as did daily athletic competitions, wrestling, and other traditional openair activities.

During that era, at least one traditional-like component was added to the local landscape at the beach and

boat-rack area {Qaasqaq). When tractors and other heavy

equipment became available in the 1950s, local whaling captains started to pull the heads of killed bowhead whales (skulls with jaw bones and baleen) onto

the beach in front of their houses. There are currently

eight groups of skulls and/or individual skulls with Jaw- bones along the boat-rack area. Each is remembered

by the name (or family) of the captain who killed the

whale. The skulls were left as "trophies," and no rituals were reportedly performed at their placements

(Akuzilleput 2002:422).

"New Village" (1 970 to present)

Finally, construction of the "new village" on the gravel

spit plain to the east of the historic village began in the

1 970s. This created an entirely new ethnographic landscape. Most of the village's public activities were relocated to a new communal space, Qemgughvik, near the new IRA building. The "new village," with its regular

lines of modular housing units, made the former community division of the Akingaglimiit and the Uwatangaghm//r obsolete. Some of the new houses were built right

at or very close to the old family ritual sites (Aghqesaghtughviget) near the lake. Many former subsistence areas were abandoned, like collecting tall grass for house

insulation. The underground meat-cellars went unused,

and four-wheelers and snowmachines replaced dog

teams. Yet, the community preserves its traditional beach

and boat-rack area outside the historic village and the

old graveyard on top of Sevuokuk Mountain. Several

families also maintain residence or keep up their old

houses at the "historic" site (Fig. 71 ).

Discussion: Preserving Sivuqaq/Gambell

Ethnographic Landscapes

Such a multi-layer historical "stratigraphy" of the

220 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
71/ Section of the "old village" ofSivuqaq/Gambell, 2001

.

Sivuqaq/Gambell area offers certain guidelines, upon

which the overall succession of its ethnographic landscapes could be construed. If the continuity in communal life, in shared memories, and in people's identity

is to be taken as the main criterion, the sequence of

the post-1880, or the "pre-school," "pre-flood," "lumber-house," and the "modernized" village settings represent stages in one "ethnographic landscape." That

landscape, nevertheless, had incorporated elements

of several earlier settings, including those from the ancient communities that once lived at the Mayughaaq,

Ayveghyaget, and Siqiuwaghyaget sites, with which

the later residents of Sivuqaq/Gambell had hardly any

direct ties. These old village sites represent remnants

of the previous ancient landscapes. Of those, nothing

but modern names, some physical traces, and a few

related stories remain.

Enough evidence exists to argue that a gruesome

population loss during the famine of 1878-1880

caused a huge gap in local landscape continuity. Although the community itself was quickly restored, it

preserved but a fraction of the old residential population; the survivors were then mixed with and culturally

incorporated by the various groups of migrants, who

built a new social system (cf. Krupnik 1994). One sign

of the new spatial order was the move of the village graveyard to a place some 1.5 miles away, to

the slopes of the Sevuokuk Mountain. The emerging linear shape and the "South-North" (AkingaghmiitUwatangaghmiit) division of the village site was another

sign of a profound landscape reorganization caused

by the famine. A similar break in landscape continuity

took place almost a hundred years later, when the "new village" was constructed at its present site, al- most a mile away from the "old village."

As newer types of dwellings gradually replaced

older ones and the main village site moved several

times over the centuries, many components of the earlier ethnographic landscapes were all but abraded, both

physically and mentally. In this respect, the village of

IGOR KRUPNIK 221
Sivuqaq/Cambell is hardly different from many historic towns and villages that weathered dramatic cultural change and historically insensitive development

wrapped as "modernization. " Scores of such communities made great progress in protecting their legacy via

preservation efforts—restoring old buildings; bringing new residents and tourists to the once emptied streets.

It is much harder, though, to recreate the mental or memory framework of the old landscape. Here, few

protective or economic measures would suffice; rather

a combination of policies is needed that will match

preservation with cultural revitalization, education, and

other public programs. The story of today's Sivuqaq/

Cambell is quite instructive in this regard.

First, the village of Sivuqaq/Cambell, and St. Lawrence Island in general, underwent substantial changes

in its legal status over the last thirty to fifty years. Once

a Native territory, it came under the de facto U.S. Coast Guard supervision in the 1 880s and became a govern- ment reindeer reservation in 1903. The first system of

local government, the IRA council (under the Indian

Reorganization Act [IRA] of 1934) was established in

1 939; the locally elected City Council (since 1 963) and

Native Corporation supplemented it (since 1971, see

Callaway and Pilyasov 1 993:27; Little and Robbins 1 984:

53-8). Today, Sivuqaq/Cambell is, again, a self-administered community, with almost all its land, surface, and

subsurface resources administered by the local Native

corporation owned by Native shareholders.

Second, the physical connection of the community

to its traditional village and the surrounding landscape

remains basically unbroken. Most of today's residents

cross the old village site every day when they go out

hunting or come from the beach area. Several families

continue to live at the "old village" permanently. Third,

the present-day community is blessed by a very strong

and dedicated group of elders, who are the guardians

of local knowledge, cultural heritage, and of a thriving

tradition of storytelling. Narratives about the "old village" are duly recalled; they are commonly shared, retold in public, and taught at the local school under the

Yupik language curriculum program (see below). Those

stories remain a critical channel for community coherence and continuity. Fourth, the modern community of Sivuqaq/Cambell generally maintains the old social system on which it was founded, the clan and extended

kin network. Several clan and family groups still identify certain areas in the old village, or across the nearby

landscape, as places of special value to their tradition.

Thus, the old landscape contains not only a past heritage, but it persists as a fully functional terrain for today's

living community.

This view of local ethnographic landscape as a con- temporary functional cultural terrain is critical in designing any strategy for its preservation. Traditionally,

attention has been focused on the protection of

Cambell's unique archaeological sites. Native residents, visiting diggers, and professional archaeologists

in search of old artifacts and fossil ivory have long

exploited those ancient sites. By 1 980, most archaeological sites around Sivuqaq/Cambell were badly damaged by generations of excavations and unregulated

digging (Crowell 1985, 1987). In 1988, five prehistoric

sites at or around Cambell had lost their national land- mark status, because their archaeological and historic

value had essentially been destroyed by artifact digging activities. They are still listed on the National

Register of Historic Places (Mobley 2001 :2).

Little can stop "subsistence digging," as the islanders' excavation of ancient sites is often called (Staley

1993:348; Mobley 2001:2). All land on St. Lawrence

Island is privately owned by the village corporations

of Cambell and Savoonga, and no current federal or

state antiquities laws apply to protect the island's archaeological resources. Many elders acknowledge that

unregulated digging is destroying the most valuable component of cultural heritage (Fig. 72); but no solution is in sight unless other sources of income become

available, as the sale of archaeological artifacts provides critical income to many families (Crowell 1 987:2;

Jorgensen 1990:172; Staley 1993:349). Competition

over old artifacts and ivory also explains people's re222 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
72/ Viewofthe former Siqiuwaghyaghet site, now almost destroyed by "subsistence digging," 2001

.

sistance to any heritage regulations that may limit access to and freedom of excavation at the ancient sites. The preservation of the historic ethnographic landscape is, however, a different story. No commercial value

has been identified for the old village site and no outside body challenges the Sivuqaq/Cambell village

corporation's control over the land management in this

area. Hence, the village corporation, in cooperation

with the IRA council and the mayor's office, could establish a regime aimed at protecting the old site. Today, the corporation has no protection strategy for the

historic village area; nor is there a shared recognition

of its special cultural value. The shortage of funds,

coupled with the elders' aversion to new construction,

has saved the historic village from a large-scale renovation so far. Smaller efforts, however, are eagerly supported, like the recent initiative in digging for old whale- bones for resale to commercial artists and souvenir

shops on the mainland. Some land is also owned by

agencies other than the village corporation, such as

the airstrip area at the southern edge of the historic

village, which are under the control of the Department

of Transportation (Federal Aviation Administration).

Plans exist to expand the village airstrip to make it

suitable for bigger planes, but this construction would

threaten the large section of the "old site " with remains

of semi-subterranean houses near the lake. Beyond site protection, several other strategies may

be used in historical landscape preservation at the "old town " of Sivuqaq/Cambell, such as: education; historical documentation; community re-creation; creation of

a local museum and/or cultural center; and regulated

tourism. Even in a small town of 650 residents, this

creates a challenging need for coordination, if not consensus, among many different local players.

For example, cultural education is the prime responsibility of the Cambell village school system. It combines local elementary, middle, and high school; but it

is placed under the overall supervision of the Bering

Straits School District administration located some 500

miles away, in the mainland town of Unalakleet. Since

1 987-89, the Cambell school has established the Yupik

IGOR KRUPNIK 223
Language and Culture Curriculum (Grades K-1 2) devel- oped by local educators. A highly knowledgeable and

enthusiastic Yupik teacher, Christopher Koonooka, is

currently teaching a Crade-9 course named "The History of St. Lawrence Island" (including the history of

Sivuqaq/CambeW), in one class per week. Unfortunately, no visual materials, such as historical photographs and

old maps are used, and no teacher's guide is available. When talking to students, it is obvious that a few hours

of classes hardly suffice to project elders' stories onto

today's terrain and into the minds of those born in the

very different setting of the modern village site. Many local programs, such as the Yupik Lan- guage and Culture Curriculum at the Gambell High

School, the Eskimo Heritage Program of the

Kawerak Inc. in Nome, and the regional Elders' Conferences could address documentation of the

Sivuqaq/Gambell ethnographic landscape history.

Some outside efforts may be helpful; individual

scholarly research projects have much to contribute, too. As this chapter illustrates, there is no

shortage of both written and oral resources to document the local ethnographic landscape history, but no special brochure, catalog, or illustrated guidebook is available. Pending adequate funding, a popular history of local ethnographic landscape

can be produced. It may be formatted as a re- gional heritage report; illustrated community

sourcebook; a bilingual collection of elders' stories; Native heritage curriculum; site-survey report; area ethnohistory; catalog of local place

names—or any combination of the above (e.g.,

Akuzilleput 2002; Burch 1981; Fair this volume;

Koutsky 1 981 ; Sivuqam 1 985; Ublasaun 1 996; Yupik

Language 1 989).

A re-creation (both physical and mental) of certain

historic spaces and related activities is another established strategy to strengthen people's connection to

their former cultural environment. The residents of Sivuqaq/Gambell had a successful experience in such

a re-creation: in 1 976, as a part of the U.S. Bicentennial

activities, they erected a modern replica of the

mangteghapik, winter skin-house, and nenglu, old semisubterranean house, at the southern end of the village.

Both buildings were not maintained properly and eventually went into disrepair.

At present, the town of Sivuqaq/Gambell has neither a local museum nor a cultural center to display its

history and heritage, save a small exhibit of traditional

ethnographic objects in glass cases at the village high

school and an even smaller private display of archeological artifacts at the main corporation building. Neither is open on a regular basis, and neither feature old photographs or other images of the former historical

landscape. Discussions about building a small local mu- seum or a community cultural center continue; but short- age of funds is prohibitive. With some imagination and

local initiative, alternative strategies could be explored.

A few abandoned winter houses of the 1 930s are still

standing at the historic village site. The interiors can

be restored and filled with traditional daily objects and

historical photographs, perhaps hosting a display on

the former ways of village life, a small tourist center

(see below), or an educational facility for the history

classes under the Yupik Language Curriculum.

Finally, regulated commercial tourism could make

a substantial contribution, by bringing needed funds,

professional expertise, and public attention to the preservation of the local ethnographic landscape. Since

the early 1 990s, Gambell has been put on the route of many Arctic boat cruises; each year one or more tourist

ships visit the town and unload dozens, sometimes,

hundreds of tourists onto its streets. Usually, the tourists are taken to the public meeting place, Qemgughvik,

at the "new village," where they are entertained by the

village dancing team, often followed by a spontaneous

trade in ivory carvings and other craft souvenirs, and

by the tour to the old site, offered by local residents. The town, however, has no brochure or historical booklet

to offer to its visitors; nor is there a program for guide

training, established historical tours, or consistent tour

narrative. The village corporation is the prime agency

224 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ VILLAGE OF GAMBELL
to manage tourist activities and to authorize further

investment to make better use of local historical resources. So far, very little groundwork has been done,

and no assistance has been sought from the National

Park Service and many individual researchers, who happened to work in the community.

Conclusions

The village of Sivuqaq/Cambell on St. Lawrence Island

offers a remarkable set of ancient and recent ethnographic landscapes in various stages of preservation. It

has rich archaeological resources, with a 2,000-year

record of culture change that is backed by solid scientific excavation and thoroughly documented museum

collections. It enjoys abundant historical photography

and is home to a thriving Native community, one that

is strong in its cultural roots and in knowledgeable

elders. For the first time in decades, this community is now in control of its land and has the rights to protect

and to manage its historical resources.

At the same time, the village of Sivuqaq/Cambell

offers an excellent testing ground in what could be

done to preserve Native ethnographic landscapes across

the North; how this could be done; and why very little

has been done so far to advance such preservation.

Because of the island's specific legal status, no state and federal heritage protection regime is in place to

exert outside pressure. It remains for the local community to take full responsibility and install the system of

heritage efforts it deems desirable.

Today, the people of Sivuqaq/Cambell possess the

legal rights, cultural knowledge, and the awareness they

need for such a mission. It is almost like a "blank check"

to be invested in community heritage preservation; but

it will not be valid for a long time. Whereas governmental agencies are looking for strategies to protect

local ethnographic landscapes, it is the story in Sivuqaq/

Cambell and in many other Native communities across

the North—that really matters. Whether this is going to be a story of community success or failure, it is worth

recording.

Acknowledgments

This reconstruction of Sivuqaq/Gambell's ethnographic

landscapes is based on an approach developed during an earlier ethnohistorical survey of traditional Yupik

communities in Siberia (1975-1987), undertaken with

anthropologist Michael Chlenov. I also received en- couragement and inspiration from Ernest S. Burch Jr., who has proved that 200-year-old Native cultural landscapes could be successfully reconstrued via painstaking examination of ethnohistorical records and elders'

narratives (Burch 1 981 ; 1 998). The study of Cambell landscapes emerged as an outgrowth of an earlier cooperative heritage project (1998-2000), sponsored by the

National Science Foundation (OPP #9812981). I owe

special gratitude to Willis Walunga//<e/?e/^w of Cambell,

who introduced me to the riches of his community's

history and who was my major source of local expertise ever since. I also want to thank many current and

former residents of Cambell Stephen Aningayou/

Kiistivik , Ralph Apatiki Sr.,/Anagguh, Ora Cologerngen/

Ayuqi , Clarence Irrigoo/M/mg/w, Hansen Irrigoo/

Pulaaghuh, Winfredjames//<ww/w , Conrad Oozeva/Akulki,

Raymond Oozevuseuk/Awetaq, Beda Slwooko//4i/a/a/c,

and Branson Tungiyan/L/n^w^/t/ . They were very gener- ous in sharing their historical knowledge and personal

memories. My colleagues, Aron Crowell, William

Fitzhugh, Ingegerd Holand, Tonia Horton, Rachel Mason, Charles Mobley, and Cara Seitchek offered valuable comments and criticism. The study was accomplished thanks to the support of the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution; Cambell IRA Council; and

Western Arctic National Parklands office of the National

Park Service in Nome.

Note

1. This paper was written in 2000-2001 as a

follow-up to the St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage

project (Akuzilleput 2002). More discussions of

Cambell's history and social system may be found

in several recent publications, including Blumer 2002,

Jolles 2002, Mason 1998, Mason and Barber 2003,

Mudar and Speaker 2003.

IGOR KRUPNIK 225
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IGOR KRUPNIK 227
air

(] 5? 4-5-2005)

ill *y"ribute

HERBERT ANUNGAZUK

The field of anthropology harbors a cluster of many

interests. It is afield that attracts many disciplines deeper

into the depths of additional learning otherwise unforeseen in the societies they represent. Anthropology

has had its foot inside the mesh of arctic study for the

last century, but it seems that only within the last four decades has a new generation of anthropologists be- gun to pave the road to human sciences that is proper

to the culture and heritage of arctic people. There is

always exceptional time involved in working with the

Indigenous community; but the time spent will have

formed lasting friendships that are rarely severed in the

lifetime of a person. It is always a sad time when one is asked to produce a tribute about someone you have

worked with, especially in a field that probes into the

depths of your being and your culture.

Sadness was certainly felt by many when word was

received that Susan Wilhite Fair was no longer a part of

the world that has been created in the universal effort

to learn and understand northern cultures. I had not

expected to work in depth with Sue, but I began working with her following the unexpected passing in 1 997

of her able colleague, Edgar Nunageak Ningeulook of

Shishmaref, Alaska, a lifelong student of the culture and heritage of his people. Several of Sue's papers

contain information that is intimate to the people of

Shishmaref. Her early work as a manager in an art cooperative may have formed an interest to pursue studies in folklore because from art begins a story, and

from this Sue may have formed a solid interest to study

the ways of northern people. In my understanding of Sue Fair, one of her greatest interests was in the place- names of the land that reverberated into realness in any land. The place-names were christened upon the

land before time became numbers, and in the thoughts

of the generations who know the names, they continue to sing the gift to the people who knew that

the land would provide for them. Thus, Sue knew

and understood that the people had a special meaning with place.

Sue blended herself well into her work. She understood the stories of the land that the people told during her work with people who are of the land (Fig. 73). She noted the statement of Edgar's mother, Hattie

Ningeulook, when she included "These kinds of stories they always tell, our parents and grandparents. They

say that in those days past, the earth possesses them." Her note in what may be her final essay in "Eskimo

Drawings" that "the comparison of written records with

oral traditions is one of the most rewarding and painstaking jobs of the folklorist and historian" is a lasting

statement to anyone.

Sue's work included other subjects that are also

recognized as a part of the people among the people

of the Bering Strait. In our existence, she saw that the

effort to continue surviving in such a harsh land was a

reality that the people continue to face, despite the new reality that the people are facing today. Sue had

projects that are not finished; so some of the work that

she began before her passing may never be completed.

228
I saw Sue for the final time during the celebration and

presentation of the Eskimo Drawings exhibit in IVlay

2003. Sue, and I, and many distinguished participants

had been approached by Dr. Suzi Jones of the Anchorage jVluseum of History and Art to provide a paper that would enforce the forthcoming publication that was to

follow.

Sue's experiences in the art world were extensive,

and they include being the guest curator in several

installations throughout Alaska. She was especially

proud of her work in the Maniilaq Health Center in Kotzebue that was completed in 1 998, and the art and

ethnographic displays in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health

Center in Bethel.

Sue was born in the nation's capitol, Washington,

D.C., on June 22, 1 948. We found in the celebration of

her life that her early education began in "southern

Indiana public schools." She received her B.A. in Anthropology later in life than most from the University

of Alaska in Anchorage, and she furthered her studies

non-stop until she received her doctorate after completing graduate studies in Folklore and Folklife at the

University of Pennsylvania in 1994. Her dissertation was Native Art in the Public Eye: The Affirmation of Tradition, which was in press in 2002 as Alasl<a Native Art:

Tradition, Innovation, Continuity. Sue served as adjunct

or half-time professor of anthropology and art history

in several locations with the University of Alaska. She

most recently held a joint appointment with the English Department, Southwest Center at the University

of Arizona in Tucson.

Dr. Susan Wilhite Fair passed away in Tucson, Arizona, on June 1, 2003. She is survived by one child,

Michael Louis Kaputak Fair.

73/Susan Fair and Edgar Ningeulook (Susie 's collaborator, also deceased) interviewing Gideon Barr.

229
\Jame5 of places, (^thcr'J^imcs:

Remembering and [documenting [_ands and Landscapes

near ^hisKmaref, Alaska

SUSAN W. FAIR

These kinds of stories they always tell, our

parents and grandparents. They say that in those days past, the earth possesses them.

(Hattie Ningeulook, Shishmaref, 1981)

The accurate, contextual, and comprehensive collection of place-names (toponyms) and the enormously

rich varieties of data associated with them must be a

key force in the long-term preservation of Native ethnographic landscapes, for the northern cultural, linguistic, and physical landscape is steadily changing, as it

has always done. In the Inupiaq village of Shishmaref

in Northern Alaska, many young people do not know

the old toponyms, although some are inventing new

place-names. Place-name study and resulting publications (and maps) may ultimately serve to bond younger

people with these lands, now within the boundaries of

the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, an area of

roughly two and three-quarter million acres managed

by the U.S. National Park Service. Also, the barrier island upon which Shishmaref is located is rapidly being

lost to the sea. Residents have voted to move. In a

generation or two, the village itself may be a "memory

landscape" preserved only in names and stories.

This essay follows several previously published

works written about place-naming around Shishmaref,

Alaska (also referred to here as Kigiqtaq and the SaniqSaniniq coast). I discuss here how our community-based

collaborative Shishmaref research was conceived, how

we conducted the work, and what, ultimately, will be

produced with these data. During this project, we refer- enced many scholars who have collected and interpreted place-names in various ways in the last century.

While the information in most of those books and essays remains classic, informative material, it includes

only a fragment of the audiotaped and field-gathered

information actually collected by their authors. Existing popular and scholarly literature on place-naming

illuminates the importance of such studies, and the finest examples illustrate the way in which members of

these groups—insiders and residents— perceive the

land. Most of this literature, however, is not written for

Native audiences.

Early in the history of anthropology and folklore,

scholars recognized the central importance of place to

Native American peoples. Boas' "The Study of Geography" (1887), his research in Baffin Land and Hudson

Bay (1901-1907), and his work among the KwakiutI

(Kwakwaka'wakw) (1 934) broke ground for subsequent

research. Waterman followed with a study among the Yurok (1920), as did Kroeber for the entire State of

California (1916; also 1939). Kniffen's "Pomo Geography" (1 939) was another milestone. More recently, the

compilation and analysis of place-names has been trans- formed by Basso's work with the Western Apache (1 996,

1988, 1986, 1983) and Gelo's writing on Comanche

narrative (1994).

In the North, Brody's 1982 Maps and Dreams is

considered a classic. Cruikshank's essays on Athabaskan

place names (1 990, 1 991 ) are superb Canadian community-based works. Rankama's 1 993 work with the

Sami exemplifies Scandinavian research. Alaska

place-name scholars include Thornton, working with

230
the Tlingit of southeast Alaska (1995; 2000) and

Kari and Fall, with Shem Pete's Alaska, on Dena'ina

Athapaskan(1987).

Few Native American scholars or authors have written about their own perceptions of land, about naming,

or about toponyms, however, although they often speak

(orally) about the topics with great eloquence.' Native

writers of fiction and Native poets discuss the land more frequently, perhaps because lyrical works are more

suitably read aloud, just as a place-name and its sociocultural context are customarily told, not written. These

important works underscore Native links between traditional (past and present) emic expression, family, folk

belief, and the natural world. IntheShishmaref area(Fig. 74), Inupiaq place-names

like Tapqaq and their translations ("sandy shore") were

first recorded by Russian explorer and trader Ivan

Kobelev in the 1 790s, who worked in the service of

the Billings expedition (Ray 1975:6). Dorothy Jean

Ray's (1 983 [1 964]) studies of northwest Alaska place- names were amplified by elder Morris Kiyutelluk of

Shishmaref, working with Kathryn Koutsky to collect

data in support of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement

Act of 1 971 (Koutsky 1 981 ). What resulted were lists of names included in more comprehensive ethnographic

works. Koutsky and Kiyutelluk's research was fol- lowed by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) interviews

with Cideon/Kahlook Barr Sr. and other local collaborators in 1 988, then with Jeanne Schaaf s interviews for

the National Park Service's Shared Beringian Heritage

Program (Schaaf 1 996). Place-names are imbedded in most of these interviews. My work with Edgar/Nunageak

Ningeulook, sponsored by the National Park Service and the National Science Foundation, followed in 1993

and later.

This discussion focuses on how liiupiaq people in Shishmaref name, feel about, and function within the

landscapes where they live and travel, hunt and gather.

Naming, effect, performance, competence, and history

are intertwined dynamically here in the act of placenaming and in the retelling of toponyms. These processes are explicit and creative, and in the high context environment of a Native village, much of the creative process is shared. This is just as true of placenaming as it is of storytelling and the production of art. Our goal has been to look at toponyms as both vehicle and symbol of cultural ideology, while recognizing them as cultural artifacts within the ethnographic

landscape.

The transmission (and retention) of place-names and

the accompanying preservation of local data associated with them remains an important part of daily life in

Shishmaref. Local tales and anecdotes are anchored in

landscapes known intimately to their tellers; all contain references to specific sites and, often, to personal names. Yet the transmission of this information is usually casual and unremarkable, as the days when young men gathered in the more formal social environment

of the qazgri (men's house) to listen to such tales are

long past and the morals of the tales are often lost on

today's youth. A trip up the Saniq coast toward Cape

Espenberg mirrored this reality for us. As wind and water thrashed our boat. Captain Harvey Pootoogooluk

narrated the shape and history of the land to Edgar/

Nunageak Ningeulook. He spoke continuously, al- though it was difficult to talk or hear. His words were

not for amusement, but spoken as traditional lessons.

Each named site, even if it has disappeared into the

sea, was reiterated as a holistic conglomerate of presentday activities, Inupiaq history, associated genealogy,

traditional beliefs, and moral lessons.

The Function of Place-names in the

Inupiaq Landscape

Inupiaq toponyms and associated folktales underscore

human ties with the Earth, local landscape, and destiny,

providing predictive models of what it means to be

Inupiaq. During traditional times, place-names were preserved and transmitted orally in community and ex- tended family contexts because the information im- bedded in them was essential to daily life. In Alaska, as modernity encroaches upon and in many ways is wel231
corned by rural Native peoples, the physical landscape

of many villages and towns has changed dramatically

along with the cultural landscape. Yet, knowledge of

the land and sea remains paramount to both literal and

psychological survival. Although Native villages have

been transformed and ancient social networks modified, the core Inupiaq values of living in close interde- pendence with land and sea, and of using these great

resources wisely and with moral understanding, continue.The Ihupiat and their lands are inseparable. Brown

defines this relationship as one of kinship—Earth is a

relative: "A dominant theme in all Native American

cultures is that of relationship, or a series of relationships that are always reaching further and further out"

(1989:1 1). Shishmaref elder Hattie Ningeulook spoke

of land in Inupiaq terms by saying "the earth possessed"

her people (1 981 ). She meant, literally, that the Inupiat

could not be separated from earth or sea without a profound loss of identity. Like other Northern Native

peoples, liiupiat commonly identify individuals and

communities by their connection with landscapes and

localities, general and specific. Identity is configured

in several ways: individually, around extended family

kin groups, and communally, as people who inhabit

an entire region (Schweitzer and Colovko 1994:51).

Continued preservation of traditional familial and regional identity remains very important, especially for

people who have resettled during historic or recent

times (either voluntarily or through forced cultural

change) into hub-communities like Shishmaref. Docu- menting place-names and associated data is a way to

preserve this identity and to keep a people's historical

landscapes alive.

LEGEND

Boundary for Bering Land

Bridge National Preserve Approximate Boundary line Kigiqtaamiut Lands <D Small Boat Harbor <I> Boat (Umiaq) Rack ^ Known Place-name,

Old Settlement

Arctic Ocean

Bering

Sea

74/ Northwestern shore ofSeward Peninsula, Alaska (the Saniq-Saniniq coastline), showing major traditional communities and Native place-names, documented from the present-day Inupiaq elders.

232 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
Communities throughout this area are adjacent to

lands managed by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS);

residents use NPS lands places they or their ancestors have named—for subsistence hunting, gathering,

and fishing. The majority of residents here are Inupiat,

although the region is now designated for "multiple

use" by (mainly) non-Native administrators. A "wilderness suitability review" conducted when the preserve was established concluded that all federal lands in the

preserve were eligible for wilderness designation (NPS

1985). But "wilderness" is an invented concept that

Inupiat do not necessarily support. Leopold stated unequivocally to conservation-minded Western idealists

that "raw wilderness gives definition and meaning to

the human enterprise" (1 966[1 949]:279). Conversely, E.

Estyn Evans calls the concept of natural environment

"an abstraction" for many cultures (1 972:5 1 8). Certainly

"raw wilderness" is neither a reality nor an ideal for Inupiat—nor for most Native Americans. The Inupiat

and their ancestors walked, used, named, and lost these

lands to the sea for thousands of years.

At the village, town, regional, and national levels.

knowledge of names and place continues to renew

and maintain a deep sense of self and community.

Gathering information toward this end was an important goal of this study. A profound example of this process occurred on September 1 1

, 2001 , as all Ameri- cans—Inupiat and other Native Americans among

them—reacted to a tragic event, to history being

made. Now, there is a particular urban landscape named

"Ground Zero." Ground Zero is a young toponym that

provides a large lesson in evaluating the worth and

meaning of a place-name (which may sometimes seem

small or remote) and its associated context, conse- quences, and meanings. Perhaps non-Natives should

look to Ground Zero for a model of how much a toponym can mean, of the enormous weight a place-name

can bear as they research the histories of other groups

and manage their lands.

In the Inupiaq village of Shishmaref, as among other

Native American communities, the naming of specific

sites, localities, and general regions is one of the most

important ways in which people transfer communal history, recall significant family events and heroic indiX

4

r

r"

/I R C T I C OCI M A/

75/ Hand-drawn map of the Saniq area, produced by one of Tom and Ellen Lapp's Inupiat herder apprentice

students, probably by Thomas Sokweena (Sokeinna) or James Keok in Wales, Alaska, 1902.

SUSAN W. FAIR 233
viduals, convey moral lessons, and underscore societal rules. Throughout Alaska, toponyms also serve to

preserve language, annotate boundaries (those of dialect and ethnicity), and draw attention to particular geographic features, which in turn refer to extended family,

safety, and subsistence. The landscape is a text, patterned culturally in particular ways. Knowledge about it

is transmitted traditionally through oral history, generally related while at the place itself. These ancient patterns of sociocultural transmission

have changed considerably in the twentieth century."^

This study began at a time when many knowledgeable

elders—those who saw the turn of the nineteenth to

the twentieth century—are passing away. With each of

their deaths, traditional knowledge of the landscape

diminishes. Thomas Thornton, working among the

Tlingit, notes that the documentation of toponyms

has resulted in the revitalization of some names in Southeast Alaska. Likewise, Herbert Anungazuk ac- knowledges that young Saniq-Saniniq area Inupiat know

less about the land and its names than they once did,

but expects a "surge of interest" in this knowledge as

this and other projects progress.

People of the Shishmaref Area

Arctic River, there is always someone there too, so they call those people Agugvigmiut. . . . Each

area had an old site and there are always some

people that's been living there. The people are

called by the landmark's name (Gideon Kahlook

BarrSr., Shishmaref, 1 987; emphasis added).

Shishmaref elders, like many Native Americans, call themselves and their kinsmen "real people." When telling stories about the region, some Inupiaq collaborators say that select narratives were handed down from

the Ihupiapiat, "first people," or "genuine real people" of

the region. Traditional settlements along the SaniqSaniniq coasts from Wales to Shishmaref, on to Cape

Espenberg, and beyond to present-day Deering were

scattered at regular intervals at resource-rich locations,

occupied by extended family groups. In times past,

these people did not think of themselves as one society; small local communities, in fact, sometimes feuded

bitterly. Families of the Saniq-Saniniq region, like all

Inupiat, referred to themselves as belonging to their winter settlement; Qividluamiut (of Qividluaq) or

Kigiqtaamiut(from Old Shishmaref). These semi-permanent winter "family tree settlements," as Shishmaref elder Charley Okpowruk called them, served as base locations while families moved seasonally for subsistence purposes. An extraordinary hunter (umialiq) and

his family, living in close proximity to his brothers,

other male relatives and their families, dominated each

community. Most of those men served as crew members during the ugzruk (bearded seal) hunt and continue to do so. Later, some were employed as reindeer

herders and apprentices.

Shishmaref area residents speak several Inupiaq

sub-dialects. In present-day Shishmaref, speakers of the

Ikpikmiut, Kigiqtaamiut, Qividluamiut, and Pitaamiut

(Pimiuli) dialects can still be identified. Dialectical differences in the region are often very subtle, but they

are important in understanding the lay of landscape

and the nature of the sea, as well as one's identity and

origins. A misinterpretation of a name's meaning in an

unfamiliar geographic area may disorient a traveler. Along the Shishmaref area coast, for example, the term

Saniniq refers to a sandy beach, translating as "land between two points." The coastline from Cape Espenberg to Deering is also called Saniniq, but in the Pimiuli

dialect of that area, the term translates more accurately

as "shallow ocean," indicating that the coastline must

be known well and traveled with care (Barr 1 991 ; Burch

1994;395).

Geographic and societal identities were virtually

inseparable for the Inupiat (pers. comm., Charles Lucier,

November 28, 1 996); thus, river drainages and discrete

landscapes often functioned as societal boundaries. Individuals and family members would have been interchangeable, in a sense, with particular sites, place-names,

and even landscapes and ecosystems. During this

project, village collaborators divided mapping and analy234 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
sis into three major areas defined by drainages and by

proximity to other Inupiaq nations: —The Saniq coast and interior west of Shishmaref

nearly to Wales, a village historically allied to

Kigiqtaq;

—Serpentine Flats and the interior upland

regions; and

—The coast eastward to Cape Espenberg.

The latter includes some of the Saniniq coast toward

Deering, as well as mountainous areas and portages

leading into the Inmachuk and Niqianaqtuuq ("place

with brants") river drainages.

The first non-Native credited for visiting Kigiqtaq was Otto Von Kotzebue, during his voyage of 1816-7

on the /?wr/7c(Van Stone 1 960:1 45). Observing the coastal

lowland, Kotzebue remarked that the local- and extended-family settlements that Kobelev had tentatively

mapped along the coast indicated "a numerous habitation" (Koutsky 1 981 a:40). The term Tapqaq, first recorded

by Kobelev as the name for this coastline, described

"lakes, ponds, and pondlets thrown down like pieces

of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle along the lonely tapqaq

(sandy strand) between Shishmaref and Cape

Espenberg" (Ray 1 975:6). Local inhabitants were called Tapkakmiut and the best-known "people of the sandy

shoreline" were the residents of the Shishmaref area, though the term tapqaq also applied to several other Seward Peninsula locations (Ray 1983:233-4).^

Along the western Saniq coast, the focus of our

National Science Foundation study, the largest traditional communities were Kigiqtaq, Sinnazaat, Ikpek, and

Milletagvik, at one time each with fifty to eighty residents. There were no major inland settlements in this

region, except for Ipnauraq ("small bluff," "rocky wall,"

or "little bank") near the mouth of the Serpentine River. The village was abandoned after many residents ate

tainted fish and perished, although some contemporary residents still attribute the incident to witchcraft,

for a shaman's charm could cause incidents like this

(pers. comm. Edgar Ningeulook, 6/94; Koutsky 1 981 :22;

^'WWfe -....-V..... ..........w,....v,.,.„„.... .............

.

-J--^...---^-^--^ ~

76/ Watercolor of the Messenger Feast, or Wolf Dance, by Headman E-too'-ach-in-na (sic) of Ipnauraq, near

present day Shishmaref One of a series of painting of festivals and susbsistence life created for Nome's Judge

Wickersham in 1 902, it is unclear if this particular event took place in Ipnauraq or in a neighboring village where E- too'-ach-in-na may have visited.

SUSAN W. FAIR 235
Ray 1983:213; D. Ningeulook 1997). Today, Ipnauraq

is a popular fish camp and winter landmark for those

traveling by dogsled across the ice to and from

Shishmaref. Charley Okpowruk said that Ipnauraq once

held Messenger Feasts (Wolf Dances; Fig. 76) to which

Old Shishmaref residents were invited for exchange

feasts: "Our elders that we caught, they say Wolf Dance

is not a fun [secular] dance. . . . Their kalukaq (box

drum) was heard nearly twenty miles from here." (C. Okpowruk 1 998; also Fienup-Riordan 1 996:38-41 ; Fair

2001). This would indicate that Ipnauraq was a large

village suitable for archaeological investigation.

Each of these now abandoned communities was

thus located in a landscape replete with names and

infused with kinship relations of critical importance to

its members. Old Shishmaref/Kigiqtaq was partially destroyed during historic times by Kauwermiut warriors from Mary's Igloo as residents clustered inside qazghit,

enjoying winter festivities. Milletagvik, which served

as a mission and reindeer herding station overseen by

Sokeinna and his wife Elubwok, both from Wales, was

affected by the 1918 global influenza epidemic; and

nearby Wales was devastated. Residents of Sinnazaat,

which may have had as many as twenty homes during

historic times, perished long ago from eating tainted

Beluga whale meat, as elders recall. During Ningeulook's

boyhood there was a graveyard at Sinnazaat with many

traditional burials: "The site is no more because erosion has taken it away. Erosion occurred from both the

lagoon and ocean sides. There is not a trace left of all

the graves, either. . . . Some of the graves were so dense that they had to be piled on top of one another. These were all above-ground burials" (D. Ningeulook

1997).^

Ikpek, home of the Olanna family, was spared such

a tragedy, and was occupied year-round by a few residents as late as the 1 950s, although a government

school had been established in Shishmaref in the 1 920s.

Ikpek was the last traditional Saniq community to resist modernization. Families there lobbied for a school,

but it was never built; many Ikpekmiut chose to keep

their children at home on a seasonal basis while they

hunted and trapped. Itinerant missionaries traveling the

Saniq coast converted many Ikpek residents from traditional practices to the Christian faith, however, and

Ikpekmiut were drawn to Shishmaref by the Lutheran

Church. Ultimately, Ikpek was converted to a seasonal camp and Native allotment site, albeit a significant one, and its residents moved out to Brevig Mission and

Shishmaref.

Consequently, Shishmaref became the hub village

for the northern Seward Peninsula Saniq coast and Serpentine Flats. Former coastal residents brought with

them Inupiaq dialects and sub-dialects as well as affiliations with settlements that had not always been friendly

with Kigiqtaq. They also circulated distinctive origin

stories, folktales, personal narratives and memories, as

well as graphic arts featuring their home landscapes, in

addition to toponyms. Now, residents who tire of the

size and faster pace of Shishmaref, or who marry outside the village, often move to Brevig Mission, Wales,

or Deering.

Geographic Context: The Saniq and Saniniq

Coasts, Serpentine Flats, and Uplands

Long strands of windswept barrier islands, saltwater

lagoon systems, and beaches lace the northern Seward

Peninsula coast of the Bering Strait and the Chukchi

Sea for more than 1 00 miles from Cape Prince of Wales

northeast to Cape Espenberg. Contemporary Shish- maref is situated on Sarichef Island (a.k.a. Kigiqtaq, literally, "island"). Barrier islands are by nature narrow, fragile, and transitory. Neither Sarichef Island nor any other

area coastal, island, or bluff mainland locations have

ever been stable enough to support major communities (especially with large infrastructures) for long periods of time, although today, Shishmaref has grown to more than 600 residents. Historic photographs of

Shishmaref illustrate the gentle appearance of sod

homes arranged in two rows down the length of

Kigiqtaq in the center of the island, grassy paths leading between. By the early 1 920s, a few rectangular

236 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
77/ The village of Shishmafef, late 1 920s, showing a lumber house with sod buttresses in the center, traditional

iglu homes (grassy hummocks) throughout, its safe oceanside beach to the north (right), and the white frame

government school and quarters in the central background.

"lumber houses" were interspersed. These frame homes

were coveted, although they were less efficient than

traditional dwellings and many were buttressed with

sod for insulation (Fig. 77).

Across the many lagoons that separate these islands from the mainland, the coastal lowlands undulate

gently, sparkling with tundra lakes and string bogs. Each

low rise gives navigational guidance or bears meaning

for Inupiaq travelers—some of these toponyms very

likely have been in continuous use since before

Kotzebue's 1816 contact. Several large rivers along

the Saniq coast drain into the Chukchi Sea or into the

lagoons, including the Nuluk, various branches of the

Serpentine, Aaghuqviiq (Arctic), and Espenberg."^ Beyond

Cape Espenberg along the shores of Kotzebue Sound,

the Saniniq coast, major drainages include an estuary

formed by the Niqianaqtuuq River, as well as the Goodhope, Pish, and Inmachuk Rivers. These waterways, all used by Shishmaref and Deering residents,

provide freshwater fish and anadromous salmon, and

serve as transportation routes into the interior.

The repertoire of the late Gideon/Kahlook Barr Sr.

included a traditional tale about Itivyaaq, one of the

tributaries near Cape Espenberg in his home region,

which illustrates the use of such waterways, portages,

and corridors."" Allusions to the competitiveness of

Inupiaq boat captains (umialiitor "big men"), as well as

illustrations of the flexibility and diverse use of animal

skins are enmeshed in this narrative (Fair n.d.). Specific

geographic references and practical hints in the narrative may assist someone traveling the same route today, for the old portage is used regularly as a snow- machine trail between Shishmaref and Goodhope Bay

(NANA 1 992). Barr's comments about his father, Makaiqtaq, demonstrate that use of the land as well as the

social role of skin boat captains was changing even at

the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century:

"There's a story behind this Itivyaaq River,

how it's used," he said.

One time there were two skin boats returning

from Kotzebue where the big Eskimo trading center is. Coming back from Kotzebue, they

SUSAN W. FAIR 237
have to go through Kotzebue Sound be- cause of the weather conditions (on open

seas). And while they were camping at the mouth in two boats, well—One decided to go through Itivyaaq.

To go overland, as you follow this Itivyaaq

River, you go a ways, and you have to go

overland [by portage] to another river that goes out to Shishmaref Lagoon. . . . They call

it North Fork or East Fork, that is part of the

Serpentine River. . . . And they only have to go less than a mile to drag their skin boat

from Itivyaaq on into what they call Kialiik. And then, from there on down the river, on

the North Fork River—what we call Kialiik. No problem, it's deep.

The further you go out, the narrower it gets,

and on to Itivyaaq going up. The closer you

get to the overland portage [itibliq] when the weather is dry, the water would be low. But when the weather is wet, wet with rain, there is no problem getting up to the area where they

go overland to North Fork River. When the water is a little too low, they even have to carve the side of the riverbank. In order for the skin boat to go through—just in the tight

spots only. That's the way boats were used in the early days.

So these two captains (umialiqs), well—One

makes up his mind to go overland. To go

through Itivyaaq and go out through North

Fork. So, the other one decides to go around

on the ocean side, alright. When the weather

calms down, one boat is gonna go through

the ocean coast side . . .

And then they left together. And alright, the

last time they talked together, they wondered

which one of them will get to Shishmaref first. So, when they both took off, one goes up the

river, Niqianaqtuuq River, on to Itivyaaq. And

when they arrive in Shishmaref, that other

boat had not arrived yet. And it was almost

twenty-four hours later, when that other boat

arrived in Shishmaref.

That's an old [oral] record of that: How these

two captains get together and argue, sort of argue over which is closest. This man said it's real close, as long as you have to go over- land—It's a real shortcut. But the other guy

didn't believe it. So he just goes on the ocean coast side while the other boat goes

overland river.

That's the way it was used. Either way, from

Shishmaref or from Serpentine side, on up to Niqianaqtuuq. Whenever they wanted to

make a shortcut it was used in those days. But even in my father's time, nobody had

used it so far, according to my father. He

said they talk about it— but they never tried (Cideon/Kahlook Barr Sr., Shishmaref, 1 988).

The entire Saniq coastline is extremely dynamic, while

the Saniniq side is protected somewhat from the open

ocean, as Barr's narrative indicates. Because the barrier

islands have almost no vertical relief, there is nothing

to moderate arctic winds; the sands are moved, redeposited, and built up intermittently by intense and repetitive wave action (NPS 1 985). Particularly forceful

storms sometimes roll in from north and west, bringing

devastating floods that erode shoreline cliffs, sweep

away the ruins of old settlements, and threaten modern

villages with devastation or relocation, as in the cases

of both Shishmaref and Kivalina. During the fall of 1 993,

1997, 2001, and 2002, Shishmaref was pummeled by

dramatic storms that endangered many houses and eradicated traditional foods (qigniq) stored in underground

caches called sigluaq (Fig. 78). Although a few elders

resisted, several homes were relocated to the old airport at the outskirts of town, the Lutheran Church donated lots, and some homes were abandoned. In the

near future, commercial and government buildings, airport, boat landings, and the school will also be in jeopardy, and villagers have already voted to relocate

(Verrengia 2002). These lands shift perpetually; and al- though the Inupiaq are accustomed to adaptation, the

size of the village and its infrastructure make the move

difficult and expensive to contemplate, plan, and execute. Meanwhile, a particularly harsh fall storm could

destroy the main part of Shishmaref.

Overall, four distinct biological-geographical terrain

types are represented on the Seward Peninsula:

Shishmaref Lowlands, Uplands, Kuzitrin River Basin, and

Imuruk Lava Flow (Eisler 1 978:3). The entire region is a

part of the intermontane plateau system dominated by

an alpine tundra ecosystem based atop deep permafrost (Koutsky 1981). Although the area is located in

the Subarctic, Shishmaref weather is harsh and unpredictable. Less than two feet of snow falls here in the

238 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
average year, but winters are long and sometimes, snow drifts to the eaves of homes, businesses, and

the school in the central area. The summits and flanks

of nearby mountains are often used for game spotting and weather prediction. The late elder Charley

Okpowruk gave such an example of the uses of Ear

Mountain {Inigagik, translates as "place of beseechment")

(also Keithahn 1962:73; Koutsky 1981:14-5; C. Weyiouanna 1997). Okpowruk prefaced his story with

an explanation of the function and meaning of Inupiaq

folk-tales, differentiating between "true stories" and

apocryphal tales that demonstrate Inupiaq history and

worldview:'

True stories, what we call them is ikomorauq . .

. they actually happened—like guiding the person's actual true way of life. The true way

ofdealing with the other generation or the other

person. . . . I would call it true culture to the younger generation.

The man's way is protection of the young

person in terms of hunting and traveling on

the ocean. And a lot of that is knowing

prediction on the weather, too. When I grew

up, they didn't have any barometer or anything, or radio. The prediction of the wind and

wind direction comes from our area here,

especially on that Ear Mountain, where it's kind of windy. By looking at the cloud

conditions up there and the cloud conditions on the horizon, we can tell [Fig. 79]. When we go to have a north wind in springtime, those thunderclouds always form up. . . . That's where the north wind is going to be. And the clouds on the stratus—you always

see them, called stratus. They always say the wind won't go though the tunnel of those, it has to go sideways. And all that mountain up

there, there are clouds that form certain ways

on that Ear Mountain. . . .

Ear Mountain tells the weather condition, tells about it. Sometimes it doesn't have any clouds, or clouds form up on that deal on the halfway

mark there. When clouds form up on the middle

in a real narrow strip, that's one of the wind

directions. . . . And when it's completely cloudy,

just only on the top, that's when we're going to have a north wind. If the clouds started coming

up on top there, from the other side ... it has to mean a south wind. . .

.

Also, Ear Mountain has two big rocks there,

78/ A west-end Shishmarefhome hangs precariously over the oceanside bluff created by a severe September 1997 storm.

and Eskimos got another name for those two

rocks— /cummw/<. It's a body louse or hair louse. This might be true, long ago. A couple

of people got so much body lice that these

lice got their wings and just flew them up

there. That's how they turned into rocks.

/ really don 't know if that part is true or not. (Charley Okpowruk, Shishmaref, 1 991

)

Goals of the Shishmaref Place-Name Project

The project discussed here was a team study conducted in cooperation with the Shishmaref IRA Village

Council and the Shishmaref Native Corporation in 1997-

1998. While the importance of place-names emerged

naturally during the initial project, sponsored by the

National Park Service, the subsequent community-based

NSF project was defined by several goals. Most of all,

villagers wanted to see continued documentation and

analysis of local place-names and associated information to the fullest extent possible. They also requested

SUSAN W. FAIR 239
that a high-quality, well-designed educational map be

produced for classroom use. A key goal was thus the systematic mapping and

recording of place-names and associated oral histories about names and landscapes, as well as the documentation of travel, migration, and subsistence routes

throughout the area. These data would ultimately be

tied to extended family settlements (and associated

dialects), demonstrating the range of influence and landuse patterns of specific local families. Life histories are one way of obtaining such information. Genealogies

of key collaborators were the first step, expanding to

their relationships with other families. Residence patterns, marriage alliances, the proprietary use of landscape, and the avoidance of certain areas would emerge

from the initial genealogical family studies. We also

collected and examined restrictions and taboos associated with landscapes and place-names.

We intended to demonstrate the way in which

toponyms continue to be added to the local repertoire

(or do not) and how they change with time, underscoring that Inupiaq time and traditions are interlocked in a

fluid historical process. Initial research indicated that changes in place-names appear to result from a combination of factors, such as language loss and difficulty

in pronouncing ancient names. We sought to identify processes by which local place-names transformed

as new groups migrated in and out of the area, land use changed, and elders passed away. Toponyms are invented or changed as new incidents occur at specific

sites ( Boas 1 901 ; Burch 1 995).

Several examples of such place-name change were

evident at Shishmaref. One ethnonymic transformation

noted in eadier research is the creation of "ghost forms,"

words (in this case toponyms) that previously did not

exist and may "obliterate genuine archaic features" of

the name (cf. Goddard 1 984:98-99). In the Shishmaref

area, an example of this phenomenon is the place- name Nuizhaakpak, "to come into view" or "big cloud."

This site has an liiupiaq nickname, the root word nuyaq.

It is also often called "New York," because the original

toponym is difficult for local non-lnupiaq speakers to pronounce; consequently, it has become an abbreviated or completely different form, a ghost of the original. Translations of Nuizhaakpak collected at different

times may refer to folktales that are now lost, for the

root word connotes caution about potential harm. More

specifically, it means "to naturally take caution in ap- proaching a known inhabited area, in this case, Shishmaref (pers. comm. Herbert Anungazuk, 1998).

This indicates strained relations between linupiaq (and

other) groups. Stories about Yakpatakgaq, a site near

the mouth of Nuluk River, provide clues. "Big clouds"

are a motif in Yakpatakgaq stories and other local

folktales, in which shamans create bad weather or poor

visibility so villagers (or enemies) cannot be seen and

attacked. Oral history associated with the now-abandoned village tells how a dense fog created by a Siberian shaman (Koutsky 1 981 :23, 32), facilitated a surprise summer attack by Siberians. An unrealized goal of this project was to achieve

an understanding ofthe human experience oflandscape

through linguistic analyses ofplace naming patterns (syntactic and semantic). In the past, residents of the re- gion—through trading, traveling, warring, courting, and

establishing kin—came into contact with a wide variety of other people and needed to communicate with

them. An open-coding linguistic system appears to have

prevailed, and code-switching between languages and

dialects may have affected place-name assignation and

preservation. Dialectical differences for topo-nyms will

obviously be linked to particular informants—it is very

important not to subsume these differences in translation and transcription.

Project Methodology

Oral histories collected in years past, especially those

recorded in Inupiaq, are rich with toponyms and im- bedded with other information that demonstrate the many ways the landscape is used and perceived by

locals. In Shishmaref, however, as in much of Alaska,

such archival material has rarely been analyzed in terms

240 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
79/ Several Shishmaref boaters, including the late Melvin/Asitona Olanna and his crew, gather on the open

Chuckhi Sea while hunting ugzruk during the May 1 987 spring hunt, with Ear Mountain, used by villages for weather prediction and assistance in navtigation, clearly in the distant background.

of its inherent window into the Native view of land.

Also, information of this type has seldom been viewed

as a guide to how such lands might better be managed.

Native people "managed" their lands for millennia by

knowing them intimately, walking and hunting them

extensively, sharing resources, protecting lands from

intruders while making alliances with those whom they

wished to know, and by telling stories about the landscape in animated ways. Now, traditional stories are

told less often as elders pass away, and technology

changes, so new methods of place-name transmissionnarrative, videotape, and map—must occur if this information is to be preserved.

In this respect, audiotaped interviews accompanied

by intensive mapping sessions provide the best way

of obtaining place-name data when this is combined

with a thorough review of previously written and taped

information. Working closely with an astute local

liiupiaq historian, the late Edgar/Nunageak Ningeulook,

the project approach became a blend of methodology from folklore, anthropology, and cultural geogra- phy combined with various topics local interviewers added while speaking in Ifiupiaq. Therefore, the transcriptions sometimes contained surprises. Existing audiotapes (including folktales) previously recorded in the Shishmaref locality or conducted with former

Shishmaref residents living in Nome and Anchorage

were also important to the study; most contained place- names as well as more generalized references to landscapes.*

In the early to mid-1 980s, an important body of oral

history was collected on St. Lawrence Island and in numerous other places, including Shishmaref, for the Eskimo Heritage Program, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and based out of Nome. Those transcripts provided massive amounts of

information about Native landscapes.-^ Translation and

transcription of this material by local scholars (nearly

SUSAN W. FAIR 241
twenty years later) is still underway in Shishmaref under the guidance of Kawerak, Inc. and the National Park

Service.

At the beginning of the research, comprehensive

ethnohistoric research uncovered many toponyms buried in writings both scholarly and popular, most without rich context. Historic archival photographs (including some family photos) were used; one large group,

the Edward L. Keithahn collection (Fig. 80), was brought

to the National Park Service, Shishmaref Native Corporation, and ultimately, the Alaska State Library (Historical Collections). Whenever possible, ethnographic still

photographers were brought in to record research efforts, particular events, and daily life. Topographic maps were shown to elders and other

knowledgeable local residents selected by team

leaders, the Council, and Corporation board members.

During previous NPS research, elder Gideon/ Kahlook

Barr Sr. had been interviewed intensively, so it was

natural to begin with and add to Barr's narratives,

which focus mainly to the east of Shish-maref toward

Cape Espenberg. Later, with NSF funding, Davey

Ningeulook—eldest hunter in the village—was chosen as the first person from whom we would collect a

life history. Ningeulook's geographic knowledge most

intimately spans territories from present-day Shishmaref

to Milletagvik. He and his wife Frieda Eningowuk

Ningeulook worked on mapping with us. All of this

information was simply color-coded to each informant

(with colored pencils) as we mapped and talked with

other residents.

Proper orthography is a consistent problem in most Native place-name and landscape studies. Older

studies of place-names often used the rather anti- quated approach of collecting place-names as objects, usually resulting in lists of names out of context. Differences in pronunciation and orthography

between dialects were often ignored. There are many

names in the literature, but most of them are spelled out phonetically (thus misspelled) and, often,

duplicated. '°

Ningeulook and I developed a rather formulaic layout of place-name information. The same type of entry, though slightly less elaborate, can also be seen in Karl and Fall's Shem Pete's Alaska (1 987). When published

in book form, this information will be layered more

heavily with folktales, personal narrative, historic and

contemporary photographs, and illustrations of contemporary art and artifacts. Entries are designed primarily

to be useful to Shishmaref readers because of the depth

and breadth of information included in them, while contributing to the scholarly literature as well. First, we

number the Inupiaq toponym and add the place-name

in English when appropriate. This information is fol- lowed by the dialect used for spelling the name with

its translation when available. We then list the sources

of these translations followed by references or numbers assigned to the place-name on various published

or existing maps (see Appendix).^'

We also include citations like "Edgar Ningeulook

6/94," which mean that Ningeulook (or others) com- mented personally on orthography and translations

of place-names during the course of the research. Such bibliographic entries are included with more

formal citations, all including entry numbers from other maps when applicable, for BIA, Bering Straits Native

Corporation, National Park Service, and other place- name research and cartography that have been conducted in this region, much of which is presently unpublished. Then, more contextual information is given

along with each Native contributor's name and date. Such entries may be descriptive, anecdotal, or may include entire folktales pertaining to place-name or local landscape. When more than one person was interviewed, comments are generally given in order of familiarity with the area and length of contribution. It was

obviously important to work with people who know a

site or region well: and it is quickly apparent where

their knowledge drops off geographically, both on the map and in their narratives. Information from scholarly

and historical references follows. Then each entry

lists every spelling that we have encountered for

242 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
80/ Members of the traditional "city council", several of whom helped save the village of Shismaref from the influenza epidemic of 1918, in a photograph taken in 1 923 by Edward Keithahn and now in the MPS collections.

the toponym, a policy inspired by the work of Dorothy Jean Ray. An elaborate example of our place- name layout is the entry for Qividluaq included in

the appendix. Today, Qividluaq is in ruins, and its former

residents (Qividluamiut) live primarily in Shishmaref.

Where they will be in the future will be the choice of

individuals, families, and the community, as the sea

forces them to leave Sarichef Island for good (Fig. 81). We worked closely with AutoCAD experts at McClintock Land Associates to create a map of the study

area, but numbers and names are so numerous that an

overlay system may have to be used during publication. We now have enough information for three vol- umes on Shishmaref area place-names, more than 250

sites (there are no doubt many more) that fall naturally

into the three ecological and cultural niches discussed

previously. Our first volume works west from Shish- maref and Sarichef Island to Milletagvik. As we worked

on this project, the Shishmaref Native Corporation be- gan formal ANCSA land allotment surveys, which are now nearly complete. This information might enrich

the place-name study or may be used to launch other

projects. There were various discussions about using

GPS to pinpoint sites precisely on our maps, but most

local people felt that it was not in their best interests to

have outsiders know exactly where someone could fly

in to a site, perhaps plundering it. Most Shishmaref residents we worked with thought

a book was the appropriate way to present information

about cultural and ethnographic landscapes. Many also wanted to see a documentary film produced that would

include elders talking about the land and telling associated stories on-site. Obviously, the classic way of

receiving this information is in the context of the place

where a particular activity is being conducted. Elders and other storytellers still commonly do this at camp;

so young people on the hunt, at a berry picking site, or

waiting for sourdough pancakes in the morning may

be treated to such tales in context. At home in the

village, children are more likely to be on the computer, studying, carving, orworking, for life is fast-paced

in Shishmaref today. The desire for books about local

SUSAN W. FAIR 243
toponyms was confirmed by the title the village corporation gave our first volume: Nunaptigun IlisaiWat:

We're Learning AboLit Our Land. This name underscores

the fact that each local resident does not know commensurate information about the local landscape and

nearby seas, nor is each one acquainted intimately with

the same areas.

Land as Inupiaq Text

The concept of land as other than a commodity is unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable to many non-Natives. The Western capitalist viewpoint is that land (like labor) is a commodity that can be bought, sold, and speculated upon without regard for the future impact of such

actions on other human beings or on the land itself.

Nonetheless, American literature and history romanticize and laud an "unspoiled" landscape. Despite en- croachment by Western land use practices, the 1971

establishment of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement

Act (ANCSA), and the resulting transfer of money and

lands (Berger 1 985; Rude 1 996), however, many Inupiat

continue to use the land much as they did in the nineteenth century. The essence of Inupiaq worldview regarding land is one of stewardship, not private ownership; lands are held in honor of generations past and

for future generations. Traditionally, no single individual

can alter this circumstance.

Toponyms reveal how the Inupiat regard their landscape, as it functions as a text for those who have been

taught to read it. Reading the landscape depends on knowing the names attached to places and the information associated with those names. Such information

is transferred verbally and is usually contained within extended families. Among the Inupiaq, place-names

are most often metonymic; that is, they point to the

attributes of a site rather than assigning metaphor to it. Metaphors are of dubious use to a people who must

know precisely the texture and quality of ice or the moment when the ugzruk have arrived. Place-name texts bolster family and community

solidarity by reaffirming former boundaries of dialect

and extended family. In addition, they record important events in local and regional Ifiupiaq history and

identif/ uses of the landscape, including proprietary

usage. Many historical tales associated with place in

the region refer to migrations, wars, abductions, and

famines. Such disruptions would undoubtedly have affected the acts of remembering or discarding certain toponyms. Some scholars state that there may have

been no truly traditional societies remaining intact in

northwest Alaska after 1850 (Burch 1975:10). If this is

the case, place-names serve to remind people today

what it was like to be Inupiaq in historic (and perhaps

prehistoric) times. The present research indicates that land, for the

Inupiat, is an entity much like a person—a distinctly

animistic viewpoint. The Earth itself can speak. One of

the ways it has spoken and continues to narrate Inupiaq

landscape and worldview is through the act of placenaming. A number of tales collected from this region

refer to persons actually traveling through or being in

the land, rather than existing on it or seeing it as a

resource. The fact that most Kigiqtaamiut are now devout and enthusiastic Lutherans does not diminish traditional beliefs about the nature of land or their relationship to it. When Inupiaq persons talk, they sometimes refer to places that speak and to their own conversations with animals.

Non-Natives depart from the commodity view of

land when they refer to land as "sacred" or designate it

as wilderness. If one employs usual Western definitions of the term sacred, however, land and sea used by

Shishmaref residents are neither "consecrated, holy, or

set apart especially for the service or worship of God."

Secondary definitions, less rigid, come closer to the

Inupiaq view and include "hallowed by religious association" and "held in reverence"''^ for personal and ritual

actions by Native peoples. Certainly, when they regard

the land with great care, it has deeply spiritual dimensions. For this reason, "sacred" is probably the easiest way to describe this state of being as it applies to the

land. '3

244 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
8]/ Shishmaref, 1983, viewed here from the Luthei Island noticeable in the distance.

In the Shishmaref area, Katizrvik is a place used for

gathering and can refer to a gathering of human beings

at a particular site. Likewise, katimawik is a "place for a

meeting" and is used for land-based sites, but more

commonly, for a church structure—in Shishmaref, the

beloved Lutheran Church. The interchangeability of the

root word katit- implies a comparison between the act

of gathering together on the land and gathering together in a church. The word can also be used in Inupiaq

for "come together, as in marriage," or "join" (Anungazuk

1 997).

Patterns associated with place-naming also appear

to be affiliated closely with the following themes: geography, subsistence hunting and gathering, kinship and

social structure, local history, personal experience, and

beliefs. There has been some disagreement as to whether a place could have been named after a personal Inupiaq name during traditional times. In one

view, such a practice would have conflicted with the

person's name soul (Ray 1 983[1 971 ]:254), while anChurch steeple looking east, with the curve of Sarichef

other asserts that many places on the Seward Peninsula and elsewhere in northwest Alaska were "explicitly named after individuals (as opposed to accidentally having the same name)" (Burch 1994:419). The

latter appears to be the case in the Shishmaref area. One of project collaborator Edgar Ningeulook's Inupiaq names, for example, was Nunageak; he was named

after a small river near Cape Espenberg.

Place-Name Classifications in Shishmaref

The place where I will start is an old igloo

site at Cape Espenberg. This man's name,

llaganiq, it's the story. Just from the story I inherit from my grandparents. His home was

right at the tip of Espenberg, just a few

hundred yards away from the lighthouse.

(Cideon/Kahlook Barr Sr., Shishmaref, 1 988).

Several types of Shishmaref area place-names have

begun to emerge during this research. Place-name classifications identified to this point include descriptive

or geographic toponyms associated almost entirely with

a geographic feature (Thornton 1995:1 52-64) as well

SUSAN W. FAIR 245
as a number of generic descriptive toponyms affiliated

with areas like portages, mud flats, caribou drive areas, and cliffs. Closely related to the descriptive geographic

toponym is the activity toponym, associated with endeavors conducted at a particular site. While this type

of toponym may reflect geography, activity, or both,

what it usually signifies for a local person is a seasonal performance (usually a traditional economic pursuit) or

historic event associated with the site. Nunivliq refers

to any productive berry-picking place (Fig. 82), for example, although such a place may also bear another

site-specific toponym (Fair 1997). Other generic terms

that refer to topographic features include taziq, for any

lagoon and kitik, for sites where a "stone used for tanning hides" can be found.

Survival narratives are a popular and instructive type

of tale usually told by Inupiaq men. Harvey Pootoo- gooluk tells the story of Ishu, for example, which involves an incident that occurred long before his birth.

This family text, an ancient survival narrative that has

legendary attributes, served to bond him with his adoptive family and their proprietary locality by pointing up

a brave adoptive ancestor. Pootoogooluk and other

adult Shishmaref men regularly tell sun/ival stories and

hunting narratives about their experiences with weather

and animals, providing windows into the worlds of typical

Inupiaq hunters. These stories usually link directly to a place-name and serve as teaching tools for younger

people. Sometimes, they are humorous anecdotes about

the dangers of not paying close attention to one's surroundings. Because many actual named sites are now abandoned or lost to the sea, associated toponyms and

tales sometimes substitute for the landscape itself Such

a place-name remains alive, tied to and perpetuating

Ifiupiaq morals and beliefs. Abandonment of a site does

not usually result in functional deletion of a toponym

from the local repertoire, although place-names associated with the loss of tales known only to specific per- sons or kin groups may result in the extinction of such names. Toponyms for sites and landscapes that have

disappeared may be called memory names, related to

the kind of place-name change associated with ghost

places, although in this case they have actual names

and are not ghost forms of the original toponym. As

Gideon/Kahlook Barr Sr. said of one such place: "It's no longer a river anymore in these days. So, it's just an

old site—which becomes just a story" (1 988). River,

site, place-name, story, memory—a continuum emerges,

a mental stratigraphy of place.

Ikpizaaq (a place where you make clear a space for games) is an example of a memory name. It refers to a

productive spring hunting camp on the Kalik River, once a large village used for fall festivals. Ikpizaaq was

said to have had two qazghit, traditional communal

houses. After subsistence activities were completed,

travelers from different regions gathered there for competitive games and other activities (Koutsky 1 981 :1 7). A particularly memorable historic event at Ikpizaaq involved the tragic drowning of many villagers during a

football game (similar to ice hockey) on weak ice (Burch

1 980: 270). The loss of a number of active hunters and

youths threatened the survival of the entire community and might have led to its demise; thus, this memory name serves as a cautionary device (ibid).

Cideon\Kahlook Barr Sr. and others tell Ikpizaaq

stories:

Today's time, it looks as if there was no one

[that] has been living there. All the old houses are covered with a sandstorm from

the beachside during the summer. ... If people don't believe this story concerning

this old village igloo site, they can go ahead

and dig [Ikpizaaq] up, and approve this story

I am telling. (Gideon/Kahlook Barr, 1988)

Another type of activity toponym is associated with

traditional taboos, especially with those about not disturbing gravesites or homes where a death is known to

have occurred. Some landscapes are affiliated with supernatural occurrences and shamanic activity, and some

such areas were avoided while others were not. In the

last few decades, however, many archaeological sites

have been under the increasing threat of recreational

(and income-producing) digging for artifacts. With the

246 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
82/ The fish and berry-picking camp of Harvey and Bertha Pootoogooluli, on a branch of the Serpentine River near Shishmaref 1998.

establishment of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve,

considerable information about the protection of sites was disseminated in Shishmaref, and some residents

participated in archaeological field and tab research.

This resulted in a somewhat broader understanding of

the impacts of disturbing sites and of the legal implications of "pot hunting."

Some Shishmaref elders now use narratives about

the disturbance of ethnographic materials to illustrate

the way in which contact with places that have been

inhabited may result in illness, misfortune, or even death. Shishmaref elder Fannie/Kigrook Barr says that digging

for artifacts is a recent practice, and perhaps a danger- ous one: "We scarcely look around for 'old-timers' [artifacts] long ago. Because some of them are scary, scary

digging, you know."

She relates how one of her children found "some

kind of carving in the other side of our house [at

Espenberg] on the point across there. . . . They say, all sweat—his body's always wet—after only one night"

SUSAN W. FAIR

(Barr and Barr 1 993). Her husband, Gideon/Kahlook Barr

Sr., added to this conversation that

as much as he wanted to keep it, he had to bring it back from where he found it. . . . Still, what [the person] own, it still had power in

it, evil power. ... In earlier days, graves, and

human bones—they'd have their beadwork

and all of their property buried with them

right there. When somebody picks it up . . . some people died from it right away (ibid).

Both geographic place-names and activity toponyms

are closely associated with Inupiaq national structure

as well as extended family ties when they are remembered and told. In the local family, tales were and still

are told by individuals about their ancestral localities. The stories define particular families as shaped by specific and intimate places. Toponyms of this kind are

family texts, often related as personal narratives or memorates. There are several types of family texts. Tales

of a particular heroic ancestor, those that draw attention to an important event in family history, memorates

247
regarding incidents in the life of a single family member (ancestor or contemporary resident), and those that

tie specific families to mythological beings and their

activities. Some tales serve as broader creation texts,

bolstering the identity of many people. These names

are mnemonic devices for remembering now-fragmented Ifiupiaq nations and family groups as well as

differentiating members from outsiders. The lines here between myth (the origin stories of both people and

landforms) and tales that contain known historical truth

are blurred, as they are in most cultures. The llaganiq ta\es, for example, are a corpus of stories that Cideon/Kahlook Barr Sr., his sister Bessie Barr

Cross, and a few other individuals learned from their

relatives and ancestors at Cape Espenberg: 'The place

where I will start is an old iglu site (homesite or small community) at Cape Espenberg. This man's name,

llaganiq, it's the story. His home was right at the tip of

Espenberg." As told by Barr, the protagonist of the llaganiq creation story is a strongman (an institutionalized

Inupiaq male role) related to the Barr family far back in

time, llaganiq, a robust and aggressive young man, re- mained at home to care for female relatives as his brothers traveled. But he began to terrorize area hunters,

probably somewhere near present-day Deering. On hunting and trading trips north, he repeatedly forced neighbors to relinquish all of their hard-won caribou skins. They finally ended their subservience by stuffing

llaganiq and the skins into his departing kayak so tightly

that he couldn't maneuver, and then killed him.

Ilaganiq's mother was enraged to hear of her son's

death. She took her mitten and reshaped the Cape,

making the shoals so shallow that hunters from other

areas would no longer be successful there (Gideon/

Kahlook Barr Sr. 1 987). A large whale skull marking the

family homesite has been moved several times by Barr

ancestor-curators, and more recently, by Shishmaref residents and NPS personnel, to save it from encroaching

seas. The mythological aspects of this creation text tie

Barr's ancestors to the beginnings of their landscape

and to superhuman kinsmen and women. The legendary components of place-naming at the Cape refer to

llaganiq, who is at once strongman (an admirable type

of man), hero (one who can support many), and badman

(one who does not share), llaganiq was human. The

message of the tale to today's Inupiaq listeners is to emulate Ilaganiq's good qualities and powerful bearing while remembering the character flaws that resulted

in his death (Schaaf 1 996; Fair 1 996: 1 1 3).

Conclusions: How Our Work Can be Used

People always look for lots of berries, that's why they always go further up and further all the way to Ikpek and, ah, 'cause someplace

not many berries but always go further. Look

for more berries. My Native allotment is at Apquagaagzruk, right here right on this side and right up here someplace other one. I chose that area 'cause it got more berries sometimes. . . . That place, I find it myself.

(Davey Ningeulook, Shishmaref, 1997)

Place-names and associations with landscape are intimately imbedded in Kigiqtaamiut life and worldview.

Just as the land itself has distinctive form, these place- names, tales, and histories provide cultural contour and

context to what cultural geographers have referred to

as the "occupied Earth" (Evans 1 972) and folklorists would

surely see as the texts and texture of a people and

their chosen ancestral place (Dundes 1 980).

Toponyms cluster on the landscape and on our maps, drawing attention to complex connections be- tween themselves and features of the landscape. Family texts, descriptive-geographic names, activity names,

creation texts, and memory toponyms all serve multiple purposes. They reflect Ifiupiaq residence and landuse patterns, language and dialect (including slang),

social relationships, the transmission of information by

gender, economic practices, local beliefs, history, morals, and other traditional knowledge. More recently, they

demonstrate creative interplay of old-style naming processes with modern ANCSA initiated land survey and

allotment. If the land is a text for Saniq-Saniniq residents, then the loss of traditional knowledge that would

be transmitted in place-names and associated stories means that many young Itiupiat no longer hear or can

248 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
"read" this text.

Native peoples and Western scholars are improving their communication about the important ties be- tween local landscape and traditional knowledge. In

this respect, Shishmaref and other place-name research

helps bridge the gap between old-style, typically natural and spontaneous Inupiaq oral transmission of history about place and new ways of recording and relating such information about the Inupiaq landscape. Traditional talk about place still occurs each day in most

Alaska Native communities, but as elders pass away

and modernization encroaches, Native youths take less

time to participate in traditional activities and to listen

actively in context. And, as it always has been, some

individuals (elders or not) are better historians than

others, more determined to pass such knowledge on. These are the performers, the eloquent historians, and

it is essential to identif/ and work with them.

As Shishmaref loses ground to the sea and residents contemplate a move to a mainland location, it may be instructive and comforting to look to a place- name for precedent. Up and down the coast, once populous villages are gone, yet the words of elders echoed

in our research give the old ethnographic landscapes

renewed life and underscore their timeless importance.

Thus, in the words of Shishmaref elder and master polar

bear hunter, Davey Ningeulook:

The land has names, be it on the coast or

inland, but we are beginning to forget these names. The days are here when we are

starting to forget the names of the land; the period of forgetting the names has already

begun. . . . Many do not know the place- names that we [elders] know. . . . Before, a person might not know place-names in a

certain area, but a person who does know

them would add to the knowledge. . . . Many

people have forgotten the place-names of the land and, also, erosion has removed

many of these sites to where you can no

longer see them. Sites along the coast with names are no longer there. . . . When we do

cite place-names of those removed by

erosion, uve still mention the name of the sites, even though they are no longer there (Davey

Ningeulook, 1997; emphasis added).

During this project, we gathered place-names, genealogies, family and community stories, migration and

subsistence routes, as well as folktales and other traditional forms of oral historic preservation. As in any

field endeavor, it was critical to record as much information as possible, as quickly as was realistic and with

a variety of approaches. Ultimately, an important goal

of the project has been to generate a broader general

understanding of Saniq-Saniniq peoples' great love and

knowledge of their land and their abiding relationship

with it. Final analysis of these data will also result in

scholarly cross-cultural comparisons of Inupiaq placenaming with similar endeavors in other areas, including

many distant from the Arctic. Whether remembered

and orally transmitted, audio-taped, mapped, photographed, filmed, or written, such records will be critical

to the management and protection of lands where Native peoples have lived and will continue to be.

Acknowledgments

This essay is drawn closely from several other previously published pieces and works in progress (Fair 1 996,

1 997, 1 999; Fair and Ningeulook 1 995). My work with

the late Edgar/Nunageak Ningeulook (1949-1997) on

Shishmaref area toponyms was first funded by the National Park Service, Department of Cultural Resources,

Alaska Regional Office, Shared Beringian Heritage Pro- gram (CA 9910-6-9035). Jeanne Schaaf, Herbert

Anungazuk, and Tim Cochrane of the National Park

Sen*/ice, as well as Luci Eningowuk, then-president of

the Shishmaref IRA Village Council, all gave support

and assistance. The NPS research formed the bedrock

of an in-depth collaborative planning grant funded by

the National Science Foundation (OPP-9708443) in

collaboration with Shishmaref Native Corporation. Percy

Nayokpuk, president of SNC, Clifford Weyiouanna, and

all members and officers, as well as Karen Sinnok, thenpresident of the IRA Council, and Darlene Turner, current president, are the kind of liiupiaq movers, thinkers,

and contributors who make research of this kind posSUSAN W. FAIR 249
sible. John Sinnok painstakingly transcribed most of

our audiotapes. Ningeulook died unexpectedly in July

1 997, and though our work faltered as a result, Herbert Anungazuk stepped in as lead Inupiaq scholar. We are

indebted to Ernest S. Burch Jr., Dorothy Jean Ray, and

Charles Lucier for their pioneering ethnographic work

in northwest Alaska. This essay is dedicated to the elders of Shishmaref in memory of Melvin/AsitonaOlanna,

Gideon/ Kahlook Barr Sr., Inez/Ningeulook Nayokpuk,

Edgar/ Nunageak Ningeulook, Charley Okpowruk, Reila Okpowruk, Walter Nayokpuk, and Elsie Weyiouanna. It

is written with special thanks to Morris Kiyutelluk, Percy

Nayokpuk, Davey and Frieda Ningeulook, Han/ey and

Bertha Pootoogooluk, Molly and Vincent Tocktoo, and

Alex Weyiouanna for the stories, places, life lessons,

and friendship they have been willing to share.

Notes

1 . Exceptions to this are Momaday 1 976a and

1976b, as well as Silko 1990.

2. As an example, I used to receive occasional

letters from Shishmaref about place-names, which

almost always included information about hunting,

weather, and daily village life and deaths.

3. This was not a local or emic designation. In general, the people of this area called themselves

either Kigiqtaamiut or by the name of their winter

settlement. The map illustration drawn by a turn of the century Wales artist shows the outsider designation Tapkak (sic). See Fig. 75.

4. Local residents are told "never to bring home

what is alongside of or found in a grave because the

spirit of the deceased person is intact even after death." Objects placed on a grave are considered

owned and belong at the site, while the grave itself

is considered by Inupiaq to be inhabited. People

buried at this place would be referred to as Situwaashuwaat {Anungazuk 1 997).

5. Not all Inupiaq place-names for these riv- ers were available at this writing.

6. Itibliq is the generic Qividluamiut term for a portage or "place for traversing."

7. Okpowruk gave a classic framework or in- troduction to his narrative, which is why I have itali- cized the beginning and end. Gideon Barr's earlier tale about the portage does not identify the tale

type, but indicates that his story contains historic truth as well. Most societies differentiate between

myths, legends, folktales, and other forms of narrative (Degh and Vazsonyi 1976 [1981]. In this case, Okpowruk carefully identified what scholars might

call a legend with a preface indicating that the story can be taken in part as historic fact, while ending

with the comment that he does not believe all parts of the legend .

8. Some of them had been taped to facilitate implementation of the Alaska Native Claims Settle- ment Act (ANCSA) after 1971 and are located with

BIA. I contributed interviews conducted in Shishmaref on my earlier projects (1982, 1991), as did Edgar

Ningeulook.

9. The NEH research was initiated by Suzi

Jones, then Folk Arts Coordinator at Alaska State Council on the Arts. Each of the villages identified for the study by Kawerak, Inc., hired local Native

historians and translators to do the work. These data

remain in village archives, with Kawerak, and with some of the interviewers. In Shishmaref, Edgar

Ningeulook was the primary fieldworker and coordinator.

10. I regret that my early publications may

actually contribute to this problem. We find new spellings continuously, and I have been corrected on some earlier spellings. Orthography for the place- name volumes for Shishmaref will be guided and

checked by local Inupiaq scholars and by Lawrence

Kaplan of Alaska Native Language Center.

12. Some of these maps are more accessible

to the general public than others. It was our intention to consolidate this information into one published source for the benefit of Inupiaq readers in Shishmaref, as well as for scholars.

13. Webster's Encyclopedic Edition, Lexicon

Publications, Inc., New York, 1989 Edition.

1 4. Gulliford (2000:67) discusses these cross-cultural issues by quoting Hawk Little John, a Cherokee:

"It is difficult to verbalize in another language, for an- other culture, exactly what makes a place sacred."

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Appendix

"Qividluaq" : Example of Place-Name Entry Data

Qividluaq (Qividluamiut); translation: "a place where there

is a lagoon behind and a beach coast outside" or "small

bank" (BIA-1 4; Koutsky, 1 981 ; Edgar Ningeulook, 6/94;

BSNC-1 04; KTZ-009; NANA, 1 992:3/1 7).

[According to] Gideon Kahlook Barr Sr.:

Ancient sod houses at Qividluaq, once a

large community, have eroded into the ocean, and only one house and a "ware- house," or cache, remain. The cache be- longed to William Ukaaniq and his wife Piyula

(Beulah), who died in the 1940s. Shishmaref

sculptor Harvey Pootoogooluk was raised at Qividluaq after his adoption by the elderly

couple. Barr, whose family lived at Qividluaq

in 1918 when he was an infant, describes the Saniq coast as "more likely an island all the way across and down to Shishmaref." He

adds that between Qividluaq and Shishmaref

at present, it looks as though the coast was

uninhabited, "because all the old sites, igloo

sites, have eroded away from the big storms we had in earlier days" (Barr, 1 988).

Edgar/Nunageak Ningeulook related the following tale about Qividluaq, which he learned in 1 984 from Jack Herman Ningeulook, his paternal uncle:

There are many ghosts in this community. At one time, a husband and wife were traveling

to another settlement and planned to overnight in one of the sod houses at Qividluaq. Upon entering the house, they

noticed that the inhabitants, a couple, were

dead. Their faces were very distorted. The

travelers were terribly frightened. They could

not sleep that night, so they turned back,

returning to their original point of origin.

Upon their return, both husband and wife

died instantly because they had been

exposed to the evil spirits at Qividluaq:. This

SUSAN W. FAIR 253
area was thought to have had many evil spirits that might claim people. But when a

lone traveler slept there overnight, he would

not be bothered by the spirits.

Harvey Pootoogooluk tells many stories about

Qividluaq. The story of Ishu, "really deep lake" or "the one with a devil [in it]" which follows is both family

text and memorate handed down about Agnaaniq, his

father's elder brother, who once killed a stranger who

attacked him as he was hunting. This tale would have

served to bolster his attachment to his adopted family

as well as familiarizing him with the area:

The man had a knife and ran after him. When

the other man ran toward him, when this other man tried to use a knife on him—When he did

so, he ran over willow thickets, qiliknausmq. . . .When he did not get the intruder, he went

back to where he left the rifle. When he found

the gun, he went back to where the intruder was last seen. . . . Agnaaniq \Na\X.Q6 for him to come closer. He was in front of the intruder. The intruder had a good rifle—But Agnaaniq shot him here, while the intruder was looking around

for something. . . . Agnaaniq tied the [man's] rifle to his victim, and sank him in the lake called

Ishu. It is called "deep lake" because it is a deep

lake .... The intruder, his victim, had on fish mukluks, king salmon mukluks. He was from

away from here, far away from here. He was an

Indian, from a place called Igaluwik. (Harvey

Pootoogooluk, Shishmaref, 1 993)

References: See Burch (1 971 :1 54-5) for a discussion of

the visible forms taken by ghosts. Koutsky writes that

the name of the village was Salliniq, referring to the

barrier island strand itself, which probably actually refers back to the term Saniniq (1 981 : 1 7-8). Residents of

Qividluaq spoke a distinctive dialect and referred to themselves as Qividluamiut according to Morris

Kiyutelluk (1976) and Edgar Ningeulook (1994). Key

local families at Qividluaq included Ningeulook,

Eningowuk, Kiyutelluk, Pootoogooluk, Walluk, and Barr.

The Komanaseak and Nagozruk families of Wales also

originated from this locality. Nagozruk family members including Kate/Ataseaq, and her brothers Sockpick,

Adams, and Eningowuk migrated to Wales during a famine, probably some time in the late 1 800s (McClintock,

1995).

Ray links the village closely with Sinik, across the

lagoon, noting that Qividluaq was said to have had

seven houses and possibly one qazgri in 1 892 (Ray

1983:214; Jackson 1895:97). She also notes that the

village was called Chibamech on Kobelev's original

1 779 map (1 983:230). Qividluaq residents went to the Niqianaqtuuq River on the Saniniq coast for fall fishing

and sealing during traditional times (ibid.). The site was

indeed once well populated; recent National Park Service archaeological research notes "two intact house

depressions, three associated cache depressions, and a

large rectangular depression" which may be the qazgri

at one location. Nearby, another site contains nine house

depressions and 1 3 caches, and still another has 1

1

houses and 26 cache remains (Schaaf 1988:120). The

remains of Harvey Pootoogooluk's boyhood home,

the raised cache mentioned above, a grave, and scattered parts from boats are nearby (ibid.). Some of the houses were constructed with materials scavenged from

shipwrecks. There is another Sinik on the Saniniq coast,

the spit at Elephant Point, according to Charles Lucier's

collaborator, Jessie Ralph. Qividluaq residents and their descendants now live in Shishmaref.

Also known as or spelled: Kivaluaq, Kivalluaq,

Kividluk, Kevalooauk, Kividlo, Kevediok, Kivuklouk,

Qivaluaq, Qivaluq, Qipalut, Chibamech.

254 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SANIQ PLACE-NAMES
fvtcdievai "~[ ales, Modern "J ourists:

l^xpionng the Njai'^^aga Landscape oT ^^'-^utheni Iceland

ELISABETH I. WARD AND

ARTHUR BJORCVIN BOLLASON

The subarctic North Atlantic island of Iceland has an

austere physical landscape; treeless rolling hills, large

lava fields, barren glaciers, active volcanoes, tumbling

waterfalls, steaming springs, and towering cliffs commingle in surprising ways. Before the arrival of the Vikings to Iceland in 874 A.D., the island was an uninhabited, wild place. Since that time, succeeding generations directly descendent from those first settlers have

acculturated the land, turning it from wilderness into

settled areas. The process of settling the land created

an ordered society, complete with laws, property rights,

inheritance claims, and so on (Hunt and Gilman, 1 998;

Hann, 1 998). And yet there are few if any physical markers of these old land divisions visible on the landscape. Areas in the mountains are shared by entire communities, and fences—once extremely rare—are even today sparingly employed, allowing the horses and

sheep to roam freely.

Iceland's population is today slightly over a quarter

of a million people. Before the 1950s, Iceland's peak

population had been around 70,000 people, a number

reached by 1 250 A.D. Thereafter, famine, disease, and

low birth rates had reduced Iceland's population at times

to precariously low numbers, in an area of more than

1 03,000 square kilometers (40,000 square miles). This low population density meant that the landscape was

not altered heavily by man-made projects. Perhaps the most dramatic human action was the quick clearing,

within the first one-hundred years of human habitation.

of the shrub-like dwarf birch trees that covered much

of the island (Vesteinsson 2000: 165). Thereafter, Iceland became virtually treeless. Because of the poor quality—and later absolute

scarcity—of trees, the early settlers in Iceland modified

their traditional timber-dependent house construction

techniques, and instead began building houses out of

turf and rock, a practice that continued into the 1 940s.

Only fifty years after abandonment, such houses quickly

become indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. Combined with the dearth of trees, fences, or

obvious man-made projects, the lack of old buildings

gives Iceland's landscape an unparalleled sense of openness. This encourages broad outlooks across

vast distances, as any glance at photographs of Iceland will quickly confirm (Fig. 83). From the roadside, one takes in entire valleys, regions, and mountains many miles away.

Landscape in a Cultural Context

To outsiders, the openness of the Icelandic landscape

can easily be interpreted as the emptiness of thai land- scape (see Callaway, this volume). But to make this assumption is to overlook a fundamental aspect of the

Icelandic culture. For Icelanders, the efforts of their ancestors to claim and settle this island are of supreme

importance, on both a practical and symbolic level. Land ownership claims are dependent upon it, while at

the same time, their sense of human agency is height2 5 5
ened by reflecting on that process of making the wild

civilized. Far from being a simple physical entity, as it might be for a modern Western city dweller, land is a

hotly contested and central part of Icelandic culture. The Farmer's Party is the strongest party in Icelandic

politics, and laws exist banning foreigners from owning

land, especially in the countryside. The foremost Icelandic artists are all landscape painters, and today photography books of Icelandic landscapes—though partially intended for tourist consumption—are extremely common.

Beyond economics, politics, and art, Icelanders also

give the landscape meaning through their storytelling

in both oral and written form. By remembering, retelling, and writing stories about the original settlers, of

later medieval saints and sinners, and of recent notable

figures, they retain knowledge of the culture-history of

the land. An example illustrates how widespread this knowledge is: a professor from the University of

Reykjavik regularly took his students on a field trip to

southern Iceland as part of a course on Icelandic history and literature. He always stopped the bus at a

certain spring, and told the students the story of

Cudmund the Good, Bishop of Iceland in the thirteenth

century. This bishop took as his holy duty the blessing

of cliffs, springs, and islands. Once special evocation was said over a particular spring; all that washed their

face in it afterward would be cleansed of all sins. Every

year, as the professor would stop beside this spring

near the roadside and tell the students this was the famous spring blessed by Cudmund, a local farmer

would stand nearby and listen. But after the professor

left with his students, the local farmer would inform

any passerby that again the professor had gotten it wrong. According to the farmer, the actual spring

blessed by the bishop was a few hundred yards to the

east of the one pointed out by the professor.

This local knowledge of the landscape is retained

mostly by the elderly farmers who take pride in knowing the names, stories, and places of importance in their immediate area. They grew up at a time when Icelanders lived in the same area their whole lives, as had their

family for generations before, and stories about the

landscape were common at family gatherings or in conversations with neighbors. Today's Icelanders have a

different experience; many families have left the countryside to reap the benefits of the education, jobs, and

health care provided in the capitol. American popular

culture first introduced when an American base was

established in Iceland just after World War II—offered new entertainment choices. But one aspect of Icelandic culture has coincidentally safeguarded against these changes obliterating generations of accumulated stories: a love of the written word.

Books About the Land

Icelanders are proud that their population is one-hundred percent literate, and reading and writing have been

the purview of subsistence farmers almost as commonly

as priests and other members of the upper class since

the thirteenth century. According to Halldor Laxness,

"Icelanders have always had a fascination with the written word." However, knowledge gained from books is

not automatically given precedence over traditional

folklore. Farmers whose shelves are filled with books

also maintain a vibrant cultural belief in supernatural

beings such as little people (even diverting the course

of a major construction project so as not to disturb a

purported "little people" settlement). For non-Icelanders (Mendingar, literallyout-landers), the lack of distinction between oral and written knowledge in Icelandic

culture can be difficult to grasp, but the two coexist

as complementary epistemological systems. Neither

is automatically granted an air of authenticity, and both

are considered reliable.

Beginning in the 1 920s, the Travel Association of

Iceland began producing annual books about Iceland

for Icelanders that cover specific regions and districts. These books often incorporate the knowledge of local

farmers, or were written by the farmers themselves and

seamlessly blend knowledge from various sources into

a single document about a region (for example,

256 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
83/ Iceland's treeless landscape allows for expansive i (threehorned) Mountain.

Codasteinn, a yearbook about the Rangar region in

southern Iceland). Traditional stories, facts about geographic formations, names of specific farms and landscape features, and family histories are all included. The regional books mimic one of the first books

ever written in Icelandic, called Landndmabok, which

chronicles the lives and adventures of the first settlers,

the regions in which they settled, and the place-names

they set upon the geographic features. Iceland was

uninhabited when the first Viking seafarers voyaged

across the North Atlantic (Vesteinsson 2000), save for

a few recluse Irish monks who quickly left. The first

settlers were therefore free to name the features of

land after themselves (Hjorleif s Hill, Ingolf s Mountain);

after the resources they found important (Salmon River,

Forested Hill); and also according to their physical ap- pearance (White River, Smokey Bay). Though many of

these place-names were established more than 1 ,000

years ago, they are still intelligible to Icelanders today

because of the conservative nature of the Icelandic

language. By simply parsing the place-names, Icelanders have a ready mnemonic to remind them of the

of the landscape, such as this one towards Thrihyrning

people and stories that inspired the place-names.

In the 1 960s, the tradition of remembering regional

histories and narratives found expression in an unillustrated, two-volume set called Landid Thitt (your land), which features extensive histories on selected places

of interest. At times, the same pages of the book reference a saga hero, a medieval priest, a seventeenth century merchant, and a modern painter, as long as they all had a connection with the same landscape area. In 1 978,

a few years after the opening of the first road linking all

the settlements of Iceland (called the Ring Road), a

single illustrated volume entitled Islenska Vega Handbokin

(Icelandic roadtravel handbook) came out. Organized

by region and road number, it keys detailed maps to numbered paragraphs that provide information ranging from geological factoids to medieval saga excerpts

to nineteenth century folk beliefs. The Vega Handbokin

has been a best seller since that time through many

revisions and has been translated into English and Ger- man. It is a common experience—including for the authors of this paper—that no drive into the countryside

is made without this "road bible" as a constant comELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 257
panion. In essence, it fills the relatively featureless Icelandic landscape with culturally relevant pieces of

information, making each drive a pilgrimage through

the Icelandic storehouse of narratives. There is little concern that the cultural landscape knowledge is in danger of disappearing, especially since government

support exists to increase that knowledge through archaeological surveys and historic research (Ragnheidar

Traustadottir, coordinator of the National Museum of

Iceland Regional Survey, pers. comm. to E.W., 2002).

The Cultural Centrality of Sagas

While several books testify to the long tradition of retaining local histories, they tend to elide the cultural

preference for one type of narrative, the sagas. Beginning in the twelfth century, Icelanders began writing on

calfskin in their native tongue stories that had been

passed down orally, some for over three hundred years.

Called sogwr (sing, saga) from the verb "to say"—it also

has the meaning "history" or simply "story"—sagas are

at once sophisticated literature and living folktales. Most

sagas are believed to have been first composed orally

and then written down in much the same way they were spoken, though this point is under constant scholarly debate (see Olason 1 998; Sigurdsson 2004 for summaries). Since the thirteenth century, the written books

have been recopied, incorporating new elements of

the stories as the folktales changed, until a huge cor- pus accumulated. Each retelling incorporates new

thoughts and new knowledge, blurring the line between

literature and folklore. Because each builds on something that had existed before, there is no acknowledged

"author" as such; most sagas are anonymous works of

literature. This might indicate that they were so well known, common, and retold so often that they were

considered the property of the culture rather than any one person. Though philologists have made careful comparisons between different versions to uncover changes in the stories, which have been used as evi- dence of authorial intent (Hastrup 1 985; Palsson 1 992), these are often changes that reflect the political reality

of the author's own day, as would be expected of any

living folkloric tradition. The sagas are classified by academics into different

types according to subject matter. Many stories are about

bishops, saints, or priests; several books are devoted to

the kings of Norway and Denmark; and in the fifteenth

century, romantic tales from foreign lands were translated into Icelandic. The preservation of many of these books (and the obvious signs of use) suggests that

they were highly valued in their day; the sagas contin- ued to be recopied by hand until the nineteenth century. While all forms have value, by far the largest body

of written stories—called the Sagas of the IcelandersIs about the first settlers and their descendants as they

struggled to create an ordered society out of scratch in

a newly inhabited land. As the "origin myth" for the

Iceland nation, the Sagas of the Icelanders are the best- known and most-loved stories (Kellogg 1997). Since

the eighteenth century, they have been printed, translated, and sold en masse around the world, especially

in Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the United States.

Also, these tales have received the greatest level of

attention from scholars at universities around Northern

Europe and North America for the last one-hundred

years. In the remainder of this paper, when the term

saga is used, it should be understood to refer to Sagas

of the Icelanders.

Once, when Vigdis Finnbogadottir, then President

of Iceland, was giving a talk in Germany, she discussed

how the European landscape is dominated by medieval castles. By contrast, she noted that in Iceland,

there are no such monuments to the works of man,

but there are "castles hidden in the landscape. We call them the Sagas ofIcelander^' (pers. comm. to A.B., 1 986).

In this analogy, the history of kings or saints or priests

would be cottages, while the sagas are given the status of castles. Though saga place names are recognizable in the farms that still bear those names today,

it is not those particular farms themselves that are the

castles. Rather, those farms are reminders of stories "hidden"—or situated—in a landscape, and that entire

258 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
landscape is culturally meaningful.

Sagas in Icelandic Daily Life

The literary fecundity of the sagas is clearly demonstrative of cultural worth and effort, but the sagas are more than books to sit on a shelf: they are a part of the

daily consciousness of Icelanders. Beginning in the

sixteenth century, poems about saga characters circulated around Iceland, and were extremely popular. One

poem from the eighteenth century by a well-known

poet, Sigurd Breidfjord, about the main female villain

of NJal's Saga, Hallgerd, cast her in a favorable light. An indignant farmer, couched in the traditional view of

Hallgerd as the perpetrator of evil against the main

hero in the saga, countered with another poem, which was quickly passed around (Sveinnson 1 958). Such was

the potency of the saga narratives more than 800

years after the events they recount.

Today, the sagas are not only taught in the schools

formally, but they are commonly discussed informally

at home, especially in the rural distrias. Linguistic phrases

and cliches spring from events in the sagas:

—ad lyfta Grettis would be the English equivalent to "lifting a heavy load" of biblical reference, but the Icelandic phrase makes particular reference

to a saga hero, Crettir, who was able to lift an

incredibly heavy rock.

—When young children are caught doing something wrong, their guardians will often use a phrase

from NJal's Saga, "Tekid hafjeg hvolpa tvo, hvalskal

vil tha gera, " meaning, 'Tve captured two puppies,

what should I do with them?" a tacit threat by one of

the more ferocious Viking warriors, Skarphedinn

from NJdl s Saga.

—Dyr mundi Haflidi allir ("expensive would it be to pay for all of Halflid's life") is a phrase sometimes

used when an expensive price is quoted for merchandise, for example, since in SwHunga Saga, the

family of a slain warrior (Halflid) is awarded an ab- surdly high compensation amount.

The most famous quotes from the sagas are known to

all, even if they have never read the sagas, including

84/ This rendering of tine meeting between dapper

Gunnar and his beautiful future wife Hallgerd by A. Bloch was reproduced as a postcard, 1 929.

the final statement by the main female in Laxdala Saga,

'Theim vareg verst, ereg unni mest" (he I treated worst,

I loved/valued the most).

Mass media including newspapers, film, television and radio programs also do their part to popularize the saga characters (Fig. 84). Several recent debates about

saga characters that played themselves out in the national papers, and sometimes the nightly news, included: the sexual preference of Njal; the sexual

problems of Hrutur; Egil's drinking habits; Gunnar

and Hallgerd's marriage problems and the national

affiliation of Leif Eriksson. The sagas also are inescapably part of the daily life of Icelanders living in

Reykjavik, who drive on Gunnarsbraut (Gunnar's road,

named after the saga character Gunnar) or along the

ELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 259
other streets named after saga characters (Helgason

1998).

Through these public debates, Icelanders are participating in a group performance of their identity. They

are demonstrating what they have in common with each

other: a shared heritage originating in the time of settle- ment as remembered in the sagas. Each debate in the

paper, each cliche used in conversation, and each quote

from a saga is simultaneously an outgrowth of that cultural heritage and a performative assurance of its continued cultural validity. It is a testament to the stability

of Icelandic culture, despite being under foreign rule

of Denmark and Norway for almost 800 years, that this

connection to events and people who lived more than

1 ,000 years ago is still deeply felt.

The Saga of Burnt Njal

Though the Icelandic sagas as a body of literature have

received much academic interest abroad and continue

to elicit common cultural interest in Iceland, a few works

do stand out as more highly valued for various reasons, including their breadth of coverage iHeimskhngla);

historical import (the Vinland Sagas); or narrative structure (Laxadala Saga). For the purposes of this paper, we

will be examining one saga of that latter category. The

Saga of Burnt Njdl, or simply NJdl's Saga. It is an especially carefully constructed saga, with common novelistic elements such as foreshadowing, a spiraling complexity in events, and a dramatic final climax. Unlike most sagas, it is simply too long for one to imagine it was recited orally, and might therefore have been originally composed as a written work. The Saga of Burnt

A//'fl/ contains 1 59 chapters, and a recent English translation occupies 219 pages (Hreinsson 1 997a). But even

in this case, where authorial effort in weaving an intricate tapestry by combining elements from perhaps

several folktales to create one epic story is obvious,

the author's name is unknown.

In very brief form, the saga focuses around a hero

named Cunnar and his wise friend Njal. Conflicts arise

during each one's relationships with women, their children, their neighbors, and their rivals in other parts of

the country and abroad. In typical fashion for sagas,

these conflicts result in one party killing a member of

the other party. The case is then brought before the

appropriate legal body (the first Icelanders established

a parliament and law court in 930 A.D.), where monetary or legal compensation (in the form of banishment) is sought. Though the saga is called the Saga of Burnt Njal, a great many of these conflicts actually

revolve around Cunnar, with Njal supplying astute and

sometimes tricky legal advice to Cunnar that often angers the other party, thus provoking further conflict. Cunnar dies after being attacked at his home by over

thirty men (and betrayed by his problematic though

beautiful wife) near the middle of the story, and then

the course of events continues to play out with Njal's sons inheriting Cunnar's conflicts and some of their own. Near the end of the story, Njal's home is also ambushed, and as his enemies guard the doors, he,

his wife, two daughters, three sons and one grand- son are burned alive inside the house. His son-inlaw, Kari, manages to escape, and finally avenges

this terrible deed.

This adventurous tale, complex story line, and wonderfully drawn characters have supplied much fodder

for debate among Icelanders and foreign academics. It

has been taught in school in Iceland since the turn of

the century, and many university courses have been

developed around it. Ceorge Dascent did the first English translation in 1 861 , and from this sprung a series

of alternative translations stretching to the present day.

German and Scandinavian translations have been no

less prolific since the late nineteenth century. In prefaces to many of these translations, Njal's Saga is described as the greatest work of literature in the Icelandic Saga tradition (Magnusson and Palsson 1 960).

Njal's Saga and the Icelandic Landscape

What is less noted in these academic discussions is

the relationship between this saga and the Icelandic

landscape, especially the landscape of southern Ice260 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
land where most, though not all, of the saga action

takes place (Fig. 85). Specific local details in Njdl's Saga

allow for the residents of the area to feel a personal

connection to the story and the characters. The saga

writers used the sense of wide vistas and landscape

perspectives described above in creating their tales

(Kaalund 1 877). For instance, the scene just before the famous burning of Njal's farm, as his enemies gather, is

set up through this horseback ride through the landscape:

Then they mounted their horses and rode up

into the mountains and on to Fiskivotn and

on to the west of these, and then headed

due west for Maelifellssand, with the

Eyjafjallajokul to their left, and then down to Codaland and from there to Markarfljot. At mid afternoon they came to Thrihyrning and

waited there until early evening. By that time

everyone had arrived except Ingjald of

Keldur, and the Sigfussons condemned him

strongly, but Flosi told them not to blame

Ingjald while he was not there—"we will settle with him later." (Hreinsson 1997a: 152).

The knowledge of the land conveyed in this quote

begins to hint at how intricately tied narrative is to

landscape in Icelandic folkloric saga tradition.' As the

all-knowing saga narrator sets up the characters and

their conflicts, scenes shift between farms, some in other

districts far away, if not in fact in foreign lands. But the

sagas almost invariably describe the specific routes

taken, and verify this by listing the number of days the

character took in getting from place to place. The narrator does not simply skip from one locale to another,

but rather takes his reader (or listeners) through a mental journey across the landscape, pointing out land- marks along the way. For this reason, familiarity with

the Icelandic sagas tends to breed familiarity with the

Icelandic landscape.

Njdl's Saga is certainly no exception to this, whether one follows along with Cunnar as he goes to settle

with his cousin's ex-husband's father on the east coast,

or along with Karl as he avenges his family members in

Norway. It was perhaps this sense of movement across

the landscape that first inspired English visitors to Iceland in the nineteenth century to try to physically re85/ Map of Iceland showing the range of territory covered by characters in Njal's Saga. The location of the Saga

Centre is between HIidarendi and Bergthorshvol on the southern coast.

ELISABETH I, WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 261
trace the narrative story tine scene by scene. While not

always taken in strictly chronological order, visitors in

Reykjavik would head eastward, across the mountains,

as had Cunnar after divorcing his first wife, back to the

land of his childhood, Hiidarendi in Flotshlid. Such

pilgrimages to the saga sites were once popular for academics and elites from the U.K., where translations

of NJdl's Saga were especially common. The well-respected historical painter, W.G. Collingwood, visited

Iceland in the 1 890s, and his paintings of the saga landscapes as well as his travel book describing his journey undoubtedly contributed to this phenomenon

(Collingwood and Stefansson 1 899).

It should be noted that in some cases, in their en- thusiasm and as a reflection of how closely tied the

sagas seem to be to the landscape, scholars and historians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries either named or renamed places with saga related-names, according to their own interpretations (Fridriksson 1 994).

This has led to multiple places with the same sagainspired place-name, and discussions about which place- name is more legitimate are ongoing. This suggests to some—especially archaeologists relying on place-name

data when conducting surveys and determining where

to dig—that the saga place-names are unreliable. Research at the Icelandic Cultural Ministry (Ornefastofnu)

suggests there is considerable continuity of place names,

at least from the seventeenth century (Gudrun

Gudmansdottir, pers. comm. to E.W.). The authors

of this paper offer that where renaming has taken

place, especially by the local population, it can be

taken as a sign of the living tradition of Iceland's saga landscapes.

To date, numerous books have been published

describing saga sites and the probable routes taken

across landscape, the newest publication being a book

titled NJdluslodir, where Bjarnason (1 999) lists and describes all the sites mentioned in NJdl 's Saga.

It is not just in the general route that the sagas

relate geographic details. Understanding the action

described in certain scenes depends on a more in-depth

knowledge of the landscape. For instance, in one battle

scene, Cunnar's physical prowess is well demonstrated

by his ability to ward off thirty attackers, but his mental

quickness in diverting his route, when he sensed an ambush, to take him to a uniquely defendable place (a

large rock near a swift moving river; Fig. 86) is perhaps

the more important part of the narrative. In both general outline and in specific scenes and action sequences,

the sagas are tied to knowledge of the land.

Local Identity and NJdl's Saga

The international renown of NJdl's Saga has certainly

been a point of pride for the entire Icelandic nationsmall and isolated as it is—and cited often at academic

conferences and in political speeches as evidence of

Icelandic skill with the written word. But beyond its

literary recognition, NJdl's Saga also has a more concrete, local value. According to the saga, the main character Njal lived at a certain farm called Bergthorshvol,

and a farm of that same name still exists on the same

piece of land in the south of Iceland, on the coast

opposite the Vestman Islands. The main hero, Gunnar,

is called Gunnar of Hiidarendi because he owned a

farm named Hiidarendi in the hilly district (Fijotshlid,

the river hillside) inland from Njal's farm. Hiidarendi also

exists today as a working farm, and the entire Fijotshlid

area is still a major farming area in southern Iceland. Though few local residents claim direct ancestry from

Njal or Gunnar, all Icelanders are descendants of those

early settlers.

For the local residents of the area where the characters in NJdl's Saga lived, the saga is far more than a

great work of literature. It is their own regional story, as

well as their own personal history. It is, in other words,

part of their identity. If debates about the sagas are common in the national newspapers, debates about

the NJdl's Saga characters for residents of this district

of Iceland are codified performative moments of that

identity in the form of conversations on almost a daily

basis (Hymes 1 983). One amusing example comes from

a recluse farmer, who rarely interacted socially with his

262 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
86/ Cunnarsstein (Cunnar's stone), believed by the locals a successful defense against thirty armed men.

neighbors. But after reading a flyer put out by the women's committee announcing an event on August

23, 2001 to commemorate the burning of Njal's farm,

he had to speak up. After taking several stiff drinks, he

called up the event organizer, and announced that there was a terrible problem. You see, he had spent many

years reading Njal's Saga carefully, and by looking at

clues in the story about the ripeness of the hay and the

care given to the sheep, he had determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that the burning had actually taken

place on August 21. He advised the commemoration

be moved two days earlier, accordingly.

This is but one of dozens of examples of how com- mon discussions of Njal's Saga are for the residents of

the area. Such a situation is not unique to southern

Iceland; most districts of Iceland have a saga that took

place in their area (Hreinsson 1 997b:388-90). Because

of this, sagas landscapes—landscapes tied to specific saga narratives are a defining characteristics of much

of the Icelandic landscape.

to be the location where Cunnar and two others lodged

The Saga Centre in Hvollsvollur

The preceeding argument has outlined the extent to which Iceland's cultural landscapes, particularly saga

landscapes, have been continually preserved and made

meaningful within Icelandic culture. But that culture has

undergone tremendous change in the last fifty years, and the question arises as to how the tradition of saga

landscapes can be incorporated into modern realities. One community, Hvollsvollur, in the region of southern

Iceland where Njal's Saga mostly took place, has undertaken a unique experiment to see whether or not

the Icelandic sense of a voyage through a narrativerich saga landscape can become a commodity within

a capitalist economic system; in so doing, they have

also posed the broader question of whether or not a

landscape which is essentially sacred in one culture

can be interpreted and presented in such a way that it becomes meaningful to foreign tourists who do not

share that cultural background.

In the late 1990s, when the southern part of IceELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 263
land (more specifically, the regional administrative unit

Rangarvallasysia) was facing a huge economic slow

down as the younger generation stopped farming and

the fishing market bottomed out, the district representatives wanted to find a quick way to increase revenue. The only industry at that time that was doing well in

Iceland was tourism. Tourism has been a booming industry since the 1970s, thanks in no small part to

Icelandair, the only commercial airline servicing Iceland (until late, when it has partnered with SAS). It has

heavily promoted travel to Iceland in both the U.S. and

Europe by offering discounted fares and special weekend trips. Often these include tours to the natural wonders of Iceland: Cullfoss, a magnificent waterfall that tumbles more than ninety feet, or to Sneafellsjokull,

the most westerly glacier. The austere beauty of these

sites is well conveyed in the glossy brochures given

out at every hotel. Buses depart on regularly scheduled tours from both the airport and various hotels for

these natural wonders. Tour companies rely on the innate allure of such destinations, and this approach has

successfully made tourism the second largest national

industry, after fishing. A recent Gallup poll found that

there were as many tourists to Iceland in the summer of 2000 as there are Icelanders (280,000).

The local governmental officials in southern Iceland understandably wanted "a piece of that action."

But there are few if any outstanding natural wonders in

this region; mostly there are broad plains, pleasant rivers, and comely rolling hillsides. It is not a place to

inspire awe, but rather to foster feelings of comfort. A

nearby forest is one of the few in Iceland, which makes

it popular with Icelanders, but it is not what visitors from places with real forests—like the Black Forest in Germany or the Redwood Forest in California—would

make a special effort to see. And as in all of Iceland,

there are no large buildings or other outstanding man- made wonders to behold in southern Iceland. What southern Iceland does have is Njdl's Saga. As

described above, a select class of tourists from England

and Scandinavia had been coming to this part of Iceland specifically because of NJal's Saga since the late nineteenth century. Travel books about Iceland

(i.e.Russel 1914) had always highlighted this region as

NJdluslod, the area where Njdl's Saga took place (Fig.

87, see below also). Although only sixty of two-hundred of the place-names mentioned in Njal's Saga are found in this area (Bjarnason 1 999), no other district

has a greater concentration. Most importantly, the two

main characters, Gunnar and Njal, lived in this area.

Thus, it was quite logical that the district representatives decided to gamble on encouraging tourists to

visit Rangarvallasysia because of Njdl's Saga. For

these locals, the landscape was naturally filled with

stories of saga heroes and exciting events, thanks

to the unknown author of Njdl's Saga. An Icelander does not look at Gunnar's farm at HIidarend without

associating it with the hero of Njdl's Saga and his wife

Hallgerd. And the mountain Thrihyrning (see Fig. 83),

in the mind of an Icelandic traveler, is connected with

the story of Flosi, who hid in a valley at the top of that mountain after the dramatic fire at Bergthorshvol. The

Icelanders and foreigners who know Njdl's Saga look

at the landscape and see not just the physical features: a fast-running river or a low, green hill. Instead,

these natural features lead Icelanders to think about

the exciting and important events that happened here more than 1 ,000 years ago. This shared, imagined cultural landscape was tangible enough to the local community leaders that they believed they could make a

tourist attraction around it, the Saga Centre. Because

this tourist attraction relies on the pre-existing cultural

landscape of southern Iceland, created primarily through

a specific saga narrative, it is an appropriate focus in

seeking to understand saga landscapes in their modern

manifestation. What this analysis suggests is that the

existence of the Saga Centre not only serves to preserve the cultural landscape, it also is a transformative

agent of that landscape, giving it new meaning.

Beginning of the Saga Centre

Beginning in 1996, community leaders from the ten

264 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
87/ A sign along the main highway indicating the boundary of the community of Fljotshlid (^Viox.sUWba.fUrep'pur) , a pan of the larger Njaiuslod {H]k\ViS\6^) region.

towns that make up Ragnarvallasysia had meetings

to discuss a proposal to create a special tour of the

places mentioned in NjdI's Saga. Six of the ten communities allocated funds from their annual budgets to- ward the development of this idea, and the mayors of

each contributing town appointed a board. Early on,

the tour was envisioned as a two-day trip with a night

in a hotel, and brochures were printed, describing this

tour. It was quickly determined that a building would

be necessary as a specific destination in what is otherwise an amorphous area! destination, and it could also

serve as a starting point from which the tours could

depart. In the building, several components were included: a tourist center with leaflets about area attractions, a sales shop, some office space, an exhibition

hall, and a Viking style dinning area."^ For the first two

years, there were few bookings for the tour.

In late 1996, the board hired a designer and pur- chased a building, calling it "The Saga Centre". The

building was located in Hvollsvollur, which is centrally located within the Rangarvallasysia and happens to be the hometown of one of the strongest pro- ponents of the idea, a dentist and community leader. A

designer was hired, Bjorn G. Bjornsson, one of the most

experienced exhibition creators in Iceland. In going

about his job of designing the center, he traveled to many international Viking exhibitions and sites, including the Jorvik Center in York, the Dublin National Museum, L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, and museums in Scandinavia. The exhibition reflects the influence of established

Viking exhibitions in that it contains a broad discussion about the Vikings and the Viking Age, which takes up approximately a third of the floor space. Another

section focuses on the history of saga writing in Iceland, discussing such personages as the famous historian and explainer of saga poetry, Snorri Sturlusson. The remainder of the exhibition, slightly less than half

ELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 265
the floor space, focuses on NJal's Saga itself. In one of

the letters from the designer to the Viking Adventure

and Feast in Dublin (Sept. 1 3, 1 996), the designer com- mented that the sagas are an underutilized asset in

Icelandic tourism, and it seems indeed he had few ex- amples from which to model this exhibition. To "exhibiting" the saga, a personality profile of the main

characters and a brief overview of the main action scenes

in each section—primarily through extensive quotes on the wall and historic paintings inspired by the saga action—is attempted. No photographs of the landscapes

are used, and there are no artifacts in the exhibition,

save modern recreations. While the exhibition is an

important part of the visitor's understanding of the saga,

the main focus seems to have been on creating an

exhibition that would meet international standards for

a Viking exhibition, coupled with what might be called

an uncertainty as to how to handle the exhibition of

the narrative of the saga itself.

Changes and Successes

In other ways as well, the Saga Centre, though locally

inspired and locally funded, has attempted in its devel- opment to be internationally savvy. In 1 999, it hired

Arthur Bjorgvin Bollason, a foreign radio correspondent, television personality, and tour guide to be its

director. His knowledge of tourism in Iceland and good

contacts in the media were seen as special assets from

the point of view of the local magistrates. Since be- coming director, he has instituted a number of changes,

all intended to make the Saga Centre more palatable

to an international audience by focusing less on the

narrative details of the saga and more on the individual

characters in the saga. The tours were shortened from

two days to several hours and divided into tours for

Icelanders and tours for tourists. A dining hall with

Viking-style wooden benches was completed in 2001,

allowing the Saga Centre to begin offering traditional meals to participants in the bus tours, which makes

visiting the Saga Centre a day-long excursion. Some

groups forgo the bus tour and come only for the entertainment offered on weekend nights. Friday night has

a one-hour musical play based on nineteenth century

songs about the Njdl's Saga characters. On Saturday,

a play is shown about Cunnar and his notorious wife Hallgerd—she refused to give him strands of her long

hair when his bowstring broke, thus leaving her hus- band unable to defend himself against an onslaught of

his enemies. Both are told in Icelandic with English

text as a handout, and they are very popular with Icelanders and foreigners, and convenient for those for whom the bus tour is physically difficult. Everyone who

works at the Saga Centre, including the men who sing

in the musical, are locals from the area, except the

director (A.B.B.).^ In this way, though offering a variety

of options to visitors, the Saga Centre has maintained a

strong connection to the local community. This has

been accomplished in the face of a markedly more

visible profile. Newspaper articles about the newly

added entertainment has encouraged Icelandic visitors,

while tour companies adding the Saga Centre as a destination choice for bus and cruise ship groups has greatly

increased international visitorship.

Visitor Profile

All of this has combined to make the Saga Centre one

of the most visited cultural tourist destinations in Iceland. In the summer of 2001 only visiting the site of

the original parliament, which is also a beautiful national park in a tremendous natural setting, was more

popular. The fact that Hvollsvollur, a small and rather

nondescript farming community that is a 1 00 kilometer

(60 miles) drive from the capitol of Reykjavik, has be- come so well visited, and profitable, ^ is remarkable.

Visitors to the Saga Centre have been a surprising

mix of foreigners and Icelanders. The original target

audience was foreigners, though certainly given the manner in which Icelanders like to explore their own

landscapes, it was assumed Icelanders would come as

well. During the summer of 2001 , more than 1 7,000

visitors came, sixty-five percent Icelanders, and thirtyfive percent foreigners. Most are over fifty years of

266 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
HP T'^^

88/ The first stop on the tour, Hof, where visitors must visualize several farms that used to be located in the area.

age, but there are also large student groups in the autumn and the spring. The visitors are extremely diverse and cross gender and class divisions: during one

Saturday, there were two groups taking the tour simultaneously, one of professors from the teachers' training school, and the other group was the crew from a

fishing trawling company.

Defining Njalusidd

While all of the activities at the Saga Centre are interesting from a museological and tourist industry point

of view, of primary concern for this paper is the Saga

Centre's function as the starting and ending point for

journeys through the saga landscape.

The tours are designed to extend that sense of a

narrative-filled landscape to those who may be less

familiar with NJdl's Saga. It consists of either vans or buses that are filled with groups, both foreign and Icelandic, led by Saga Centre guides. The groups often

arrive together to the Saga Centre. If they have an- nounced their plans ahead of time (which most groups

do), they are met and led through the exhibition by the

director. After that overview, a knowledgeable local

guide joins them on the bus, and the tour begins. The

buses take a particular route through the landscape,

stopping at places that are described and mentioned

in NJdl's Saga (see below). At each stop, the guides

retell or reread the portion of the saga that is relevant

to that spot, and answer tourists' questions. The stops

typically last fifteen minutes or so, with the guide saying a few words, including reading from the saga, and

then tourist taking photographs, walking around and

asking questions, before returning to the van (Fig. 88).

Given the nature of the saga, which includes scenes

set on the west coast of Iceland, at the National Assembly site near Lake Thingvellir, and scenes in Norway

and England, choices needed to be made about what

to include and what to exclude in the bus tours. The

political motivation to get people to come to this particular region surely influenced the choice of sites, limiting it to those sites within the boundaries of the six communities that contributed funds toward the creation

ELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 267
of the Saga Centre. These communities, and indeed

perhaps others, have considered themselves part of

the Njaluslod (NJaluslod) area since the eighteenth century, when this area name was first coined. The name

itself is broadly understood: a compound of the name

of Njal, the main character in the saga, in possessive

form (Njalu), and the noun slod isloS), which is a geographic term suggesting an area subject to common

forces, as would be used for run-off plains for a particular river, and so on. In the same manner that the

glacial rivers and sand erosion have through the centuries changed the face of the land in the Njal's Saga

region, the unknown author of the saga, and all the generations who have retold the story since, have

managed to "change" the landscape by giving it new

meaning. But the boundaries of this influence are amorphous; Njaluslod is the entire landscape region rather

than a specific place.The bus tour is essential in actively defining what the linguistic term Njaluslod means.

By physically circumscribing a specific geographic area,

that area becomes Njaluslod in the minds of the

participants.

Simultaneously, the physical area determines and

limits the narrative elements of the saga that are included. Kari's avenging actions in England—the satisf/ing conclusion to the saga—are not mentioned, be- cause they cannot be demonstrated through reference

to the local landscape. Conversely, a rather minor character, the uncle of Njal's illegitimate son,'^ is given full

airing because his farm is still in existence today, including, as is appropriate for a Viking Age farm, escape

tunnels. Through the agency of the Saga Centre, the

inter-relatedness of the saga and the landscape is further reinforced and mutually developed, such that the one defines the other. The understanding of what Njal's

Saga is and what it means has, therefore, been trans- formed through the Saga Centre's existence. Because

Icelanders do not consider the sagas stale literary texts,

but rather an integral part of their daily lives, such an

evolution of its purpose and meaning to fit current needs is not beyond their expectations.

Saga Bus Tours

The flexible relationship between the saga and the

physical landscape allows for the content of the tour, and therefore the amount of the saga discussed, to be

determined on a case-by-case basis as appropriate,

depending on the audience. For foreigners, the bus

tour is shorter, and includes fewer sites. Usually, the

foreigner tours take approximately two hours and include about five stops. In comparison, the Icelandic

tours take at least three hours, and include seven or

eight stops. The number, duration, and choice of stop

is somewhat dependent on the weather and the size and interest of the group; but the two basic tours

begin in much the same way, by heading west from

the Saga Centre along the main paved road. The first stop is the farm of Hof, with a view of the farm Vollur, where Njal's Saga begins. This is located about fifteen minutes up the road from the Saga Centre,

in a rather sparsely populated plain that is far less fertile than it was 1 ,000 years ago (Fig. 88). Hof was where

the family that caused much hardship for Cunnar and

Njal lived, and the eldest son on this farm started the

fight that eventually led to Njal's being burned alive

inside his home. There is no farm there today, though a

herd of Icelandic horses occupies one fenced in portion. Usually, the guide will use this stop to introduce

the main characters and will read the opening few para- graphs plus a few other appropriate selections, as the group gathers around him. The guide will normally point

to the locations of two other farms that are mentioned

in the saga and that can be seen in clear weather from

Hof, though there are no old buildings at any of these

places today. Within the framework of the saga narrative, they are not mentioned until later in the story, which may be one reason the guide does not read

particular passages about these farms, or it may be be- cause it is somewhat unclear for the visitor exactly

where the farms stood. One of these two farms,

Kirkju-baer, was the farm that Cunnar's wife had one of her slaves break into as retribution for an

insult the farmer levied at Gunnar, which is a com268 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
89/ A tour guide (I) relates the story of the death ofCunnar the Hero while standing at Cunnar's farm, HIidarendi.

pelling story that the guides usually relate.

Proceeding into the interior along a dirt road, the

tour bus turns toward the mountains. Keldur, a still

inhabited farm with intact, older buildings of traditional sod construction, is the next stop. Here Ingjaldur, a

relation of Njal's who almost joined with the vigilante

party for the slaying of Njal, lived. As a minor character

in the saga, his farm does not need to be included in

the saga tour. However, since it is an authentic, traditional farm type, it allows the guide to explain a few

things about Icelandic farming. Also, two escape tunnels that lead from the house to a nearby riverbank are

especially evocative of the dangerous rivalries of the

Viking Age and later. The guide does not usually read an excerpt from the saga at this point but rather talks

generally about Icelandic daily life. The farm derives

its name from the naturally warm spring (rather than hot

spring) that flows nearby.

Farther into the interior, the bus meets up with the

Ranga River and proceeds along its western bank. This

section is completely deserted, having been turned

into an arctic desert by the successive eruptions of Mount Hekla. After a few bumpy kilometers, the guide

points out a large stone sitting by the side of the river. Though not specifically named in the saga as such,

this stone has been called in local folklore "Cunnarsstein," meaning Cunnar's Stone (see Fig. 86). Njal's Saga

includes a dramatic episode where Gunnar and two

companions made a defense against thirty armed men

and were victorious, though one of the three, Cunnar's

brother Hjortur, was killed. Because the saga relates

that Cunnar took up a defensive position along the

river at a place he knew well, locals have reasoned

that this large stone would have provided sufficient

defense for a skilled archer to mount a defense. De- pending on time available to do so, the guide will read

this battle scene excerpt from the saga as he sits on

the stone itself. Excavations in the area have revealed

ELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 269
archaeological pieces that may have been associated

with archery/ as well as human remains, so this has

added credence to the name Cunnarsstein and to this

as the location of the battle. Heading southeast over the hills at the base of the

mountains, the guide points out a few sites along the way from the window of the bus, including especially

the "Three Horned" Mountain (see Fig. 83) . According

to the saga, a farmer with several sons and who raised champion horses lived at the base of this mountain,

though the location of their farm is uncertain (ruins of

four or five farms have been identified). The sons challenged Cunnar to a horse duel, and this led to a rivalry

that eventually contributed to Gunnar's death. Between two of the tops of this mountain is a natural valley or

gully, into which the attackers of Njal are thought to

have hidden after the burning.

Winding along this mountainous terrain, the bus

eventually links again with the paved road, and heads

northeast along the Markarfljot River toward the glaciers. The FIjotshlid (river hillside) district, a rich agricultural area, lines this stretch of road. At one farm on

these hills, named HIidarendi, lived the main hero of

the saga, Gunnar. The bus stops at this location (Fig.

89), and the guide will normally relate a number of

stories, including those about the nineteenth century

church on the property and a twentieth century artist who lived nearby, but then the guide will read about

the death of Gunnar. This is dramatic for a number of

reasons, not the least of which is the fact that, as Gunnar was struggling to ward off forty men, he asked his wife

for strands of her long, thick hair to use as replacements for his broken bow string. She coyly replied, "Does anything depend on it?" and then refused him

his wish, as retribution for a slap she received many

years earlier from him. Most tour members are appalled

at this story of betrayal, but the guide will often relate

the debates about this scene, including one recent

theory that the husband and wife were just enjoying a

nice give and take as a final farewell. There are no

physical remains from Gunnar's farm, and in fact the

exact location of the house on the hill itself is unknown,

though the boundaries of the farm lot are well established. From this vantage point, one looks south across

the plain of the Markarfljot River, toward the Vestman

Islands. For the foreign tourists, this is the last stop on

the tour. The guide therefore uses this vista to point

out a few other places included in the saga. Njal's

farm, Bergthorshvol, was on the plain of the Markarfljot

River, so the guide will normally point in its direction and tell the story of the burning of Njal, since the foreign tour does not go to this site. Instead, it returns up

the paved road to the Saga Centre. This route takes

approximately two hours. The Icelandic tour proceeds from HIidarendi south

across the plain of the Markarfljot River. It stops at Dimon, a large hill that has not been eroded, as has the

other land in the area (Fig. 90). Here the story is told of

the bravado of Skarpedinn, one of Njal's sons, who

had skid across a nearby river when it was frozen,

brandishing an axe and killing several men, while escaping unharmed himself. This location is also where

the guide often reads from a poem composed about

a different event in the saga. When Gunnar was sup- posed to leave Iceland as punishment for a killing, he was riding his horse south across this plain. His horse

stumbled, and as Gunnar landed on the ground, he

turned to face HIidarendi to the north. Then he said how beautiful FIjotshlid looked and that he would not

leave. This led to his enemies' finding him and killing him in his house. Both of these stories are usually related at Dimon, though neither of these events was

supposed to have taken place exactly at that location. Rather, it provides a dramatic setting to tell these two stories—separate from each other in terms of the

saga narrative—which took place nearby.

The final stop of the Icelandic language tour is

Bergthorshvol, the farm of Njal. This farm lies due west

of Dimon, also in the Markarfljot River plain. Today, a farm still exists that is called Berthoshvol. On the farm

property are several mounds, which were likely the

refuse piles from previous farmhouses (Fig. 91). Njal's

270 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
90/ Dimon, a dramatic rise on an otherwise flat plain, ; and guide (center, wliite jacket) to contemplate scenes

house is believed to have stood on one of these hillocks. The bus stops at this farm, and everyone files

out. The guide stands atop one mound, and tells the

story of the burning of Njal, pointing north across the

plain to the Three Horned mountain from whence his enemies emerged (normally commenting on the unlikelihood that Njal would not have noticed a large

group of men coming at him from such a distance). He

then relates the dramatic tale of Njal and his wife, and one young grandson, agreeing to die together, although

their enemies offered the women and children a chance

to leave. This simultaneously violent and touching episode is very near the chronological end of the saga

narrative itself, so it is a fitting last stop for the tour. The

bus then returns to the Saga Centre by heading north and then slightly east. The Icelandic tour normally takes about three and a half to four hours.

Often the guests stay for a traditional meal and the

live entertainment offered on Friday and Saturday nights

before heading back to their abodes for the evening.

ides a convenient location for an Icelandic tour group

n Njal's Saga.

Guides

The guides themselves are obviously an important component in the tenure and content of the tour. There is

neither a formal application nor training process for

the guides; rather, local people with knowledge of

the saga, a knack for public speaking, and available

time are informally recruited through the community

network. Though there is a prescribed route and

agreed-upon stops, the guides are otherwise free to

discuss what they know and interests them. Besides

the difference in physical route and duration, the information presented in the foreign versus Icelandic tours

is therefore somewhat different. During the summer of 2001, there were four main guides: an elderly local

farmer, Magnus; two priests, Cunnar and Sigurd; and

the Saga Center director himself.'* Magnus' lack of bilingualism necessitates that he be the guide for only

the Icelandic tours, and he has developed a particular

flair for his work. As the longest serving guide, and a

ELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 271
local resident of the area whose grandfather used to

tell him the story of Njal and Gunnar, Magnus conducted more than thirty-six tours during the summer

of 2001 . Despite his in-depth knowledge of the saga,

he tended to discuss all the interesting stories of the

landscape in the tradition of the Icelandic road books

described above, rather than just those stories related

to Njdl's Saga. As he said, "History is always happening. Today's stories are not so different from the saga

times [stories]" (pers. comm., August 2001 , translation

E.W.). Some visitors find this lack of focus disappointing since they came specifically to the Saga Centre because of NJals Saga, while others, especially those

less familiar with the saga, are relieved to have a more

diverse range of stories discussed. Unfortunately, due

to ailing health, he has had to cut back on his tours

recently, and since a replacement has not yet been

found, the number of tours offered has been curtailed. The other guides can and certainly do conduct the

longer Icelandic tours, but they also lead the foreign

groups. For foreign visitors, the guides stick more

closely to the saga narrative, though natural history

facts concerning volcanic eruptions, changes in the

course of the rivers, and so on, are also discussed. This

focus lends a certain performative formality to the foreign tours, which complements the fact that the foreign

visitors often know each other far less well than the

Icelandic groups that come to the Saga Center and

spend less time together on the tour itself. It is less of a

social event for the foreign tour participants, conversely more focused on the guide as the common binding

element of the group.

For foreign groups especially, a guide—as performer

of the saga, embodiment of the saga narrative—is required. For Icelanders and specialist tourists, Njdl's Saga

itself is innately interesting. But for the average tourist, who came to Iceland lured by images of a wild land,

Njdl's Saga has to be made interesting. By focusing on

the common human elements of the characters, such

as Gunnar as a husband with a difficult wife, the narrative is made more accessible. Making the stories entertaining for foreign visitors is also the job of the guides.

The two live plays held on weekend evenings at the Saga Center extend the knowledge of the narratives

told in Njdl's Saga, and are attended both by visitors who take the tours and those that do not. The presentation of the saga to foreigners in this

entertaining and lively way is one more way that the concept of Njdl's Saga is delimited through the agency

of the Saga Centre. The saga is therefore being translated more than just linguistically. It is being culturally

translated to suit modern tastes and interests, short- ened to match the average visitor's limited knowledge

of the saga and to fit in the comfortable time period of

a bus ride, and to coincide with the physical boundaries of the landscape through which the bus travels.

This translating fits within a wider pattern of the Icelandic approach to the sagas as a living tradition;

the Saga Centre is simply giving Njdl's Saga new

currency.

Working the Imagination

The setup, route taken, schedule, and words of the guides

are all deliberate actions intended for a specific out- come: to fill the Njdlaslod landscape with a saga narrative. But since the Saga Center is the first and only

saga interpretive site with guided tours in Iceland, the

effect these actions would have on the visitors was

uncertain. The bus tours are a physical group tour into

the imaginary, a ride through the countryside to see

that which no longer exists, where a group of adults crowd into the middle of a grass field, "looking" at something that cannot be seen (see Figs. 88,89).

In this situation, the human power of imagination

needs to take over, enabling people who have no previous knowledge of the saga to "see" the events that

took place 1 ,000 years ago in the landscape. The landscape itself which exists in front of their eyes, can

serve as a mental trigger for these events. With the

help of the imagination, it seems tourists can recreate

the story in the mind, reanimating the characters of the

saga and making them alive in the landscape. The land272 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
91/ Bergthorshvol, the site where Njal and his family were burned alive, is the last stop on the Icelandic tour; it has no obvious physical remains from the saga time period.

scape becomes a "frame", which the visitor has to fill

with his or her own painting of the saga events. With

the help of the guide, the traveler thus creates his own

story, his own vision of what happened in Njdiuslod

centuries ago.

Because the tour relies so heavily on the imagination of the visitor, and because there is so little to be

seen physically, such a tour is even meaningful for

those without vision. In the summer of 2000, a group

of blind Icelandic adults booked the tour. They had

with them a trained assistant who described the physical landscape to them, and they had the Saga Centre

guide telling them the saga. Thus, despite the logistic

problems such a guided tour faces (such as finding

enough qualified and available guides), the format itself has proven capable of conveying a powerful message about the relationship between landscape and saga

narratives in Icelandic culture. An informal survey of visitors^ suggests that the

tours were mostly effective at encouraging visitors to work their imagination. Icelanders, especially those familiar with the saga, found it pleasurable to "see" the

saga events and to visit (or revisit) this saga landscape.

However, some foreign visitors commented that they

would like to have a map or understand more exactly

where the guide was pointing. Even the foreigners who

admitted to taking the tour only because they wanted

a chance to be outside, to see the Icelandic landscape,

expressed an appreciation for the stories. One visitor, who was familiar with Njdis Saga from college, said

that he came to learn about Icelandic culture, and felt

there was no better way than getting a sense of how

important these stories are to Icelanders.

Conclusion

The majority of tourism campaigns about Iceland, such

as the slogan of the 1 990s that dubed Iceland "The

Land of Fire and Ice," foster and project an image of a

wild, uninhabited land, devoid of the works of man.

While brochures might mention Iceland as the land of

the sagas or of the Vikings, the beautiful and mysterious physical landscape and raw natural beauty are touted

as the primary attractions. This tacitly implies the land

is solely there for the enjoyment of outsiders, and inELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 273
deed the major activities offered are glacier snowmobile rides, hikes to untamed waterfalls, and horseback

tours through the uninhabited interior. Such a view of the landscape is directly at odds

with the well-documented tradition Icelanders themselves have of filling their landscape with stories. When

Icelanders look at a scenery or take a country drive,

their perception is influenced by a storehouse of narratives. For Icelanders, it is the places tied to specific

people and historic events which are of interest. The

other geographic features may be beautiful, but they

carry little, if any, cultural meaning. At the Saga Centre,

the guides and the locals who work in the sales shop

and kitchen, or act in the Saga Centre plays on the weekends, are telling people about something that is

particularly meaningful; a saga landscape. As described

by one of the local magistrates involved in the creation of the center

Tourists who come to a foreign land want to have interesting information about the people and the land that they are visiting. . . .

[i]f they do not receive such information . . . they will not be intrigued despite the fact that the land is beautiful and the sun is shining. In this nation live the people, and

they must acquaint them with a wider

perspective. The people and the land have

their stories and the land has meaning (Letter to Board of Trustees, 21 July 1998).

As in no other tourist spot in Iceland, the Saga Centre

acts as a host, inviting tourists into Icelanders' symbolic home, a culturally meaningful landscape. Just as

a polite host leads a guest through the home, pointing

out which objects in the home have special meaning,

the guides on the bus tours make tourists feel wel- come and a part of the wider cultural milieu by sharing

with them meaningful stories. For a brief moment, the

tourist can try to see the land through the eyes of an

Icelander. And then they are offered home-cooked meals

and told a story in a welcoming room by more locals.

This means that foreigners who come to the Saga Centre have a great deal more interaction with local people

than they will have in other tourist sites in Iceland. The

Saga Centre, as a nexus for local-international interaction, has skillfully utilized this opportunity, and it seems

foreign visitors do come away with an understanding

of this region's saga landscape.

For Icelanders, the Saga Centre has other import. Here their national identity as Icelanders interacts with

a particular local form, whether they go on the tours or

only come for the evening entertainment. Going to the Saga Centre thus becomes an enactment of their Icelandic-ness, the shared cultural heritage common to all

Icelanders, Just as the debates in the paper or the com- mon cliches do; perhaps even more so. Like a pilgrimage in the Roman Catholic world, it is simultaneously a

mental and physical act, demonstrating that cultural

affiliation and buttressing the importance of the sagas

in Icelandic culture. With every footstep, and each turn

of the wheel of bus, Icelanders are making that preexisting cultural landscape meaningful again.

Maintaining the meanings associated with saga landscapes faces a number of challenges. Iceland has un- dergone tremendous social and economic change in

the last fifty years. The rural population has been encouraged, via tax incentives and the existence of good

schools and hospitals, to move to urban centers, particularly the capitol of Reykjavik. Though young

people still learn about the sagas through various means,

these uniquely Icelandic stories must now compete

with satelite television, the Internet, and other forms of

popular entertainment. Once an agrarian economy, the

Icelandic economy is now a modern, capitalist

economy. By demonstrating that cultural heritage can become a viable source of economic gain, the Saga

Centre offers Icelanders a model for how to bridge the gap between the past and the present. Unlike other

Northern peoples described in this volume who are

currently documenting their cultural landscapes,

Iceland's ethnographic landscapes have been documented for eight hundred years, beginning with the

efforts of the anonymous saga writers. What is required

is a means to encourage young Icelanders to continue

to honor that heritage.

274 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
The Saga Centre offers one such means, and a timely one at that. The number of tourists coming to Iceland

has begun to eclipse the size of Iceland's population

itself, and a moment of cultural crisis, like those experienced by small Caribbean nation-states, may be on the

horizon (Shimany et al. 1 994). The number of Icelanders who have visited the Saga Centre suggests a proactive response. In the face of an onslaught of tour- ists—many of whom come with no appreciation of the

history or culture of the land, and expect to see an

exotic wilderness—Icelanders are attempting to shift

the focus to that which is meaningful to them, their

Icelandic saga landscapes. They face an uphill battle,

as tour companies and promoters try to package the

Saga Centre as a more traditional tourist stop; some

book groups only for the dinner or musical play, and

not for the bus tour itself. As the Saga Centre continues to evolve into an increasingly popular foreign tourist

destination, it is unclear what role the original focus of

the center, the bus tours through the landscape, will

have. In the meantime, this small farming village in

southern Iceland will continue to be the unlikely spot

where local attempts to transmit and maintain an Icelandic sense of the landscape compete with the needs

and expectations of foreign tourists.

Acknowledgments

While perhaps the greatest thanks belong to the

many, unnamed tour participants who kindly became

subjects of our study, a few named individuals also

deserve thanks. Ambassadors Einar Benediktsson and

Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson facilitated introduction of

the co-authors, Gunnar Jonsson of Icelandair gener- ously provided airfare, and the Ladies Club of

Flotshlid extended use of their summer cottage.

Thanks to Ted Birkedal of the U.S. National Park

Service for encouraging the inclusion of an Icelandic component in this northern ethnographic land- scape volume and to the volume editors for their

careful and thoughtful feedback. John Steinberg of UCLA also provided critical commentary which

strengthened the paper, and Gisli Sigurdsson of the

Arni Magnusson Institute assisted with illustration

suggestions. But we reserve our final thanks to the anonymous author of NJdl's Saga, whose careful

crafting of the tale has inspired generations and enriched the landscape immeasurably.

Notes

1 . This aspect of saga literature has not been

extensively studied, though Adalsteinsson 1996,

Overing and Osborn 1994, and Petersson 1981

make use of the continuity in saga placenames

and descriptions of the landscape in their respective arguments. One author (E.W.) will be focusing on the relationship between sagas and the land- scape for her dissertation research.

2. A Viking dining hall in a community near

Reykjavik has been a popular tourist destination

since the early '90s. So they were hoping to rec- reate that, but soon found forming the cadre of 1 5 performers needed for such a Viking re-enactment

hall impossibly complicated.

3. One of the authors of this paper, Arthur B. Bollason, was director of the Saga Centre from

1999 until fall 2003.

4. The bulk of this paper is based upon data

from the summer of 2001, when Arthur Bollason

hosted Elisabeth Ward at the Saga Centre. Comments pertaining to visitors' experience are based on several ride-alongs Elisabeth made with vari- ous tour groups and interviews with participants.

Other information regarding the background of tour groups comes from Arthur's reservation

system.

5. The Saga Centre began to break even two

years ahead of schedule.

6. Children born out of wedlock were not and are not openly biased against in Icelandic

culture, though they may not have completely

equal access to inherit land and money.

7. One of the pieces found at this site is a bone ring likely used to protect the index finger

while drawing back a bowstring. Of considerable

interest to some saga enthusiasts, this piece is decorated with a stag design, and the name of

Gunnar's brother, who died at the attack, means

stag. Lay people therefore speculate this was the

ELISABETH I. WARD AND ARTHUR B. BOLLASON 275
exact piece used by Gunnar's brother.

8. Gunnar the Priest transferred parishes

in early 2002 and is no longer conducting tours.

9. Conducted by E. Ward, August 1 3-1 9, 2001

.

References

Adalsteinsson, Jon Hnefill

1 996 Eftirhreytur urn Freyfaxahamar (Reverberations

off Freyfax's rockface). Mulafjing 23:67-89.

Bjarnason, B.

1 999 Njdiuslodir (The region associated with Njal). Reykjavik: Mai og Menning.

Collingwood, W.G. (William Gershom), and Jon

Stefansson

1 899 A Pilgrimage to the Saga-Steads of Iceland. Ulverston: W. Holmes. 1 899. Reprinted 1 988 as Fegurd

Islands og fornir sogustadir: svipmyndir og sendibref

ur Islandsfor W.G.Collingwoods 1 897 with a forward

by Haraldur Hannesson, Bjorn Th. Bjornsson and Janet

B. Collingwood Gnosspelius. Reykjavik: Orn og Orlygur.

Fridriksson, Adolf

1 994 Sagas and Popular Antiquarianism in Icelandic Archaeology. Aldershot: Avebury.

Hann, CM., ed.

1 998 Property Relations: Renewing the Anthropological Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hastrup, Kirsten

1985 Culture and History in Medieval Iceland: An Anthropological Analysis of Structure and Change. Oxford: Clarendon Press: New York: Oxford University

Press. Helgason, J.K. 1998 Hetjan og hofundurinn (Heroes and the authors) Reykjavik: Mai og Menning.

Hreinsson, Vidar, ed. 1997a Njal'sSaga. \n The Complete Sagas ofIcelanders. Vol. 3: Epic—Champions and Rogues, pp. 1-220,

tran. Robert Cook. Reykjavik: Leifur Eiriksson Publishing.

1 997b The Complete Sagas of the Icelanders. Vol. 5: Epic—Wealth and Power Reykjavik: Leifur Eiriksson Publishing.

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1 998 Property in Economic Context. Monographs

in Economic Anthropology 1 4. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Hymes, Dell H. 1983 Essays in the Hstory ofLinguistic Anthropology.

Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.

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1 877 Bidrag til en historisk-topogarafisk

Beskrivelse afIsland {Jovj&rds an historic-topographic

description of Iceland). Copenhagen: Gyldenalske

boghadel.

Kellogg, Robert

1997 Introduction. In The Complete Sagas of Ice- landers, Vol. I: Vinland— Warriors and Poets, V. Hreinsson, ed., pp. xxix-liii. Reykjavik: Leifur Eiriksson Publishing.

Magnusson, Magnus, and Hermann Palsson

1 960 Njal'sSaga. London: Penguin Books.

Olason, Vesteinn

1 998 Dialogues with the Viking Age: Narration and

Representation in the Saga of the Icelanders.

Reykjavik: Heimskringla.

Overing, Gillian R. and Marijane Osborn

1 994 Landscape of Desire: Partial Stories of the Medieval Scandinavian World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Petursson, Halldor

1 981 SogusloSir a Utherabi (Saga regions in the rural areas). Mulaping 1 1 :91 -1 03. Russell, W.S.C.

1 91 4 Iceland: Horseback Tours in Saga Land. Boston: Richard G. Badger and Toronto: The Copp Clark

Co., Ltd. Schimany, Peter, Volker Grabowsky, and Andreas

Roser

1994 Aspekte der Moderne: negative Dialektik,

Nationalismus, Towmmws (Aspects of modernity: negative dialectics, nationalism and tourism). Egelsbach,

Germany; Washington, DC: Hansel Hohenhausen.

Sigurdsson,Gisli

2004 The Medieval Icelandic Saga Tradition and Oral

Tradition: A Discourse on Method. Publications of

the Milman Parr/ Collection of Oral Literature 2. Cambridge: Harvard University. Translation of Tulkun

Islendingasagna i Ljosi Munnlegrar Hefdar: Tilgdta um

Adferd. Reykjavik: Stonfun Arna Magnussonar A

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Sveinsson, Gunnar

19 59 Matthias Johannessen: Njdla i islenskum

skaldskap {Maxth'\AS Johannesse: Njal in Icelandic poetry) Reykjavik: Skirnir. Vesteinsson, Orri

2000 The Archeaology of Landndm: Early Settle- ment in Iceland. In Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga,

William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward, eds., pp. 1 64-

74. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

2 76 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SAGA LANDSCAPES
(Cultural Seascapes

P'^e5ervln^ Locai ["islnernien's |<!^nowleclge in !\|ort!-iern |\jorwatj

ANITA MAURSTAD

The word "landscape" was first used in the late sixteenth century (Oxford English Dictionary). The term

"seascape" did not come into use until 200 years later, and it is usually simply translated as "pictures of the

sea." However, seascapes have other values beyond

the picturesque that I will focus on in this article. I

could make a systematic comparison of seascapes with

landscapes and list their basic differences. Some are

quite obvious. The land holds footprints and pathstraces of human occupancy that often date back thousands of years. Water is fluid and ever changing. The

traces of a boat moving through a seascape last only a few minutes. The land impresses with its mountains,

green valleys, and rivers. In some areas fences also

stand out to mark borders of property. At sea there are no such visible marks. Regional, national and international borders are ink on paper conventions and charts

while fishermen's perceptions of local common-rights

are imprinted in their minds. The sea has mountains

and valleys though, but they are invisible, hidden under the surface. The surface may also hide strong currents. The sea is dangerous. It can produce violent

storms that easily crush human-made entities, like boats and buildings. People drown at sea. Dying on land,

people are normally found and given a specific place

to rest. The sea holds no such place and we talk of the

sea as we talk of the Lord; it gives and it takes. The sea is also mysterious in other aspects; it represents the unknown and is surrounded by folklore and

myths. Draugen is the Norwegian name for a monstrous

sea spirit who sails the sea and takes other vessels

down. He is more cruel and intelligent than the land

trolls that humans can outsmart. Humans can lure land

trolls into sunlight where they are turned into stone, a common theme in many fairy tales. The different character of Draugen and land trolls can symbolize the human degree of control with seascape and landscape,

respectively. Draugen also directs his viciousness to- ward men only and the character may, as suggested by

Hauan (1 995), tell about men's mastering of their activities at sea. Comparing land and sea, the seascape appears as

an opposition to land. But to its daily users the sea is much more. It is movement, action, purpose, and inter- action—between people and the sea as well as among

the people of the sea. The conceptualizations of both

landscapes and seascapes are experiential and conceptual constructs, as cultural experience and perceptions form their descriptions. The concept "seascape"

and the cultural elements it contains, however, are highly

invisible and scarcely described. In Norwegian we talk

of landscapes (landskap) but do not have an equivalent term for seascapes (ie: sj0skap). "Seascape" is also

rarely used in the scientific discourse, to say nothing

about heritage- and land-preservation literature. With

the growth of the sport diving industry in the 1950s

grew the Norwegian concern for the submerged maritime cultural history as the divers brought several valuable items on shore, as well as made important discoveries that were later excavated by marine archaeologists (Naevestad 1 992). Cultural history, however, even

maritime, does not capture the cultural elements of the

277
seascape that I will address here. Borrowing from the growing body of literature focusing on cultural or ethnographic landscapes (see most recent reviews: Buggey

1999; 2000; this volume), I will look at seascapes in terms of the everyday practice of small-scale fisher- men. Buggey (2000) proposes a definition for Aboriginal cultural landscapes as places "valued by an Aboriginal group (or groups) because of their long and

complex relationship with that land. ... It embodies

their traditional knowledge of spirits, places, land uses and ecology." Rather than focusing on archaeological

sites in the seascape, and seeing the seascape only as

an opposition to the landscape, I will conceptualize

the seascape as I have learned it from my study of

small-scale fishing practices in the north of Norway.

Cultural seascapes make up a large part of the hu- man environment, particularly in northern areas, where

many groups traditionally made and still make their

living by fishing and/or marine hunting. There are different perceptions of landscapes and, similarly, there

are many varying visions of seascapes. Since I have

studied small-scale fisheries I will focus on the knowledge of the seascape that local small-scale fishermen

use in their daily activities. I will present various characteristics of a cultural seascape, as it functions in the minds and daily life of small-scale fishery experts in

Northern Norway. More specifically, I will focus on cultural seascapes created and maintained by the smallscale, shore-based, traditional fisheries in Troms and

Finnmark, the two northernmost counties of Norway

(see map in Holand, this volume). By small-scale fishery, I refer to those fishermen using vessels less than

thirteen meters (about forty-three feet) long. These characteristics form the point of departure for my following

discussion on how northern seascapes could be managed in the present Norwegian resource management

framework.

The data used in this paper were collected during

several long-term studies of small-scale coastal fishing

in Troms and Finnmark conducted over a twelve-year

period. These counties hold around forty percent of

the nation's small-scale fishing vessels (Maurstad 1 997).

The data were collected intermittently since 1989

through participant observation and unstructured open- ended interviews with fishermen, in addition to my personal first-hand experience in small-scale commercial fishing for a full year (see Acknowledgements,

below).

Basic Features of Northern Norway Seascape

Finnmark and Troms counties cover an area of 75,000

square kilometers (30,000 square miles) and have a combined population of 225,000. Most people live on

the coast in small towns and shore villages, as the area

has few cities (the biggest local city, Troms0, had a

population of 60,000 in the year 2000). The fishing

villages in Northern Norway are mostly scattered along

the coast and on offshore islands. In some places, the

distance between neighboring villages is quite large;

in others, one can find five villages within a range of

1 50 kilometers (93 miles). Some villages have five active fishermen; others have twenty. Very few are larger. Although Northern Norway coastal seascapes are

located above the Arctic Circle (between 68° N and

71 °N), the warm Gulf Stream maintains a water temperature that supports extremely rich marine resources. Also

surface temperatures along the coast are quite mild:

-2° C (28.4° F) is an average for the winter months.

Besides the traditional two or three winter storms, winds

normally range between the strengths of a gale and a

breeze. A gale of twelve knots or more makes fishing

difficult, and local fishermen normally do not fish in

such weather conditions. The topographic conditions of the area favor fishing. The coastal seascape consists of open waters off

the barren, mostly rocky, coast. Small bays, numerous

islands and islets, and large and small fjords often break

several miles into the country. The water of the coastal

seascape can be as deep as 500 meters (270 fathoms).

Some fish species stay in the area year round whereas

others migrate for a certain season for spawning or feed278 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
92/ The fishing village Kjollefjord, Finnmark, northern

from all over Norway traveling to the seasonal cod-fishi

ing. Both the fjords and the open coast are used for

fishing. Fishing depths depend on the species and the

gear at hand, and can take place in shallow waters with

a depth of twenty meters (65 feet) or more, as well as in

the very deepest waters. The northeast arctic cod stock, which migrates to

the coast twice a year, is the basis of the coastal fisheries' sustainability in northern Norway. In early winter

months, the bigger cod comes from the Barents Sea to spawn. The bulk of the cod swims for the spawning

grounds off Lofoten Islands, providing fishermen along

its main migration route, as well as in Lofoten, with

good fishing opportunities. In early spring, a smaller

sized cod arrives at its feeding grounds off the coast of

Finnmark. Many small-scale fishermen fish in their home

waters throughout the year, but some travel to the

Lofoten Islands fisheries in early winter, or to the more

northerly Finnmark fisheries in spring (Fig. 92). This

pattern follows a traditional cycle of seasonal move- ment and activities that has long been followed in peasant coastal fisheries off northern Norway. Other migratNorv\/ay, is an important bay for small scale fishermen

'.ry in spring.

ing resources include haddock, saithe, and herring; these

also provide local fishermen with good seasonal opportunities. In addition there are smaller local cod stocks and other local resources, such as halibut, flounder, redfish, cusk, monkfish, wolf-fish, and lumpfish.

Although rich, the ecology of the northern Norway

seascape has changed during the last fifty years. While

my mother and older cousins could once sit on a rock on the shore and catch fish using a bent needle and some sewing thread, there is neither the same amount

of fish along the shore, nor is it that easy to catch anymore. The basic technology is still simple: gill netting, jigging, and baited long lines form the three most common traditional gear types. Newer fishing gear, such

as purse seining, is increasing rapidly, particularly after

the catch quotas were introduced in 1990. As quotas

are maximum allowances, time has become a critical

factor and many see the purse seine as the most efficient method in getting the quota on board the vessel

quickly (Maurstad 2000a).

Fishing sometimes takes place in near shore waANITA MAURSTAD 279
ters, almost at people's doorsteps (Fig. 93). In the fjords, one can often fish fifty to one-hundred meters (1 60 to 325 feet) from the shore. Along the open coast, small

boats usually fish farther away, four to six nautical miles

off the coast. In a few places, the shore-based fishing

extends up to twelve nautical miles. Larger vessels occasionally use these waters as well; so, conflicts arise from time to time. Small-scale fishermen usually insist

that since larger vessels are capable of using more distant offshore waters, they should do so and leave the

inshore waters to the local fishermen.

The smaller vessels are also very efficient and capable. Most full-time fishermen now operate fully

equipped vessels with modern technology such as Global Positioning System (CPS), radars, echo sounders,

and jigging machines. Today, an experienced person

can easily master a fishing vessel of thirty-five feet; and if the fishery is good, the vessel can very well

provide a living for two. In recent years, quotas have

pushed fishermen more towards individually operated

boats. It is the boat that holds the catch quota and

sharing it with a crew has become economically unfavorable (Maurstad 2000a).

It is the men who catch the fish. Of the total Norwegian fishermen population of 20,000, only two percent

are women. Women who are engaged in fishing do it

either with their male relatives, usually husbands or

fathers, in small boats, or as factory workers on board

larger fishing vessels (Munk-Madsen 1 998).

No official Norwegian statistics cover small-scale

fishermen; but according to my estimates (Maurstad

1997), the total Norwegian small-scale fleet in 1996

consisted of some 5,600 boats. These small vessels are most numerous along the northern shore. They make

up eighty percent of the total Norwegian cod fishing

fleet by number, and they catch around twenty percent

of commercially important cod species. The Troms and

Finnmark small-scale fleet counted 2,200 vessels in

1 996; those caught around 30,000 tons of cod that

year.As for training, no school has taught the fishermen

their knowledge. Like the common practice among

previous generations, today's fishermen learn their craft from each other, mostly from their fathers and uncles. Through growing up in a fishing culture, boys normally

acquire skills in navigation and dealing with the sea through their play. Young boys are often taken on an

occasional fishing trip at the age of ten and even

younger, and they become full-time fishermen in their

early teens. Of course, this is mostly true for the senior

generation of today's fishermen. Present-day children now attend school until age sixteen or mostly eighteen with their schoolwork occupying more of their

time. Recently, some type of formal education in the form of craft certificates has been established, but very few local fishermen have these certificates. Hence, the

training to become a fisherman is still first and fore- most informal.

Fishermen's Knowledge of the Seascape

Fishermen need basic knowledge on where and how

to find fish, how to get there and come back safely, what tools to use, and how to use them. This has to be

done in a safe manner, as the sea is a moving floor and

every operation has to be carefully performed. The

complex knowledge surrounding this particular use of

the seascape is hard to comprehend and visualize. If we were to follow a fisherman on a fishing trip with a

silent movie camera we would understand only a small

portion of what fishermen do to make their living. We

would see a fisherman leave his house around three or

four in the morning, board his ship, and sail out to sea.

At some point he would cut back his engine. We would

see him remove a buoy from the sea and start hauling

his nets or his longline. Hauling the gear, he would

pick off the fish as it enters the boat. When done, he

would run the engine for a while, then suddenly stop it, and throw the gear back into the sea. Then he would

start the same procedure at another buoy in a different

place. If he were jigging, the same procedures occur;

the only difference is that there would be no buoy to mark where to start.

280 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
93/ Small-scale fishing in the near-shore seascape of

This silent movie is quite illustrative to an outsider's

perspective on what fishermen do. What I aim at here is

to "subtitle" the silent movie, that is, focus on aspects

that represent critical components of fishermen's knowl- edge of the seascape. I will organize my description as

follows: First, I will talk of the vertical and horizontal

dimensions in space as fishermen's knowledge relates

both to what is located under the water surface and

how to move across that surface. Furthermore, there is

a time dimension that organizes activities as well as

regional and /oco/dimensions, since fishermen use vari- ous sections of the sea at various times during the

year. As both competition and cooperation characterize the fishery, and as fishermen acquire knowledge

from each other, the relational dimension is another

important component of the seascape. Finally, since it

is mostly men who fish, I will also talk of a gender

dimension in the cultural seascape.

Lyngenfjord, northern Norway.

Vertical Dimension: Catching Fish

When the fisherman sets his gear into the sea, the as- sumption is that the gear will catch the fish. Actually,

when it comes to the gear used by small-scale fisher- men, it is the other way around. Gill nets, long lines, and various hook-and-line devices are all called "passive gear," since their success in fishing depends on

the fish finding the gear at the right time and in the

right place. Using passive gears implies that the fisher- man must know how to make the fish find his gear. In

other words, he must know precisely (more or less) the

location of the fish he is after on every trip. The fisherman knows a lot about the sea floor, as

well as the many characteristics of the body of salt

water between the sea floor and his vessel. The sea

floor is basically flat ground, a depth or a slope, and its shape is often expressed in the fishermen's names of

places in the seascape. There are flat grounds such as

ANITA MAURSTAD 281
Ole-Nilsa-grunnen, Paalsgmnnen—compounds from

people's first names plus the word floor—and Loddegmnnen, and A/zse^rw/i/ie/i—compounds refering to certain species that inhabit the sea, capelin and porpoise

respectively. There are rocky grounds such as Rakkenesskallen and Ste'mskolten, Rakkenes is a common place- name, and often place-names at sea have their counterparts ashore—the fishing site's location is in relation

to known land marks. There are depths known as Soyla

and slopes known as Leitbakken. The names Stein and

S0yla describe physical features of the bottom: it is

rocky and/or shaped as a gauge, respectively. The meaning of Leitbakken refers to the technology commonly

used at this fishing site; leit means search, so here jig- ging—searching the sea for fish with a hook and lineis implied (Hovda 1961). As with landscapes, there are far more local names

in the oral history of places than there are to be found on charts. Although the use of GPS, a satellite-based

system that can pinpoint the exact location of its owner

by coordinates of latitude and longitude, has become

more common, fishermen still know and use the seascape place-names. As they start fishing, they learn not

only the place-names, but also their location by landscape coordinates. Thus, fishing places are embedded

in a rich cultural history of the area, where one has

to know the names of mountains, valleys, points, or

other special characteristics of the landscape in order

to orient oneself in the seascape. One fisherman explained to me that he realized the relevance of this knowledge only when he tried to teach his brother-inlaw some good fishing sites. As his brother-in-law had

grown up elsewhere, he first had to learn the names of

the mountains in the new area before learning the names of the fishing places, thus making the teaching

process last longer than usual. The fisherman also complained about other fishermen's increasingly using CPScoordinates instead of names. He himself was operating a vessel without this technology; and when he asked

where other fishermen had been that day, they re- sponded by citing their CPS-positions. "Give me a break,"

he said, "use the names of the places. I don't know

where 69.48.389 N and 01 7.40.21 1 Els!" There are more good reasons for fishermen to keep

using the place-names, as many names are valuable

concepts that hold information about different species.

Different fish species stay at different places at sea.

Hence, the name Karibakken (the slope of Kari) tells

that this is a slope where cod is likely to stay. Redfish

stays in the depths; cod stays along the slopes to shallower depths during the spawning season; and the fast- moving saithe tends to accumulate in places characterized by strong currents, like around the points. But whether he knows the names or not, the fisherman who

enters a seascape unknown to him can assess the seascape for good sites of saithe, cod, redfish, lumpfish,

and so on by a variety of different approaches:

He can look at the sea chart to check the depth

conditions;

He can check the coastal landscape in search of any points where the fish is likely to occur;

He can listen to the boat radio to hear where other boats are fishing;

He can talk to friends in the fishery in order to learn what they have caught at various places;

He can gain personal experience, that is, drop his gear into the sea, following the assessment mentioned above and, thus, get more information about

the place.

Most fishermen, however, use areas they know and fish

in places that are known to provide certain resources.

In those areas they do not use maps, as they fish in

places that they have used throughout their long fishing career and/or have learned about from their fathers.A wealth of accumulated ecological knowledge is

used in the fishery. For many species, fishermen know

their local migration routes. Fishermen from any particular fjord, for instance, can describe how the cod

enters the fjord some time in March, swims in on the

eastern side of the fjord, and that it takes three weeks

for the cod to come to the village where they live.

Then, they would be able to fish it for another two

282 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
weeks, until it spawns and swims out. An example of other local knowledge is that in the

cusk (of the codfish family) fishery fishermen say that

they cannot use one area for longer than, perhaps, two weeks in a row. The fish "fishes itself up," they say, and

the area needs to rest for a while. Fishermen then exploit another place for a couple of weeks before returning to the first site again, after the fish has recovered. This local ecological dynamic was argued by local coastal fishermen as imperative to understanding

the effect of automatic long-line boats' exploitation of

the local areas. The fishermen maintained that after the

long-liners' use, it took a month or more before the

fish stock recovered; sometimes the season was off

completely for the small-scale fishermen afterwards. The

reason for the long-liners' longer exploitation of the

area is that they have very effective gear; they can stay

in the area with a lower profit rate than the small-scale

fishermen could afford. The latter usually left when the

return fell below seventy kilos (155 pounds) per tub of

line, thus leaving the field at a higher fish concentration than did the automatic long-liners.

Another example of fishermen's ecological expertise is their knowledge about the nature of the sea

floor. Not all places that hold fish are good fishing

sites. Some places hold "slime eel" (Atlantic hagfish)

that will eat fish trapped on gill nets and long-lines.

The sea bottom also sets limits for gears: if it is rocky,

gill nets will be damaged. This does not mean that the

fishermen run home after their discovery, in order to change gear. Usually, the fishermen tend to use the

gear they like the most. If they prefer gill netting, they

develop their knowledge about favorable places for

that kind of gear and vice versa. It does mean, however, that fishermen always benefit from an intricate knowledge of local seascapes. One fisherman claimed,

for instance, that when the weather was bad and he

could not go off the coast, he knew a small place where

seven tubs of long-line could fit. This was also a site no large vessel could use or be able to find. It would

be hard to access, because of its closeness to the shore;

and was not considered profitable for large vessels. As such, fishermen have well-developed knowledge

of local ecology, which in many aspects goes way be- yond what scientists know (Maurstad and Sundet 1 998).

This should not come as a surprise as coastal resources

have not been subject to detailed stock assessment

research until recently. Concerning local cod, fishermen's

knowledge has proved especially valuable. Norwegian

cod stock assessments are based on the studies of two

types of cod: the northeast arctic cod and the coastal

cod. My interviews with fishermen, however, have supported recent research that argues that there are several local stocks of cod. This is important management

knowledge. Local stock health may be different from

that of the northeast arctic and the coastal cod stocks,

thus implying the need for other, if not locally adapted,

protective measures. Fishermen themselves have for a long time talked

of different types of cod, according to the specifics of

cod's habitat, status, and age. Eythorsson (1 993:1 36)

discusses the local Sami taxonomy in Lille Lerresfjord,

Finnmark. Here fishermen talk of three fjord types of cod that are different from the northeast arctic cod:

tararunuk, vuotnaguolli and buoiddesguolli (seatangle

cod, fjord cod and migrating cod). Fishermen that I inteni/iewed had Norwegian names for the first two fjord

types of cod, taretorsk and fjord-torsk. In addition,

they talked of blankfesk, referring to the shiny look of a

migratory cod. Some other categories included gotfesk

(cod with roe), gjeldfesk (immature cod), nikolaifesk

(cod that Nikolai used to fish in this territory), and

berlevdgtorsk (the local cod that is present near the community of Berlevag, Finnmark).

A final comment concerning vertical aspects of

fishermen's knowledge of seascape relates to technology. Fishermen know what technology to use for vari- ous areas, species, and seasons. As mentioned earlier,

they often tend to favor one gear type over another;

they often explain their choice of gear with reference

to individual preferences. "I am not a hook and longline guy" they say, or "I do not have a stomach for that

ANITA MAURSTAD 283
tool." By this expression they mean that in jigging one

has to move from place to place or have patience to

wait at one place. While using gill nets or long-lines,

they put the gear into the sea and haul it later. Temperament, experience, and skills developed with the

use of one tool seem to decide what gear fishermen

prefer. I should add here, however, that these choices were more relevant before the quota system was intro- duced in 1 990. The quotas have changed many characteristics of the fishery, most importantly by forcing the

fishermen to speed up their efforts (Maurstad 2000a). As quotas are maximum allowances, and as it is important to catch out one's quota in order to be allowed a quota for the next year, the fishermen's choice of gear

is now more a result of what is seen as profitable. For many this means continuing to operate tools they are most skilled at; but as new incentives are introduced, more and more fishermen see purse seining as an effective small-scale gear.

Horizontal Dimension: Traveling to a Fishing Site

Knowing the seascape, fishermen seldom use maps

when they travel to their fishing places. Rather, they

rely upon the seascape's three-dimensional, more visually complete counterpart, the coastal landscape.

Mountains, valleys and other characteristics are navigational points as well as location signs marking where

to go and where to fish. Although the use of CPS has

become more common, the coastal landscape has not

lost its critical value in marking the route. First, place- names that are parts of the landscape can be remembered better than just numbers. Second, moving

through a coastal landscape gives you a sequence of

the real journey: when you reach Silda (the Herring)

you know you have come this far and that you have

the long S0r0ysunclet (South Island Sound) to pass. Some

time thereafter come the heavy streams of Mageroysundet (Meagre Island Sound). All the names along the

route enable the fishermen to remember the trip and

also some of its important characteristics, like the location of underwater reefs and sunken rocks. Although

sea charts are quite detailed, not all of the sunken

rocks are marked. As a part of the knowledge I acquired while fishing from Tromso to Finnmark, I still remember, some fifteen years later, several routes I once traveled. For example, as you enter the Meagre

Island Sound, when the currents run strongly against

you, by holding hard to the right side of the sound you

would be able to run with a good current. But then

you must beware of a sunken rock fifteen minutes or

so into the sound. I would never have remembered

that these events would occur in that sequence if they were presented as a configuration of numbers of the GPS locations. On the other hand, had I had a CPS at

that time, I could have marked the places and stored it

forever electronically. The GPS is therefore a good support, but rarely a full substitute to the fishermen's

highly sensitive knowledge of places in the coastal

land- and seascape. To highlight more aspects of "horizontal" knowledge of the seascape, one has to remember that fisher- men often travel by way of shortcuts. They know how

to navigate between islands and sunken reefs on routes

that the map does not mark. Newcomers have to travel

the long way when they come on their own. When one

follows a local fisherman, the trip to the shore may be

considerably shorter. Such shortcuts are especially good to know when

the weather changes, since this can let you reach the

harbor much faster. Knowledge of weather and how the

various winds affect the local land- and seascape are

also part of the fishermen's local expertise. A weather

report on gales, for instance, may still enable fishing.

The southeastern winds are often tamed by the landscape, thus enabling the fisherman to find places to

fish, or find refuge if that is necessary (Fig. 94).

While speaking of safety, I should also mention

that fishermen often travel across a seascape with a

partner. "Comrade-vessels" is an established concept

and comrade-vessels often go together for longer distances, for example, to and from the fishing areas of

Lofoten Islands or Finnmark. They often also fish to284 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
94/ Sudden weather changes challenges the fisherman, though intricate knowledge on wind performance in the

local seascape may still provide the fisherman with fishing opportunities.

gether, providing safety by lool<ing out for eacin other.

Other safety issues, such as the careful handling of machinery, apply to many professions besides fishermen.

What is special in dealing with the seascape is that it

provides a moving floor for the operations. Accidents

do happen. If the fisherman slips while pulling the nets,

he can get caught in the capstan. That may lead to a broken arm or, in the worst case, to one being stuck,

and having no way to get to the radio and call for help.

Another dangerous operation is when the fishing

gear and lines go overboard. The fisherman may get

trapped in a loop, an event that will throw him over- board immediately. To avoid this the fisherman must

be alert, always, of where his feet are. He should try to

plant them down safely before setting the gear and not move them before the operation is over.

Naturally, there are safety issues related to weather. The stronger the wind, the more stress is put on a fish- erman to be careful and on alert. The wind is but one

aspect of the fishing trip. Currents are as important both

for setting the gear and for moving through the seascape. There are areas that are quite strenuous to pass

if the wind and currents run against each other. But

currents can also help one to move. Small-scale vessels normally run at a speed of seven to ten nautical

miles per hour; and running with the tide will make a

difference of, perhaps, one mile an hour. Traveling from

Tromso to the seasonal Finnmark fishery, on a trip that

normally takes a day and a night, a fisherman's local knowledge tells him that departing when the high water mark has sunk one foot in Tromso provides a good

current for the first part of the trip.

ANITA MAURSTAD 285
As such, fishermen share a vast body of knowledge on the routes between areas of the seascape. Weather conditions, underwater stones and rocks, special currents, and so on, form the image of the sea- scape and are the imprints that fishermen store in their memory. Having traveled the route before or traveling

with a comrade-vessel, they can memorize the whole

trip, they can plan when to be alert or when they may

have time to boil coffee. Traveling from Tromso to the Finnmark fishery, for instance, there is a rough bit of

sea some six to seven hours after one's departure that

lasts for an hour or so. Then all loose equipment on

the vessel should be fully secured. Thereafter comes some four hours of shielded sea, where one can turn on the autopilot and make pots of coffee or even

dinner as one wishes.

Regional/Local Dimension: Multiple Seascapes

Another critical feature of fishermen's knowledge of

the seascape is that fishermen normally know many

seascapes. Of course, they know best the area they

fish, and that may not necessarily be in their home

area. As most of the fishermen also partake in fisheries

in Lofoten and Finnmark, they usually develop detailed knowledge of the seascapes that are far from their hometowns. One man I interviewed had used the same Lofoten

fishing area for fifty years. He had an extremely detailed knowledge of this area, as well as of the area where he had grown up. Fishermen's knowledge is, thus, both regional and

local. There are general aspects in the fishermen's

knowledge that apply everywhere—like which gear

to use and how. Such knowledge refers to depths,

grounds, and slopes all over the North. Experience

acquired from years of fishing on a small boat also

has a fairly universal application. But there are aspects of seascape knowledge that apply only in a

local setting, like the above-mentioned story of a

local fisherman who could fit seven tubs of long-lines

at a particular site, where no other gear could be used.

Time Dimension

Currents vary with time, that is, with the tide; and fish- ermen travel in sync with currents and tides. As mentioned, the tide will help to increase the speed of the journey as well as to make the journey less trouble- some or dangerous, as there are areas at sea that can be

quite unpleasant if the wind and the current work against

each other. Time is also important in deciding when to fish. If

the currents run strong one could be at the right location, but the gear may not be effective when it reaches

the bottom. It could be tangled due to the heavy current, or the meshes could be folded together, thus preventing the fish from entering the net. Therefore, not only does the fisherman have to know the

strength of the current, but he also has to know its

direction to ensure good placement of the fishing gear at sea.

Fish behavior also varies with time, as the stock goes through various cycles during the year. Fish feed and spawn in different seasons, and their presence in

local waters depends on these cycles. A combination

of moon phases and tides is of special importance. For

herring, especially, the moon cycles are critical to follow, as the herring fishery is reportedly the best around

the full moon. For other species, fishermen also refer

to how the fishery fluctuates with the moon cycles.

They also know what biology and biological changes

occur throughout the year, so that they can record the

distribution of various species in time and space for

almost every month. They also know how to exploit

those species, the most efficient gear types to employ,

and the best species to fish in a certain season or month

of the year.

Relational Dimension

I have already mentioned how the fishermen acquire

their knowledge. Usually, they learn from male mentors, such as fathers and uncles, through both play and

direct teaching. They also learn continuously from each

286 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
other. They talk by radio on their vessels, in the harbor

when they deliver their catch, and at home by calling

each other on the phone. Although fishermen talk constantly about fishing, this is not a free flow of information. Knowledge of good fishing sites is an important

production asset, and thus it often remains confidential

to individual fishermen or within the local community

of fishermen. Fishermen share information in a rather

selective way. Newcomers often complain that coming

to a new place and asking local fishermen where to go

produces few clear answers. Only after they fish in the

harbor for a while, proving themselves as "worthy," will

the door to local knowledge open. The notion "worthy" is mine, but it encompasses certain personal qualities that fishermen value among themselves, such as

being good at catching fish and being knowledgeable

and respectful with regard to informal rules and

regulations.

This way of communication can be ascribed to

the fact that fishing is both a competition and involves

cooperation (Bjorna 1 993). Fishermen need each other

as colleagues both for the purpose of information and

in case they need help. They also compete over resources and space, so that they would like to know

more about a competitor before dealing with him in any close manner.

Thus, informal codes of conduct shape the rules of

behavior in the seascape. There are also access regulations to abide by. Local fishermen tend to be the

prime users of the home area. A newcomer who tries

to access the best local sites will meet sanctions, such

as having his gill nets or other gear damaged. Most newcomers know this; when accessing a new area, they

normally exploit places that locals do not use (Maurstad

1 997). Newcomers often have some sort of relation to the

locals before entering a new area, especially a fjord or

a small fishing village involved in gill netting. Knowledge of people is a prerequisite in the use of the seascape and people usually know each other over long

distances. Fishermen may talk about how they know

so and so, when they prepare to go to a new place to

fish. The relationship to people in the area will help one be accepted among local fishermen, as well as

learn something about the local fishing sites. As this knowledge is not found in any book, one must talk to

people in order to learn about a new area. Being granted

access to the local knowledge network is always easier when there are friend or family bonds to activate. Another relational element operating in the seascape is that fishing crews often consist of relatives,

such as brothers, brother-in-laws, or fathers and sons.

Relatives are considered worthy of sharing competitive advantages, such as production secrets on fishing

sites. Kin-based organization of crews also offers certain economic advantages. A father—who usually has

low debts based on his long work experience and agemay leave the vessel for part of the year when fishing

is not as good, thus allowing his sons to share the

income. The sharing of the catch is regulated by standards set by the Fishermen's Association; but often

these standards are not followed strictly when close

relatives man the vessel.

Gender Dimension

It is mostly men who work the coastal waters of northern Norway, and therefore the knowledge related to

the seascape is mostly a male knowledge. The seascape is a man's world, a part of men's culture, whereas women spend more of their time in the cultural landscape. The village looks different to men and women. Men usually see it twice a day from the sea, when

going to and coming from fishing. Women, although

they sometimes go out with their men, mostly see the

village from within, by walking the ground in the course

of their daily activities. Similarly, they see the sea from

the village, while men see it from being on it. This

provides unequal frames of reference for the perception of the seascape by men and women.

But men and women do share each other's worlds.

Several researchers have referred to the valuable work

that women do in relation to the fishery (Davis and

ANITA MAURSTAD 287
Nadel-Klein 1988). Cerrard (1983) names women as

the "ground crew" of the fishing vessels. Their ground

crew tasks include equipping the vessel, taking care

of the fishermen's clothes, cleaning, baiting longlines,

and so on. Although women still perform such jobs,

today it has become common that women have their own careers. That leaves less time for women to provide ground support to the men in the fisheries (Jentoft

1989). Davis's recent work in Newfoundland illustrates

that although women's roles are changing in ways that undermine the harmony of gender relations, women

still remain committed to raising their families in coastal communities (Davis 2000).

Gender perspectives are also relevant with regard

to the socialization of children in coastal villages. Boys

and girls live and grow up in different worlds. They

obtain different perspectives on the seascape very early. On visiting a fishing harbor, one may often find boys

playing in racing speedboats with outboard engines.

Few girls do this, and those who do take on the status

of a "tomboy." Feminist researchers have advocated

that many women want to fish, but that they face institutional and cultural barriers. Overcoming those barriers by providing, for instance, easier access to the fishing quotas for women is seen as one way to include more women in the seascape (Munk-Madsen 1998).

Today girls, more than boys, tend to leave their villages for schools. Stimulating women to enter the fishery is also thought to help recruitment to the remote

fishing villages.

A Jack of all Trades

By focusing on the fishermen's knowledge, I have thus

far reviewed some issues that are directly linked to the

use of the seascape. A full description of the fishermen's

knowledge, however, should include a much broader

range of issues and activities that are crucial to the

fishermen's success. Fishing is a multi-faceted task, and

every fisherman performs many other jobs that are not

directly related to fishing. Administrative work is one

such aspect, as a fisherman has to administer his boat,

his crew, the shares, and so on. He also markets his

fish: while the boat is at the fishing site, a fish buyer

calls with a request for a certain species and a deal is

set. While going to and from the site, he cooks breakfast and dinner. Hence, the fisherman is a cook. There

is also constant education. As the fisherman listens to

the radio and talks with others on the mobile phone,

he constantly educates himself, as well as plans the

next set of operations. While at sea, things may break

down; so, the fisherman must do maintenance, repair

machinery and so on. Finally, there is personnel management, security management, and political work, not

to forget being a family man. Often while at sea, the

fisherman talks with his wife and family.

The fisherman is definitely a jack-of-all-trades; and

many aspects of his activities, though not related directly, are nevertheless important components of cultural seascapes. It is this manifold nature of seascape

that holds all other activities together.

Current Status of Coastal Fisheries in

Northern Norway

Coastal fishermen in Norway have been politically

strong, especially during the last century, when considerable institutional protection was built to preserve their way of living. For example, as the trawler technology

developed in the late nineteenth century, England, Scotland, and Germany had some 1,500-steam trawlers at

the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century

(Christensen 1991). But in Norway, as in Canada, the

coastal fishermen's opposition halted the development

of the trawler technology (Apostle et al. 1 998). The

Norwegian authorities passed several acts in support

of the coastal fishermen's interests. As a result, as late

as the 1 920s and 1 930s, when the international trawler

fleet had expanded tremendously, Norwegian trawlers

still counted less than twenty (Sagdahl 1 982).

After World War II, however, freezing technology

and industrialization were seen as having a promising

future. A process of modernization and industrialization for the Norwegian northern fisheries was started,

288 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
this time initiated by the government authorities. Eventually, the Norwegian trawler fleet expanded, but not as much as the authorities wanted it to. Coastal fishermen

rejected working on the trawlers, and they did not follow resettlement programs advanced by the Norwegian government after World War II. Upon its retreat from northern Norway, the German Army burned to the ground nearly all houses and public buildings in Northern Troms and Finnmark counties. In rebuilding the

region, the Norwegian authorities aimed to relocate

people from their traditional coastal communities. They

wanted to centralize the settlement, but people rejected

such a development. Local residents just wanted to

rebuild their individual houses in remote coastal areas and on the islands (Brox 1 966).

Thus, the post-World War II modernization programs

did not succeed as planned. Instead, an extensive local

infrastructure of roads, electricity, and public services was built around Norwegian coastal fisheries. Even though this infrastructure is now scaled down, the coastal

fishing culture is still living side by side with the industrial fishing culture. Coastal fisheries do enjoy political

support. They are seen as the social and economic

backbone of the many coastal communities, whereas

employment and settlement in the North are still considered national political goals. But coastal fishermen

face harder conditions since the introduction of individual catch quotas and new access rules in 1 990. As a

result, there has been a steady decline in the number

of active fishermen during the last decade. In 1 986,

there were 3,500 small-scale cod-fishing vessels in Troms and Finnmark counties altogether; only 2,200 were in business in 1 996, ten years later (a reduction of

thirty-seven percent). In terms of the overall catch, however, the reduction was only eleven percent. The reduction of the catch is probably moderated by the fact

that the total Norwegian catch was thirty percent larger

in 1 996 compared to 1 986. But another factor is as

important: the new regulations provided the fishermen

with new incentives to expand. As fishermen must fish

their quota to be assigned future fishing rights, fishermen can no longer let individual needs decide their

efforts. Rather, small-scale fishermen catches, which used

to show great variation, are now more homogenous.

One can say that while fishermen used to fish cod, they now strive to fish quotas (Maurstad 2000a).

Small-scale fishermen also compete over space and

resources with other interests in the coastal zone. Of

particular interest is that Norway is planning a huge

increase in its fish farm production. The knowledge in

the seascape depends on how it is used, as small-scale

fishermen, large scale vessels, fish farming, tourism, and

so on, set their different imprints on the seascape. If

fishermen no longer use the area, the knowledge I have

addressed here cannot be generated by other industries and will be lost.

Loss of knowledge can also result from elderly fish- ermen passing away, of poor or no recruitment of younger people into the fishery, or of village closure and abandonment. We can assume that a substantial

wealth of knowledge on coastal seascapes is already

gone, due to these factors. Although shifting modernization projects of the Norwegian governments have

been halted by local residents' unwillingness to comply, the projects of the 1950s and 1960s did lead to

substantial resettlement. In the latter decades, the

national fisheries' infrastructure has also been scaled down. Several fish plants have been closed since

the 1980s. Post offices and other public services were also reduced. Many smaller communities have

been closed and/or abandoned along the northern

coast of Norway. Some of the fishermen who have

moved from their former residential places continue,

however, to fish the areas off the coast of old villages

where they were born. But since there is little recruit- ment of younger people, the stock of knowledge about

local seascapes is decreasing with each year. The coast is also a shipping lane. In recent years,

there have been several shipwrecks in people's back

yards, and many wrecked ships and boats are still lying

there, causing a loss of the aesthetic value of both the

seascape and the coastal landscape. There are plans for

ANITA MAURSTAD 289
increased petroleum activity in northwest Russia, as

well as plans to transport nuclear waste for treatment in

Russia, causing concern about traditional fishing

grounds being lost because of oil spills and nuclear

contamination. As such, there are several threats to the future smallscale fisheries and to the present knowledge of the

seascape. The small-scale fishermen may be able to cope with these new challenges, however. Small-scale

fishing is an intrinsic part of northern culture (Fig. 95). To many people, it is far more than a job or a seasonal

occupation, and it will not disappear quickly and easily. This is its main source of strength. But it has been,

and still is, an "invisible" type of activity in the sense

that knowledge about small-scale fishing practices is

not well disseminated and is poorly protected. The un- expected effects of the new regulations, for instance,

must be seen as a result of the authorities' lack of knowledge about the small-scale fishery. Since the main

problem the authorities had to deal with was a sudden

shortage of fishing resources, it could not have been

their intention to increase small-scale fishermen's efforts. Nor was there a need to, as the lack of profitability was not an issue among small-scale fishermen.

Preservation of Cultural Seascapes: Protecting the Invisible

As small-scale fishing practices remain all but invisible to the authorities, the same is even truer with regard to the knowledge related to the seascape. This

knowledge is primarily unwritten, maintained through

practice, and transferred orally between fishermen. That means that it is very hard for regulating authorities to

understand, access, and implement this knowledge in

their regulatory practices. More importantly, it means

that a particular cultural seascape exists only as long as

the particular knowledge about it is maintained within

the user's community. When fishermen no longer use

the seascape, it will turn back to a "sea wilderness"—an

uncultured sea. The same applies to the seashore. When

fishermen no longer use mountains and places along

the shore and on the seabed as reference points for

their fishing and traveling, the knowledge about place- names, navigation, and local conditions is gone. The

shore will become "wilderness" in the same way the unused seascape became the uncultured and unrecognized scenery that we observed earlier through a virtual silent movie camera. The question is, then, how to make the cultural seascape more visible.

Legal and General Framework for Protection of Seascapes

A range of recent international conventions stipulates

that states shall codif/ in their national laws the need

for the preservation and maintenance of indigenous

and local knowledge that is important for sustainable

use (Posey 1 994). This is highly relevant to the protection of cultural seascapes; but to my knowledge, these

laws and conventions have not been transformed into any specific policies or measures in the protection of

the cultural seascape. The UNESCO Convention on the

Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage of

1 972 defines "cultural heritage" as monuments, groups

of building or sites (Article 1 ), and "natural heritage" as

areas important from a scientific or aesthetic point of

view (Article 2). The proponents of protection of cultural landscapes argue that this current definition of

protection neglects important cultural values. As defined by Buggey (2000), Aboriginal cultural landscapes

embody traditional knowledge of spirits, places, land

uses and ecology. The convention has not integrated

these points. It hardly refers to any knowledge about

the cultural landscape itself, related traditions, stories,

myths, and so on. In light of its inadequacy for protecting cultural landscapes, the World Heritage Convention is also insufficient, in its present form, to protect

cultural seascapes. Norwegian laws do take the issue of cultural landscape preservation into account. The Norwegian Conservation Act of 1 970 (1 9 June, No 63), Article 5, allows

for preserving "characteristic or beautiful . . . natural

or cultural landscapes." By specifically mentioning

290 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
95/ Small-scale fishing vessels resting in Troms0 on their way to the Finnmark fishery.

"cultural landscapes," the Norwegian Conservation

Act seems to go further in protecting cultural values

than the World Heritage Convention. However, most

sites that are protected in Norway with reference to

the Conservation Act are given their protected status because of their scenic or wilderness value. Bans on hunting formerly overexploited bird populations,

such as puffins and eiders, have long been in place.

In more recent years, there has been a concerted effort to create coastal marine reserves to protect bird

nesting areas. Although it is important to protect the

natural resources of the seascape, as well as to see the seascape itself as nature, those are certainly not the most important values to be considered in cultural seascape preservation. Thus, the Norwegian Conservation

Act is also an insufficient tool for protecting cultural

seascapes. The Norwegian Cultural Inheritance Act of 1 978 (9

June, No. 50) sounds more promising. Cultural inheritance is defined as "all traces of human activity in the

physical environment, including places that embed

historical happenings, belief or tradition " (Article 2) and some aspects of fishing culture could certainly

find protection within these frames. However, the

management practice with reference to the Cultural Inheritance Act has been to protect items in the seascape

such as sunken vessels, as well as other single findings

of archaeological importance. As I have argued, protection of cultural seascapes involves more than protecting monuments and archaeological sites. It involves

the protection of immaterial objects such as the knowl- edge in the everyday practices of fishermen. Should

the Cultural Inheritance Act be of use to the protection of cultural seascapes, the awareness of what is

the cultural seascape must be broadened. In fact, any

protection of cultural seascapes will first and foreANITA MAURSTAD 291
most depend on an awareness of cultural seascapes. Managers need an image of it first and second a will

to manage. This hypothesis applies not only to managers. Fishermen also need a different image of the seascape. They know the sea through their practices, but

they do not talk of cultural seascapes. As I mentioned

earlier, there is not even a Norwegian word for seascape. No wonder then, that the cultural seascape lacks

protection in the existing legal framework. But this situation could be changed.

During the last decade, Norway has demonstrated a growing focus on the planning and regulation of de- velopment in the coastal zone. The Planning and Zoning Act of 1985 (HJune, No. 77) was expanded in 1989

to include the sea within the straight base line. So far,

this law is used mostly for development: it allows local

municipalities to plan the use of the municipal seaspace, such as where to allocate sites for fish farms,

recreational areas, industrial effluence, and so on. This

law may provide a basis for developing an awareness

of the cultural seascape for two reasons: —The Planning and Zoning Act is in the making.

Although established in 1 989, planning in the north- ern coastal zone did not begin until the late 1 990s,

when Norway decided to increase her fish farm pro- duction. Today, there are ongoing debates on the

law's future form and practice, and it should be possible to integrate the concept of the cultural sea- scape within the scope of this act and within the

institutionalized practices of managers.

—Under the Planning and Zoning Act, the municipal governments seek knowledge on the current use of and various interests within seascapes under

their authority. The law states that affected groups

or individuals should be involved early in the planning process; and local fishermen are already in- vited to map out their fishing practices, especially

fishing sites.

Thus, the fishermen, the main users of the sea- scape, have gotten new arenas for speaking of

the seascape, thereby conceptualizing their practice for managers and a broader audience. This user approach in visualizing the seascape is especially important when it comes to managing cultural seascapes, for reasons I will discuss below.

A Management Approach

Recently, scholars in the international resource man- agement studies have taken a greater interest in local

fishermen's knowledge. The key issue is whether such

knowledge should be or will be integrated into mainstream fishery and biological research. The benefits of

doing so are twofold. First, the fishermen's knowledge

of local marine environment is supposed to improve

scientific biological knowledge, upon which management recommendations are usually constructed. Second, local fishermen are regarded as being able to successfully negotiate the complex nature/culture relationship through their sustainable harvest (Coward et

al. 2000; Durrenberger and King 2000; Dyer and

McGoodwin 1994; Freeman and Carbyn 1988;

Inglisl 993; Maurstad and Sundet 1 998; Neis 1 992; Neis and Felt 2000; Newell and Ommer 1 998; Pinkerton 1 989,

1999; Wilson etal. 1994).

In many case studies, fishermen are actively sought

as consultants for their knowledge of specific issues

that are critical to science and management. Scholars

in the field of co-management argue, nevertheless, that

fishermen should be more than just "consulted" and

that it should be a real power-balance between fisher- men and government agencies. Otherwise, fishermen

may feel they are being "co-opted into [the] governments' convenience" (Pinkerton 1989:4). The process

of co-management may be characterized by symbolic

gestures and make-believe (Jentoft 2000); or—as I have

argued elsewhere (Maurstad 2000b)—fishermen enter

the process of cooperation by anticipating that they

will be regarded as the Ph.D.s of the fishing grounds,

whereas they are, in fact, treated merely as research

assistants to the biologists.

These perspectives are especially relevant when

talking about seascapes. As mentioned earlier, the

fishermen's knowledge of fishing sites and how to use them may be seen as production secrets. The knowl292 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
edge held by an individual fisherman may offer him a

competitive advantage over other local fishermen. In

the same way, the seascape knowledge of one community of fishermen may provide competitive advantages over other neighboring communities. These days,

there is no legal protection for such secrets. There exists a vague set of informal rules that guide access to

the knowledge and the right to use this knowledge

locally. The knowledge is oral, and fishermen disseminate it to others when they find them worthy. Knowledge has a meaning in a certain social context and as a

part of a specific social activity. Revealing fishing sites

in a book, or in any other written and published form,

does have the potential of changing the informal rules

of the fishery. This is because the book interferes with

the process of transmission of knowledge and with the

existing rules of the game. Acquiring fishing knowledge from a book—ready to buy in the bookstore and

available to everyone—is a completely new way of

gaining local fishing information. One does not have

to prove oneself worthy and to perform according to

culturally defined standards before reading a book on

fishing sites. When knowledge is accessible through

the book, the obligations toward those who originally

possessed and shared that knowledge may become

less strict and valid, and, perhaps, even totally absent

(Maurstad 2002).

The consequences of publicizing the fishermen's

knowledge pose an obvious dilemma when it comes

to visualizing the knowledge of the seascape. In the

course of coastal development, various interests need

to be clarified and, if fishermen do not speak out, they

may become more invisible and peripheral than they

are today. If they do decide to speak out, they may

lose access to certain fishing sites, as various competitors can use that knowledge to their own advantage. In Maurstad (2002), I discuss the various solutions to the dilemma of documenting valuable knowledge on the

seascape and, at the same time, protecting the production assets of individual fishermen. I conclude that the most valuable lesson to learn is that the relationship

between fishermen and managers must change character. Fishermen must be more than consulted. They

should be actively engaged in cooperative approaches

to management. They should politicize their knowledge and meet in arenas for discussions on first what is

their knowledge of the seascape; second on how can it

be used; and third, used by whom.

Researchers also play a role. Apart from their general role in understanding, documenting, and describing various aspects of the management process, researchers can help facilitate the process of mapping

fishermen's knowledge. As Tobias (2000) illustrates, in

citing many mapping projects in Canada, where indig- enous people were involved in mapping landscapes as

proof of their physical occupation in order to be used

as evidence in court cases, good research methods are

crucial. Indigenous peoples, when defending their issues in court, have learned that having no data is even

better than having poor data. Methodology is also an

issue when it comes to presenting knowledge on the

seascape. Since there are many users in the coastal

zone, conflicts over space abound; and good mapping

projects become crucial to the legitimacy of fishermen's

rights to and knowledge of the seascape.

Scientists' performance, however, raises a whole set

of other debates. Since fishermen's knowledge of the

seascape is oral and orally transmitted, moving knowledge from the oral sphere to the written will definitely

influence the knowledge in ways we do not know and

with consequences we cannot anticipate at the mo- ment (Maurstad 2002). Furthermore, science is not just

an objective reporter of knowledge. When science helps

in conceptualizing the seascape, it also helps in creating it (Maurstad 2000b; Holm 2003). The cooperative

approach mentioned above between fishermen and

managers should also include scientists, but it is important that fishermen become more than research assistants to scientists and managers. The problems of defining what is the cultural seascape, who can access the knowledge about it, and how it should be protected

will not be solved immediately by empowering

ANITA MAURSTAD 293
fishermen's positions. Nor would we easily gain an understanding of the consequences of writing down oral

culture. Integrating fishermen in cooperative approaches

to management and knowledge production, would,

however, enable more qualified discussion, as well as

give fishermen a say in these important issues of their

prime concern. Another consideration when attempting to integrate

fishermen into the debate over how to protect the sea

is that most local inhabitants, including fishermen, have

mixed feelings toward the concept of "protection." Recent Protection plans have advanced various forms of

protection of areas and resources that local inhabitants have traditionally exploited. Locals have seen these

plans as a ground for cultural conflict; "educated" planners from the south come to the north "to protect the

wilderness." Locals complain that the planners do not understand their cultural use of resources and places

(Sandersen 1996). Fishermen do consider themselves

worthy of protection because of the economic value

of their small-scale fisheries, as well as their cultural

role in preserving Norwegian folk traditions. They maintain that they protect nature better through their use of

nature than when there is no use of nature. When they

use the landscape (or seascape), they act as its caretakers; but when no caretakers are in place, other interests may rob nature. Thus, local people will most probably

meet the idea of protecting seascapes with little enthusiasm. The matter may be different when the issue is

the protection of their fishing culture. Thus, including

fishermen in the management may facilitate a new ap- proach to the protection of seascape as something that

is helpful to the fishermen's own culture. The Norwegian Planning and Zoning Act of 1 985 is

a tool that could be developed for such purposes. Its

focus is planning the use of—in my terms here—the

seascape, and it states that users shall be involved in

the process of planning. The important future issue is how the awareness of cultural seascapes develops, as

well as where power to make decisions on protection

is located. For now the law assigns but a consultant's

role to the users. Even the municipal governments have no real power in managing the sea; they can make

plans for allocation of space, but the national and regional fishing authorities make resource management

decisions while the national and regional environmental authorities decide what culture needs protection. Because protection of cultural seascapes is so closely

linked to fishing activities, there are several dilemmas

here. One is the power of local municipalities; currently, many municipalities face severe economic ex- penses and it is likely that they would hesitate to protect cultural seascapes should the protection involve

rejecting development by other industries. Although

local municipalities assumingly have the best knowledge of local seascapes, state governments may be a

better facilitator of protection—provided of course that

they develop the will to protect. The other dilemma

relates to the divided sector interests mentioned above.

Government agencies do not seem to agree on the

issue of use or protection, neither on the national level

nor on the regional level. Regarding coastal zone plans,

the County Fisheries Director can object to the municipal plans with reference to a range of Norwegian laws

besides the Planning and Zoning Act of 1 985. So, also,

can the County Governor object to their plans. Osland

(2001 ), who has worked in the bureaucracy of managing fish farming for fifteen years, says that the municipalities often feel that the higher government bodies

use the planning processes as arenas for their own fights

over principles.

Real co-managementthen—one which balances use and protection, interests of various users and interests

of various management bodies—is thus rather hard to

accomplish. Regarding the protection of cultural seascapes, the Norwegian Planning and Zoning Act can

assist in increasing awareness of cultural seascapes, since

discussions on how to use the sea is already going on

with reference to the law. In a later stage, when the

issue is specifically which law should be responsible for protection of cultural seascapes, the relationship between this law and the Cultural Inherit294 PROTECTING THE INVISIBLE/ SEASCAPE
ance Act should be discussed further. In any case,

both laws need be broadened: the Cultural Inherit- ance Act to include contemporary fishing culture and fishermen's knowledge of fishing activities in

the seascape; and the Planning and Zoning Act to

increase awareness of the cultural seascape.

Conclusion

A vast body of the fishermen's knowledge exists and is linked directly to the use of the sea. Fisher- men know how to move through the seascape by

way of reference points on the coastal landscape as

well as in the seascape. They have knowledge of

the sea floor that helps them navigate successfully.

They also have knowledge of tides, currents, and

winds—all invisible to the outsider or to a non-knowledgeable person. Contrary to the common view, the value of the seascape is more than that it is picturesque. This is

very similar to the role of the landscape, although

far more elusive and difficult to document. As is so

with landscapes, knowledge of the seascape is maintained almost exclusively via fishing activities,

memories and oral stories, that is, via cultural modes

of transmission. As such, it is priceless. Should the seascape transform into the "uncultured" sea, the knowledge about seascape is gone. Unlike historical landscapes, where certain information on the past can be extracted via archaeological excavations and/

or from written sources, there is almost no way to

restore the lost knowledge about cultural seascapes. Moreover, this knowledge is useful far beyond

the practical needs of the economy and social welfare of coastal fishing communities. It is also ex- tremely useful to fishery science and management.

This is another reason to talk about seascapes. Currently, it is landscapes that can gain protection; when

such protected status is given, the preservation of landscape is primarily based upon certain historical,

aesthetic, wilderness, or scientific reasons. There is

a surprising lack of consciousness about seascapes.

and that is especially so concerning cultural aspects

of both land- and seascapes. Therefore, expanding

the concept of -scape may increase awareness and

help to draw attention to the relationship between

human activity and natural environments, be it on

the land or at sea.

Protecting seascapes is indeed a big challenge,

since it is very much like protecting the invisible. To the majority of people, the special uses and values in the seascape remain unknown. While cultural landscapes are also mostly invisible, cultural sea- scapes are even more so, as seascapes lack any physical marks of human presence, and exist in human

mind, memory, and knowledge only. Increased public consciousness about these parts of the world's

cultural heritage is, thus, very important. Although

landscapes, and even cultural landscapes, do have some protection under current Norwegian law, the awareness of the meaning of the sea seems to stop

at the seashore. The ongoing coastal zone planning

holds promise for changing this situation by the

fact that it takes place locally, quite near the local seascapes and involves the users directly by allowing them to state their concerns. When these processes have developed more, the hope is that the border of awareness of what is the sea may be

expanded.

Acknowledgements

First, I want to thank all the fishermen who willingly

shared with me their knowledge of seascapes. They

made writing this article possible. I am also grateful

to the Norwegian Research Council for providing

financial support for my earlier studies of small-scale

fisheries in northern Norway. Last, but not least, I thank my colleagues, particularly Igor Krupnik, Terje

Brantenberg, and Dona Lee Davis. Igor and Terje inspired me and provided much helpful advice during

my research and writing, while Dona offered valuable comments for the final article. I am deeply grateful to these three for their constructive input.

ANITA MAURSTAD 295
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ANITA MAURSTAD 297
96/ Harry Simpson, a Dogrib elder, demonstrates how Dogrib chief Edzo used Big Rock, near Mesa Lake on the barrenlands, in the 1 820s to hide his son and brother while he negotiated a lasting peace with Akaitcho, chief of the Yellowknives, their long-term enemies.
REGIONAL APPROACHES TO DOCUMENTATION AND PROTECTION

"J^he Land is Like a ^ooL":

(^ultura! Landscapes f\4a'"iagement

in the [\jorthwest "7 erritones, (panada

THOMAS D. ANDREWS

To the Indian people our land is really our life. Without our land we . . . could no longer

exist as people. (Richard Nerysoo, Fort McPherson, 1976—from Berger 1977:94).

On April 1 , 1 999, following nearly fifteen years of land

claims negotiations, the map of northern Canada

changed dramatically with the creation of the new territory of Nunavut. Nunavut—the homeland of Canada's

Inuit—represents the transformation of a cultural landscape into a geopolitical landscape, where political selfsufficiency is now in the control of the Inuit themselves. In reality, two new territories were created: the new Nunavut, and a smaller Northwest Territories (NWT),

largely forgotten in the glow of media interest in the

creation of its newer sibling. If Nunavut represents the

transformation of a cultural landscape into a geopolitical one, what is the status of NWT cultural landscapes?

Cultural landscapes, still important from the perspective of NWT Aboriginal worldviews, are under pressure from changes and impacts from resource development,

which have escalated in the last two decades. What

trends, changes, and developments have taken place

over the last two decades? How are NWT Aboriginal

societies working to preserve and protect northern cultural landscapes? This paper reviews these changes from

the perspective of cultural landscape research, with particular emphasis on the recent developments in the Mackenzie River valley of the Northwest Territories.

Cultural Landscapes in the NWT

[l]f we remember the teachings of the legends

and live them, if we take the sign set on the

land for us as our symbol, we will never have

any trouble surviving as a nation. (Stanley

Isiah, as told to George Blondin from Dene

Nation 1981:ii)

We kept on traveling, and grandfather . . . kept on talking to me. . . . That was how the grandfathers taught the children (George

Blondin, Deline, 1 990—from Blondin 1990:

204)

For the Dene, Metis, and Inuvialuit' of the Northwest

Territories (Fig. 97) the land is indeed a special thing.

More thanjust a space, it is a blanket woven from strands

of stories centuries old a landscape imbued with rivers of meaning. It is a cultural landscape where physical features are used as mnemonic devices to order

and help preserve oral narratives, which themselves

encode knowledge relative to identity, history, culture, and subsistence. To paraphrase Richard Nerysoo,

the land is life.

The mnemonic link between geographic feature,

place name, and oral narrative has been well documented in many societies that preserve rich oral traditions (see Buggey, this volume; Andrews et al. 1 998;

Feld and Basso 1 996; Hirsch and O'Hanlon 1 995). Vast

territories known intimately by members of highly

mobile societies and codified by names form the basis

of a complex ethnogeography, where the physical world

is transformed into a social geography in which culture and landscape are fused into a semiotic whole. These

cultural landscapes meld natural and cultural values and are often difficult to compare with Western catego301
97/ The Northwest Territories, Canada. Three land claims have been negotiated in the NWT and passed into settlement legislation—for the Inuvialuit, Gwich 'in, and Sahtu Dene and Metis. The Dogrib, occupying the region

north of Yellowknife, have completed a land claim agreement, but it awaits passage by the Canadian Parlia- ment. The roads represented by dotted lines are usable only in winter.

302 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
ries of geographical description. As young people travel

with their elders, they are told the names and stories,

using geographic features as mnemonic aids, and in

this way travel, or mobility, becomes a vehicle for learning. Elders who have worked on the land all their lives, who have visited places of spiritual significance, who

have traveled to the edge of the world—and who have

learned and recounted the stories about these placesare regarded with great respect because they are very

knowledgeable. In this way, knowledge passed down

through the ages in stories is mediated through personal experience. Mobility, and the knowledge gained

from it, is therefore tied to notions of prestige as well (Andrews et al. 1 998:31 1 -1 3). The eth no-pedagogy of

educating and socializing children with the land is an

ancient tradition, corroborated by oral tradition and supported by archaeological research (see below).

Though there are many examples to draw upon to

illustrate this relationship, the site of Ayonikj (Fig. 98)

is particularly useful, as it is said that the site witnessed

the creation of the Sahtu Dene and their neighbors.

The following passage is taken from the Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites Joint Working Group report

(T'Seleie et al. 2000:18-20), which is described more

fully later in the paper:

The story takes place at a time in Sahtu

history long ago when humans and animals

could change form. Sahtu Dene history is divided into two great time periods: the time

of the 'Old World,' when animals and humans

could change form, and lived together. This was succeeded by the 'New World,' a time

when humans and animals took their final form. With the New World, people and

animals lived in harmony, abiding by rules of mutual respect and conduct. These are the

rules that guide hunters to respect the animals that give themselves for food. We

are living in the New World today. As told by

an Elder from Colville Lake, the story of Ayonikj begins...

In the ancient days everyone lived together—

the Inuit, the Gwich'in, and the Dene from

this region. The big war that happened at Ayonikj happened because of two children

that were fighting one another over an owl. Everyone began to fight because of the

children and it is said that the battle was so

fierce that there was a lake of blood that formed on that hill. Finally an Elder stood and

asked the people to stop fighting. Everyone

went their separate ways, and even the languages changed with time. A lone dog

wandered toward Gwich'in country and that represents the Gwich'in. A young man wandered

to the Arctic coast and that represents the Inuit. That is why the Inuit are so agile. The children

ran towards Great Bear Lake; they represent the Neyagot'ine [Deljne people]. That is why the people of Bear Lake are so energetic. An Elder stayed here, and he represents the people who

live here today. That is why the people of this area are so wise.

Generally stories are not interpreted for young people,

and are told without the explanation that ends the story

of Ayonikj, above. The elders say that young people

must try to understand the meaning of the story through

their own experience, noting that this encourages in- dependent thinking, and provides for a strong future

for the youth. As family groups traveled from place to

place along the trails that cross the Sahtu landscape,

children were told the names of the places and the

stories that reside at each. As they grew to adulthood

and began telling their own children the same stories,

the places themselves became aids for remembering

the vast oral tradition in which Sahtu Dene and Metis

culture finds its roots (Fig. 99). In this way the land

teaches the young their identity, their history, the rules

of their society. Experience becomes the catalyst for

the acquisition of knowledge. These places are considered sacred, and are important to the future well

being of Sahtu Dene and Metis culture. The link between land and culture in the NWT represents an ancient system that operates in complete

harmony with the landscape, where both mental and

physical sustenance is sought and found. What remains

of this today? Does this system continue to function?

With the current pace of change in the North, is this

ancient ethno-pedagogy still valid?

The Changing Landscape

Some young people today claim that the

traditional way of life is a thing of the past. I believe that as long as there are Dene, then

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 303
we will not abandon the traditional way of life.

I tell the young people to listen to what we

have to say because then they will be able to benefit from the teachings that we are passing on to them. Our oral tradition, once written, will last as long as this land, and if they retain this information in memory they will gain from it. That is why we are working on the land. (Harry

Simpson, Rae Lakes, 1991—from Andrews et

al. 1998:317)

Someone once remarked in reference to the pace of change in the NWT that if you are unhappy with the

status quo, wait a few days until negotiations change it. Over the last century, both the pace and degree of change have been dramatic, and it has had dramatic

impacts on northern indigenous societies. Beginning

over two centuries ago with early exploration and the

fur trade and continuing today with the prospects of major resource development, the landscape of the NWT

has been of international interest as multinational companies vie for development rights. While development

proceeds at a tremendous pace, Aboriginal inhabitants of the Northwest Territories have been negotiating a relationship with Canada for more than a

century, attempting both to gain a degree of selfsufficiency, but also to exert control of and ultimately

benefit from resource development on their traditional lands. Beginning with the negotiation of Treaties 8 (1899) and 11 (1921), Aboriginal inhabitants

of the NWT—the Dene, Metis, and Inuvialuit— have

struggled to find a relationship with Canada. Though

comprehensive land claims—which many refer to as modern treaties—were signed with the Inuvialuit

(1984), the Cwich'in (1992), the Inuit of Nunavut

(1993), and the Sahtu Dene and Metis (1993), land

claim negotiations continue in the southern reaches

of the territory, as do self-government negotiations

in most.^ Part of a long and difficult process, selfsufficiency is the ultimate goal of these efforts.

98/ Significant places and sites mentioned in the text.

304 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
99/ Drum Lake, Mackenzie Mountains, a Mountain Dene sacred site wliere oral tradition tells that the spirit of a

giant mountain sheep lives underwater and must be avoided by travelers on the lake.

How have indigenous societies of the NWT

moved to protect their cultural landscapes from the

onslaught of market-driven forces? What impacts are

occurring to cultural landscapes? Is the changing geopolitical landscape of the NWT straining perceptions of

cultural landscapes? Have other social and cultural changes caused changes to the interpretation or appreciation of cultural landscapes? Though a detailed examination of these questions is beyond the scope of

this paper, an attempt will be made to address them in a

broad compass, providing a general perspective on

cultural landscapes and change in the NWT today, by

presenting a selected description of current or recent

research approaches and projects directed at documenting and protecting cultural landscapes. However, in order to set the context for these, this paper will first

review NWT social, political, and economic trends

today.

The NWT Today

With twenty-eight communities and a total population ofjust over 42,000^ in an area of 1 ,346,1 06 square

kilometers (519,734 square miles), much of the NWT

today is still remote and difficult to access. Although

all of the communities are accessible by air, only half

of them are linked by some 2,200 kilometers (1,367

miles) of all-season road. Winter roads link many of the

remaining communities, as well as several large mines,

though these roads are available for use only four months out of the year. A few communities are serviced by river barges or sealifts. Today all communities have access to telephone and electricity, though

for the smallest and most remote, these services arrived only in the 1 990s. As a territory of Canada, the authority for responsible government in the NWT rests ultimately with the

federal government. The territorial government has been

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 305
gradually taking on a larger role as portions of these

responsibilities are transferred through devolution

agreements. However, whereas provinces in southern

Canada hold title to land in right of the crown and

consequently have broad legislative rights over provincial lands, in the NWTthe federal government maintains title, and consequently also maintains legislative

control over crown land. The largest private landowners in the NWT today are the Aboriginal land claim

authorities where settled claims have been completed.

For example, the Cwich'in of the Mackenzie Delta region received title to 22,422 square kilometers (8,657

square miles) of land in the NWT as a component of

their land claim, representing forty percent of their settle- ment region. Continuing self-government negotiations

will also change the political map of the NWT, as Aboriginal groups negotiate control of some government

responsibilities over portions of their traditional lands. As these negotiations are still underway, it is premature to discuss their nature, but they have the potential for making significant adjustments to the way the NWT will be governed in the future. Taxes generate only a small fraction of territorial government revenues, with the main cost of local gov- ernment managed mostly through federal transfer payments, representing about sixty-one precent of nearly

$800 million (CAD) required annually to finance public

government. The government continues to be the largest employer in the NWT. Fur trapping, traditionally an

important aspect of the subsistence economy, has suffered a dramatic decline over the last three decades,

which many attribute to the campaign of the animalrights movement and its effect on the fashion industry.

In 1 988, fur trapping generated almost $600 million in

the NWT, compared with just $750,000, one decade

later (CNWT 2000b). In contrast to this trend, resource development has been booming. In 1 998, the value of

mineral and oil and gas production in the NWT was

worth $289 million while a year later (1 999) it had risen

to $861 million. This three-fold increase was due solely

to the opening of a new diamond mine, owned by BHP

Diamonds, Inc., a subsidiary of the multinational BHPBilliton. These figures will rise to much higher levels

over the next decade as two new diamond mines begin production,'' and there will be significant increases

in gas production. Natural gas development is also booming, and the prospects of a new pipeline bringing gas from the Mackenzie Delta to southern markets is currently receiving much attention from government, industry, and Aboriginal groups. The latter have formed a

consortium, the Aboriginal Pipeline Croup, uniting Dene

and Inuvialuit partners, to negotiate joint venture agree- ments with multi-national companies to develop and own a percentage interest in a new gas pipeline. Exploration activities are on the rise as companies rush to

prove-up resources in the advance of a potential pipeline, already in the environmental review process.^

The economy of these projects often betters, and

sometimes dwarfs, the cost of governing the NWT. Indeed, some of the larger multinational mining companies employ more people worldwide than the number

of residents in the NWT. These are daunting facts, and

they illustrate problems that both the territorial gov- ernment and Aboriginal communities must overcome

to negotiate meaningful partnerships and benefits. The boom, bust cycle of development has created

pressure on the delivery of government health and

social services and programs. Social problems linked

to drug and alcohol abuse are prevalent in many northern communities and seem to be exacerbated by the

"bust" of the development cycle. However, many communities have chosen to battle these trends by ensuring that "wellness" and healing programs, supported by

government and other agencies, are easily and widely

available for those who request assistance. A century ago, diseases introduced by Euro-Canadian newcomers decimated northern Aboriginal populations. Smallpox, scarlet fever, influenza, tuberculosis,

and measles, among others, all had dramatic effects on northern populations. One estimate suggests (Krech,

1 978:99) that between first contact with Europeans

and 1 860, eighty percent of the Cwich'in died from

306 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
the introduction of new diseases, for which they had no immunity or treatment. Today, though most of these

diseases have been eradicated or have been made

manageable through medical advances, tuberculosis and influenza still result in some deaths each year.

Today, a few of the larger centers have hospitals;

and the smaller communities have nursing stations,

though it is often difficult to find and keep qualified

nurses for those facilities. The Government of the Northwest Territories (CNWT) provides a medical air evacuation service, which brings patients to hospitals in Inuvik

or Yellowknife; and when necessary, serious cases are medevaced to larger centers in southern Canada.

The Northwest Territories has eight official lan- guages (Chipewyan, Dogrib, Slavey, Cree, Cwich'in,

Inuktitut, English, and French). The Dene or Athapaskan

group of languages (Chipewyan, Dogrib, Slavey,

/ 00/ A Dogrib hunter and dead bull moose. Knowledge of areas where game might be encountered is critical to living in a subarctic landscape.

Cwich'in) represents the largest Aboriginal linguistic

family, and many adults are fluent in both their first

language and English. The worldwide trend of language

homogenization has left many NWT Aboriginal lan- guages in danger of disappearing, as fewer young

people learn to speak their parent's language. Many

Aboriginal communities are actively fighting this trend

by implementing language revitalization programs and

are hopeful that it will ensure language preservation.

Caribou hunting, long the touchstone of northern

culture and the mainstay of the subsistence economy,

continues to be important in both metaphorical and

nutritive senses. In heavily forested areas of the NWT,

where migratory caribou herds are absent, moose

hunting (Fig. 100) is important. Fishing is also of critical importance, and perhaps because it is considered a more mundane activity— less romantic perhaps, than

hunting—it is often under-represented in the literature on subsistence economy. For people who live off the

land, however, it is easier and less expensive in terms

of labor to catch fish every day than it is to hunt for

caribou or moose, and consequently, people who live on the land eat fish more than they eat meat. Nonetheless, caribou are essential to northern subsistence and

take a central place in the ideology of life in the North. As people moved in phase with the migration of cari- bou and the spawning runs offish, living in and off the

land (Helm 2000:35) meant a yearly round spent in the

"bush." With the coming of the fur trade, periodic visits

to the fur trade post were added to the yearly round,

and the economy of trapping and trading fur was a new

focus for families who made their life primarily on the

land. Federal government transfer payments and the development of a Canadian social support network in

the 1950s lead to people moving into town and a

gradual erosion of "bush" life. Today northern communities flourish with modern homes and conveniences,

with municipal and government services providing electricity, telephones, and satellite television. Though country food is still an important part of

northern diet, the practice of hunting has changed draTHOMAS D. ANDREWS 307
matically. In September 1999, I accompanied a group

of Dogrib hunters to the barrenlands to partake in the

traditional fall hunt, which I later described in a letter

to anthropologist June Helm. In her recent book "The

People of Denendeh," Helm (2000) excerpted part of

the letter as a contrast to hunting techniques in the

1820s. Whereas hunting techniques of the 1820s included stalking with movements that mimicked cari- bou behaviour and the use of snares and a variety of

drive techniques, today's hunters use modern conveniences to their benefit. Though the nature of the hunt

has changed, it is still founded on a tradition and knowledge centuries old, as indicated in my letter to June Helm (2000:70-1):

Hunts organized by the band councils of the four Dogrib communities [Rae-Edzo, Wha Ti, Camiti, and Wekweti] were taking place at the same time and in the same general area. The

camp locations had been chosen carefully the week before. Hunters first referred to satellite maps distributed weekly to the communities

by the Department of Resources, Wildlife, and

Economic Development (RWED), which show

the locations of fourteen collared caribou cows. These are usually posted on a bulletin board near the band office and always attract

lots of attention. The RWED study is designed

to examine the impacts of recent diamond

mine exploration and development on the

Bathurst Caribou herd, which numbers nearly

350,000 animals. The satellite transmitters on

the collars send signals once every five days

for six hours. Biologists in Yellowknife

download the location data and maps are prepared and sent to the communities. Once a general [hunt] location was chosen, the bands

then chartered a small plane to scout for caribou, and ultimately, specific locations for the camps. The caribou are widely distributed

in small groups ranging in size from a few

animals to thousands, over an area of many

thousands of square miles. The preparation in locating suitable sites is necessary because

the bands use expensive aircraft charters to move hunters and camp supplies to the

caribou. In contrast. Just a generation ago

hunters traveled to the barrenlands by canoe and were consequently much more mobile

and able to cover large distances in pursuit of

caribou. With the use of aircraft, the camps are

set up at locations where caribou are fairly numerous and hunters range from camp on

foot. Consequently, it is important to choose

areas where sufficient numbers of caribou are moving through to make a successful hunt.

Though the satellite maps provide current data regarding the distribution of the herd, it only parallels Dogrib traditional knowledge

of caribou movements and behaviour. Indeed

the camp we visited had been used over many generations and the lakes and features

in the area all have Dogrib place names. [For

example,] Grizzly Bear Lake (known as Diga

Ti, or "wolf lake" in Dogrib) is located on a

traditional canoe route used to access the summer/fall hunting areas. Consequently, it was no surprise that we located two ar- chaeological sites during our visit. One . . . consisted of an old stone ring measuring four metres in diameter, ... a grave (surrounded

by a picket fence, and [therefore] dating [it] to the twentieth century), and the remains of

three birch bark canoes. Based on the state of preservation, the canoes are likely less than 100 years old. There were also a small number of stone flakes scattered throughout

the site indicating a potentially much older

use. A second site was located on a high

bedrock hill . . . where we found a large surface scatter of stone flakes. The hunters we were traveling with had stopped there to

rest and look for caribou. In discussing the

[archaeological remains], they felt confident

that the flakes were the result of an ancestor from long ago sitting on the top of the hill passing his time by working on a stone tool while waiting for caribou. It was interesting

to reflect on these two episodes, separated

by time and vast differences in technology,

yet linked by the knowledge of the area passed down through the generations.

Today, the worldview of northern Aboriginal youth

is different from that of their grandparents as television, the Internet, world travel, a southern-based education system, and a community-based life have created vastly different life experiences for young

people. Partly due to a language barrier, where youth

struggle to speak the first language of their elders,

traditional knowledge and values are in danger of

being marginalized—overwhelmed by dominant societal values of urban or southern Canada. Most

young people today prefer the comforts of town life

to the rigors of the bush and no longer pursue tradi308 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
tional lifestyles on a fulltime basis. As a result, an economy based on wages has gradually eclipsed one rooted solely in subsistence activities. Today,

hunting, fishing, trapping, and bush life have become

recreational activities for many Aboriginal northerners. Where just a generation ago young people were

socialized and educated through travel and experi- ence in a cultural landscape, where place was im- bued with knowledge through stories, today chil- dren are largely educated in school settings and

based in modern communities. These changes have come with a cost, and for many elders this situation

represents a crisis. Elders are struggling to finds ways

to ensure that the knowledge that guided them

through life, passed down to them orally through

many generations, is transmitted by other means to

today's youth. If they no longer learn by traveling,

by listening to the stories associated with place, are

the North's cultural landscapes in peril too?

History of Cultural Landscape Research

and Management in the NWT

There are many stories about that hill, so when we get there I will tell stories about it. There will be many, many stories. We'll have

to check all the areas mentioned in the story, and we will have to climb to the top of it. When we get to the hill there will be lots of

work to be done (Harry Simpson, Rae Lakes,

1 992—from Andrews and Zoe 1 997: 1 73).

Cultural landscape research in the NWT has a long history. Often partnered today with environmental assess- ment studies, documenting traditional ecological

knowledge has become a part of doing business in the North. Natural gas producers in Alaska and

Canada are currently debating routes for transporting

Arctic gas reserves to market, one of which would see a pipeline constructed through the Mackenzie River

valley. Recently a consortium of Inuvialuit and Dene

organizations issued a statement in support of this

proposal, indicating that they would be interested in

negotiating a percentage ownership of the pipeline.

This statement was in stark contrast to the position

taken by the same groups in the mid-1970s when a

pipeline proposal caused outcry, launched a major

study called the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry

(Berger 1 977), and led to twenty-five years of land claim

negotiations, which continue today in some areas.

Aboriginal organizations struggled during these

decades to meet a government negotiating agenda by

conducting ambitious land use and occupancy studies

to document the context of cultural landscapes in the

North. The Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project (Free- man 1 976), and the Dene Mapping Project (Asch et al.

1 986) are two examples of these efforts from the area

treated here. Funded through government loans ad- vanced against the final compensation to be paid as

part of the claim, these projects served to preserve a

picture of landscape use which was under severe pressure from outside sources and which was undergoing

tremendous change. Future generations of northern

Aboriginal youth will find much of value in these studies as they grapple with new challenges.

In 1989, UNESCO Canada published an inventory

of community-based resource management projects in Canada (Cohen and Hanson 1 989). The chapter on the NWT (DeLancey and Andrews 1 989) focused on resource use conflicts and inventoried a total of twenty-five

projects designed to help communities prepare for negotiating their interests through comprehensive land

claims. Most of the community-based research in the NWT in the 1 980s was directed at documenting traditional lifeways, including knowledge about cultural land- scapes as perceived by elders, for use in land claims

negotiations or in environmental assessment hearings.

The report (ibid.) classified community-based research

efforts into a variety of categories, based on the subject of the research. The majority of these projects were

designed to either document traditional lifeways in re- sponse to development pressures or to provide support for negotiations designed to empower local communities in managing resource use in their area. Though

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 309
more than a decade has passed, today little has

changed in this regard.

Large-scale development often serves to generate

large sources of funding, which researchers from a variety of disciplines can draw on. The Northern Oil and

Gas Action Plan of the 1 980s and early '90s represented

a consortium of industry and government that contributed equally to fund the collection of baseline data on

the Mackenzie Delta region for a variety of disciplines.

Managed by government, in its early days it made few

allowances for Aboriginal research interests or needs. More recently, with the explosion of interest in dia- mond exploration and development in the mid-1 990s,

Aboriginal groups, industry, government, and environ- mental organizations partnered to create the West

Kitikmeot/Slave Society (WKSS). Taking its name from

the geological region in which diamonds are found

(the West Kitikmeot and Slave geological provinces),

the WKSS was begun in 1 995 and was funded largely

through contributions from industry, government, and

environmental organizations. Aboriginal groups control more than half of the seats on the WKSS board. As

reflected in the organization's vision statement, its

objective "is to achieve sustainable development

in the West Kitikmeot Slave Study area which respects

Aboriginal cultural values, so that the land is protected,

culture is preserved, and community self-sufficiency

and reliance [are] enhanced" (WKSS 2000:iii).

Maintaining Cultural Landscapes Today:

A Brief Survey

So this place has a story, and it's a good story too (Harry Simpson, 1 994—from Andrews et

al. 1998:311).

Recognizing the continuing need to document and

maintain cultural landscapes (Fig. 101), Aboriginal groups and their partners have been working diligently over

the last decade. As in the recent past, a significant percentage of the ethnographic landscape research of the

current decade is driven by resource use conflict—as

the pace of development increases, so does the need

to document cultural landscapes. Since a detailed inventory of current research is beyond the scope of this

paper, instead I will discuss five different approaches

to preserving cultural landscapes in the hope that these examples will demonstrate the direction that recent research is taking, as well as illustrating the diverse ways

these projects are being managed.

Comprehensive Land Claims: Negotiating Pres- ervation

Land claim negotiations in the Northwest Territories

have been underway for nearly thirty years. Indeed, an

entire generation of Dene and Inuvialuit youth has

grown up thinking that negotiations are as much a part

of life as is hunting. Summarized in brief compass, land

claims completed to date empower Aboriginal groups

by granting land ownership and management rights, by

providing compensation for relinquishing certain rights,

and by granting economic and social measures to provide for self-sufficiency. Many Aboriginal groups have

begun to negotiate self-government provisions, either as a component of ongoing land claim negotiations, or through dedicated negotiations following the

completion of a land claim.

Within these agreements, Aboriginal groups have

used many strategies to maintain and protect cultural

landscapes. Land selection allows Aboriginal groups

to protect (through fee simple ownership) portions of

their traditional lands that are deemed most important.

However, the need to balance protection of cultural

landscapes with economic self-sufficiency has meant

that some land has been selected with an eye toward

future development. The Gwich'in and Sahtu claims

provide for the development of land use plans that are

designed to sustain development through the establishment of land use policy. Conservation of cultural

values is predominant in these plans. Some skeptics

have wondered if the lobby to protect rights to mineral

interests in these areas has caused government to pause

before passing these plans; after years of negotiations,

a new plan has finally been signed.*^

310 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
/ 1/ Marking the confluence of the Bear and Mackenzie Rivers, Bear Rock (in the distance) is sacred to most NWT

Dene groups; this is where Yamoria, a Dene culture-hero, stretched the hides of three giant beavers he had killed. Bear Rock is today depicted in the Dene Nation 's corporate logo as a political symbol

.

The Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land

Claim (Government of Canada 1993) tool< a unique

approach to protecting cultural landscapes. A clause in

the chapter on heritage called for the creation of a

joint working group charged with the responsibility of making recommendations to government on how specific places and sites should be protected. Representation on the joint working group included one representative from the federal government, one from the

territorial government, and two from the Sahtu region.

The four members elected a fifth person, a Sahtu resident, to act as chair. The Sahtu Heritage Places and

Sites Joint Working Group released its report in January

2000 (T'Seleie et al. 2000), which presented recom- mendations on how to commemorate and protect forty

sacred or cultural sites, or site groupings, in the Sahtu

Settlement Area (see Fig. 97). It also presented an additional twenty-one general recommendations that address the direction of future research and the need for

cultural landscape protection and advocacy in the region. The Working Group met over a four-year period

(1995-1999), often contracting elders and community

experts to assist with the research. Though many of the report's recommendations still

await action by government and Sahtu land claim authorities, the Report has proved useful for developers

wishing to avoid impacting Sahtu cultural sites, and to

planners who are developing a land use plan for the

region. As well, some teachers in the region have used

the Report as resource material in the schools. These

are positive advances and serve ultimately to protect

Sahtu cultural landscapes.

Education: Taking the Classroom on the

Land

Recognizing that the ethno-pedagogy of educating

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 311
youth through travel is disappearing, several Aboriginal groups have established annual educational trips

using traditional trails where young people and elders

interact in much the same way as they did in the past.

For example, the Cwich'in have organized an annual

snowmobile trip between Fort McPherson in the NWT

and Old Crow in the Yukon. The trip, which follows a

traditional dog team trail, allows families residing in

both communities to connect and exchange greetings,

and provides elders an opportunity to teach young

people aspects of traditional life. Other groups have

organized similar trips. In 1 999 elders and youth walked

from Colville Lake to Fort Good Hope, following a summer walking trail and recreating what was many

years ago an annual event to trade at the Hudson's Bay

Company post in Good Hope. The Yellowknives Dene

First Nation have organized summer canoe trips, following traditional birchbark canoe trails, and designed

specifically to provide learning experiences for youth.

In 1 971 , in his remarks on the occasion of the opening of the new high school in the Dogrib community of

Edzo, Chief Jimmy Bruneau recognized the need to

educate Dogrib students in both a southern Canadianstyle school system and in Dogrib cultural ways. Reflecting the chiefs perspective in her remarks to a meeting of Dogrib elders, educators, and education administrators working to develop a mission statement for the Dogrib school system in 1990, elder and education

innovator Elizabeth Mackenzie, noted that "if children

are taught in both cultures equally, they will be strong

like two people." The Dogrib education board rec- ognized the importance of this and adopted it as an

educational philosophy for the Dogrib school system

(Dogrib Divisional Board of Education 1991). The mission statement argues that if young people are provided a formal education in a southern Canadian-style

school setting, in conjunction with instruction in Dogrib

language, culture, and identity, they will grow to be

"strong like two people," taking the best from both

worldviews. Because much of Dogrib history and identity is tied to life on the land, this new educational

strategy uses every opportunity to take the class- room out on the land—or more relevant for this pa- per—to use the cultural landscape as a classroom.

Through organizing cultural camps in all seasons, by canoe trips in summer, by bringing elders directly

into the classroom, and by providing for formalized

Dogrib language instruction, the Dogrib education

system has forged a unique learning experience for Dogrib youth based on this collaborative philosophy.

Recognizing that their youth face a different world,

Dogrib elders are working to bring the past into the

education system, always guided by the pervasive philosophy of "strong like two people." Throughout the

last decade, Dogrib elders have participated in a variety of research projects in partnership with linguists,

anthropologists, and archaeologists.' In a general sense

the research has been designed to apply Dogrib traditional knowledge within the theoretical and methodological constructs of these disciplines. However, for

the elders a single objective has been tantamount: that

these partnerships provide products that can be used

to educate youth in the Dogrib school system (Fig.

1 02). As a result many of the research projects have

been founded on complex partnerships with the Dogrib

school system (see below).

Other efforts at using the cultural landscape as a classroom include the many science camps that have

been organized in various regions of the NWT. Designed to combine Western scientific method and

theory with traditional ethno-pedagogy in a land- based setting, these camps have met with much success. Since 1995, the Gwich'in Social and Cultural

Institute (CSCI), with their head office located in

Tsiigehtchic (formerly Arctic Red River), has organized a ten day "on-the-land" fall camp for high

school students (Kritsch 1996). The curriculum focuses on the Gwich'in cultural landscape and involves instruction in a variety of topics including

ethnobotany, renewable resource management, heritage resource management, and land claim history

312 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
and implementation, presented by instructors from

both Western and Aboriginal traditions. The Tundra Science Camp, located at the Tundra

Ecological Research Station (TERS)** at Daring Lake,

about 1 50 kilometers (ninety-three miles) north of

Yellowknife in the barrenlands, immerses high school

students in a ten day program of hands-on scientific and cultural exploration (Strong and Hans 1 996). Provided with an opportunity to participate in ongoing

research programs being conducted atTERS, students

gain an understanding of the cultural landscape of

the barrenlands, through instruction in archaeology,

botany, biology, geology, environmental research

advocacy, and Dogrib culture. Science camps such

as these follow the tradition of "strong like two

people" using cultural landscapes as classroom.

Environmental Assessment: Mitigating Land Use

Conflicts

Diamond mine exploration and development in the NWT has stimulated a wealth of research under the framework of environmental impact assessment. Recently enacted environmental protection legislation

(Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act 1 998)

gives high profile to the need to document traditional knowledge and for assessing potential impacts to cultural landscapes. As mentioned above, one outcome

of this effort was the creation of the West Kitikmeot/

Slave Study Society (WKSS). Projects funded by WKSS

include several community-based efforts directed at documenting aspects of the cultural landscape of the Chipewyan, Yellowknives, Dogrib, and Inuit. These

projects have received significant funding and have

been used to establish trained community-based research teams, which have been instrumental in directing changes to development plans to ensure that significant cultural sites are protected.

The "Habitat of Dogrib Traditional Territory Project" was undertaken by the Whaehd99 Naowoo Kg (Legat

1998; Legat et al. 1999, 2001), a research institution under the aegis of the Dogrib Treaty 1 1 Council, and

1 02/ The importance offish is often underestimated

in anthropological literature, but here Dogrib elders make a point to teach youth how to properly clean a

large lake trout.

funded through the WKSS. Staffed largely by Dogrib

researchers, the Whaehdpg Naowoo Kp group has carried out several projects designed to record and present

Dogrib traditional knowledge, with specific reference

to Dogrib classification of the environment. Focusing on place names, nomenclature for habitat, animal, and

plant species occupying them, these projects have

built a strong core of trained researchers, which the

Dogrib Nation can employ in addressing other tasks. The Chipewyan of Lutselk'e, located on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, also undertook research funded

by WKSS. Community researchers focused on documenting traditional ecological knowledge of elders and

land users of the Lutselk'e Dene First Nation for a particular area within their traditional range. Known as Kache Kue, or Kennady Lake, the region was being

intensively explored by Monopros, a subsidiary of

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 313
DeBeers Canada, the Canadian arm of the diamondmining giant of South Africa. DeBeers Canada has applied for permission to open a mine at Snap Lake, a

nearby site located about 1 00 kilometers (sixty-two

miles) north of Lutselk'e, and at the time of writing

(April 2002) had just submitted an environmental impact assessment report. The WKSS funds will assist the

Lutselk'e Dene First Nation in presenting their own

interests— particularly the documentation of the

Chipewyan cultural landscape in the development area—and permit the people an opportunity to participate in the environmental review. The use of innovative computer techniques, such

as Geographic Information Systems (CIS), to record cultural landscapes ensures that traditional knowledge

gathered through these projects will be archived and

made available for future projects. These research

projects also allow the Aboriginal groups to develop

management strategies to monitor long-term and cumulative impacts from development on cultural landscapes. CIS computer technology is a tool designed to

provide a way of managing place-based or geo-referenced information and is well fitted to recording traditional place names, trails, and other aspects of Aboriginal land use. As well as providing a tool for archiving

and managing data, CIS technology allows Aboriginal

youth to make significant contributions, by bringing new computer skills into the mix. By working with their

elders to record land-based knowledge, and then together reviewing CIS-generated maps, young and old

interact in new ways, providing a serendipitous opportunity to use the land as teacher.

Cultural Institutes: Taking Control of the Research

Agenda

Created in 1992, the Gwich'in Social and Cultural Institute (CSCI),^ has been working to inventory traditional

place names and land use, sacred sites, and trails in the

Gwich'in Settlement Region. The work has resulted in numerous research reports and publications that document the Gwich'in cultural landscape by recording an

extensive body of traditional place names and associated narratives (Kritsch et al. 1994; Kritsch and Andre

1 997; Heine et al. 2001 ). This work continues as a priority for the institute. Working in a collaborative arrangement is a priority

of GSCI, and they have entered several partnerships

with southern and northern researchers. With CSC! help,

the Gwich'in Tribal Council has drafted a traditional knowledge (TK) research policy'" that outlines guidelines for all research activities conducted within the

Gwich'in Settlement Region (GTC 2004). Designed to

ensure Gwich'in collaboration, to protect Gwich'in intellectual rights to traditional knowledge, and to ensure that work is conducted in an ethical fashion, the

policy strives to encourage all types of research in the

region. The development of policies such as this helps

ensure that research agendas are relevant to northern

life and priorities. More important perhaps, it provides

non-Gwich'in with a clear point of entry into establishing meaningful partnerships with Gwich'in researchers.

In 1 997-1 998 the Gwich'in partnered with Parks

Canada to create a National Historic Site that com- memorated a portion of the Gwich'in cultural landscape as being of national significance (Heine 1 997;

Neufeld 2001). Called Nagwichoonjik National Historic Site, it covers a 1 75 kilometer (1 1 mile) stretch

of the Mackenzie River (see Fig. 98) and adjacent

lands where the river flows through the center of

the Gwich'in traditional land use area, making it one

of the largest designated Aboriginal cultural landscapes in Canada, and among the first to be so commemorated (Buggey 1999, this volume). Presenting numerous named places, archaeological

sites, cultural sites, and subsistence camps, the National Historic Site commemorates a synopsis of

Gwich'in history and culture. These examples of collaborative research efforts serve as models for future efforts in preserving and managing northern

cultural landscapes.

Museums: Partnership and Collaboration

314 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
/ 03/ An elder examines archaeological remains ofa

birchbark canoe.

The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC),

a government-run territorial museum based in Yellowknife, has focused much of its research efforts on forging partnerships with elders, community organizations,

and school boards that allow museum staff to develop

close ties with many communities in the North. Through

the 1980s and 1990s, these efforts were focused on

projects in several regions, including: —Ethnoarchaeological and traditional place name

research with the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie River Delta and Arctic coast region (Arnold 1 988, 1 994; Arnold and Hart 1 991 ; Hart 1 994).

—Inventory of trails, place names, and archeological sites in the Mackenzie Mountains, in partnership with the Mountain Dene (Hanks and Pokotylo

1 989, 2000; Hanks and Winter 1 983, 1 986, 1 989).

--Inventory of cultural sites and development of recommendations on how to preserve and protect cultural landscapes as part of the Sahtu Heri- tage Places and Sites Joint Working Group (T'Seleie

et al. 2000).

—Heritage resource inventories of Dogrib traditional birchbark canoe and dog team trails, and related projects (Andrews and Zoe 1 997, 1 998; Andrews et

al. 1 998; Andrews and Mackenzie 1 998; Woolf and

Andrews 1997,2001).

Much of this work focused on building inventories of

archaeological and cultural sites throughout the North,

which permitted archaeologists at the Prince of Wales

Northern Heritage Centre to serve as expert advisors in

the land use review and environmental assessment process, providing recommendations on the potential for

impacts to heritage sites from development.

Documenting place-names, trails, and cultural landscapes, and then using this information to locate archaeological sites, has made it possible to examine

aspects of the temporal nature of cultural landscapes

and in the process corroborate oral narratives that spoke

of ancient times and events. The ethnoarchaeological

research conducted with the Dogrib has demonstrated

that place names themselves preserve knowledge of

sources of raw material for making stone tools, demonstrating that the names encode centuries-old knowledge (Andrews and Zoe 1 997:1 65-7; Hanks 1 997).

Often these projects lead to related projects or follow-up research that usually starts because of an interest expressed by an elder or community member. For example, during the heritage resource inventories conducted in partnership with the Dogrib, archaeologists

found the remains of thirty-five birchbark canoes at

sites the elders had identified along the trails (Fig. 1 03).

This provided the researchers with a new perspective on the role and importance of these craft for traversing

the Dogrib cultural landscape. As a result a related project was undertaken to document by video the entire process of building a Dogrib birchbark canoe (Andrews

and Zoe, 1998; Woolf and Andrews, 1997). Working

within the Dogrib philosophy of "strong like two people,"

the project was conducted in partnership with the local school board, and several high school students

served as apprentices to the six elders from Rae who

THOMAS D. ANDREWS
made the canoe. While the canoe was being constructed, exhibit designers from the PWNHC worked

with the industrial arts class at the school to build a

display case for the finished canoe. Designed to roll through any door in the school, the canoe could be

brought directly into classrooms and used by elders in

instruction. The Internet, which now links all NWT schools, provides an opportunity to introduce innovative new resources into northern classrooms. Following the ethnopedagogical tradition of using the land as a teacher,

the PWNHC, in partnership with the Dogrib Community

Services Board, and the Inuvialuit Social Development

Program, have developed a web-based virtual tour of

northern cultural landscapes. Called "Lessons from the

Land," the web resource provides students an opportunity to tour two cultural landscapes—the "Idaa Trail," a

Dogrib birchbark canoe and dog team trail, and "Journey with Nuligak," which focuses on Inuvialuit culture and history (wAvw.lessonsfromtheland.ca). Additional

modules will be added in the future. Through photographs, illustrations, narrative, video and sound clips, and 3-D animation, students can opt to take a tour of

these landscapes, with "on-line elders" as their guides.

The web resource is structured to allow teachers to

select specific features to make a lesson pertinent to

the grade level being taught. Developed in conjunction with the GNWT Department of Education, Culture,

and Employment, "Lessons from the Land" is featured

as a component of the recently revamped Northern

Studies curriculum. Using computers to create a virtual

experience, "Lessons from the Land" takes the cultural

landscape into the classroom, providing a learning alternative to taking the classroom out on the land.

Protecting Cultural Landscapes

The land is like a book. (Harry Simpson, Rae

Lakes, 1998—Andrews and Zoe 1998:79)

Clearly these and other recent efforts have made great

advances in documenting traditional knowledge and

cultural landscapes across the NWT, creating sources

of recorded knowledge that will be invaluable to future generations. How effective are these efforts in

preserving and protecting cultural landscapes today?

Though the northern education system has made

some advances in developing northern-based curricular material, broad-based advances are lacking. Currently,

the NWT has only two elementary school curricula (Dene

Kede GNWT 1 993 and Inuuqatigiit GNWT 1 997) based on Aboriginal worldviews. Though these curricula are used in several regions quite successfully, they are not used in all, and the resources to accompany them are

scarce. The Dogrib have been very active in developing programs for their own schools. Special program

curricula like "Trails of our Ancestors" (Dogrib Divisional Board of Education 1 996), which provides for summer canoe travel through Dogrib cultural landscapes,

are very popular with students. Though successful, these programs are expensive to operate, and the lack of

published curricular material reflecting northern values and realities makes them difficult to deliver in a class- room setting. Land-based classes are always fun and

instructive, but difficult and expensive to run. Funding for these programs is always difficult to obtain,

and organizers are constantly searching for sources to draw from. As a result these programs are not widely

available. Government needs to focus on developing

northern curricula based on Aboriginal worldviews, and

then funding school boards to move classrooms out onto the land whenever possible. The use of educational alternatives, which allow for innovation in the

classroom through computers and the Internet, must

also be maximized. These programs will provide future

generations with an appreciation for the need to steward cultural landscapes as their ancestors have done

(Fig. 1 04). Though environmental assessment has supported

traditional knowledge and cultural landscape research,

thereby making a significant contribution to the northern knowledge base, the ability of these efforts to actually preserve and protect cultural landscapes has yet

to be demonstrated. For community elders, who

316 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
104/ Kwedoo (blood rock), a Dogrib sacred site. A spot is rubbed free of lichens from years of people

kneeling here while leaving votive offerings in the rock crevice.

hold vast amounts of knowledge pertinent to the

cultural ecology of their lands, and who speak their

Aboriginal language as a first language, the formality

of an environmental hearing can be an intimidating

experience and one not conducive to expressing an

Aboriginal worldview. Furthermore, many communities find the process of participation in environmental

proceedings to be little more than token efforts designed to appease political agendas. These programs

are also tied to the boom and bust cycle of development and are therefore intermittent in their availability

and patchy in their application. The WKSS, created in

1 995, was designed with a lifespan of only five years. Though it was extended for two years, researchers must eventually look for alternate sources of funding.

Consequently, although these projects add greatly to

the documentation of traditional knowledge, they

make minor practical impact on efforts in preserving cultural landscapes over the long-term. Community-based research capacity developed through these

projects must be maintained through the bust part of

the development cycle that is almost certain to follow. Also, the use of CIS technology, and perhaps more

importantly, the educational and training opportunities to learn how to use it, must be maximized in northern communities.

The commemoration of Aboriginal cultural landscapes is relatively new in Canada (Buggey 1 999). In 1998 the community of Deline, in the Sahtu region,

celebrated National Historic Site commemoration for

a cultural landscape in their traditional territory—

Sahyoue and Edacho National Historic Site." As with

the Nagwichoonjik National Historic Site, these designations serve to raise the profile of Aboriginal cultural landscapes through national commemoration, long

part of the Canadian National Historic Site system plan

(Parks Canada 2000; Buggey 1999, this volume).

Though they cover large tracks of land, they offer little

concrete protection because the commemorations are

only honorific. The community of Deline has negotiated an interim land withdrawal for Sahyoue and

Edacho National Historic Site, but the governments

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 317
have dragged their heels in finding a permanent way

of protecting these landscapes.

The interim withdrawal was granted through the

auspices of the Protected Area Strategy (PAS), a joint

federal-territorial program approved in 1 999 (GNWT

1999). Designed to identify and establish protected

areas in the NWT, the program seeks partnerships

with northern Aboriginal groups in advancing areas

for protection. The PAS secretariat (located in Yellowknife)

has worked with communities to develop a plan to

protect the Horn Plateau, a 10,000 square kilometer

(3,861 square mile) area critical to both the Mackenzie

Valley Slavey and Dogrib cultures.'' While this interim

solution protects it for five years, a permanent protection measure has not been developed.

With respect to the protection of cultural landscapes

the report of the Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites Joint Working Group (T'Seleie et al. 2000:24-5) made the

important observation that virtually all Canadian legislation designed to protect landscape or landscape features focuses on natural values instead of cultural ones. The laws designed to mark sites noted for their cultural

value usually provide for honorific commemoration of

these places only and do not protect them from incompatible land uses. Though cultural landscapes are mentioned in the PAS documentation, no special legislative tools were identified for protecting places of cultural value. The joint working group recommended that government move immediately to rectify this deficiency.

Places exhibiting a natural value have a plethora of

legislative tools available to protect them, which defines acceptable types of land use (such as tourism)

and sets guidelines for their practice. Most importantly

however, these instruments of law protect natural landscapes by protecting them from inappropriate forms of development. George Barnaby, a Sahtu Dene elder has

remarked that "[w]e have no word in our language that means wilderness, as anywhere we go is our home"

(Fumoleau 1984:59). This statement expresses a view

that does not differentiate between the natural and the

cultural—both are inseparable parts of a whole. The

Sahtu Dene worldview, which expresses an intellectual unity between the natural and cultural aspects of

the environment, is in stark contrast to the philosophy

of separating cultural from natural values represented

in Canadian law and there is need to reflect this holistic view in new legislation designed to protect cultural

landscapes.

The development of Aboriginal cultural institutes

in the NWT is a major advance as it allows local communities to shape research agendas within their traditional lands. The Dene Cultural Institute, based in Hay

River; the Whaehdpp Naowoo K9, based in Rae; and the

Cwich'in Social and Cultural Institute (GSCI), based in

Tsiigehtchic, are all examples of community-based efforts striving to document cultural landscapes and preserve Aboriginal worldviews (Fig. 1 05). These are positive developments that encourage collaboration be- tween research and Aboriginal communities. However,

these organizations face several limitations. One of

the most significant is the lack of stable funding needed

to carry out long-term research and programs. For example, GSCI estimates that nearly fifty percent of its

time and staff effort is spent on raising funds (Ingrid

Kritsch, pers. comm.). Another problem faced by cultural institutes is one of scale. These institutes are often operated by a small number of dedicated people

and in the NWT it is most often women—who have

been working consistently for many years. When interacting with government to access program funding or support, cultural institutes find they must re- spond to a bureaucracy many times larger. This often

creates misunderstandings and makes it difficult for

these small agencies to deal with government expectations. Significant and long-term funding must be found

to support their activities, as it will be these groups

who bring cultural landscapes forward for protection.

Lack of funding is also an issue of constant concern for museum or government research projects. Competition

among cultural organizations, museums, and gov- ernment researchers for limited funding sources is ultimately counterproductive for preserving and protect318 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
ing cultural landscapes in the NWT, as well as else- where in the Canadian North. Though major advances have been made in the

last decade toward documenting and protecting cultural landscapes in the NWT, much work remains to be done. Efforts in the coming decades must continue to focus on documentation as a priority. They

must also strive to develop broad-based education

programs that provide youth with an understanding

about the cultural landscapes they live in. Northerners

must urge governments to create legislative tools to

protect cultural values. Finally, government must develop significant and stable funding sources for community-based cultural and heritage research.

Epilogue

"The land is like a book." I have worked with Harry

Simpson, the Dogrib elder who spoke these words, for many years now, and after hearing him use this simile many times I have come to understand I think what

he means. Clearly it captures the essence of the Dogrib

ethno-pedagogy of using the land as a teacher—an

aid in remembering the thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, transmitted to youth through an oral

tradition and through travel. Moreover, this simile is

really a carefully crafted translation of this Dogrib educational philosophy, because by making the compari- son with a book, he has also made it relevant and

easily understood by non-Aboriginal people who store

their knowledge in books and not in oral narratives

tied inextricably to a cultural landscape. Cultural land- scapes are ultimately creations of a collective consciousness. They are places that are valued by society.

If a society is to ensure that they are valued by future

generations, then they must transmit that sense of

value from generation to generation, something that

the Dogrib and many other northern groups have done

and continue to do with great eloquence.

In the struggle to protect their cultural landscapes.

Aboriginal people in northern Canada have sought partnerships in the global community. Partnering with environmental groups, lobbying national governments and

international agencies, including UNESCO and others,

and traveling to far-flung places to develop support

networks have all become tools in the struggle for

preserving and protecting the cultural landscapes at home. In September 2001, a group of Gwich'in from

Canada and Alaska traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby

U.S. government representatives to vote against the proposed exploration for oil and gas reserves in the "1002 lands" on the Alaska North Slope. Though the

Gwich'in representatives had been in Washington many

times before on similar missions, the events of September 1 1, 2001 were to cause them much anguish.

Family and friends in the North watched on television

the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New

York and on the Pentagon in Washington worried for

the safety of their loved ones so far from home. After

several fretful hours of silence residents of the NWT

learned that no harm had come to the Gwich'in representatives, and through a cell phone connection with CBC North radio in Canada heard familiar voices describing first-hand in the vernacular of the North, the

atrocities that took place so far away. These terrible events—an attack on icons of the American cultural

landscape, long thought to be impenetrable—serve to demonstrate that in today's world, cultural landscapes

are indeed very fragile.

Acknowledgments

Over the years of my working and living in the Canadian North, I have been blessed with numerous rewarding friendships and experiences—many of which I have

called on to write this paper. To the unnamed many

who have helped form my understanding and appreciation of northern cultural landscapes I say mahsi cho/

thank you. Several colleagues took time from their busy schedules to read and comment on a draft of this

paper. I would like to thank Chuck Arnold, Susan

Buggey, Melanie Fafard, June Helm, Mark Heyck, Inghd

Kritsch, Igor Krupnik, and Leslie Saxon for their helpful

and insightful comments. If I have misrepresented a

THOMAS D. ANDREWS 319
fact or omitted an important concept or issue, I bear

this responsibility alone. I would also like to thank vol- ume editor, Igor Krupnik, for inviting me to submit a

paper, and for the support of both Susan Buggey and

Ellen Lee, my Canadian compatriots, for suggesting me

in the first place. Igor's lively and respectful encour- agement at the beginning of this process was much

appreciated. I wish also to thank Miles Davis of the

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre'^ CIS facility who, with his usual spirit of synergism, prepared the maps under tight time constraints, and to John Poirier,

also of the PWNHC, who helped me format some of the

images. Finally, to my wife, Ingrid, whose editorial skills

I turn to most frequently, I express my sincere appreciation and thanks.

Notes

1. Readers wishing to read more about Dene,

Metis, and Inuvialuit ethnography and history should

consult Volumes 5 (Damas 1 984) and 6 (Helm 1 981

)

of the Handbook of North American Indians, published by the Smithsonian Institution. All Dene words

are presented using the practical orthography of the Covernment of the Northwest Territories.

2. The Dogrib have been negotiating a land

claim and self-government agreement with the federal government since 1992. In 2003 they signed a

final agreement that will provide ownership to 39,000

square kilometers of land; co-management and hunting rights over a larger area; self-government rights,

and $152 million CAD in financial compensation.

As of June 2004, the Parliament of Canada had yet

to pass the settlement legislation needed to give the agreement the force of law.

3. Approximately half of the NWT population

is Aboriginal. Almost half of the population (1 8,000)

lives in the territorial capital of Yellowknife. The

next largest community is Hay River, population

4,000.

4. Diavik mine is located thirty-five kilometers from BHP-Billiton mine, and it began production in 2003. De Beers Canada, 1 50 kilometers north- east of Yellowknife, completed environmental ne- gotiations in 2003 and should begin construction soon.

5. The Mackenzie Gas Project was proposed

by a consortium of companies, including Imperial

Oil, ConocoPhilips, Shell Canada, ExxonMobil, and

the Aboriginal Pipeline Croup. The project will see construction of a gas pipeline stretching from the Mackenzie River delta to northern Alberta, follow- ing the right bank of the Mackenzie River. If the

project proceeds as expected, natural gas prodution

could start in 2010.

6. See http://www.gwichinplanning.nt.ca/

landUsePlan.html.

7. For example, see Andrews and Zoe 1997,

1 998; Andrews et al. 1 998; Legat 1 998; Legat et al.

1 999, 2001 ; Woolf and Andrews 1 997, 2001

.

8. The Department of Resources, Wildlife, and

Economic Development established TERS to study

tundra ecology and to create baseline data against

which environmental impact assessment of diamond

exploration and development might be measured.

The science camp is organized by RWED, with assis- tance from the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage

Centre.

9. Located in Tsiigehtchic, one of four Gwich'in

communities, in the Mackenzie Delta region of the NWT

10. The policy is now available as a download

from the Cwich'in Social and Cultural Institute's website

at http://www.gwichin.ca.

1 1. Also known as Crizzly Bear Mountain and

Scented Crass Hills. See Buggey (1999:21-3) for a

discussion of the significance of this site in terms of

the Canadian experience with cultural landscape

designation.

12. Horn Plateau's Dene name is Edehzhie.

1 3. Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,

P.O. Box 1 320, Yellowknife, NT XI A 2L9, Canada.

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322 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
[documenting Ethnographic Landscapes

in /Alaska's fxjationa! farks

TONIA WOODS NORTON

In his travels through the Indian lands of the American West in the 1 830s, the famed portraitist George Catlin was greatly affected by the threatened extinction of

the buffalo herds throughout the Great Plains. Writing

at a time in which traditional Indian hunting practices

for subsistence were beginning to be overshadowed

by the commercial and sport hunting practices laying

waste to vast herds, his concern about the buffalo was

not simply that of a species' extermination, but rather, was linked, inextricably, to the American Indian culture, which he saw "rapidly wasting away at the approach of civilized man... in a very few years, to live

only in books or on canvass [sic]." As a consequence

of this perceived lack of "preservation and protection,"

Catlin proposed, essentially, the first idea of a national

park based on preserving the view of "Indian and the

buffalo—joint and original tenants of the soil":

And what a splendid contemplation too, when one (who has travelled these realms,

and can duly appreciate them) imagines

them as they might in the future be seen, (by some great protecting policy of government)

preserved in their pristine beauty and wild- ness, in a magnificent park, where the world

could see for ages to come, the native Indian

in his classic attire, galloping his wild horse,

with sinewy bow, and shield and lance, amid

the fleeting herds of elks and buffaloes. What

a beautiful and thrilling specimen for America

to preserve and hold up to the view of her

refined citizens and the world, in future ages!

A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in

all the wild and freshness of nature's beauty!

(Catlin 1844/1973:261-62)

His romantic impulses and antiquarian view of culture

as a curio show aside, Catlin's compelling argument for

a "nation's Park" unwittingly—and naively—prefigured

a view toward national parks that would not come to

the fore until the late twentieth century: the concept of

the ethnographic landscape and its preservation as cultural heritage.

Catlin's insistence on the "joint tenancy" of both man and beast within a protected landscape actually

reflected more the reality of the American landscapes

as parks than the credo of scenic nationalism exemplified in the panoramic expanses of Yellowstone, Grand

Canyon, and Yosemite. The imperative to presen/e grand

scenery, which dominated the creation of national parks

in the United States in its infancy, was argued in terms

of both the frontier and of American exceptionalism

(see Runte 1987:1 1-8). Catlin's "nation's Park" was an

inhabited one in which the ecological relationships

between man and environment—albeit fragmentary—

were viewed as vestiges of culture worthy of preservation. Despite the emergence of distinctly historical and

archaeological parks in the early twentieth century (such

as Civil War battlefields and Southwestern Indian ruins)

through both congressional legislation and the Antiquities Act allowing presidential proclamation, the

overarching themes for park and monument designation were those related to nature—an idealized sanctuary in which man was the visitor and not the resident.

Nature cast in the form of cultural heritage excluded

the prime ecological agent: humankind.

TONIA WOODS NORTON 323
In creating protected areas to be experienced "from

the outside in," this model for a national park embodies institutional frameworks—in essence, historical perspectives—which not only prescribe what kinds of resources constitute a park, whether "natural" or "cultural,"

but the hierarchy of values that attend each category

of resources. These perspectives profoundly influence

not only the public perception of the parks as experienced through interpretive tourism, but the management of large-scale habitats and historical communities as discrete entities, as opposed to critically examining the integral relationship between them. The difficulty here occurs when the heritage resources of a national park, on an abstract level, are identified according to discrete categories of natural or cultural, in effect, mirroring an institutionalization process. This, in

turn, sets the parameter for the interpretive paradigms

by which parks are designated, managed, and "consumed"

by the public, obscuring the fact that these models reflect distinctly historical concepts of nature and culture. A critical part to this is the designation of 'wilderness'; instead of its most commonly held perception as

land in a pristine state of being, it is, rather, an idea

about nature and culture that is time-bound, reflecting

values of differing eras responding to the exigencies

of cultural time and space (cf. Spence 1 999).

This disjuncture between the national park model

emerging from the late nineteenth and early twentieth

century and contemporary ecosystem dynamics of protected areas is particularly evident when we view

parks as landscapes, most notably ethnographic landscapes in which the human presence is key to their

preservation as cultural heritage. The existence of opposing vantage points—whether seen from within or

without, through the lenses of nature or culture—critically impacts our ability to view landscapes as the layered, multi-faceted, mutually dependent double helix

of humans and environment.

How, then, do we begin to understand parks as landscapes in which cultural heritage is ethnographically

conceived, i.e., cultural landscapes? How do these landscapes reflect attitudes about culture and history that

continue to evolve, rather than static portraits, artifactual in nature? What promise does the cultural landscape paradigm hold for the management of national

parks? And critically, to what extent does the idea of

the cultural landscape restructure history-writing, heritage production, and place-making themselves?

This paperwill examine the concept of ethnographic

landscapes within a discussion of this construct. The

application of cultural landscape preservation, in essence, constitutes historical revisionism in terms of how

environmental and Native American histories are written (or not)—and thus, heritage acknowledged—through

the documentation and interpretation of heritage values in the landscape. Catlin's vision for a national parkthough flawed and time bound—is not as irrelevant to

a discussion of contemporary parks as it may seem

upon first glance. This is particularly true when one

considers the origin of Alaska national parks in the last

quarter of the twentieth century, and the implications

for defining park landscapes as "ethnographic."

Unlike the lower forty-eight states, Alaska's Native

population was not subjected to a reservation system.

Aboriginal land claims in Alaska, then, continued to

exist until the discovery of oil on the North Slope.

Though sparsely populated, much of Alaska continued

to be traversed and used for a network of subsistence

activities— inhabited—by Native peoples. The concept

of parks as wilderness areas did not exist.

Before the 1 970s, only three parks—two as national monuments, one as a national park and preserve—existed in Alaska; Katmai, Denali (established as Mt.

McKinley), and Glacier Bay. With the massive changes

wrought in the disposition of Native and public lands

as a result of the desire for oil exploration and drilling,

the resulting legislation, Alaska Native Claims Settle- ment Act (ANCSA, 1 971 ) and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA, 1 980; see Williss

1 985), essentially reformulated the concept of a national park as an uninhabited place. In particular,

ANILCA's passage determined the fate of 1 04 million

324 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
acres; it created six new national parks, enlarged one

existing park, established two new national monuments,

added acreage to two existing monuments, and set aside two new national preserves. In the words of historian

Roderick Nash (1982:272), ANILCA was the "single

greatest act of wilderness preservation in world history," single-handedly doubling the number of acres

in the entire National Park Service (NPS), and by

adding an additional fifty-six million acres to the

National Wilderness Preservation System, more than

tripled its size.

Even more striking, ANILCA initiated an entirely new policy with respect to Native land rights: in this

case, those of the Native Alaskans. As opposed to the

national parks in the lower forty-eight states, the ANILCA

parks recognized the land rights of pre-existing traditional cultures as legal, in particular, those related

to hunting and gathering activities in a "traditional

use of their subsistence resources" (Nash 1 982:272).

Despite an enduring and highly political controversy over the subsistence issue since its passage, ANILCA reoriented planning and resource management

in national parks toward the importance of ethnographic

research, particularly in those parks it directly affected. The enabling legislation mandated a form of cultural conservation—in this case. Native subsistence culture—

and created a legal obligation to preserve and protect

the full array of resources people use to define and

sustain their cultures. The nexus of ethnography and history, of heritage

and sustainability, cultural conservation is rooted in

the concept of landscape—the physical matrix for cultural, natural, and symbolic threads of human existence.

Interpreting park landscapes as ethnographic cultural

resources, however limited by definitions and competing priorities, is an endeavor to portray how humans

and land are inescapably woven together, a reciprocity

that cannot be abstracted out of the historical portrayal

of what a place is, how it has changed over time, and its importance to identity, belonging, and the traditional maintenance of the past through the present. Parks are

uninhabited, but their lands contain rich stories of occupation and use, memory and ritual, of seasonal rounds

and ceremonial visits to sacred sites. Revealing the

layered histories of these landscapes demonstrates the

"provisional, conditional nature of the past" and is culturally empowering. This knowledge allows to reclaim

place through stories understanding landscapes as

"storytelling with the shapes of time" (Hayden 1 995:226).

The stories of two documented ethnographic landscapes in Alaska, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (NHP) and Glacier Bay National Park and

Preserve, illustrate how the process is being adapted to respond to the history of place—how re-visioning

through the lenses of Native American and environmental history reinterprets park landscapes. As a baseline

format for identif/ing, documenting, evaluating, and analyzing cultural landscapes within the national parks,

the Cultural Landscape Inventory (CLI) is the first tier of

research for constructing such landscape histories. Its methodology and application in the two Alaska parks

under discussion is a "work in progress," but one which

has begun to articulate new narratives of place.

These two parks represent a wide range of issues from memorialization to the recognition of traditional

ecological knowledge as a key determinant of identity

and cultural preservation. By viewing park lands as ethnographic landscapes—or at the very least, landscapes

with ethnographic stories—the CLI process begins to acknowledge Native Americans as historical agents.

This initial shift in perspective sets into place the im- portance of historical processes and their spatial

dimensions:the functions of memory and identity within

processes of cultural conservation, how contemporary

perception and use shape the ideas of heritage and

legacy, and the importance of recognition through interpretation—all tethered to physical places.

Dyea, the Chilkoot Trail, and Indian History in Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park

in the late 1 980s, a Deisheetaan clan potlatch ceremony

TONIA WOODS NORTON 325
was held in a modest Legion Hall in the small Southeastern Alaska town of Skagway. Hosted by an elderly

Native woman, Angela Sidney, from the Canadian village of Carcross in the Yukon Territory, the event celebrated the arrival and dedication of a grave marker for

Tlingit/Tagish family members who had died between

1 898 and 1 901 at Dyea, otherwise known as the ephemeral gateway town at the foot of the famed Klondike

Gold Rush's Chilkoot Trail. At the time of their deaths,

Sidney's relatives had been buried at a "Native Cemetery" near the Healy and Wilson Trading Post at the western edge of the Taiya River, their graves marked

by a "spirit house." Due to the dynamic river condi- tions—seasonal flooding and bank erosion—at Dyea,

the spirit house marking the graves of her relatives, as

well as much of the Native Cemetery, had washed away

by the late 1 970s. Before then, Sidney made periodic

trips to visit the spirit house, which commemorated her

three siblings and several other cousins who died in an outbreak of dysentery and German measles while her

parents were at Dyea, trading with the Tlingits and the

whites, Healy and Wilson. Upon discovering that the spirit house had been

washed away, Sidney was disturbed that there was no

"mark" of her relatives' existence, no "spirit house on

them." Returning to Carcross, Sidney spoke to another

relative, Austin Hammond from Haines, about it:

So I asked him. I told him all about those

kids had a spirit house on them and I told him it's washed out. And I told him I want to put a gravestone on it. 'Do you think it will be all right if I do that? Just to put a mark on

those kids? Just to know that they were

there? That our people were there? (Angela

Sidney in Cruikshank 1990:1 51-2).

Eventually, Sidney raised enough money for a stone marker upon which the names of about ten of her relatives were inscribed, and it was installed at the relocated Dyea Native Cemetery (Fig. 105).

From the small grave marker at Dyea to the larger

Chilkoot Trail corridor. Native presence before, during,

and after the Klondike Gold Rush has been a story in

the shadows in the nearly thirty years of the Klondike

Gold Rush NHP's existence.' The park's enabling legislation and its National Historic Landmark status pegged

its significance to the Gold Rush legacy, one in which

the predominant image of the lone, burdened prospector setting out to strike it rich was juxtaposed against

the teeming gateways of Skagway and Dyea,

boomtowns springing up overnight in response to the

discovery of gold in the Yukon River drainages. The

romanticism of the trail and the swashbuckling exploits

of frontier characters, along with the restoration of Gold

Rush buildings within a historic district in the surviving

Skagway, has been the primary narrative of both gold

rush towns, with Dyea having quickly succumbed to abandonment when Skagway's White Pass and Yukon

Railroad obviated the need for the arduous Chilkoot

Trail route in 1900. Surviving physical resources from

the Gold Rush era, such as a complement of historic

buildings in Skagway, and the rich archaeological deposits at Dyea and on the trail buttressed the park's

claim to exceptional historical significance.

Missing, however, from this narrative are two critical historical agents whose roles are intertwined: the

Native people whose occupation preceded the 1 898-

1 900 flurry of activity, and the influence of the landscape itself, particularly its natural systems and features.

Interpretation of the park as an assemblage of historic

sites related to the Gold Rush, while critical, has not addressed the complexity of the landscape as a con- tinuum of cultural and ecological change. This is partly

due to the fact that most visitors to the park, arriving

predominantly by way of the summer cruise ships, experience the park through exhibits at the visitor center and the historic buildings in the Skagway Historic District—places in which the emphasis is focused almost

exclusively on the years of the gold rush, a set of years

frozen in time mirrored, for example, by the life-like

tableaux exhibit of miners at a period bar in the Mascot Saloon. However, an increasing number of visitors

are making their way into the large-scale landscapes—

Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail—by tour groups, highlighting the interpretive potential of these sites as places

326 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
/ 05/ Relocated Tlingit grave marker at Dyea Native Cemetery, 200 1

.

greatly altered from their gold rush days. The contrast

is striking between the static urban grid of Skagway's

historic district and the dynamic glacial hydrology of

the Taiya River, which affects the trail and Dyea by

seasonal flooding and bank erosion.

Linked to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP - see Norton, this volume), and thus limited in terms of redefining Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail as ethnographic landscapes, both CLIs expanded the historical chronology of the sites by identif/ing them as Native territory, the sites of cultural interaction first be- tween Tlingit and Tagish, and then Euro-Americans. In documenting the landscapes, strands of a story emerge

that reflect a more palpable presence of occupation

and use within both historical and environmental contexts. And while virtually none of this information is

new, its inclusion as a part of the physical history of the

site is critically important. Articulating Native patterns of territorial use and control keyed to the resources of a particular environment (read "place") reveals the larger dimensions of the history being constructed^that of a contact story in which centuries-old rhythms of seasonal occupation and trading are largely

dislocated by an ephemeral event, the gold rush. In

essence, this is a remapping of the landscape as a con- tinuum of ecological relationships, rather than capsuling a select "period of significance" related to the

gold rush. And while it may seem only a symbolic

gesture— like the grave marker—the addition of an

ethnohistorical aspect to the landscape history has the

potential to mitigate the rigid typology of the NRHP

by which salient aspects of sites as landscapes fall

through the cracks. The name, "Dyea," in fact, is derived from the Tlingit

dayei, or "packing place," indicating the strategic value

of the tidal floodplain for the entrepreneurial coastal

Natives.' Consummate traders, the Tlingit predicated

their wealth upon the movement of goods to and from

the Athapaskan groups farther inland by controlling traffic along the passages to the interior, one of which was

TONIA WOODS NORTON 327
the Chilkoot Trail whose name by Euro-Americans recognized, if tacitly, its Native history. As one of only

three non-glaciated passes connecting the Pacific coast

with the interior of present-day Yukon Territory especially the vast transportation network of the Yukon River

drainage, the Chilkoot Trail was a vital trade corridor

for at least two centuries before the Klondike gold rush. Trade between the coastal Tlingit and the interior Athapaskan people included a flow of marine products

to the north, in particular dried fish, clams, seaweed, sea

otter pelts, and fish oil, while the fur stocks of caribou, moose, and beaver were transported to the south. The

importance of hooligan oil as a trade commodity gave

rise to Euro-American explorers dubbing the route as

the "grease trail." Traveling by family groups, the

Chilkat/Chilkoot typically made two or three annual

trips, the most important being the spring fur tradeallowing for a return to Dyea before the annual hooli- gan harvest at the mouth of the Taiya River in April.

Similarly, the Tagish seasonal rounds also affected their

trips to Dyea, as their trips coincided with the end of

"beaver season" in the north, hunting mountain goats

and groundhogs and other small game for drying during their camp at Dyea (Cruikshank 1 990: 151).

Dyea's location at the foot of the trail, as well as at

the resource-rich tidal flats, established it not only as a

staging area for the rugged trade corridor, but also as a

seasonal camp for the Chilkat/Chilkoot Tlingit, whose

permanent settlement was at Klukwan (Haines Mission),

a few miles across the Lynn Canal. With the purchase of

Alaska by the U.S. in 1 867, and increased exploration

and prospecting throughout the 1 880s, the seasonal

trade and subsistence rounds that had characterized

Dyea shifted toward a more permanent settlement with

the arrival of Healy and Wilson's trading post in 1 884

(Fig. 1 06). By 1 887, records noted that 1 38 Natives

inhabited a settlement just north of the trading post, which eventually included the Dyea Native Cemetery.

A decade before the gold rush, the importance of Dyea

as a trading post resulted in a shift of goods and commodities; in addition to the local marine products from

the Tlingit, the Tagish brought their furs south to trade

for guns, knives, and supplies at the trading post (Greer

1 993:39). As Angela Sidney recounted,

People used to go down to Dyea always all the time before Skagway—go back and forth from Tagish to the coast. It was just like going to the store—that's the only place they

used to get their outfit, like flour and sugar

and tea and stuff. They get enough stuff there

for one whole winter's supply" (Cruikshank

1990:153).

At the outset of the gold rush fever, territorial conflicts between the Chilkoot and Sitka Tlingit over trail packing rights resulted in a violent confrontation in 1 887

between the two groups; throughout the next decade,

increasing traffic through Dyea to the trail irrevocably

loosened the Chilkoot control over the packing trade

to include not only the Sitkas and other Tlingit groups,

but the Athabaskan (Tagish and Stikeen) packers as

well. Ultimately, negotiations with the Chilkoot over

use of the trail gave way in the face of thousands of

stampeders, although their sense of ownership remained.

Photographs taken during the 1897-1900 gold rush heyday on the trail generally depict Natives in the nearly

invisible role of packers for the Euro-American prospectors. When Dyea collapsed as a boomtown gateway

to the Yukon, the Native packing industry and trading

post were abandoned as well. Left behind were the

graves and markers, such as the spirit houses, of those

in the Native Cemetery.

Although little is known of Tlingit occupation and

use of Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail after 1 900, at least one Native land claim with cabins was surveyed at Dyea before 1 91 5; by the 1 940s, subsistence activities

in the area included at least one smokehouse, and

known wood-gathering areas around Dyea.^ Some families may have remained at Dyea for a short period after

1 900, where at least one homesteading family, the

Matthews, was the result of aTlingit/Euro-American intermarriage. Interviews with Tlingit from nearby Haines

(Klukwan) in 1 946 indicated that Dyea was a traditional summer camp and that it continued to be an area of

considerable resource gathering activities:

328 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
/ 06/ Tlingit village at Healy and Wilson trading post, Dyea, 1 897.

Dyea and Skagway are claimed by my

people. There are three streams at Dyea, and

there were three smokehouses there. The

people did not live there the year around,

but used the place a great deal. All three of these smokehouses were owned by

Lukaax.adi people. They controlled a large area of land. This place was used for berries as well as for smoking fish. The Indian people

[Tagish?] also hunted there and smoked

meat. They generally went there in the fall of the year. Some of the people would go up to pick berries and then rush back to Chilkoot

to put them up. During the hunting season, however, they stayed up there a long time

(Paddy Goennette in Coldschmidt and Haas

1998:33).

With the establishment of the park in 1 976, archaeological investigations at both the Dyea Townsite area and along the Chilkoot Trail focused primarily on artifacts from the Gold Rush era since these deposits were

in abundance. This was partially due to the encroachment of the Taiya River during the past century; all

physical evidence of the Native village at the trading

post, as well as the Native cemetery, was lost. Along

the Chilkoot Trail, rock cairns and tree slashes marking

the route were also subsumed, as early as the first wave

of stampeders, with only the name recalling its cultural

association before the gold rush (Brady 1 997:76,1 1 0).

In order to fashion a more inclusive landscape history for Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail, both CLIs conducted began the landscape history with Tlingit occupation and use before the Gold Rush, despite the fact

that little tangible "evidence" was available. Although

not characterized as "ethnographic landscapes" in the

inventories (rather, both are seen as vernacular landscapes), the ethnographic—in this case, Tlingit and

Athapaskan aspects of the landscape history were significant in that the case could be argued that indig- enous subsistence and trade use of the area far outlived the transitory boomtown. Thus, the history of

TONIA WOODS NORTON 329
Dyea as a cultural landscape originated in the earliest known uses by the Native people for its resource-rich environment as well as its strategic location at the

beginning/end of the trail as a trade corridor. Deter- mining the extent to which Tlingit and Tagish peoples

participated in gold rush has proven elusive, as most

documentation points to their support roles as packers.

Marginal as it may seem, the Native contribution to

the park's historical narrative is an important one, for it

is a largely unarticulated ethnohistory that speaks to

the interrelationship of people and landscape. Perhaps even more importantly, it serves as an anchor for memory. Angela Sidney's lament that no one would

know that her people had lived and been buried there

led her to memorialize her relatives after the Native

village and its cemetery had long since vanished. The

Tlingit's land claim was subsumed under another homesteader, and documentation of subsistence use after

1 946 is virtually nonexistent. Today, the legacy of the

Chilkat/Chilkoot is one of traces—the names "Dyea"

and "Chilkoot" and a small grave marker.

But, in attempting to capture the layers of the cultural landscape in these places, it becomes clear that

the significance of Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail did not

begin in 1 898, nor did it end in 1 900. A landscape of

extremes, from the tidal flats to the towering summit at

the pass, the Chilkat/Chilkoot territory was one that was clearly delineated in the minds of the Native Tlingit

and visiting Tagish as valuable terrain before the

arrival of the Euro-Americans; now, the "mark" of memory, though a grave marker, speaks to the efficacy of remembering a people's story, of heritage

rooted to place.

Traditional Cultural Properties and the

Wilderness Paradigm: Documenting Tlingit

Homelands at Glacier Bay

With ANILCA's establishment of the Alaska national parks—and the recognition of Native peoples' rights

to subsistence resources—ethnographic research came

to the forefront of planning and management, primarily due to the legalities involved in resource management and land rights. Unlike the rest of Alaska, Natives

of Southeast Alaska—primarily the Tlingit were excluded from subsistence rights agreements incorporated into traditional and customary use of lands in

the newly created parks. Nowhere is this more pro- nounced than, perhaps, the designation of the majority of lands within—and perception of—Glacier Bay

National Park as a wilderness preserve. Although not

part of the federal subsistence regime, expanded eth- nographic research is gradually becoming a key aspect of park management. This is due, in part, to the

park's increased cultural activities in support of closer

relationships with the Huna Tlingit, who claim Glacier

Bay as Haa Aani ('our \and"), their ancestral homelands.'*

Beginning in 1 999, the National Park Service initiated Cultural Landscape Inventories (CLIs) in the park

to support potential nominations of two places to the

National Register of Historic Places as traditional cultural properties (TCPs): Dundas Bay and Bartlett Cove.

Both places are of immense significance to the Huna

Tlingit, who live on the north end of Chichagof Island

at Hoonah, an hour's flight to the south of the park, but who maintain that all of Glacier Bay is Huna territory.

Bartlett Cove, now the location of park headquarters,

includes a small cluster of islands; the vicinity of

the cove was an important resource procurement zone with at least one semi-permanent village, seasonal camps, and a turn-of-the century saltery. Mythologically, it may be one of the most significant cultural

sites within Glacier Bay, as it is believed to be the

landscape of the highly potent Kasteen and Shawatseek

story validating Glacier Bay as a place of Tlingit origin

and identity.

Farther to the west, the promontory, tidal flats, and

waters of Dundas Bay contain archaeological remains

that range from an eleventh century Tlingit fort and

eighteenth century village site to late nineteenth-early

twentieth century cannery, settlement site, cemetery,

330 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
and seasonal camps; at least three Native allotments were filed on lands in Dundas Bay. The most dominant

landscape vestiges of Tlingit historic occupation and

use are found at the site of the adjacent Dundas Bay

Cannery. The entire area continues to be important to

the Huna as a prized berry habitat, although historically, Dundas Bay had several productive salmon

streams, accounting for the documented remains of smokehouses indicative of seasonal use. Both landscapes constitute rich areas of traditional cultural use and association, borne out by historic patterns of sitespecific resource harvesting, creation stories, oral histories, archaeological evidence, and place-names.

Mapping Dundas Bay and Bartlett Cove as cultural

landscapes with a view toward identifying them as

Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP), a designation for

the National Register of Historic Places, poses distinct

challenges, not the least of which is the construction

of an alternative view of history in which environment

and culture are inextricably woven in a designated "wilderness." As with Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail, this

history is one in which human ecology (of the Tlingit) is

the fundamental premise for cultural landscape recog- nition—and inherently, protection—within the legal

framework of the National Historic Preservation Act.^ The process of identif/ing and documenting Dundas

Bay and Bartlett Cove as cultural landscapes essentially controverts a centuries-long continuum of identif/ing the landscape with Western ideas of origin and

discovery. In its place, the cultural landscapes are revealed as integral repositories of history and identity

for the Huna Tlingit, places of traditional ecological

and cultural knowledge that retain their prominence

despite the fact that decades have passed since the Huna actively fished and harvested there. Although

truncated, the landscape histories in the Bartlett Cove

and Dundas Bay CLIs reflect an intricately sophisticated

physical, social, and symbolic matrix in which cultural values—homelands and wilderness—are at stake.

Part of this process is understanding how the wil- derness paradigm—its "discovery," exploration, and interpretation—emerged from Euro-American perceptions

of the Glacier Bay landscape, a far different perspective from that of Native Tlingit. The creation of Glacier

Bay National Monument by President Calvin Coolidge on February 26, 1925, capped nearly fifty years of

interest in its glacial landscape as an "ecological laboratory" worthy of preservation. In reality, the landscape

of Glacier Bay had been largely constructed in the Euro- American imagination by narratives of exploration and

discovery beginning with the first systematic survey

of the Inside Passage, the expedition of Capt. George

Vancouver, 1791, chronicled in the journal of Dr.

Archibald Menzies (1 793-1 794), both surgeon and

botanist for the expedition. Serious encroachment of

glacial ice in the bay prevented ingress to the upbay

areas; nevertheless, Menzies described portions of what

would become park lands, including "a village with some natives" at Dundas Bay (Menzies 1 993:1 61). Sub- sequent reports of Tlingit activity in Glacier Bay were

limited primarily due to lack of glacial advance. However, a congressional report in 1 882 included a population estimate of some 600-800 Tlingit at Hoonah,

their largest concentrated, permanent settlement at

Glacier Bay (U.S. Senate 1882:185).

The presence of the Tlingit in the shadows of the monumental glaciers was featured in the account written by Charles Wood, an American, whose reconnaissance of Southeast Alaska and the Yukon River headwaters nearly a century later than Menzies in April 1 877

included Glacier Bay. Remarkably, Wood's account reflected more of his interaction with the Tlingits than

his awe at the glaciers (Wood 1882:323-39).

Two years later in 1879, however, the arrival of John Muir at Glacier Bay heralded a more intense era of

focus on the glacial landscape in which the Tlingit occupation was noted, but accorded little serious attention. An intrepid naturalist, Muir's fascination with Glacier Bay reflected the fusion of his beliefs in the "glacial

gospel" espoused by Louis Agassiz with the legacy of

Transcendentalism, in which human degradation of the

natural world had resulted in the loss of an Edenic

TONIA WOODS NORTON 331
legacy. Muir's ideology of a paradise regained was

implicit in his description of the glaciated Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska:

To the lover of pure wildness Alaska is one

of the most wonderful countries in the world. No excursion that I know of may be made

into any other American wilderness where so marvelous an abundance of noble, newborn

scenery is so charmingly brought into view"

(Muir 1915/1 998:1 3, emphasis added).

Muir's short statement, and his subsequent publications,

outlined in essence what would become the philosophical imperative for the creation of Glacier Bay as a protected area. His acceptance of Agassiz's glacial origins

theory, conjoined with the sense of an unspoiled landscape in which the sublime was evident at every view,

constituted the basis for a latter-day scientific creation

story. In fact, Muir's self-laudatory article recounting

this visit was both ecstatic romanticism and portentous

of the "natural" values by which Glacier Bay would come

under the legal protection of the U.S. government as a

national monument (Muir 1 895:234-47).

Muir reckoned that here, as an inevitable retreat of

glaciers, the "noble, newborn scenery"—encompassing

the remains of ancient interstadial forests with the reestablishment of plant and animal life on the new land

revealed by isostatic rebound—elevated this particular

"wilderness" to distinction. "Fashioning the face of the coming landscape," the glaciers were the elemental force

of a regeneration of earth" (Muir 1 895: 247). In reality,

Muir's assertion of the sublimity of the Glacier Bay

landscape aligned very nicely with the sweeping tide

of scenic nationalism parlayed into the creation of national parks, symbolic of an American heritage rivaling

claims of European historical supremacy. The Tlingit, whose presence Muir recorded and

whose guidance was necessary in order for him to reach

the limits of the up-bay regions, were, for the most part,

anecdotal footnotes to the natural drama unfolding at

Glacier Bay. Even in its muted details, Muir's tale—in

essence, an ethnographic contact story—reveals the

disparity between the landscape of "discovery" and the

landscape of habitation and use. The impetus for Muir's

journey into Glacier Bay was his Chilkat Tlingit guide's

childhood experience in the bay "full of ice" where the young man had been seal-hunting with his father. After

entering and camping at one of the western inlets at

the mouth of the bay, the group made contact with a

small group of Huna seal hunters at a seasonal camp, more than likely in the vicinity of Bartlett Cove.*^ During the exchange, Muir's initial questions about the

presence of the "ice mountains" were met with "counter

questions as to our object in coming to such a place,

especially so late in the year." As seal-hunters on a

well-established seasonal round coming to a close (early

November), Muir's sudden appearance was suspect for

the Tlingit, leading them to ask if he was a missionary: "Was he going to preach to seals and gulls, they asked,

or to the ice-mountains." After an exchange of tobacco,

sugar, and other items, the Huna revealed that

The main bay was called by them Sit-a-da- kay, or Ice Bay; that there were many large

ice-mountains in it, but no gold-mines; and

that the ice-mountain they knew best was at the head of the bay, where most of the seals were found" (Muir 1895:235-6).

Unfazed by the Tlingit questioning of his motives, Muir

hired one of the seal-hunters to guide them up-bay. In

the next few days, Muir "discovered" the landscape of

"the five . . . huge glaciers. . . . \T\h\s was my first

general view of Glacier Bay, a solitude of ice and snow

and new-born rocks, dim, dreary, mysterious." While

Muir's rapture was only slightly tempered by the daunting climatic conditions, the Natives knew the risks of

traveling in the glacial waters, and feared the worst:

The Hoona guide said bluntly that if I was so fond of danger, and meant to go close up to the noses of the ice-mountains, he would not consent to go any farther; for we should all be lost, as many of his tribe had been, by the sudden rising of bergs from the bottom"

(Muir 1895:237).

Muir was able to convince the Huna guide to continue

to the "head of the bay, and to the mouth of the north332 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
west fiord, at the head of which lie the Hoona sealinggrounds. . . .[H]ere the Hoona guide had a store of dry

wood, which we took aboard" (ibid.). The contrast between IVIuir's pursuit of knowledge

and the intimate knowledge of place revealed by the

Tlingit is striking. The landscape that one party sought

to explore and map as a terra incognitawas, in fact, one

in which the Huna imprint—however subtly perceived

through seasonal camps, ecological knowledge, circulation networks, and place-names—had been in existence for centuries.

Despite the rise in steamship tourism that featured,

at one point, the seal hunting camp at Bartlett Cove as somewhat of a local attraction in the 1 880s and 1 890s,

the impetus toward imaginatively capturing Glacier Bay

as a landscape of natural significance gained the upper

hand in the first decades of the twentieth century, culminating in its designation as a national monument. In

1916, American ecologist William Cooper's foray into

Glacier Bay initiated the first systematic study of the

Glacier Bay landscape. Heavily influenced by Muir's

accounts of the terrain, as well as the scientific publications emerging from expeditions before the earthquakeinduced glacial activity after 1 899, Cooper's interest in

demonstrating the fledgling ecological model of plant

community succession led him to the reemerging coastline of Glacier Bay. Echoing Muir's rapture with the

landscape. Cooper's dedication to ecological study was

to last nearly half a decade—and resulted in federal

protection of Glacier Bay as a national monument.

Introducing his study to the scientific public. Cooper presented his case for the uniqueness of the Glacier Bay ecology, and its potential for revealing natural

processes unavailable in other regions;

An ecologist will seize with eager delight

upon an opportunity to study the successional processes directly—a field where

change is plainly evident from year to year; where the major part of a complete developmental cycle may be encompassed within the limits of a single lifetime. ... In Glacier Bay we have a history of practically unbroken glacier retreat, known to extend back to

1 794 and doubtless considerably farther. Since 1879 the changes in position of the various ice fronts have several times been

accurately mapped, and the geology and

especially the recent history have been well worked out. We thus have a continually

expanding territory, quite fresh, exposed to plant invasion, and upon it we find the successive developmental stages displayed

in a definite logical order, from pioneers to climax (Cooper 1923:93-4).

In setting forth a scientific investigation—studying plant

quadrants to monitor reestablishment of plant communities, mapping remnants of interstadial forests, and recording climactic changes—Cooper was, in effect, continuing to map Glacier Bay as a scientific creation story,

albeit with much more precision, and less bombast, than John Muir. As one of the first generation of ecologists,

his view was shaped by a vision of nature in which

balance, regeneration, and rational linear processes were

at play. In this view, there was no human—culturalinteraction with the "ecological laboratory" of Glacier

Bay; the teleological succession of plant and animal

life as a result of glacial retreat constituted its own

independent, autonomous history of place. The apparently seamless transition from Muir's philosophic ro- manticism to scientifically interpreting Glacier Bay as a

"wilderness" devoid of human significance had been

set into motion.

Strikingly parallel and yet wildly divergent, the Huna

Tlingit view of Glacier Bay is not constructed on the absence of humankind within a creation myth, but on a

presence intimately woven within it. Historically—and

to the present day—the Huna Tlingit have claimed Glacier Bay as their place of origin and belonging. From

the Tlingit perspective, even in their diminished role

relayed by Muir's narrative, the landscape mapped by

the Euro-Americans as Glacier Bay was a resource-laden homeland in which humans moved cyclically, with inti- mate knowledge of climate, natural processes, and wildlife, so since the beginning of their cultural time. Their

geographic and practical knowledge of the ice-strewn bay areas was critical to "Muir's discovery."

In fact, the Glacier Bay area—both in times of glaTONIA WOODS NORTON 333
cial advance and in retreat— has been called S'ix' Vein,

or the "Big Dish," signifying its role not only as the

physical "breadbasket" or "icebox" containing a rich

panoply of life-sustaining resources, but perhaps more

importantly, the shared conception of the landscape as

TlitigitA'ani, Tlingit territory that persists to the present

day. Chookaneidi elder Ken Austin described the meaning of "Big Dish":

It is the Big Dish all year round. ...Amy Marvin

(deceased Chookaneidi elder) told me 'We

gathered for winter time all the food. We did

it quickly. From the Big Dish area.' Summer,

winter, summer, winter. That was our home,

you know. So that's again, where, when we

say 'Glacier Bay,' we are also saying 'The Big Dish' because that's where it all is. All the

berries. ..it's there (Ken Austin, interview,

September 2001, Anchorage).

For the Tlingit, the cognitive and symbolic mapping of

Glacier Bay represents not only possessory rights to

subsistence resources, but the very social organization

underpinning the uniqueness of their cultural life and

identity. Tlingit clans not only claimed their own distinctive locales through place-names, resource activities (berry-picking, sealing, seasonal fish camps) that may or may not have had visible impacts upon the

landscape, but through symbolic ties as well, such as

stories, crests, and ceremonies, they reciprocally ac- knowledged the territory of other clans. Clan property,

the at.oow, then, was manifestly tied to places in an

overall landscape of ha aani, or "our land."^ Unlike

other conceptions of contiguous or bounded property,

however, the Tlingit recognition of specific clan territory was "conceptualized not in terms of large swaths

of land, but rather as constellations of gathering, or

historical and navigational landmarks." (De Laguna

1 960:20).

With this culturally defined geography in mind, the

identification of two cultural landscapes in the park—

Dundas Bay and Bartlett Cove—set the stage for the

initiation of the CLIs in 1 999. The goal of the inventories was to synthetically document the two landscapes

as places of cultural heritage for the Huna Tlingit in

order to explore the potential for their nomination to

the National Register as Traditional Cultural Properties

(TCP). A TCP documents heritage as an active process

in which the contemporary "property" demonstrates historically rooted beliefs, customary practices, and the maintenance of traditional knowledge—a task complicated by the fact that active Tlingit occupation and use

of the sites effectively ceased due to park management policies in the late 1940s to early 1950s.^ However, the vigor with which Tlingit elders still speak of

Glacier Bay attests to the deeply held cultural sense of

identity with its landscape and resources.

Fieldwork during the summers of 1999-2001, as

well as supporting oral histories and historical research,

focused on documenting the Tlingit historical association with these sites—an interdisciplinary methodology reflected in diverse and, perhaps, unconventional

ways of interpreting cultural data. Four primary sets of

cultural information were utilized: physical environs

and remains, documented through existing conditions,

photographic surveys, archaeological fieldwork, oral histories and interviews; available place-name data; and

finally, historical and anthropological research (particularly that of anthropologist Thomas Thornton). Field- work included a study of traditional plant use interviews with fourTlingit elders: Winnie Smith, Esther Haze,

Katherine Grant, and Jennie Lindoff, conducted in July,

2001, along with field identification of specific plants

in the Bartlett Cove area.

This information was then interpreted through a site

history, as well as an analysis of the significance of key

landscape characteristics such as natural systems, spatial organization, land use, cultural traditions, and archaeological sites. The inventories concluded with an

evaluation of the significance and integrity of these

landscape characteristics as contributing to the potential designation of landscapes as TCPs. Long the mainstay of historical construction for the

National Register, the field survey documentation of

archaeological evidence is the most problematic in

the Glacier Bay sites due to the character of the glacial

334 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
107/ Tlingit village of KhartHeene [Cat-hi-ni], "Salmon Water." Photograph by George Emmons, 1889.

landscape. The advance and retreat of glacial ice sheets

during the most recent "Little Ice Age," (approximately

1 550-1 850 AD), with its corresponding rise and fall of

sea levels, isostatic rebound, and revegetation, destroyed

Tlingit settlement and seasonal camp sites and other

material evidence of occupation, complicating claims

of ownership and use from the Western perspective.

One of the few exceptions to this paucity of known

archaeological sites is found at Dundas Bay, Tinaak'w

(Little Copper Shield), a glacial fjord on the north shore

of Icy Strait, to which both the T'akdeintaan and

Chookaneidi clans have traditional claims. Because this

area had been in a state of glacial retreat since the

Pleistocene (1 3,000 BP), it sustained an incredibly rich

habitat for marine and plant resources harvested by the

Tlingit. Corroborated by oral history, archaeological

surveys have documented several historic settlements

in the Dundas Bay area:

—The late eighteenth century village of L'istee (oc- cupied late 1880s to 1910s);

—The recently rediscovered Xakwnoowu (Gravel or Dry Fort) dating to about 1 100 1 1 50 BP;

—Early twentieth century house pilings and a cemetery at the base of Xakwnoowu ; —The remains of the Dundas Bay cannery (1900-

1930), probably the most visible historic remnants

of Tlingit occupation;

—A series of stone "nests" or monuments along

the adjacent ridgelines, perhaps the oldest material evidence of occupation. Alluded to in stories as a place of refuge from bears during a period of flooding, this interpretations corresponds to the ice- free conditions present in Dundas Bay when the

rest of Glacier Bay was under glacial advance in the Little Ice Age.

Bartlett Cove, by comparison, lacks the archaeological

record of Dundas Bay due to its recent glacial history

of advance and retreat. Historic occupation of this area

can be dated to the remains of at least one salmon

saltery (1 888, possibly as early as 1 883) and an associated Native cemetery at Lester Island. George Emmons'

photograph from 1 889 documents the presence of a

sealer's camp and a village most likely at this site, which was also associated with a productive sockeye salmon

stream (Fig. 1 07). Three Native allotments were recorded

for Bartlett Cove; a claim survey in 1914 noted a log

TONIA WOODS NORTON 335
cabin "formerly used as a smoke-house for drying

salmon," although no ruins exist today. At the time of

the CLI fieldwork, there were several culturally modified trees dating approximately to 1 900 within the im- mediate vicinity of the cove, and others located in

adjacent areas. At least two uses for the peeled inner

bark were described by contemporary elders—fibers

stripped for basketry, and more common, the harvesting of the cambium layer as a foodstuff.^ However limited the physical record may be, critical oral histories conducted in the 1 940s as part of a

study of Tlingit and Haida land rights illustrate that all

of Glacier Bay was described as S'ix Vein, the Big Dish—

the Huna "breadbasket," from which the material and

spiritual sustenance originated (Goldschmidit and Haas

1 998:25). Huna elders interviewed at that time recalled

seasonal camps at both Bartlett Cove and Dundas Bay

for marine and terrestrial resource harvesting as far back

as the 1 880s, with garden areas and thick patches of

nagoonberries, strawberries, cranberries, soapberries, and

raspberries, as well as rhubarb. The inter-tidal zone along

the beaches was particularly rich with ribbon seaweed,

crabs, and "gumboots" (especially at Bartlett Cove). Vital to the Tlingit diet, both salmon and seals were harvested in the waters at Bartlett Cove and Dundas Bay;

both the story of Xakwmonu and the 1 889 photograph

of Gatheemi seasonal village indicate sealing activities. Land otters, porcupines, martens, wolverines, wolves,

and black bears were hunted and trapped in Bartlett

Cove. The interviews also documented summer campsites, trap-lines, numerous smokehouses, gardens, and

possessory rights to salmon streams, all multi-generational in ownership, indicating a long-term presence in

both landscapes. Albert Jackson's statement revealed

his family's activities and attachment to Bartlett Cove:

Bartlett Cove was an important place for the

Native people. I have a dwelling and two

smokehouses there; also a garden...! had two

trap lines around the lake above Bartlett Cove. The last time I trapped there was about eight years ago [1938], but since I have become too

old my sons used these trap lines until it [Glacier Bay] was made a reserve. I have fish

lines and traps in my house. ... I also have a

trapping cabin on the lake—formerly had two

or three cabins on the trap line. This place

belongs to the T'akdeintaan clan and has

belonged to my family for a long time. I am the

fifth generation to use it (Coldschmidt and

Haas 1998:55).

Similarly, oral histories recorded by Goldschmidt and

Haas (1 946) also confirm Tlingit occupation and subsistence activities at Dundas Bay, corroborating the archaeological surveys and recorded mythology concerning L'istee and Xakwnoonu. According to one interview,

At Dundas Bay, where the creek flows into the

Bay, there was a village called L'istee. On an

island at the mouth of the stream was a fort called Xunakawoo Noowu. There was also a camp for drying fish and picking berries on

this island. There were three big houses at

L'istee, and these are now rotted away. There was also a graveyard for the "T'akdeintaan

clan. . . . This was formerly a T'akdeintaan

village and at one time, Mrs. Douglas's father homesteaded the place. A potlatch was given

at this village about forty years ago [1906]

(Goldschmidt and Haas 1946/1998:55-6).

The streams and tidal flats of the Dundas River drain- age provided "humpies, sockeyes, cohos, nagoonberries,

mountain blueberries, high-bush cranberries, porcupine,

black bear, mountain goat, marten, otter, and mink"

(Goldschmidt and Haas 1946/1998:55-6). In addition

to the interviews. Native allotment claims dating from

the 1 920s at Dundas Bay also indicate the presence of

active salmon streams, prime maintained berry patches,

and at least three adjacent smokehouses and fish camps

that had been in family ownership for several generations (lbid:54-5).

The rediscovery of the fort remains of Xakwnoowu

(c. 800 BP) in the mid-1 990s is especially important not

only in establishing the evidence of historic Tlingit

occupation at Dundas Bay (800 BP), but in reaffirming

ancestral ties for the both the Chookeneidi and

Ka'gwaantan clans. In a story recorded in 1 909 by John

Swanton, the protagonist is a renowned hunter from

Xakwnoowu who leaves the village after he returns from

a trip to find all its inhabitants dead:

From Xakanuwu went a man of the Xakanu336 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
kedi, who were named from their town. The

people used to go out from there after seals, which, not having guns at that time, they

hunted with long-shanked and short-shanked

hunting spears always kept in the bow. . . . the people of that town were numerous and

it was long (Swanton 1909:326-7).

The Menzies journal account for July 11,1 794, described a village—possibly Xakwnoowu—on the tidal

flats at the mouth of Dundas Bay (Menzies 1 993). Even

Muir's return trip to Glacier Bay in 1 880 included a side

trip to Dundas Bay in a driving rainstorm; the party

took refuge in a "hut" occupied by a Huna, Ka-hoodoo-shough, who offered to guide the American naturalist and his party to the upper reaches of Dundas Bay

as a respite from berry-picking.

Contemporary interviews with Tiingit elders as

part of the CLI fieldwork reflect the enduring physical

and symbolic importance of Dundas Bay and Bartlett Cove as resource procurement areas that continue, even marginally, to provide traditional foodstuffs for

personal and ceremonial use. Although seasonal rounds

ostensibly ceased in the late 1 930s to mid-1 940s, traditional knowledge of plant and marine resources in the

Big Dish still dominant their conversations about the

Glacier Bay landscape, such as the much sought after Dundas Bay nagoonberries and the delicacies of Bartlett Cove gumboot clams. Dundas Bay, in particular, has

been nicknamed Tleikw Aani, "Berry Land." According

to anthropologist Thomas Thornton (1999:31) "These

berry patches were not only owned and defended but

celebrated and even cultivated by means of heixwa, or

"magic," and other techniques believed to enhance productivity." In a letter supporting his claim to a Native

allotment at Dundas Bay in November, 1 924, Harry

Shudake wrote that "and the berries that grow on the ground I all ways [sic] fertilize the ground like a

garden."'°

Several elders interviewed spoke in detail about

berry-picking activities in Dundas Bay, including salient information on the changes in microclimate and

berry production due to the Tlingits' decreased role in

maintaining the landscape as a resource habitat. Noting the vast changes in the appearance of the Dundas

Bay berry patches since the late 1930s, the elders attributed this evolution to their absence. Without the

historical practice of seasonally weeding out alder

shoots from among the berry patches—a task relegated

to the Huna children—much of the area has become

overgrown with the alders, changing the environs from

moist to dry—and, according to the elders, significantly

reducing the availability of the nagoonberries. Ken

Austin recalled his distress at being unable to recognize the landscape he visited as a youth upon returning with another elder, the late Amy Marvin, in the late

1 990s to pick berries: My dad and I, we would be trolling around

Point Adolphus, you know, close to Dundas

Bay. About the middle or latter part of August,

the aroma from the nagoon was so strong, he

told me, 'It's almost time.'. ...Nagoon was all over the place. ..And all the berries we picked, we all went as families, you know, different

clans. When I went back with Thornton [in 1999], oh I felt badly. I didn't recognize the

place. There was few nagoon around. . . . Our

traditional knowledge I got from Amy

Knutsen (Marvin). ... I ask her 'How come

there are not too many berries here?' [She

said] 'We are told by the white people not to pick berries around here anymore. The berries need to be picked; they need to be needed

and wanted like we need to be needed. Since we didn't, they stopped growing because

we're not there to do it anymore.'. . As soon

as we stopped picking them, the nagoon

didn't feel needed anymore, so they didn't come out like they usually did every end of August. Just hang on the branches, you know, now they're not there because we did not go

back. That's traditional knowledge (Ken Austin,

intep\/iew, September 2001 ).

The implication of such a changed landscape is vitally

important for the Tiingit. It reveals an inability to sustain the reciprocal relationship between seasonal practices and the landscape resources that support Tiingit

cultural life as a whole, such as the role of berries in

diet, trade, and ceremonies, a loss of traditional ecological knowledge with the passing of time. As one

elder prophetically voiced,

It's changed a lot. The place where they had

nagoonberries and strawberries, it's overgrown

TONIA WOODS NORTON 337
by alderwood and all these different kind of little trees, and they wanted it to be a wilderness, so it

is come, become a wilderness, and them not knowing it is where we get our food" (Winnie

Smith, interview, July 2001).

Aligned with the archaeological record and information

gathered from oral histories and interviews, compelling

evidence of Huna Tlingit landscape identity and association is emerging through the ongoing interviews and

collection of place-names with elders and clan members." Though they are not "physical artifacts," place- names are tied to the very core of Tlingit identity; there

is no separation between clan membership, place of origin, and means of territorial subsistence. To say that one

is from the T'akdeintaan or Chookaneidi clans signifies a

place of landscape origin and belonging—and, as a result, possessory rights to certain resource areas, such as salmon streams and berry patches, as the clan property, at'oow or "owned things."

Situating the cultural landscapes of Bartlett Cove and

Dundas Bay within the Tlingit geography of Glacier Bay

has particular resonance when attempting to frame these

places as Traditional Cultural Properties. Analysis of place- names provides valuable ethnoecological clues to Tlingit

landscape history, conveying a portrait of a glacial envi- ronment where the connections between major catastrophic events and Tlingit landscape history are evoked

through toponyms. The pre-Little Ice Age village in

Bartlett Cove, recalled as the site of the Kasteen and

Shawatseek story, has been identified as L'awshaa Shakee

Ann, or "Town on Top of the Glacial Sand Dunes," pointing to its location before another glacial advance prompting its abandonment except for the elderly Shawatseek.

The settlement site recorded in 1 889 as Catheeni on Lester

Island near the mouth of the Bartlett River—and more

than likely the same location of seasonal camps during

the next decade—translates as "Sockeye," designating a

productive source of salmon. Place-names at Dundas

Bay include the encompassing TIeikw Aani, or "Berry

Land," the rarely used Tina'ak'w, or "Little Copper Shield,"

and Xakwnoowu, "Gravel" or "Dry Fort," perhaps referring

to its location in an ice-free environment during the flooding. The translation for the abandoned village site name,

L'istee, is unknown. On a larger scale, the succession

of place-names for Glacier Bay itself illustrates a Tlingit

conception of landscape history that corresponds directly to the processes of glaciation: S'e Shuyee ("End

of the Glacial Mud") at the inception of the bay at the base of a morainal valley; XaatI Tu ("Ice Bay") as the

size of the bay increased with glacial debris during its

retreat, and the name used today. Sit' Eeti Ceeyi, "The

Bay in Place of the Glacier" (Thornton 1 997b:223; Ken

Austin, September 2001).

The conservation of place-names, like traditional

ecological knowledge, speak to clan history and ownership, legitimately— in the Tlingit sense of placevalidating their historical claim to their Glacier Bay

homelands, ha'a aani. The legacy revealed by place- names, mythology, and oral history are indelibly inscribed upon the symbolic landscape of Glacier Bay, and are borne out by physical evidence found in the

archaeological remains and contemporary resource

habitats. Incorporating the cultural geography of place- names, traditional stories, oral histories, recent interviews, and field visits with Huna elders with more conventional historical documentation, the Dundas Bay and

Bartlett Cove Cultural Landscape Inventories evince a

profoundly ethnographic portrait of landscape far re- moved from the "pristine wilderness" paradigm.

By identif/ing and documenting places as cultural

landscapes within a designated wilderness, the importance of an ethnographic context recognizing—and,

perhaps, ultimately preserving—culture and nature in an intensely complicated environmental history is undeniable. The implicit connection between place and

identity, between landscape and heritage, is borne out

in the Tlingit concept of sliagoon, loosely translated as

"heritage" or "legacy" (Ken Austin, interview, September 2001). In fieldwork among the Angoon Tlingit, de

Laguna described her perception of historical legacy

reflected in shagoon:

It has been claimed with justice that every people live their own myths, that is, that

338 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
their conduct in the present reflects what

they believe their past to have been since

that past, as well as the present and the

future, are aspects of the 'destiny' in which

they exhibit themselves as they think they

really are. The Tlingit themselves sense this and use the term 'ha (our) cagun' for the

origin and destiny of their sib [clan], including the totemic animal or bird encountered by

the ancestors and the powers and prerogatives obtained from it, as well as their own

place in the universe and the ultimate fate of

their unborn descendants. This is something

that goes beyond asking the historian to check the validity of native tradition, or attempting through native tradition to check

the accuracy of historical documents. Rather

it poses for us the problem of how a people

view their history" (de Laguna 1960:202).

Elder Ken Austin specifically tied the concept—and

evocative power—of shagoon to place:

Ha shagoon. The Wooshketan ancestors lived there, in Bartlett Cove. [They say] 'Our

ancestors lived here.' And the T'akdeintaan

validated it. So, ha shagoon from their time to the present time. We still dance it, we still dance the songs. Ha shagoon comes to the present time to still validate it. And their oral

history, their crests, ha shagoon at.oow, 'our ancestors owned it. ...Our grandchildren are going to own that crest, the names, the songs, and all that.' So, ha shagoon goes into the future. Shagoon covers past, present

future in that way because of what they'll bring out, the crests again, at certain part of

their potlatch. They want everyone to show

it validates, presently validates, what they

had long ago, and what they have now, and

what their grandchildren will have. That's shagoon. Their at'oow is what they have, their songs, their at'oow, they will sing it. Again

validating their own shagoon, Bartlett Cove,

that's Wooshketan" (Ken Austin, September

2001).

In this respect, the recognition of Tlingit cultural landscapes within Glacier Bay National Park is essential in

order to support the long term viability of cultural knowl- edge increasingly in danger of being lost as elders,

who have specific knowledge of traditional practices,

pass away. The cultural landscapes documented by the

CLI process—even within the typological framework

of the National Register—reveal an alternative historical vision of landscape through an authentic story of

place, one that requires new avenues of interpretation

and preservation. Large-scale patterns of spatial organization (recognized possessory clan rights to specific

areas), historic land use patterns (the geographic net- work and seasonal rounds associated with resource

harvesting), and most importantly, cultural traditions (stories, myths, place-names) connected with Dundas Bay

and Bartlett Cove point to their efficacy as Traditional

Cultural Properties as defined by the National Register, even with its problematic conceptions of history and

place. As a result of the CLI process of documenting

Tlingit history at Dundas Bay and Bartlett Cove, the

Alaska State Historic Preservation Office concurred with

the CLI findings of eligibility of these two landscapes

as Traditional Cultural Properties in January 2004. The

significance of this determination cannot be overstated. Though cultural ties to the landscape are now physically limited—precluding occupation and seasonal har- vesting—the maintenance of traditional knowledge and

association, and the recognition of the landscape's protected status as a result of the TCP designation are vital

not only to the cultural survival of the Huna Tlingit, but

increasingly to the preservation of Glacier Bay itself.'^

Conclusion

In essence, this is a story of recovering landscape meaning—writing new histories, reconstructing cultural maps

both literal and symbolic, and recognizing the potency

of place—using a methodology of cultural landscape

preservation that remains in its infancy. The production of historical narratives, in this case through the

construction of ethnographic landscape histories, is, in

itself, a cultural act that restructures the past as provisional and contingent, defying the pervasive belief in

its representation as a scientific absolute. Perhaps no- where is this more evident than in the contested terrain

of national parks where the master narratives forged in

executive proclamations and legislative mandates often obscure the richness of the storied landscapes they

are designed to protect.

Like landscapes, memory and commemoration are

TONIA WOODS NORTON 339
active processes that allow us to reclaim stories that

range from the mythic to the personal, illustrating the "power of historic places to help citizens define their

public pasts" (Hayden 1995:46). Tied to place knowledge, the interpretation of park landscapes is key to

not only the protection of vital resources, but to the

sustenance of American cultural diversity. Where ethnographic landscapes have not been acknowledged as

historically significant, the revisioning of the past

through the Cultural Landscape Inventories constitutes

a powerful tool. It provides a unif/ing framework in which multiple histories can be told, and a forum where

values attendant upon conflicting definitions of nature and culture can be negotiated.

From the subtleties of grave markers to the dramatic remapping of cultural territory, the recording of

landscape history and evolution through the CLIs suggests not only a new vision of place history, but a

reformulation of the landscape concept itself:

The term landscape no longer refers to pros- pects of pastoral innocence but rather invokes

the functioning matrix of connective tissue that organizes not only objects and spaces but also the dynamic processes and events that move

through them. This is landscape as active surface, structuring the conditions for new

relationships and interactions among the things

it supports (Wall 1999:233).

In reading landscapes through the prism of historical and ethnographic time, the evolutionary dialogue of

people and place is critical to the preservation of national park lands. Although naive and antiquarian, Catlin's argument for a nation's park to presen/e the traditional

ecology of Indian and buffalo recognized the double

helix of nature and culture as integral to American heritage. Documenting ethnographic landscapes is a daunting adventure that challenges long-standing categorical divisions between natural and cultural values, the

linearity of historic progression, and, ultimately, the

authorship of cultural stories embedded in place. It represents a decoding of historical sensibilities as much

as a recapitulation of management philosophies, and

allows those on the margins to participate in a polyphony of voices retelling the stories of landscapes.

Landscapes, indeed, are our legacy.

Notes

1 . Three recently completed NPS projects, the

Cultural Landscape Inventories (CLIs) for Dyea Historic Townsite and Chilkoot Trail, and the Ethnographic Overview and Assessment, are the first to

specifically address the historical Native presence

in the history of the park's lands.

2. The naming of the "Taiya" River reflects Tlingit

origins: "taiya" is a derivative of dayei—JWngit for "packing place." See "Dyea Historic Townsite CLI," ethnographic information section (NPS 2001).

3. The allotment known as the "Nan-Sook"

Claim was just north of the Healy and Wilson claim.

Early Skagway native J. Bernard Moore recalled that he hired Nan Sook to help build the Moore resi- dence in Skagway, and that the Tlingit had come

over from Dyea with Healy (Brady 1997:87).

4. The distinction between "Huna" and

"Hoonah" is significant. "Huna" is the Tlingit people's name for themselves; Hoonah is the central settle- ment site of the Huna people. In 1 995, NPS and the Hoonah Indian Association signed a Memorandum

of Understanding aimed at promoting better rela- tions between the two parties. In recognition of this important connection, the park has initiated and col- laborated on culturally significant resource studies

and activities that address Huna place-names in Glacier Bay, traditional harvesting of gull eggs, seals,

berry habitats, and other traditional uses. In addition, a 1997 master-planning effort by NPS included

Huna recommendations for construction of a cultural center along the beach trail in the Bartlett Cove

area. Another collaborative project along Bartlett Cove trails resulted in two tree carvings of clan crests—octopus and eagle—on living trees within the NPS administrative area.

5. NHPA authorized the National Register; Sections 1 06 and 1 1 of the NHPA specifically apply to the protection of recognized National Register properties and to requiring compliance review of undertakings that may impact historic resources. The law

also requires mitigation of damages and impacts to these properties in the event of adverse effects of

undertakings.

6. This may have been the village, Catheeni—

340 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
see the Tlingit sealing camp photo taken by George

T. Emmons in 1 889 (Fig. 1 07).

7. Ken Austin described the Huna "ha aanf

boundaries as "from the mountains, all around Glacier Bay, except for the entrance, all encircled by

mountains." Clan territories are associated with the three main clans: Chookeneidi, Ta'kdeintaan, and

Wooshkeetan (Ken Austin's interview, 2001).

8. Glacier Bay's waters were closed to Tlingit

seal hunters in 1 974.

9. Winnie Smith recalled, "[A]nd we used to get—it's called 'sax' -we used to get it from up the

bay, and it comes from hemlocks. ... my grandmother used to start a place from the bottom, and

they made of sticks, and we'd just go like this, and

the whole bark would just fall off the tree. And then

she'd sit there, and she'd have her knife, it's like

this, and she used to take the insides off and dry it and put it in seal oil, and it's good, it's sweet, and we

used to eat it." Interview, July 24, 2001

.

10. Harry Ship Dick, (Shudake), to U.S. Land

Office, Anchorage, Alaska, lA 04489, November 26,

1924. CLBA Park Archives, Native Allotments.

1 1 . The collection and mapping of Tlingit place- names has been an ongoing collaborative project since 1993 (with Hoonah Indian Association and the Alaska

Department of Fish and Game). Other project members

have included the Southeast Native Subsistence Commission, and significantly, the National Park Service. NPS cultural resources staff at the park continue to focus on the creation of a "talking map," an ArcView

based model of Glacier Bay replete with Tlingit place- names with hot links to Native pronunciation, as well as video and oral histories of the sites. 12. Since Dundas Bay and Bartlett Cove are now eligible for the National Register listing as TCPs

as of 2004, their recognition as historically signifi- cant cultural resources will allow park management

to address potential impacts and adverse effects of undertakings that may affect their integrity. In es- sence, this will institute a more formal process of

cultural resource protection because of the mandates

of Sections 1 06 and 110 of the NHPA.

References

Brady, Jeff, ed.

1 997 Skagway in Days Primeval: The Writings ofJ. Bernard Moore, 1886-1904. Skagway, AK: Lynn Canal Publishing.

Catlin, George

1 973 Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs,

and Conditions of the North American Indians. Letter No. 31, Mouth of Teton River, Upper Missouri.

Marjorie Halper, ed. New York: Dover Publications. V edition 1 844. Cooper, William S. 1923 The Recent Ecological History of Glacier Bay, Alaska. 1 . The Interglacial Forests of Glacier Bay"

Ecology, IV(2):93-4.

Cruikshank, Julie, ed.

1 990 Life Lived Like a Story: Life Stores of Three

Yukon Native Elders. Omaha: University of Nebraska

Press. De Laguna, Frederica

1960 The Story of a Tlingit Community. Bureau of

American Ethnology Bulletin 172. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, Smithsonian Institution. Goldschmidt, Walter R., and Theodore H. Haas

1 998 Ha 'aa Aani: Our Land, Tlingit and Haida Land

Rights and Use. Thomas Thornton, ed. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Originally issued in 1 946

as Indian Claims Document, "Possessory Rights of the Natives of Southeastern Alaska," typescript.

Greer, Sheila, ed.

1 995 Skookum Stories on the Chilkoot Trail. Carcross,

YT.

Griffiths, Tom

1 996 Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia. NY: Cambridge University Press. Hayden, Dolores

1 995 The Power ofPlace: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Menzies, Archibald

1 993 The Alaska TravelJournal ofArchibald Menzies,

1 793-1 794. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press. Muir,John

1895 The Discovery of Glacier Bay by its Discoverer. Century Magazine 50(2):234-47.

1 998 Travels in Alaska. New York: Houghton Mifflin (original edition 1 91 5). Nash, Roderick

1 982 Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press. Runte, Alfred Runte

1 987 National Parks: The American Experience. Lin- coln: University of Nebraska Press. Spence, Mark David

1 999 Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal

and the Making of the National Parks. New York: Oxford University Press. Swanton, John R.

1 909 The Story of the Ka'gwantan. Bureau ofAmeri- can Ethnology Bulletin 39:326-7. Washington, DC:

Smithsonian Institution.

TONIA WOODS NORTON 341
Thornton, Thomas

1997a Anthropological Studies of Native American Place Naming. American Indian Quarterly

21(2):209-28.

1997b Know Your Place: The Organization of

Tlingit Geographic Knowledge. Ethnology

36(4):295-307.

1 999 TIeikwAani, the "Berried" landscape: The Struc- ture of Tlingit Edible Fruit Resources at Glacier Bay, Alaska. Journal ofEthnobiology ] 9{] ):27-48.

U.S. Senate

1 882 Reports of Captain L.A. Beardslee, U.S. Navy,

Relative to Affairs in Alaska. U.S. Senate, Ex. Doc

No. 71, 47"^ Congress, Session. Washington,

DC: Government Printing Office. Wall, Alex

1999 Programming the Urban Surface. In Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture. James Corner, ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.

Williss, Frank

1 985 Do Things Right the First Time: The National

Park Service and the Alaska National Interest Lands

Conservation Act of 1 980. Washington, DC: National

Park Service. Wood, Charles

1882 Among the Tlingits in Alaska. Century Magazine, 24(3/]u\yy.323-39.

342 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ ALASKAN PARKS
(^uitura! ['ientage in Y^mai^ Liberia:

folicies and (3,haiien^es in Landscape ['reservation

NATALIA V. FEDOROVA'

The protection and use of individual objects cannot be effective outside tine historical and

natural space surrounding them (Shul'gin

1994:4).

The Yamal Peninsula, the northern extremity of the Western Siberian plain, is an exceptional region from

many perspectives: geographical, cultural-historical, and

economic. Located some 2,500 kilometers (1 ,550 miles)

and two time zones east of Moscow and the center of European Russia, the peninsula is the northernmost section of one of the most dynamic regions of the Russian North, the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area (okmg),

with its booming oil-and-gas industry."^ The fact that

this crossroads area is the home of the indigenous

Nenets people, with their vibrant culture of traditional nomadic reindeer herding, makes the peninsula truly

distinctive among all other areas of the Russian Arctic.

Therefore, preservation of Native culture and economy

as well as of its lasting heritage should occupy a central position in policymaking for "sustainable economic

development" in the region.

The Yamal Peninsula, about 750 kilometers (466

miles) long, is a strip of flat tundra extending from south

to north. Situated on the border of Europe and Asia,

Yamal is essentially the last outpost of Europe in Siberia. To the west, the peninsula opens onto the Bolshe- zemelskaya Tundra, a broad swath along which the no- madic Reindeer Nenets migrate from east to west and

west to east. This critical linkage connects the expanses

of Northeastern Europe and Northwestern Siberia, just

as the zone of great steppes much farther south unites Europe and Inner Asia. To the east, Yamal is linked with

the sparsely populated areas of the Central Russian

Arctic—the Cydan and Taimyr peninsulas and the coasts

of the Laptev and East Siberian Seas. Farther eastward

and east of the mouth of the Kolyma River, begins a

culturally different world, a coastal area of sea mammal-hunting cultures that share historical-cultural links

with the Eskimo cultures of North America.

The lack of large rivers flowing longitudinally has made an indelible imprint on the processes of human

settlement and on the domestic and economic adaptation of the indigenous population. The peninsula is a

cultural nucleus, a core area for the nomadic culture of

the Siberian Nenets indigenous people. It is a unitary,

historical-ethnographic landscape, with a unique, pro- found history and a subsistence economy that is alive

today, based on the year-round, nomadic travel of reindeer-herders with their herds of reindeer, from the arctic tree-line to the barren polar tundra (Fig. 1 08). Such a

type of subsistence economy has been in existence in Yamal for hundreds of years. However, there is a marked

difference between the economy of ancient times and

that of today. During the first millennium and the beginning of the second, Native lifestyle was based on nomadic travel following herds of wild reindeer [or

caribou], with a small number of domestic reindeer for

transportation (Fedorova 2000, 2000a). Today, Native

herders move year-round; and they have much larger

herds of domestic reindeer, whereas little hunting is

343
practiced because of the almost total extermination of

wild reindeer.

With its continued, unbroken practice of traditional, nomadic reindeer herding, the Yamal Peninsula—and

the Yamal District as its administrative unit—are truly

special among all other areas of the Russian Arctic. In a

cultural sense, the Yamal Peninsula is the most "visible" component of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area

[sometimes refered to simply as okrug below] and also

its best-known symbol among the public at large.

Problem Statement

Important, fundamental questions can and should be

asked about the living, indigenous culture of Yamal:

questions about its prospects of survival and sustainability in the modern world and questions about how

well its heritage is being preserved under the modern

administrative system and in connection with economic

development of the Russian North. The basic questions addressed in this paper can be

summarized as follows: —Does an effective system exist for protecting his- torical-cultural heritage in the Yamal-Nenets Autono- mous Area as a whole and on the Yamal Peninsula

in particular?

—If there is such a system, does it incorporate in any way the concept of "historical-cultural (ethnographic) landscape" in its operations"?

—If there is an effective system that incorporates

such a concept, then how is this concept reflected

in legislative documents and the daily practice of agencies that protect cultural heritage?

Contemporary Demographic Status of the

Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area

The Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area covers 750,300

square kilometers (290,000 square miles), with a population of 500,500 people (here and hereinafter, figures

are from Yamal 2000:13, 63-91, 92). The average

population density in the okrug is 0.7 person per square

kilometer (by comparison, there are 8.6 persons per

square kilometer in the Russian Federation as a whole).

The okrug includes seven cities, eight industrial towns,

and 103 rural communities. The administrative capital

is the city of Salekhard.

Since the collapse of the centrally controlled Soviet economy in the early 1990s, the basic economic

activities of the indigenous population—reindeer breeding, fishing, the processing of reindeer and fish products, and so on—have begun to develop as commercial market enterprises. Gas and petroleum exploration, which arrived in the region in the 1960s and

1970s, is the engine that drives regional economic

development. However, at the same time, this industry

creates many problems for preserving the living cultures of local indigenous people. There are serious

questions about this rich culture's survival in an eco- nomic matrix that is increasingly dominated by industrial development.

The oil-and-gas industry has brought about pivotal

changes in the okrug, not only in social and economic

status, but also in demographic composition. Barely

sixty years ago, according to data from the All-Union Census of 1 939, the okrug population was 45,734, including 15,348 nomadic reindeer herders (33.56 percent of the total population). In 1959, on the eve of

oil-and-gas development, the population increased to 65,000 persons, of whom 28,000 were indigenous residents. By the year 2000, the total population of the okrug had increased by nearly 800 percent, to 506,800

persons. Of today's okrug residents, Russians constitute nearly

62.8 percent; Ukrainians, 5.8 percent; and Tatars, 5.8

percent, whereas the portion represented by indigenous

people (Nenets, Khanty, Komi, and others) dropped to

8 percent. The urban population of the okrug is now

41 9,600 and predominately non-Native. Of the current

rural population of 87,181, only a little more than

one-third are indigenous residents. Among these indigenous rural residents, 1 3,285 are still leading a no- madic way of life. The majority of those people are

living on the Yamal Peninsula that now makes the Yamal

District (Raion), one of seven administrative districts of

the okrug. The Yamal District Administration and all

344 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ YAMAL
108/ Nenets herders visiting the Yarte site archaeology camp in Central Yamal.

basic services for the district (including a small district museum) are located in the district capital, the town of

Yar-Sale (population 3,800).

There can be no doubt that the okrug population

has changed significantly in the last four decades—

because of Russian and other newcomers. These new

settlers came to the North primarily to earn higher wages

and other benefits. Most of them did not see their own

or their children's futures as connected in any way with

this land. The settlers often used the term "mainland,"

or simply "the land," when referring to Russian territory

outside Yamal and outside Siberia in general. After living in (what is now) the Yamal-Nenets Okrug for many

years and having made its cities and villages their own, many of these people still feel like winter workers at

isolated polar stations, who live with the knowledge

that they will be replaced at any time and return to "the

Big Land."

During the most recent decade (after 1 991 ), another

significant population of new arrivals appeared—immigrants from former republics of the USSR and areas of

military and interethnic conflict within the boundaries

of Russia. Compared with the previous influx of immigrants, these people initially had even less cultural and

emotional connection with the land of Yamal and its

earlier cultural history. Issues concerning preservation

of local heritage, much less protection of the natural and cultural landscape, were the last things that concerned this pragmatic, economically oriented newcomer

population.

However, as the various groups of settlers gradually were cut off from their places of origin, many were

compelled to stay and settle in the area. Professional

careers and family homes were built over several decades. Children were born to the new settlers, and are

already adults for whom this territory has become a

"native" land. Hence, the recognition of certain local

"roots" gradually became important not only to the in- digenous people, but also to all categories of newcomers. This remarkable shift in attitude toward local

NATALIA v. FEDOROVA 345
cultural heritage has begun to be exhibited distinctly

in public discourse and in people's consciousness, particularly during the 1990s. The shift is also reflected today in local media coverage of various historicalcultural topics and heritage issues, and, to a certain

extent, in the legislative activity of the Yamal-Nenets

Okrug government and local authorities.

Cultural Heritage Preservation in Yamal:

Legislative Base and Actual Situation

Whatever legislative base exists today for protection

of local historical-cultural heritage in the Yamal-Nenets

Okrug has essentially been developing during the last

ten years—that is, since the okrug became a component of the new Russian Federation in 1992. Until that

time, national heritage legislation had been in effect throughout the okrug, as across the entire territory of

the former Soviet Union. The 1 978 All-Union Law, "On

Protection of Monuments of History and Culture," was

the cornerstone of that legislation.

It was in 1 993, however, that the first piece of relevant regional legislation was enacted—^the "Regulation for Protection of Monuments of History and Culture." This law was adopted on May 22, 1 993, by Decree No. 1 1 7 of the Head of the Okrug Administration.

In that decree, responsibility for the "protection of monuments of history and culture in territories under its jurisdiction" was assigned to town and district administrations (municipal communities). Essentially, the decree

only recommended that local administrations add heritage preservation specialists to the staffs of district and

okrug departments of culture. As the regulation is worded, this task is not mandatory.

With a series of later bureaucratic reorganizations,

the situation worsened: for example, district and okrug

departments of culture were reorganized as "cultural

administrations," and finally, as "committees on culture,

youth policy, and sports," further diluting the administrations' legal obligation to employ preservation specialists. For these and other reasons, to this day [as of

2003], only two of seven Yamal-Nenets Okrug districts,

346

Priuralsk (Cis-Ural) and Krasnoselkup, have some type

of heritage preservation specialists on their administrative staffs. It should be noted, however, that the main

reason for this lack of necessary specialists is not so much the "non-mandatory" wording of the 1 993 decree

as the lack of appropriately qualified specialists in the

area.

In 1 996, another piece of regional legislation was

introduced—the "Regulation for the Execution of Historical-Cultural Evaluation in the Yamal-Nenets Autono- mous Area." A similar piece of legislation, enacted earlier in the neighboring Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, was used as a basis for the new regulation. The new

regulation has not yet been put into effect (as of 2003)

because it has not been approved by the Okrug De- partment of Minerals and Natural Resources. In the ab- sence of such a regulation, historical-cultural evaluation (survey) of areas approved for industrial construction or other economic development is likely to be

the exception rather than the rule. In today's practice,

the execution of such surveys depends mainly on the

attitudes of individual employees of local administrations or, rather, on the perseverance of archaeologists

and other cultural specialists, who usually receive information on the proposed activity in passing.

On October 1 6, 1 998, Okrug Law No. 40, "About the

Protection of Monuments of History, Culture, and Architecture in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area," was

enacted. As a result, the new Yamal-Nenets Okrug Inspectorate for the "Protection and Use of Monuments

of History and Culture" was established in the capital

city of Salekhard. The inspectorate currently possesses

a generalized, but not finalized, list of the okrug's monuments of historical-cultural heritage. For the time being, this "list" is a card file, but it is being developed

gradually as a computer database. The database includes the following:

—Archaeological monuments, namely, sites, burial grounds, ancient ritual sites, and so on; 269 are

registered in the database [as of 2002]

—Local historical monuments, such as "The CeoREGIONAL APPROACHES/ YAMAL
graphical Center of the Russian State," established by means of a mathematical survey by Dimitry I. Mendeleev in 1 906 and designated as a memorial

site (with a special plaque) in 1985. Another ex- ample is the preserved remains of many abandoned

forced labor camps of the early Soviet era {the socalled GULAG], such as the famous "Construction

Site No. 501 ," a huge labor camp of the 1 940s and

1950s, which is located along the abandoned rail- road that was built by the thousands of GULAG pris- oners

—Municipal and architectural monuments, includ- ing monuments dedicated to victory in World War

II; buildings constructed in the 1 930s; commemorative signs and billboards; and Russian Orthodox

churches and other temples

—Natural and cultural monuments, that is, sites and

areas having universal value as "joint creations of nature and man from the perspective of history

and ethnology," including local centers for Native

crafts. Russian Federation legislation includes this category of heritage monuments under "historical monuments."

Legislation about protecting historical monuments of

the Russian Federation and the corresponding version

adopted in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area also

includes such concepts as "ensemble of monuments of

history and culture" and "objects of urban development."

However, neither of these pieces of legislation includes

a concept of "monuments of ethnic culture" or "historical-ethnographic landscape." Meanwhile, in the YamalNenets Okrug and other regions across the Russian

North, these particular categories of local heritage are

of special importance.

The status and preservation of monuments of ethnic culture and historical-ethnographic landscapes are

critical issues that should be incorporated in any local

policy (and politics) concerning indigenous residents

of the area. While ancient archaeological monuments,

as a rule, are already perceived as "no one's," the Native people regard sites of living ethnic culture, such

as, abandoned village sites, modern camps, graveyards,

active ritual, and memorial sites as "theirs." The connection of living sites with the present-day landscape

is obvious to them.

The Yamal-Nenets Okrug now has a substantial package of legislative documents that theoretically allow fully viable work concerning the preservation and

use of local historical and cultural heritage. Is it, therefore, possible to conclude that everything in this context is satisfactory, that the monuments of historicalcultural value included in the okrug administration's

preservation database are well protected, and that active work is being conducted for identifying new sites and entering them in the database? Unfortunately, nothing of the kind has occurred. The problem is not that there is no (or not enough)

legal basis for adequate protection of historical-cultural monuments, but that the existing system is simply

not working. Of course, there are many reasons for this

failure, including the lack of funds and trained staff for

agencies of heritage protection, at every level. More

detrimental, however, is the low level of awareness among the general population and in local administrations about the value of the historical-cultural monuments that they are obligated to protect. As an illustration, I will cite the unfortunately typical story of the ancient site of Ust-Poluy at the capital

city of Salekhard. The Ust-Poluy site dates back to the

first century BC and represents the remains of what we

believe was once an ancient, intertribal ritual center. The site is internationally renowned because of its

unique archaeological artifacts, among which there is a

large quantity of precious art objects, including pieces

made of bronze and gold. The site has been publicized in numerous articles, books, and catalogs, beginning with pioneer publications by two Russian archaeologists, Valerii N. Chernetsov and Wanda I. Moszinska.

These authors—through their long-term excavations, numerous writings, and academic presentations—have

made the site widely known to Russian and foreign

professional audience alike (i.e., Chernetsov and

Moszinska 1 974).

In the early 1990s, when our archaeological team

from the Ekaterinburg-based Institute of History and

Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Urals

NATALIA v. FEDOROVA 347
Branch) began new series of excavations at Ust-Poluy,

according to the then-federal heritage records, there were only two historical monuments of importance in

the entire Yamal-Nenets Okrug. One was the abandoned

town of Mangazeya, the remains of a seventeenth-century Russian fortress and a symbol of the early colonial

era in Siberia. The other was the above-mentioned UstPoluy archaeological site. Because the site area is within modern city boundaries, it is formally under the jurisdiction of the City of Salekhard Cultural Administration. Accordingly, municipal agencies should bear the

responsibility for the condition of the monument and

for its protection. However, to my great surprise, the

Cultural Administration personnel had neither any

knowledge of this monument's precise location, nor any concept of the manner in which the site should be

protected.

Because of many years of total ignorance and neglect, the monument once excavated by Chernetsov

and Moszinska, and their team, is now seriously damaged by dirt roads and various small construction

projects. In gullies surrounding the monument site, local residents have created garbage dumps. In addition,

for a long while, the riches of the site have been attracting amateur "archaeologists" or, actually, site-diggers. These intruders have contributed considerably to

the site's destruction and the plunder of archaeological valuables. In summary, the monument, already designated for the highest level of federal preservation

and located literally in sight of cultural authorities for Yamal-Nenets Okrug, has not been protected by any- one in any way. Whereas the Ust-Poluy site is the most

renown archaeological monument of the Yamal-Nenets

Okrug, the one listed in every historical textbook and

local guidebook, is it worthwhile to even mention the

status of protecting and documenting heritage monuments in many remote rural communities—much less on the open tundra?

Again, it should be emphasized that this situation is

not attributable to an absence of necessary legislation.

The chief factors behind such failures are the weakness

of local preservation agencies and the non-compliance

at all levels—from official bodies to private enterprise—

of federal and regional legislation for presentation of

historical-cultural heritage and its individual monuments.

Many managers and landowners simply are not aware

of their responsibilities in this area. An effective measure to overcome such non-observance or ignorance

would be participation by both okrug and municipal

heritage-preservation agencies when permits for any

kind of economic activity are issued. All areas that

require construction permits, from a large oil-and-gas

pipeline to a new cowshed, should go through mandatory historical-cultural evaluation. During the evaluations, professional archaeologists should survey the

given areas, identif/ing any significant historical-cultural sites that should be protected.

Unfortunately, in all the above-mentioned legislative acts, issues of identification, registration, protection, and possible use of historical-cultural monuments

are resolved exclusively through an approach that uses

"specific" monuments, that is, "individual and highly

localized objects" ( Shul'gin 1994). Nowhere are these monuments being evaluated in conjunction with the

surrounding landscape (Fig. 1 09). Accordingly, nowhere

is such surrounding landscape being protected legislatively, and nowhere is it being evaluated for its special

or cultural value.

For the last ten years, regular archaeological evaluations have been conducted at new construction sites

in only one district of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug—the

Pur District in the southernmost part of the region.

Purneftegaz, a regional oil-and-gas company, is financing this work. As a result, in the Pur District alone, sixtyeight new archaeological monuments and ethnic cultural monuments have been discovered. An understanding is gradually developing among the local oil-andgas industry, the local administration, and the general

population about the importance of considering ancient and traditional Native sites as historical-cultural

(ethnographic) landscapes.

Purneftegaz is not the only large, local company

348 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ YAMAL
/ 09/ Nenets domestic reindeer graze at an ancient site, Vary-Khadyta-2.

that allocates funds for conducting archaeological

evaluations. From the late 1980s through the early

1990s, a Tobolsk Teachers' College archaeologicalethnographic team (led by Dr. Andrei V. Golovnev) received funding from the Lengiprotrans enterprise.

Lengiprotrans was a large government enterprise

charged with producing a feasibility report for the construction of the Ob-Bovanenkovo Railway. Another

example was the joint Russian-American heritage pro- gram called "The Living Yamal." Under this three-year

program (1 994-1 996), significant work was carried out

in documentation of historical and cultural heritage on

the Yamal Peninsula. The program was financed by an American oil company, AMOCO-Eurasia, and carried out

with assistance from the local Russian gas company,

Nadymgazprom (Fitzhugh 2000; Krupnik and

Narinskaya 1998).

In fact, my experience of many years confirms that

it is often easier for archaeologists to work with large

companies for several reasons:

—The mass media now covers their ventures constantly, and this coverage is frequently critical. The

media attention includes coverage from the per- spective of preservation of the environment and/

or historical-cultural heritage. —Legislative control and the pressure of public

opinion are much more effective in ensuring proper

heritage awareness for larger projects by "big business." —In today's Russia, large oil-and-gas companies

have the ability to finance historical-cultural evalu- ation of the areas allocated for industrial construction and/or mineral development.

In contrast to prosperous industrial companies, municipal agencies such as city and district administrations commonly have no funds to sponsor historicalcultural work. For example, for the past three years,

the Priuralsk District Administration has been trying to

launch a program for identifying and registering archaeological monuments in watersheds of the LongotYegan and Shchuchya (Pike) Rivers. In 1 999, and again

in 2000, this work was shut down because of lack of

NATALIA v. FEDOROVA 349
funding. For the same reason, a similar survey begun in 1994 in the Shuryshkar District of the Yamal-Nenets

Okrug has not been completed. This list of hobbled

projects, unfortunately, continues.

Monuments of Ethnic Culture

"Monuments of living culture" are a special category of

historical-cultural heritage monuments. These monuments include ritual places (shrines, sacrificial sites, sites

of ceremonial practice, and so on); funerary complexes

(such as, cemeteries, separate tombs, and khalmery--

aboveground burial places; Fig. 110); settlements, including nomadic reindeer-herder camps; sites related

to various subsistence activities; and ethnographic landscapes that have special value for the local population. As they continue functioning, these imprints of human presence on the landscape have a specific, distinguishing attribute—they can be moved or partially

destroyed, intentionally or unintentionally, in the course

of daily activities or by ignorant intruders. The study, documentation, and possible protection

of these monuments of living culture are complicated

precisely by their aliveness—their active use by con- temporary local residents, who frequently do not wish

to share information about them. Ritual sites can be

taboo for several categories of people [see Khar-yuchi,

this volume]. Surveys and even visits by outsider researchers frequently cause negative reactions among

local indigenous residents. In addition, in the current

practice of Russian archaeology, these traces of living

culture(s) are "too young" to be studied by archaeologists; and Russian ethnographers almost never engage

in the mapping and detailed documentation of such

sites, like Native graveyards and other burial places

that are absolutely necessary for any protective measures to be taken.

Resources of Local Agencies for Heritage

Registration and Protection in Yamal

The main agency of the okrug administration in charge

of registering and protecting monuments of history and

culture is called the "Okrug Inspectorate for Protection and Use of Monuments of History and Culture." This

agency is a branch of the okrug's Department of Culture, Youth Policy, and Sports and is located in Salekhard. The inspectorate's long name reflects the essence of

this establishment fully enough: the agency is, for the

present, still a non-independent link in a long, complicated chain of administrative command and bureaucratic paperwork. Therefore, the agency simply has neither the power nor the opportunity to enact any inde- pendent policy, particularly if a dispute arises that involves the powerful construction or oil-and-gas companies.

Nevertheless, in comparison with even the recent

past, some positive shifts are evident. Just a few years

ago, in 1 999, there was only one employee working on all these issues for the documentation and protection of historical-cultural monuments in a territory of about 750,000 square kilometers [almost half the area

of the state of Alaska]. The Okrug Inspectorate staff now has six permanent employees—the Chief of the

Inspectorate; two specialists in registration and protection of monuments of architecture, history, and culture; two archaeological monument specialists; and one document technician/archivist (as of 2002). However,

the staffing situation is much worse at the district level,

with historical protection specialists on administration

staffs in only two of seven districts.

It is clear that these severely limited personnel resources are totally inadequate for carrying out viable,

comprehensive work in registering and protecting

monuments. The problem is complicated further by

conditions specific to the Yamal-Nenets Okrug, primarily, by the huge size of areas in which there simply are no roads, the difficulty of communicating with various

distant arctic regions, and the small number of permanent settlements. These obstacles, together with the major industrial development of areas far removed from

populated locations, mandate the development of specific, innovative approaches to the protection of heritage and historical-cultural landscapes.

350 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ YAMAL
1 10/ Khalmers, traditional Nenets burial sites lil<e this one, are always located on top of hills or on drier sandcovered uplands.

In 2001 , under orders of the Committee on Coordination of Scientific Research of the Yamal-Nenets Okrug

Administration, a new initiative titled "Program for the

Identification, Study, and Use of the Historical-Cultural

Heritage of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area" was

outlined. The executor was the Institute of History and

Archaeology of the Urals Branch of the Russian Academy of Science in Ekaterinburg, with two archaeologists, Drs. Konstantin G. Karacharov and Natalia V.

Fedorova, acting as primary investigators for the pro- gram (Fedorova 2000a). In the program's outline, all

current legislative documents in heritage preservation,

at both federal and okrug levels, were reviewed; and

the status of heritage protection in the area was analyzed. A set of measures to improve protection of Yamal- Nenets Okrug monuments and historical-cultural heritage sites was presented.

A program PI, Dr. Konstantin Karacharov, introduced

the program in August 2001 at the 1 1th International

Congress of Innovative Technologies for the Oil-and- Gas Industry, Energy, and Communications (CITOGIC) in

Salekhard. For the first time, a special workshop on

issues related to indigenous people was included on

the Congress agenda. Dr. Karacharov spoke about the Yamal heritage program during the roundtable discussion, which was titled "The Culture and Lifestyle of

Peoples of the North Under the Conditions of Oil-and- Gas Development." Incidentally, at the last plenary session of the Congress, when the discussions in all the Congress workshops were summarized, that particular

workshop was simply overlooked. Its chair, anthropologist Dr. Andrei Golovnev, was not even given the opportunity to present his very thoughtful summary of

the panel deliberations.

However, despite the various setbacks, the program

leaders very much hope that, when new normative documents are enacted to implement our recommendations,

the public attitude toward historical-cultural heritage

NATALIA V. FEDOROVA 351
will change and Yamal-Nenets Okrug heritage preservation agencies will be able to work more effectively.

Therefore, we have proposed several new types of

activity for the identification and inventory of historical-cultural sites.

Significant roles in these activities would be assigned to local indigenous people. Such activity could

include, for example, correspondence work such as

gathering information about monuments of archaeol- ogy and ethnic culture in the places where correspondents live and filling out questionnaires about the monuments, marking their locations on a map, and describing their external appearance and condition. In the program's prospectus, a similar questionnaire for

describing ritual sites was proposed. To my knowledge, that questionnaire was already being used in sum- mer 2001 by participants of a group engaged in documentation of Native sacred sites in the Taz District of

the okrug.

Status of Heritage Preservation Efforts

in Yamal Today

The status of many historical-cultural monuments on

the Yamal Peninsula is quite familiar to the author, as I

have worked as a field archaeologist in this area since

1994. During that time, I have had the opportunity to engage not only in field surveys for identif/ing new monuments of archaeology and ethnic culture, but also

in many stationary site excavations. Over several years,

our field archaeology teams interacted closely with the

local Nenets people; often their summer tents were

within accessible range of our site camp.

In this long-term study of the ancient cultures of

Yamal, and in daily contact with the living culture of

today's Nenets herders, the recognition blossomed that

northern surroundings are a truly organic unit. In other

words, the natural and human environment in the Arctic is unified: the river, tundra, lakes, birds and fishes,

and dwarf tundra birches; the remains of the ancient monuments that we uncovered; and the modern Nenets,

who often use the same sites as their distant ancestors,

are unified. I came to acknowledge that no archaeological monuments exist solely on their own merits (no

simple task for a site archaeologist). They are all parts

of a unified historical-ethnographic landscape, in which

it is impossible to comprehend either ancient or modern cultural development without living on the land for

a time.

In August 2001 , our group surveyed the downstream

area along the Venga-Yakha River near the town of

Yar-Sale in the southernmost area of the Yamal Peninsula. The survey was that rare case when the actual

idea of identification of local heritage sites for the pur- pose of protection had come from district authorities,

from the Committee on Affairs of Youth, Culture, and

Sports (analogous to the Yamal-Nenets Okrug department in charge of heritage preservation mentioned

above). It was no surprise that this rare department head was the professional museum worker and trained archaeologist Konstantin Oshchepkov. He is an old friend and like-minded person who takes everything concerning local heritage closely to heart: monuments of archaeology, ethnic culture, or history, and other matters. He is virtually the only Yamal administration executive who tries to put industrial expansion on the Yamal

Peninsula under some sort of control, at least by the

historical-cultural evaluation of the areas approved for new construction and oil-and-gas development. ^

In the course of two weeks we found more than ten

ancient settlements— more accurately, complexes of

old settlements—in an area about three kilometers on

the left bank of the Venga-Yakha River. All the monuments had a similar feature: they were located on a

high portion of a bedrock bench and thus were situated on natural, sandy knolls formed as a result of freezing processes. We managed to identify at least three

types of dwellings, clearly localized according to season. Some of them were summerhouses built on high,

breezy sites oriented toward the river (their remains

look like shallow, rounded pits). Others were winter

houses constructed on the lee side of the heights, with

well-defined traces of corridor-like outlets. The rest were

352 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ YAMAL
/ / // The Tiutey-Sale 1 (Walrus Cape; Russian: Morz

ence of an "Eskimo type" sea-mammal hunting culture

traces of portable tent dwellings, constructed on elevated platforms that are quite similar to modern reindeer herders' tents. The dating of the settlements was done through

artifacts collected during the excavation, mainly fragments of ceramic and stone tools. The largest portion

of the finds is associated with the Bronze Age, the

particular time when the shore of the Venga-Yakha River was populated most densely. The Venga-Yakha River

has a large fish population; in addition, herds of wild

reindeer (caribou) used to pass through the valley on

their seasonal migration. For these reasons, these sites

provided an area superbly suited to the complex hunting-and-fishing economy so typical of the area's Bronze Age population.

The settlements we found are so well suited to the

surrounding environment that together they represent

a tightly knit complex, a unique natural-archaeological

landscape, which should be evaluated as such.

Today, on the Yamal Peninsula, more than 1 00 ar-

'vyi) site, long considered critical evidence for the exist1 the Yamal Peninsula (see Fitzhugh 2000).

chaeological monuments of various times are known.

The most ancient site, Yuribey 1 , dates back to the

Mesolithic Age, or about 9,000 years ago. Many sites from the Neolithic and Bronze ages are known; but by

far the greatest number is associated with the Iron Age,

that is, from the third century BC to the fourteenth century AD. Like the sites along the Venga-Yakha River

that we discovered during the 2001 season, all the sites

are inscribed in the environmental landscape and

merged with it, and cannot be studied and preserved

without it (Fig. 111).

Sites of living ethnic culture are part of the special

category of heritage monuments. Like historical-cultural monuments, there is no doubt about the connection of these monuments with the landscape. Stated more correctly, through their very existence, they are

fully connected with a certain type of landscape. For

example, sacred sites were frequently connected with

certain natural features, cemeteries were created on high,

outlying locations (see Fig. 1 10), and so on. However,

NATALIA v. FEDOROVA 353
it has been only in recent years that sites left by the

present-day Nenets population or its ancestors began

to be registered and designated for preservation.

In summer 2001, a group composed of Calina P.

Kharyuchi, Michael N. Okotetto, and Leonid A. Lar conducted major work in identif/ing and describing modern sacred places in the Taz District [Kharyuchi, this

volume]. Some Native graveyards of the eighteenth

through the beginning of the twentieth century were

identified and documented by our field parties. In 2001

,

a detailed study of one historical Native cemetery, first

surveyed in 1909, was published after many years of

delay (Murashko and Krenke 2001). I believe that the

publication of the latter volume will promote the further study and better protection of many similar sites.

At present, Native cemeteries are in an extremely miserable condition; in addition to destruction due to uncontrolled oil-and-gas exploration, they are now threat- ened by numerous collectors of antiquities and gravediggers (Fedorova 2000a: 1 1 ). There are plentiful bronze ornaments at many historical cemeteries, and glass and

metal cookware and utensils lie on the surface, quite

accessible to such collectors. When an ethnic-cultural landscape that contains a

valuable historical monument is destroyed or is trans- formed by modern construction, the monument's very

existence becomes senseless, and its value to the local indigenous people vanishes. We witnessed one such

situation in 2001 (as in many previous years). Our group

had found a Native cemetery of the early nineteenth

century within the boundaries of the modern village of

Salemal. No one in the community reportedly knew

anything about the cemetery, and even the human bones

that teenagers had dug up periodically had not aroused

in the populace a desire to come to terms with the

situation. This situation was, surprisingly, occurring in

an area where the memory of ancestral cemeteries has

been kept for several centuries. Apparently, the reason

the cemetery appeared forgotten was the destruction—

in this case, for modern construction—of the ethnographic landscape that contained it.

It is clear that there is little sense in framing Yamal

heritage preservation policy in the context of protecting individual cultural monuments, because they

have always been inscribed in their surrounding en- vironments. Thus, an integrative approach governed

by the concept of historical-cultural (ethnographic)

landscape will ensure not only better protection of

the monuments for the future, but also their study in

a real context. New Trends and Prospects

This short overview demonstrates that, in recent years, some changes have occurred regarding heritage protection in Yamal. Some newer trends that are furthering

the protection of local monuments of historical-cultural heritage are also worth mentioning.

—First, the establishment of the Research Center

for Humanitarian Studies on Indigenous Peoples of the North in Salekhard, with its all-Native staff, has

made a significant difference. The center was cre- ated about 1 years ago, and the documentation

and study of local sacred sites of the Yamal indig- enous population is featured very highly on its agenda ( Kharyuchi, this volume - ed.).

—Second, in recent years, the initiative for heritage evaluation of areas that are to undergo economic

development, particularly oil-and-gas development,

is coming more often from the departments of in- digenous peoples at the okrug and district level, instead of from business ventures or other agencies. For example, the above-mentioned survey of

the Longot-Yegan River area, where exploration work

for gold extraction has been under way, was initi- ated by the Priuralsk District Administration, or by

its Department of Indigenous Peoples, to be more

precise. The staff members in many departments of indigenous peoples are Native. These employees

understand perfectly well the value of the ethno- graphic components of cultural heritage and the importance of protecting relatively "young" cultural monuments, that is, living sites and actively used

sacred places. —Third, there has been a noticeable trend for business organizations and gas companies to ap- proach scientific institutions (such as academic

institutes and universities) with a request to con- duct a historical-cultural evaluation of areas al354 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ YAMAL
located for development.

These trends are encouraging, but the scale of progress

is still insufficient. Summary

The concept of historical-cultural landscape is integral to the entirety of the environment and the many

occupational imprints left by ancient and modern

human groups on the Yamal Peninsula. Ideally, this

integrative concept should become a cornerstone

in policymaking for local agencies that regulate protection and use of cultural-historical heritage. To date,

however, the work of these agencies has been oriented toward the concept of separate, individual historical monuments and sites that need documentation and protection. Unfortunately, no effective

agency or system for protection of local historicalcultural heritage yet serves the Yamal-Nenets Au- tonomous Area as a whole or the Yamal Peninsula

in particular. Neither designation for heritage preservation nor even the term "historical-cultural landscape" yet figures in the legislative acts and practices of local government agencies. However, some

favorable new trends with regard to protection of

cultural heritage have appeared in recent years—in

both Russia as a whole and the Yamal-Nenets Okrug—

which I have tried to summarize in this article. It is

especially important to emphasize the increasingly

active participation of the local Native people in

this process. All of these new trends offer hope for

possible shifts toward a better situation in the near

future.

Acknowledgments

This article was written with assistance from Grant No.

01-01 -0041 2a from the Russian National Scientific Fund. The author is grateful to Igor Krupnik for many valuable editorial comments and to Natalia Narinskaya and

Konstantin Oshchepkov for information on policies and

resources of local agencies that are active in heritage

preservation in Yamal.

Notes

1 . Translated by Georgene Sink; edited by

Igor Krupnik.

2. See more on the current economic and administrative status of Yamal in Galina Kharyuchi's

paper, this volume—ed.

References

Chernetsov, Valery N., and Wanda I. Moszhinska

1 974 The Prehistory of Western Siberia. Translated by Henry N. Michael. London and Montreal: Arctic

Institute of North America/McGill-Queens University

Press. Fedorova, Natalia V. 2000a Sem' let Yamal'skoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii (Seven years of the Yamal Archaeological Expedition: results from the past and a task for the fu- ture). Nauchnyi vestnil<. Bulletin 3:4-1 2. Salekhard. 2000b Olen', sobaka, kulaiskii fenomen i legenda o

sikhirtia (A reindeer, a dog, the Kulai phenomenon,

and the legend of Sikhirtia). In Drevnosti Yamala 1

,

Andrei Golovnev, ed., pp. 54-66. Ekaterinburg and

Salekhard: Russian Academy of Sciences, Urals Branch. Fitzhugh, William W. 2000 V poiskakh Graalia (Searching for the Grail: Virtual Archaeology in Yamal and the Circumpolar

Theory). In Drevnosti Yamala 1 , Andrei Golovnev, ed., pp. 25-53. Ekaterinburg and Salekhard: Russian Academy of Sciences, Urals Branch.. Krupnik, Igor, and Natalya Narinskaya

1 998 Zhivoi Yamal/Living Yamal. Bilingual exhibit catalog. Moscow: Sovetskiy Sport.

Murashko, Olga, and Nikolai Krenke

2001 Kul'tura aborigenov Obdorskogo Severa v XIX

veke. Po arkheologo-etnograficheskim kollektsiiam Muzeia antropologii MGU (The culture of indigenous

people of Obdorsk North in the nineteenth century.

From materials of the archaeological-ethnographic

collections, Museum of Anthropology, Moscow State

University). Moscow: Nauka.

Shul'gin, Pavel i. 1994 Unikal'nye territorii v regional'noi politike

(Unique areas in regional politics). In Unikal'nye territorii V kul'turnom i prirodnom nasledii regionov, lu. L. Mazurov, comp., pp. 35-43. Moscow: Institut

Naslediia.. Yamal

2000 Yamal: Na rubezhe tysiacheiietiia/ Yamal: On

the Edge of the Millennium. Salekhard and St. Peters- burg: Artvid and Russian Collection (parallel Russian

and English editions).

NATALIA v. FEDOROVA 355
^ami (^ulturai Rentage in jNjorwatj

P>etween Local }<Cnowlec!ge and the fower of the ^tate

TORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER

Sami (Saami) history in northern and middle FennoScandinavia extends far back in time. As with all deep

prehistory, many aspects of early Sami history are un- known. In Norway, the strong and rather systematic

Norwegianization of the Sami from the end of the eighteenth century to approximately 1 980, plus the lack of

written documentation from the Sami themselves, makes

the recent Sami past largely unknown, obscured or hidden. All Sami cultural sites and monuments older

than 100 years have been protected by law since

1 978, and since 1 994 the responsibility for Sami cultural heritage management has been in the hands of

the Sami Parliament.

In this article, we will attempt to portray how the management of Sami cultural heritage has stressed the importance of living, local knowledge both as a long- term objective and as a strategy to further the cause of

preservation, and how this management relates to the power structures in the Norwegian government system. An institutionalized indigenous self-management

of cultural heritage is quite exceptional. We will give

an account of how Sami cultural heritage management

is organized and how it works, using some examples

of the Sami cultural landscape and the efforts to document them. Even though Sami cultural heritage man- agement in Norway is institutionally rather exceptional,

there is still a reason to evaluate critically whether such

an institutionalization has given the Sami the authority

to work with their cultural heritage to the extent that such an organization suggests.

Organization of Sami Cultural Heritage

Management in Norway

In 1 990 the management of Norwegian cultural heritage was reorganized into a more decentralized and

clearer political administrative organization. The regional administration charged with cultural heritage

management was moved away from the four regional museums in Tromso, Trondheim, Bergen and Oslo into

a cultural department within each of the 1 9 county

administrations. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage

(Riksantikvaren) in Oslo became the central professional

institution with responsibility for creating a coherent

national policy and coordinating collaborative tasks.

Simultaneously, Sami cultural heritage management was

partially separated from national cultural heritage management. However, it was another four years, until

1 994, before a separate administration for Sami cultural heritage became operational, with authority and

responsibilities equivalent to the county heritage man- agement administrations. The reorganization came as

a natural consequence of the Norwegian Parliament

passing amendment §1 10a to the Norwegian Constitution, as well as the law that established the Sami

Parliament and other Sami rights {Sameloven - the Sami

Act) in 1 987. The Norwegian Constitution now requires

the state to provide the conditions and rights that

allow the Sami to preserve and develop their language,

culture, and social life.

After the ratification of the constitutional amendment and the Sami Act, the Sami Parliament was estab356 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
lished in 1989 as a body elected by the Sami for the

Sami. In 1 994 Sami cultural heritage management was

organized with a council nominated by the Sami Parliament. The Samisk kulturminnerad{Sam\ Cultural Heritage Council) was politically and administratively subject to the Sami Parliament and professionally subject

to the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment and the

Directorate for Cultural Heritage. The administration of Sami cultural heritage was further decentralized by the

Sami Cultural Heritage Council, which established regional offices in Snaasa (Snasa), Ajluokta (Drag in

Tysfjord), and Romssa (Tromso), as well as a regional

office and a coordinating main administration in Vuonnabahta (Varangerbotn). In January 2001 , the administrative authority for Sami cultural sites was transferred from the Sami Cultural Heritage Council to the Sami Parliament itself. The administrative authority

granted by the Cultural Heritage Act is so far the only

law management function the Sami Parliament has in Norway.

The importance of aSami-run cultural heritage man- agement sector has grown in concert with increasing

political and cultural consciousness in the Sami people.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Norwegian State planned and accomplished several big development

projects in the Sami territories, including a hydroelectric plant in the watershed of the Alta-Kautokeino River

in Finnmark. This area encroachment issue, which had

consequences for the maintenance and development

of Sami culture, language, and life style, demonstrated

to the Sami the importance of the right of co-determination. In 1973, the first job position for Sami cultural

heritage was established at the Tromso Museum, now

part of the University of Tromso, as a direct conse- quence of the planned water power expansion in northern Norway. The 1978 Norwegian Cultural Heritage

Act gave preservation status to Sami cultural sites more

than 1 00 years old for the first time, and in 1 992 the

law was revised to include cultural landscapes, a central idea in Sami cultural heritage. The Cultural Heritage Act states specifically that all Sami cultural monuments and sites older than 1 00 years are automatically protected by law, including those sites that are

linked to historical events, either by belief or tradition.

In contrast, although the cultural landscapes are not

automatically protected by law, they are considered a

part of the cultural heritage and identity. The Sami

Parliament provisionally designates a cultural site or monument as Sami, but if other participants in the

regional cultural heritage apparatus disagree, the

Directorate for Cultural Heritage makes a final decision (Holme 2001:142).

Practical Management

The Sami Parliament's cultural heritage management

department is the authority for all Sami cultural monuments and sites that are included in the Cultural Heritage Act, and the Parliament gives statements concerning all proposed projects that imply land seizure in the Sami settlement area. Today nine executive officers have the responsibility to give written feedback regarding protected Sami cultural monuments and sites,

valuable Sami landscapes subject to plans for area encroachment, the maintenance of sites and landscapes,

and the use of these sites and landscapes for research

or public purposes. The department receives approximately 1 800 inquiries per year. Earlier survey and site

registration projects in Norway did not direct attention

to Sami cultural sites or the types of cultural sites and

monuments that are most naturally interpreted within a Sami context. There is no complete summary of Sami

cultural sites and monuments, and in large areas with

both early and contemporary Sami settlements the systematic documentation of Sami cultural heritage and

their associated environmental settings is still imperfect. Fieldwork involving inspection, registration and

interviews of local informants in connection with concrete development projects, is therefore a big and important part of cultural heritage management. To provide an impression of the fieldwork, it can be mentioned that the 2000 field season registered 343 proTORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 357
tected, but previously unknown, Sami cultural sites and

monuments spread out over 1 73 locations (Sametinget,

Samisk kulturminnerad 2000).

Several circumstances make it difficult to document

Sami cultural sites, the evidence of earlier Sami presence and manner of living. The Sami possessed little

or no written documentation of their daily life and culture prior to 1900. During World War II, when Norway

was occupied by Nazi Germany (1 940-45) and, particularly during the last year of German occupation in the

North (1944), virtually all buildings in the majority of

the Sami settlement areas were burned down and the

population was removed coercively. After 1945 the

northern areas, like the rest of northern Europe, experienced fast and extensive technological and material

growth. That growth resulted in basic changes in the

people's everyday life and activity and also caused a

great deal of traditional knowledge about landscape

use, behavior toward nature, and manufacture of handicrafts to be gradually lost. To the Sami Parliament, living tradition and human memory is therefore an equally

critical source for understanding history and prehistory

as the physical cultural monuments and sites. Older

people who are connected with local places can share

concrete and often extremely detailed narratives about,

and interpretations of, physical structures and wider

cultural landscapes. This approach can be accused of

reproducing the much held view that Sami culture was

static, unable to develop (Olsen 1 986), but the lack of a

so-called "scientific basis" cannot negate the testimonies about their own past that one encounters in Sami

communities. Local Sami understanding gives good and

relevant additional information about cultural sites, monuments, and landscapes, because activities, events,

beliefs, visions, and traditions are written into the physical remains (Skandfer 2001 ). This approach is therefore

important as a contrast and corrective to what we as

cultural heritage managers often assume, without local

understanding: we read activities outofthe cultural sites and monuments based on a more general knowledge.

Local understanding has also often greater relevance

and value for modern people living in the local context

than interpretations from outside.

During the last several years, the Sami Parliament

has experienced a possible shift in this attitude towards

local vs. public/scientific knowledge of cultural heritage. Local communities ask to have their cultural sites

registered, including sacred places, and thereby made

public or available for public use or research. We are

beginning to see the contours of increasing local interest in generalizing knowledge on cultural heritage and

an acceptance of the Sami Parliament's effort to manage Sami cultural heritage. It is a great challenge to

find working forms for managing knowledge of Sami

cultural heritage that are considered legitimate within

both Sami society and the larger, national administrative apparatus.

In addition to its mandated administrative authority, the Sami Parliament's cultural heritage management

department implements special projects, such as the

protection of Sami buildings and the documentation of

eastern Sami history in Norway, Russia, and Finland.

Sami Cultural Landscapes and Local

Understanding

Sami cultural heritage is a broad concept because, naturally enough, the categories that fall under that concept span large distances in both time and place. Cultural sites can be regarded as parts of Sami cultural

heritage when they are known either from written historical or living Sami tradition to have been explicitly

used within a past Sami cultural context. Sami tradition

or sites can also be regarded as Sami cultural remains

when orally transmitted local Sami knowledge more

implicitly relates them to the Sami cultural sphere. Cultural heritage can be physical manifestation of Sami

activities, such as resource procurement or religious

practice; where tradition and knowledge of past cus- toms is lost, only the cultural sites themselves testif/

to an earlier Sami presence. Certain types of cultural

sites can also be regarded as related to Sami prehis358 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
1 1 2/ Remains ofa traditional goa.hu (Sami turflnouse) and legally protected Sami farm buildings are parts of the same cultural landscape. Lille Molvik, Berlevaag municipality, coastal Finnmark.

tory insofar as they are physical manifestations of the

processes, which led to the establishment of the Sami

cultural character as known historically (Samisk

kulturminneplan 1 998-2001 : 1 ). The concept of cultural environment stresses the idea of sites that can be part

of spatial, temporal, and cultural units. A cultural land- scape is a large geographic or topographic unit that can include several cultural environments.

How the landscape is used depends particularly on how the landscape is understood, that is, on people's

knowledge about the land and the associations they

feel with it. Sami culture springs from a lifestyle that is

closely connected to their use of the land, and there is

a tight relationship between subsistence and religious

beliefs. The Sami cultural landscape is a Sami understanding of the land (Bjoru 1994:32; Gaukstad 1994:

38) articulated in the interplay between practical experience and historical consciousness. In accordance with Tim Ingold (1 987) these cultural landscapes could be

termed "taskscapes". The Sami cultural landscape includes many types of landscapes, from the oldest hunting, fishing, and catching (whales, seals, etc.) landscapes

to the different reindeer exploitation landscapes ranging from the small-scale reindeer herding of the 1 500s

to the extensive reindeer herding of the 1900s, and

further to the fishing-hunting-farming landscapes along

the sea coast and major rivers. Sami land use includes

coastal and inland areas, mountain plateaus, forests, and

river valleys. These have provided the basis for diver- gent forms of adaptation to the local environment. Just

as there are different Sami ways of living there are also

different ways of understanding and relating to the landscape. Despite the differences, there are nevertheless

similarities in storytelling, in landscape-form and place- name traditions, as well as in transmitted oral knowledge about the environment. This makes it possible to

talk about a distinctive Sami form of land-use (Gaski

2000:18).

TORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 359
The Sami language has a rich and detailed terminology for describing landscape changes and terrestrial forms. The language thereby becomes a topographic tool, through which large territories can be visually described with just a few words. A place name

can quickly and precisely convey, whether the place is

steep, passable, forested, windswept, or sheltered along

wide territorial areas. In this way, for example, reindeer

migration routes between diverse landscape areas can

be visualized (Mathisen 1 997). The Sami place-names

can tell how certain landscape space or landscape ele- ments were used or understood because of the distinctive weather conditions that the animals often met there; where people have lived before; where they fished or

hunted; where water crossings are; where reindeer

stopped at different times of the year; and where the dead are buried (JJernsletten 1 994:234). In all parts of

the Sami area the local population emphasizes that the

"Sami way" of traveling in open terrain is not to leave any clear traces on the land. Another general attitude,

especially among the elders, is that any buildings should

preferably be constructed in such a way that they re- semble nature and can go back to it after being used

(Fig.112). Therefore, it is often not the cultural sites

themselves that are evaluated as the most important

element in a local context, but the stories about the happenings and activities connected to the landscape

in which the cultural sites are located. A certain landscape can be directly related to traditional Sami subsistence, such as reindeer herding, hunting, fishing, trapping, cultivation, or tending domestic

animals, such that cultural sites will be identified and

related to these subsistence activities (Schanche 1 995).

These can encompass different types of turf hut (goahti)

and house foundations, houses, tent rings, settlement

areas, storage depressions in stone-scree, and constructions used to catch, mark, or milk reindeer (Fig.l 1 3). The landscape itself can also contain elements that

have had value and meaning in the Sami way of life

without any identifiable human impact being visible in

the terrain. These elements can be pastures or paths

connected to reindeer migration, sedge grass bogs or

alder woods that represent important domains of natural resources tied to daily life, or fishing site marks on

the shore that permit the re-finding of the fishing

grounds used previously.

Holy mountains, stones, forests, and lakes are ex- amples of landscape elements understood to a great

extent in a spiritual and mythical sense. The pre-Christian Sami religion was a hunter-gatherer religion marked

by ideas of nature wrapped in spiritualism (Hultkrantz

1 965). The landscape offered natural resources one could

harvest; but the landscape and its resources also al- lowed contact with a spiritual dimension. Sami believed

that one should bring sacrifices to sacred stones {sieidiei^

to receive good outcomes in hunting or fishing expeditions, and that one should honor holy mountains be- cause they are nests (homes) for holy beings. They

also believed that graves should be likewise respected

and treated with caution. The dead were even more a

part of the landscape than the living, inscribed in it through physical presence and cultural tradition. In

former times it was customary to formulate wishes to

the reindeer pastures and to ask places in the terrain

for permission to set up a tent and stay overnight (Oskal

1995:145). Local narratives about helpful ghosts and

what happens to someone who does not behave properly towards places in the landscape are very popular

throughout the whole Sami area. These stories constitute a form of collective memory and knowledge about

the proper mindset concerning a local environment

(Nergaard 1997:72). Many of the stories, legends, and

attitudes toward the landscape that had their origin in

Sami pre-Christian religion are still valid in Sami local

societies today, including those concerning cultural

heritage.

Sami cultural heritage management is one way to

relate to and preserve the human traces in the landscape. It allows the local Sami population to have the

opportunity to see their territories in light of a long

time perspective, and it tries to appreciate the tradition and the meaning that is added to these traces locally.

360 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
/ 1 3/ Remains ofa traditional Sami goaht\ ('turf Inut') for goats. Devddesvuoppmi, Inner Troms.

In the management of Sami cultural heritage, the value

of the cultural environment also depends on cultural

ascription and point of view (Samisk kulturminneplan

1998-2001:1). Sami cultural heritage management

stresses local knowledge because cultural heritage is a

central resource and reference point in the struggle for

a cultural survival and acknowledgment. Local stories and local knowledge are often the only narratives the Sami can tell about themselves. This form of heritage

management allows for different and sometimes opposing understandings of sites and landscapes. The inclusive attitude towards local knowledge and understanding can be seen as an expression of an ethical commitment towards living communities in the man- agement of culture heritage (Skandfer 2002).

In local Sami communities, knowledge of cultural

sites and cultural environments is very important to

one's identity and self-understanding. Being a bearer

of tradition, history, and cultural retention, and also of

the landscape's economic, social, and religious meaning has a value of its own. It encompasses knowledge

of how Sami in past times related to and utilized their

surroundings, and, no less important, the knowledge

and understanding of how they can and should relate

to the surroundings today. Tales of events in the landscape have traditionally been the means by which local Sami communities have shared knowledge and cultural ideas between generations. This socializes the younger generation into the landscape so that they

learn to travel in it and use it, conducting themselves

well, in order to take part in the previous generation's

adventures, as they become the beneficiaries and users of that knowledge (Gaski 2000; J. Jernsletten 2000;

N.Jernsletten 1 994; Nergaard 1 997).

The landscape is a cultural construction, man-made

and seen through a human perspective. The landscape

therefore becomes not only a physical presence, but

also the meaning that diverse cultural groups place on

the landscape. Local knowledge and local attitude are

essential for how the landscape is understood and valTORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 361
ued. The small local stories that perhaps only give

meaning to those who know the landscape intimately

can be of decisive importance to the landscape's worth

and meaning. This includes knowledge about the former

locations of good snare places for trapping grouse, or

places where the spring water is so clear that to wash

one's eyes in it improves one's vision. The association

of cultural environments with various locales is likewise applicable when various culture groups use the same landscape in different historic periods. In locales where the Sami are a minority, stories can be tales of

landscapes now lost to others.

In this regard, one can mention the Sami Parliament's

survey registration of Sami cultural sites in 1 997 related to the creation and expansion of national parks

in the Trondelag district, the more southern part of the Sami settlement area. A district pattern occurred: cultural landscapes including Sami dwelling sites, reindeer milk storage pits, and spring water sources were

registered, but the pasture sites for reindeer normally

associated with such localities—were missing. Instead,

in these landscapes summer mountain pastures were

connected to nearby Norwegian farms. Not coincidentally, pastures for reindeer gathering and milking are

preserved only at places where no Norwegian summer

mountain pastures are listed on the registry. When border commissioner Major Schnitler traveled through

Tydal in 1 742, he observed what many of today's infor- mants can tell, namely, that the fertile and nutrition-rich Sami pasture sites have been confiscated by the Nor- wegian farmers for dairy production (Fjellheim 1 998:44).

The Reindeer Landscape: A Sami Cultural

Landscape

We want to provide a general overview of the reindeer

herding landscape and its attached cultural sites as an example of one particular type of Sami cultural landscape. A reindeer herding landscape is marked both

by human activities and by the grazing habits of the

reindeer. The reindeer will seek the pastures they know

(Paine 1994:44) and the animals thereby represent a

stable element in the landscape. By watching the

reindeer's habits, the Sami herdsman learns about the dynamics between the reindeer herd and the landscape.

This creates a continuum over the generations in the

relationship between humans, animals, and landscape

(Henriksen 1 986:68 inj.jernsletten 2000:81 ).

During the winter time, the reindeer herds in most

parts of the Sami herding area choose to stay inland where they graze relatively close to each other. The

winter dwelling places of the reindeer-herding families

lie in a sheltered place in the terrain, often in a small

valley. In order to avoid the frost mist that accompanies the freezes in late fall and possible slush ice during the winter, the dwelling places were located slightly

distant from big rivers or lakes. The whole society lived

together in the winter dwelling places: children, women,

men, young and old. The buildings were often sturdier

constructions than those used during other seasons. The traditional winter building of the reindeer-herding

Samis is a goahti or gamme, which was either made of

a bent birch wood frame clad with birch bark and thick

turf, or of timber. Even very recent 0oa/7t/ foundations

can be nearly invisible on the surface today; they are

faint, round or oval banks of turf with a stone-set hearth

in the middle. In the eastern Sami area on the border

between present-day Norway, Finland, and Russia, it is documented ethnographically that the Sami communities had to change their winter dwelling places every

5-1 years in order to secure access to firewood.

All members of the society stayed at the winter

dwelling places over a longer period every year, allowing the government and the church to have more extensive contact with the Sami population. Churches and

local sheriff stations were built, and the dwelling places

gradually developed a more village character. A few of

the old dwelling places that started to be used year

round were Karasjok and Kautokeino in Norway, and

the populous so-called "samebyef (Sami villages) in Sweden: among them Karesuando, Jokkmokk,

Arvidsjaur and Arjeplog.

In early spring (March/April) the reindeer started to

362 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
move; in the northern Sami areas, usually toward the

coast, and the Sam! herders followed. The migrations

took place along the natural trails of the reindeer over

ridges and along watersheds. The community then split up into smaller units, but all family members undertook the trek. The migration took place with the reindeer pulling sleds while the ice still lay on rivers and

lakes. On the way the reindeer herd was driven and

tended, and the dwelling places were only along the

long route toward the coast and in the calving grounds.

In the snow-covered winter landscape, when it was difficult to find stones to frame a fireplace, they could

either use wood sticks, which we know were also used

in winter dwellings in inland Sweden, or sometimes

they even brought stones to the area with them in the

sleds. Those living places of a very short duration are

almost impossible to find today.

The families established a spring camp for some

weeks on the calving grounds before they moved on. The calving had to take place in warm and sheltered

surroundings, areas where cold spring nights were not a

threat to the newborn calves. Therefore, the spring dwelling areas are found in the forest, but near the treeline and preferably slightly toward the bare mountain top

where the snow could still carry the reindeer hooves,

as well as sleds and skis. The dwelling areas could be

located without immediate access to running water, since snow could be used in early spring. For the spring dwelling, the Sami built stone-set fireplaces and used wooden

frames to make a goahti, or they erected a lavvo, the Sami tent, and drew a felt canvas over it. In certain

places the winter family belongings were stored until

the next fall, while the summer equipment was taken

into use. In such places food storage holes can be

found in moraines or stone scree that became snowfree early and stayed frost-free in the spring. Here they

could find meat, cheese, and soured milk that had been

stored in the fall. The spring and fall places lay close to each other, since supplies and equipment had to be

stored and retrieved on the way to and from summer

sites. Some herds and Sami herdsmen still had quite a

/ 14/ Frame of a recent Sami summer herding tent, lawo in 0verbygd, Inner Troms.

distance to cover before arriving to the summer dwelling area, while others had already traversed most of

the distance and only had to go a short way. The summer dwelling sites were used into the late

fall. The lawo (summer tents - Fig.l 14) were set up

again near running water or good fishing places and

with easy access to reindeer pastures that lay in the

high mountains or on islands off the sea coast, where

the reindeer were less bothered by insects. Several

stone-set fireplaces are often found in one of these

dwelling places. Recent excavations of such fireplaces

in Mid-Troms, central in the Sami settlement area of Norway, showed that many dwelling places had been

used over several hundred years (Sommerseth 2001,

2004). The datings show that the steady landscape

use has preserved the local landscape understanding

and knowledge through many generations. Another

sign of an old summer dwelling site is fertile, perennial

TORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 363
meadows, often with few old trees in the middle, near

the former fireplace. These are reindeer milking pastures. The does were tied to the trees during the milking process, but otherwise they went free with their

calves in the enclosure. At the summer sites, several

activities also took place that did not leave direct physical traces: marking the calves with the owner's marks,

fishing, and collecting sage grass, alder bark, and

berries.

During the fall, Sami moved to the winter dwelling

places. In October, the breeding-month, the herd was

left in peace during rutting. The animals could not be

moved then. The late fall was also the slaughtering

season, so guiding and slaughter fences were set up in

the open terrain. The last trek to the winter dwelling

places took place with all the sleds tied together in a row after the snow had covered the ground.

Many aspects of specific knowledge are preserved

and kept alive in the local Sami communities, such as when the reindeer herd could move through a certain

landscape; how the ownership marking took place; where

the watering holes and washing places were located; which pastures were of good quality in different times

of the summer, depending on local weather patterns; how meat, milk, leather, or bark were processed, stored,

and used; and how the dwellings were constructed. Sami cultural heritage management realizes the need

to obtain and preserve this local knowledge, and utilizes much of its resources for that part of its work. But

it is necessary to be aware that written descriptions and

map drawings of activities and events also have influence on local knowledge and its transmission.

The Management of Sami Cultural Heritage and Local Knowledge

In arguing for a Sami cultural heritage management the meaning of identity management has been stressed.

Cultural heritage gives the Sami identity an historic

perspective, which is important both for cultural legiti- macy and cohesion (Sametingsplanen 1991:10). The

relation between the people of today and the cultural

traces of the past is understood as an emotional di- mension having to do with knowledge and cultural

self-maintenance. The Sami Parliament, therefore, considers the management of Sami cultural heritage as a

tool to strengthen the ties between the people and

their cultural characteristics (Schanche 1994). Emphasizing the identity forming a meaning of cultural heri- tage—implies that the Sami Parliament, in its cultural

heritage management role must be in constant communication with local communities that have the knowledge of cultural sites and of their identity-forming meaning (Fig.l 1 5). Local knowledge of use, stories, and concepts of landscape makes the individual aware that there

are others who do not have this knowledge or who do

not use the landscape in the same way. Knowledge

and the shared cultural entitlement granted through use and understandings of the landscape provide both a common empirical worldview and a means to discover

differences between people. Identity is shaped through

one's own understanding of the landscape and by balancing other, often contradictory understandings of the

landscape (Caski 2000: 1 8-9).

In arguing for self-management of Sami cultural

heritage, local knowledge has perhaps been vaulted to

the top because Sami local knowledge stands in a direct opposition to the Norwegian cultural heritage man- agement system. The preservation of Sami cultural heritage depends more on claiming local legitimacy than

does the preservation of the Norwegian cultural heritage remains. The ambiguous geographic borders of

the Sami territory mean that the Sami often have to expend energy to define what is "Sami." Such a de- mand is seldom or never placed on Norwegian cultural

heritage. The national historic narrative frame upon

which prehistory is produced, seems to render a Sami

prehistory impossible (Hesjedal 2001 : 291). Recognizing a Sami prehistory is therefore extremely difficult, because this implies an initial deconstruction of the

national Norwegian prehistory, constructed and reconstructed also within the frame of the Norwegian governmental system. As a counterweight against the Nor364 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAmILAND
/ 7 5/ Bj0rnesteinen ("The Bear stone") in Ceavccegeadgi/Mortensnes, Unjargga/Nesseby municipality. Many local Sami stones are connected to this stone.

wegian institutional monopoly on knowledge, local knowledge of the landscape argues strongly for an

exclusive Sami cultural competence (Kalstad 1991:8).

Placing an importance on local knowledge can therefore also be seen as indirectly subverting the majority's

pre-defined dichotomies, where the majority represents

scientific knowledge and the minority represents traditional and local knowledge (Schanche 1 993).

The context in which cultural sites are placed is

therefore crucial to acquiring an understanding and acceptance that the cultural sites are associated W\X.h the Sami prehistory and history. As an added benefit, there

is a balance between cultural sites and local communities. Local Sami communities and their knowledge

are important to establish a site's cultural connection.

At the same time, cultural sites offer a direct physical

manifestation of the Sami prehistoric and historic pres- ence in the area, and with that they become the basis

for forming Sami culture and society.

Mauken-Blatind: Sami Reindeer Herding

History in a Norwegian Farming Area

Mauken and Blatind are two mountains on the border

between Sweden and Norway in an area called Inner Troms. This area was first colonized by Scandinavian

farmers from southern Norway at the end of the eighteenth century and the dominant local history is a pioneer story about clearing the fields and establishing

farm settlements. Today's population is extremely aware of its particular south Norwegian culture; this

expresses itself, among other things, through dialect,

a different way of building, and strong musical traditions. However, written sources show that a Sami presence in this area goes back at least several hundred

years. Sami reindeer-herders who live in Sweden during the winter still use mountain regions within the Norwegian national borders as summer pastures; but

in the 1920s Norwegian national authorities closed

these pastures in Mauken and Blatind. Since the 1 950s

TORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 365
the area has been used for military training fields, but

because of its qualities as a reindeer pasture area, in

the 1 960s two Norwegian Sami reindeer herding families established themselves on an annual basis around

Mauken and Blatind. The long Sami history has been

ignored in the presentations and understandings of

the area's past. Between 1998 and 2001, the Ministry of Defense

planned to expand and connect the artillery ranges around Mauken and Blatind, so the Sami Parliament

undertook examinations of Sami cultural sites within

the planned field (Skandfer 1 998; Sommerseth 1 999-

2001 , 2001 ). One cultural site survey had already taken

place in 1989 and 1990, with the conclusion that the

planned military activities involved great wear and tear

on, harm to, and in the worst case, destruction of the

legally protected cultural sites, and that the enlargement and connection of the artillery ranges would likely

bring further threat to a long list of hitherto unregistered Sami cultural sites. It was concluded that from a

cultural heritage preservation point of view, it was impossible to accept the plans. Nevertheless, the plans were approved by the Norwegian Parliament in 1996,

and in the winter of 1 998 the Ministry of Defense started

the project. In spring 1998 the Sami Parliament instituted an operation to fulfill its judicial administrative

obligation toward cultural heritage management by

gathering new information through registration work,

place-name investigations, and reviews of written sources

that address Sami tradition in the area, creating a great

deal of new data that needed to be processed. In spring

1999 a project worker was employed to administrate

the great amount of new information. The work was

completed in the fall of 2001 , with a summary report

finding that 214 registered structures were spread out

over 1 33 sites (Sommerseth 2001 ). Most of the registered sites can be tied directly to the tradition of Sami

reindeer herding, but some findings date back to the

Stone Age hunting and fishing economy. Other cultural sites are historic remains dating from after the

establishment of Sami farm settlements. The registered

sites and excavated archaeological materials now form

part of the empirical database for Ingrid Sommerseth's

ongoing Ph.D. project for the University of Tromso on

the transition from hunting wild reindeer to reindeer

pastoralism and herding (Sommerseth 2004).

Most of the registered structures were stone-set fireplaces that once were located in the middle of the

lavvo (Sami tent), some of which have been excavated

with interesting results (Fig.l 1 6). Several charcoal hori- zons show that the same fireplace was used several

years in a row, and that fireplaces at the same site can

vary in age by several hundred years; the oldest excavated in the area went back to the fifteenth century

(Sveen 2000 in Sommerseth 2001). Information about

the dating and seasonal use period implies that at least two separate herd migration routes were established in

this area by the fifteenth century, making the Sami reindeer herding tradition in InnerTroms stretch as far back

in time, as others have documented, in what are today

the more central parts of the Sami settlement area. The

results also support seventeenth and eighteenth century written records that described many Sami activities around the Mauken-Blatind area. The investigations also show that there is a certain correlation be- tween the Sami reindeer herding settlement sites and

the older hunting and fishing seasonal camps, as in so many other places in the Sami area. This suggests that

there is a close connection between the local landscape knowledge of the reindeer-herding Sami communities and the older hunting and fishing understanding and use of the landscape. With the help of local informants—among others, older Swedish Sami reindeer herders and those who travel with the reindeer

today—one can see spring, summer, and fall habitation

areas that seem to spring out of the landscape. Seen in

the light of how knowledge and understanding is

passed on from generation to generation as a way to

teach people how to behave toward both the landscape and the community, it can be claimed that an

extended, probably, several-thousand-year-old record

of habitation and utilization in Sami reindeer herding

366 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
areas can be relevant to the local Sami self-understanding. It is equally reasonable to claim that the presentday local Sami self-understanding and knowledge

is relevant to the general understanding of such

ancient cultural sites. The mandated research of the Sami Parliament

brought to light a neglected and virtually forgotten

Sami past in Inner Troms. The Sami population that had

used the area around Mauken-Blatind following migration routes established long before the 1923 closure

of the national border between Norway and Sweden

became excluded from its history simply because the

border was shut to a population technically residing in Sweden. The current nearby immigrant Norwegian population knew neither about the Sami place-names nor about the sites that bear witness to previous Sami presence. However, the deep historic roots and the close

cultural correlation between the modern reindeer

economy and the long tradition it is part of provide the

basis for appraisal and recognition of Sami presence and Sami rights. The Sami Parliament's work caused

the Ministry of Defense to adjust some of its plans so

that selected Sami cultural sites can be preserved for

the future. As a result, the Sami Parliament's work can

perhaps contribute to both the local awareness of the

long Sami history in the area (which in the course of

the last 200 years was surrounded by a Norwegian farming landscape) and to the increase of knowledge in Sami societies about their own (pre)history in an area

to which they now have little or no access.

The Management of the Cultural Self-Concept

The Sami Parliament's weighting of local knowledge in

its management of cultural sites is the good part of the

story. In its management, local knowledge is respected.

Through everyday efforts, one realizes that part of the management of knowledge is not just giving, but—

probably more importantly—receiving. The management of cultural sites is an exercise in making conscious and justified choices. The cultural sites' local

meaning, presence, and the continued use of areas

have vital importance to the choices that have to be

made. The focus on local knowledge in the preservation of Sami cultural heritage provides management

practice with a sense of social proximity and immediate meaning. In the management of Sami cultural heritage, the Sami Parliament to a large degree is ensuring

that the local Sami communities have the opportunity

/ / 6/ Fireplace at a Sami reindeer herding camp exca- vated in 2002 as a part of tine ongoing PAi.D project

by Ingrid Sommersetlis, at Devddesjdvri, InnerTroms.

Tine camp was probably used during the fall time, and

dates back to AD 1400-1445.

to tell and learn to recognize their own history, to form

their own identity, and thereby master greater ability

to select among various options in the formation of

their own lives and culture (Fellesdal 1 999). In this way,

the preservation of Sami cultural heritage will contribute to increased equality for cultural maintenance and

development. This simultaneously minimizes signals of

inferiority and cultural domination, and works to equalize distribution of culture and history as common benefits. The Sami Parliament cannot on its own declare which is the "true" Sami identity or what individuals'

understanding of their own culture should be. The Sami

Parliament's role is to contribute so that the Sami people

TORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 367
can view themselves in light of both the past and

present, and so that change and reinterpretation of

one's identity and self-awareness is an ongoing process in which cultural sites and heritage are themselves

important reference points (Fig.l 1 7).

Prioritizing local knowledge in the effort to preserve Sami cultural heritage has been a very important

goal because it is primarily in the local communities

that cultural sites possess and give meaning. But placing a priority on local knowledge can simultaneously

be seen as a strategy in the struggle for cultural survival and self-awareness, steered by the limitations that

the power structures offer to the Sami population.

The Norwegian Government System and

the Sami Voice

The system of government tells us about how power is

organized, divided, and channeled in a state. Roughly

said, the Norwegian system is built upon the state,

county, and municipal levels. Formal power in Norway

is organized and divided among these three hierarchically defined levels. When it comes to cultural heritage the Ministry of the Environment and the Directorate of Cultural Heritage represent the state as the central steering and controlling institutions; the counties

represent the regional management and executive

level; and the municipalities represent the local preparatory and fulfillment level. All public management is

tied to a formal political organ and political power, and

cultural heritage management is no exception.

Politics has been called the authoritative distribution of values (Easton 1953:127-32). Cultural heritage

and cultural sites are thus values and benefits administered and distributed. Heritage management is as much

about protecting and managing values as it is about

the physical past represented by heritage artifacts,

sites, and places (Smith 1994). Cultural heritage man- agement therefore meets different cultural heritage

values, represented by different interest groups and

local communities, and it also exercises political power.

How the power is systematized, structured, and institutionalized influences strongly which values reach their

goal and what decisions are made.

In this simplified outline of the formal division of power in the Norwegian system, we have not mentioned the Sami Parliament. The Sami Parliament is the

popularly elected body by and for the Sami people in Norway. It chooses for itself what issues to concern

itself with, but it has a certain limited authority to distribute economic funds for culture, industry, language,

and education. In addition, the Sami Parliament has

been delegated the authority for managing the Cultural

Heritage Act insofar as it relates to Sami cultural sites. The establishment of the Sami Parliament has to be

understood as an attempt to raise the Sami voice in the Norwegian government system. The Sami Parliament's

place in the Norwegian government system is, however, not easy to describe, and there have been few

attempts to do so. From a corporate perspective, the Sami Parliament

can be understood as an expression of political design. One description of a corporative system—a sys- tem where representation of interests goes via uniformed

organizations that are specialized in their defined areas, established and recognized by the state, and granted

monopoly right to represent their own field by observing certain rules concerning election and the way de- mands are introduced^is strikingly similar to a description of the Sami Parliament's role towards the central authority. Corporatism is in its nature equivocal, in

the sense that it is hard to decide whether the organization conquers the government or if the government

has conquered the organization. In the desire and necessity to secure the politics concerning the Sami

people, the state authorities guarantee a Sami structural influence. The Sami Parliament becomes an institution that shapes effective coordination of organizations to advance and consolidate Sami politics, including Sami cultural heritage politics. The establishment

of the Sami Parliament could in many ways be understood as a way to secure better governance capacity

368 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
/ / 7/ Pre-Christian Sami grave at Caparas/Klubben, Unjarga/Nesseby municipality represents a continual grave

tradition between ca. 2000 BC and AD 1 600. Due to different building material and place in the landscape, these

stone-built graves can take a variety of forms.

over the Sami people, and in this context the state

authorities strive to reach a structuralized control of

the potential, which is in the Sami cultural heritage for

the Sami people to achieve power in the present.

Cultural heritage management cannot be discussed

as if it is detached from the political system and from

the value-struggle and value-distribution that take place

in this governmental system. Management is therefore

called politics with different means. Cultural heritage

management is one part of the cultural and environmental politics, and one part of the fight and debate

around history and identity, where heritage managers'

interests are one of many interests and far from those

of an innocent and neutral bystander (Smith 1 994). To

place the heritage management in a political organ

opens the possibility for competing heritage values to be expressed. Granting the Sami Parliament management authority over Sami cultural heritage could be

understood as an acknowledgment of the Sami people's

right to be empowered for more equal participation in

the value distribution of the cultural heritage. The establishment of the Sami Parliament is probably an at- tempt to empower the Sami people in their work for

cultural maintenance and development. The Sami Parliament has also achieved a degree of power when it comes to cultural heritage management, in the sense

that power does not only involve realizing its interests, but also forming its own opinions and preferences

(F0llesdal 1999).

As mentioned, the equivocal role of the Sami Parliament in the Norwegian governmental system creates a tension in the state's relationship with the Sami

Parliament. This has consequences for the weight and

status of Sami cultural history when it comes to ac- knowledgment and resources. The Sami Parliament is an independent, democratically elected body, but in

cultural heritage management the Sami Parliament is

relegated to the status of a subordinate county adTORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 369
ministration. In practice, the Sami Parliament's political and professional opinions and decisions can be re- viewed by the Ministry of the Environment and the

Directorate for Cultural Heritage. One example of the

fact that the Ministry of the Environment treats the Sami Parliament as a subordinate administrative organ

is in the rules specified in the Cultural Heritage Act. The

Directorate for Cultural Heritage has the delegated

authority to exempt Sami sites—as well as other cultural sites—from the protection automatically granted

in the Cultural Heritage Act so planned encroachments

in the landscapes can be done. Such a dispensation is

given after a recommendation from the Sami Parlia- ment and the county governments regarding its areas

of responsibility. The Sami Parliament is not given in

principle or in practice a role beyond that granted to

county governments in such matters. The Sami Parlia- ment as a representative organ for an indigenous

people—with the international obligations pressed

thereby onto the state— carries little (or no) weight in

the performance of practical administration. The Sami Parliament's cultural heritage management

has an equivocal role in the governmental system. On

the one hand, the regulations of the Cultural Heritage

Act clearly state that the Sami Parliament is delegated

an authority which can be reviewed by the Ministry of

the Environment and the Directorate of Cultural Heritage. On the other hand, the establishment of the Sami

Parliament with its own cultural heritage management

is an expression of a desire to recognize the Sami as a

people and to give them the right to fully manage their own cultural heritage. This is a dilemma. Therefore, the Sami Parliament has expressed an explicit desire to develop an equal partnership with the government,

with consultations and necessary compromises, even

in the cultural heritage management field. This right of

consultations carried out in good faith with the objective of achieving agreement or consent is now under

development. The government and the Sami Parliament

are now discussing procedures for this. The emphasis on the Sami voice in the Norwegian

governmental system is a difficult story for Sami cultural heritage management. Even if the Sami Parliament

is empowered in the management of cultural heritage,

it has to function within the limits of the Norwegian

governmental system. The Sami Parliament's economic

resources are directed completely by the Storting (Norwegian State Parliament) and so far the Sami Parlia- ment has many fewer resources to disperse for the preservation of Sami cultural heritage than the Norwegian

cultural heritage system, even for the same geographical areas. (This is despite the fact that between these two northernmost populations, Sami history in the North

is certainly both longer and more comprehensive than

Norwegian history). The Sami Parliament must operate

within a framework established by law and by regulations, over which the Sami Parliament has little influence. Even in the field of cultural heritage protection,

where the Sami Parliament is given considerable power

compared to most other fields, it has to conduct itself and undergo a one-sided adjustment toward the already

established Norwegian governmental system, a governmental system with a clear Norwegian cultural character. The Sami people have been given a voice through

the Sami Parliament; but it is still the Norwegian naturalized governmental system, which is decisive in categorizing what is valuable and nationally meaningful

cultural heritage (Andreassen 2001 ).

It is a fact that the politics of Norwegian cultural

heritage is divided into three levels, where the national

level is most important, the regional level is somewhat

important, and the local level is the least important.

From these categories come the priorities and the distribution of resources. A convention with such a hierarchy of values is in itself a reason enough for discussion.

In this connection we are satisfied, however, with calling attention to the telling coincidence between these

value categories and the main levels in the Norwegian

governmental system. The coincidence is hardly accidental. There are no fixed procedural rules for categorizing values. But there is a reason to assume that those

who decide to which category a cultural site or envi370 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
ronment belongs base their decision on the level of government from which the initiative or the request

arrives. This, again, is related to the cultural character of

the governmental system. One wonders, under which

category does the Sami cultural heritage find its home?

As mentioned above, the emphasis on local Sami

knowledge in the Sami cultural heritage management

is both an important goal and a chosen strategy. There

is a reason to believe that this is the chosen strategy

because it has been the only possibility for granting

the Sami cultural heritage a certain recognized value.

Nevertheless, the Sami cultural sites receive legitimacy

primarily at the local level; at other levels, there re- mains an instituted demand for "proof before the acceptance of a cultural site's connection to the Sami

culture. The strategy can accordingly be understood, in

a certain way and to some extent, as having been chosen for the Sami Parliament. The effect of the Sami

Parliament s emphasis on local knowledge in its heritage management could to some degree have been

detrimental, since Sami cultural heritage has become

unimportant, or at least less important.

Rock Art: Sami and Non-Sami Visions of the

Landscape

One type of cultural heritage that has received great

attention, and great devotion of personnel and eco- nomic resources from the government is rock art. Most

of the rock art has been assumed to be so ancient that

it is not considered to belong to any particular ethnic

group. The result is that rock art is understood to be of no relevance for Sami culture, even though in many

cases the Sami are the only ethnic group known to

have lived in specific areas in pre-history. Over the last few years, new rock art has been registered in Sami

use and settlement areas. Rock paintings were found in Cuppopgieddi in the Porsanger municipality during the summer of 2001.

Cuppogieddi is a local Sami community. The Sami Parliament took the responsibility for announcing the find

and for its documentation and security, including, of

course, actively involving the local Sami population.

The Sami Parliament also interpreted the rock paintings in a Sami cultural-historic framework. Despite this,

the Directorate for Cultural Heritage signaled early on

that the rock art could hardly be considered a Sami

cultural site or as having anything to do with the Sami

ethnicity. It remains to be seen if the directorate considers rock paintings to be so important that they must

be administered by "neutral" county governments rather

than by the Sami Parliament.

In Bola in the Steinkjer municipality during the sum- mer 2001 , a rock carving of a person apparently on skis was found. Prior to this, other can/ings were registered

in the same place, including one that showed a large

reindeer, called the B0la reindeer. Both skiing and reindeer herding and hunting can be associated with the Sami people over an extensive period of time, but

these rock carvings are probably so ancient that one

hardly can consider them as reflecting a Sami or, for

that matter, Norwegian, ethnicity. The Sami Parliament was never notified or informed about the new find of

the skier, nor about the decisions and actions taken in

regard to the Bola reindeer. The effect of this management blackout has been that the Sami people have

been unable to see themselves in an emotionally

meaningful relationship to these cultural sites, making it impossible to link the Bola reindeer to the

Sami culture and people in the area. To a large extent, the identity and independence of the Sami living in this area can be tied to a picture of a reindeer

cut in a rock just by the simple fact that the motif is

a reindeer. The only known people to depend upon

the reindeer in both prehistory and today in that area

are the Sami.

It will be intriguing to find out to what extent the

Directorate for Cultural Heritage will follow up the rock

art find in Cuppopgieddi, beyond the declaration that it

is of the "national importance." Likewise, one can speculate as to whether the Bola reindeer would have received the central and national attention that it did if

TORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 371
the Sami Parliament had been the coordinating man- agement authority with a weighty local value dimension. Perhaps one should not draw negative conclusions from conjectures. Sometimes, however, unknown

motivations and ideas influence and give meaning to

hidden factors, of which the actors themselves are unaware, but which nevertheless impregnate their attitudes and actions (Haaland 2001). The Norwegian governmental system's cultural character is a hidden factor the Sami Parliament is confronted with in its cultural heritage management; this can be especially seen in the management of rock art in the Sami area. It may appear

that the Directorate of Cultural Heritage regards rock

art to be of universal value, where discontinuity and

cultural universality are emphasized at the expense of

cultural continuity and historical identity. The foundation for a Sami version of prehistory is not placed side

by side with the almost cemented, objectified, and naturalized Norwegian narrative about prehistory, which

frames understanding to such an extent that it is probably almost impossible to deconstruct (Hesjedal

2001:291). This narrow-minded "objective" emphasis

in the interpretation of prehistory has the effect of further overshadowing Sami history.

Conclusion: Sami Past - Sami Power

In this article we tried to discuss the organization, tasks,

and inner-workings of Sami cultural heritage management in Norway. By presenting an example of a type of

the Sami cultural landscape and the documentation work

on that landscape, we wanted to show the practical

challenges we face in the management of Sami cultural heritage.

Our survey illustrates that the preservation of cultural sites depends on local knowledge and that the

preservation of Sami cultural heritage has been largely

approached in this manner. At the same time, we tried

to underscore that the Sami Parliament's emphasis on

local knowledge has also been an intentional strategy

to support the legitimacy of Sami cultural heritage, a

choice largely dictated by the possibilities provided

within the power structure of the Norwegian govern- ment system.

Placing priority on local knowledge in Sami cultural heritage management has clearly been advantageous, but it also has certain weaknesses. This is be- cause it is difficult for Sami cultural history to become

more than "local values," with the limited attention and

restricted resources for research, management, museums, and cultural centers that this implies.

The Sami Parliament in Norway has been given a

voice in the struggle over cultural values and in this

distribution of values the cultural heritage management

is a central part. That voice must, however, be heard

within the established Norwegian government system

and its structures. We suggest that this gives the Sami

themselves a definite say in the formation of their own

past and identity; but this can only happen by sitting at

the table that the state has set and not through an equal

dialogue at a communal table. The Sami past is only

given the opportunity to be formed as a peripheral and

local past, which would be safe for the Norwegian state. The issues in Sami prehistory that the state, represented

by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage, feels are im- portant have been usurped as universal and

decontextualized, such that the local Sami association becomes barely relevant or even irrelevant. In

those cases, the Sami are being alienated from their own history (Fig.l 1 8), and that history becomes neutralized as a tool in a serious battle for culture and

resources.

In the cultural heritage management oversight in

Norway, the Sami Parliament has a difficult role to play.

It must simultaneously be engaged in a dialogue with

the local Sami communities, and pursue and struggle

for the understanding of and respect for Sami prehistory and identity against the state authority. The Sami

Parliament can be a go-between for local knowledge

and state power, with local Sami knowledge being a

true asset for the Sami Parliament, but not for the state. The local Sami knowledge allows no impetus for the

372 REGIONAL APPROACHES/ SAMILAND
/ 1 8/ Pre-Christian Sdmi grave (prior to AD 1600) in Veidnes, Unjarga/Nesseby municipality.

development of a modern, inclusive Sami community,

which is truly fundamental for the formation of a cohesive Sami society in an established nation-state. Although the power to preserve Sami cultural heritage is to a large degree unilaterally bound and deter- mined by the power of the state, one should not necessarily underestimate the ability to improve the system's

infrastructure and operations from the inside. For instance, the cultural landscape concept that was included

in the Cultural Heritage Act in 1 992 is partly the result

of Sami professional and research branches' work on

this theme.

The Sami Parliament's steady, growing emphasis on Sami prehistory will in time be able to challenge

the research apparatus to take Sami history as a starting point in its work. The fact that there is already an independent Sami cultural heritage management sys- tem creates, therefore, an internal dynamics that challenges the non-Sami cultural heritage management as

well. A government 'white paper' will be published

at the end of 2004, concerning the politics of cultural heritage management in Norway. There is a

basis to say, with some anticipation, that the choice

will be most likely to give the preservation of Sami

cultural heritage a stronger Sami-nation voice, hopefully at the expense of today's strictly hierarchically

organized government system.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Elisabeth Ward and Iris Hahn. Elisabeth Ward

made a preliminary translation of a first draft submitted in Norwegian, and revised the preliminary translation of a second draft, based on the work of Iris Hahn;

both Elisabeth and Iris then worked at the Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History,

Smithsonian Institution. Thanks to Bryan Hood, InstiTORVALD FALCH AND MARIANNE SKANDFER 373
tute of Archaeology, University of Tromso, who offered valuable editorial comments to the final English

version of this paper. Finaly, thanks to Audhild

Schanche, Director of the Nordic Sami Institute in

Kautokeino, who recommended that the authors be

invited as contributors to this international collection

of papers.

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COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES

Joining the j^ots:

IVlanag^ine the [_,ancl~ and Seascapes of jndiVenous /\ustraiia

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE

Much recent archaeological literature has highlighted

a growing concern with the fracture between current cultural heritage management practice and the concerns of Indigenous' peoples. Chief amongst

these criticisms is the undue emphasis placed on

sites as the dominant units of cultural heritage man- agement and the inflexibility of this approach in the

face of the more abstract knowledge systems belonging to Indigenous peoples. These knowledge

systems of the Indigenous Australians view contemporary Indigenous landscapes as physical manifestations of the actions of ancestors during a creation

era known as the Dreaming. These landscapes are

full of meaning, inherently powerful and potentially

dangerous. Many of the places in these landscapes

that are important to Indigenous peoples in Australia cannot be identified by traditional archaeological

methods. Grounded in a Western, literary way of viewing the world, archaeology as a discipline has traditionally sought discontinuity and boundedness. As a

result, archaeological classification systems have

tended to rely on the identification of firm and fixed

boundaries, both in time and space, overlooking the

possibility of drawing on the more complex and nu- anced systems of Indigenous peoples. This occurs not

only at the level of site identification, but also in the ways in which archaeologists approach cultural heritage management issues. One solution that has been advocated is to shift

the emphasis away from the site and toward cultural

landscapes as the units of study (Ross 1 996). The idea

is that this will allow the interconnections between

sites to be given as much attention as the physical remnants themselves. This concept has gained currency

over the last five years amongst many archaeological

consultants and other cultural heritage professionals

in Australia; but the rhetoric tends to break down in

practice, most noticeably in urban and rural areas that

are not under the direct control of Indigenous peoples.

Our intention in this paper is to explore why this may

be. We interpret contact between Indigenous and nonindigenous peoples in Australia as the meeting of Western and Indigenous systems of knowledge. We argue

that conflict is inherent in this contact, as these ways

of knowing are grounded in and driven by, fundamentally different and possibly irreconcilable, concepts of

time and space. Conflicting approaches to the treat- ment of land, heritage, and documentation arise from

this, as well as very different perspectives on preservation, with concomitant implications in terms of the documentation, preservation and management of ethnographic/cultural landscapes.

These differences are being played out within a changing legislative framework. During the 1 970s, increased community concern with protecting cultural and environmental resources resulted in a plethora of

state and federal cultural heritage and environmental legislation. The Australian cultural heritage legislation prompted the initial recording and assess- ment of cultural heritage sites (but not landscapes)

379
throughout the country.

Indigenous attempts to gain control over their lands

manifested in the case of Mabo v. Queensland, in which

Eddie Mabo and others from the Murray Islands, in Queensland's waters, argued successfully that native

title to their lands had never been sold, transferred or

extinguished. The Mabo decision resulted in the "Native Title Act 1 993—An Act about native title in relation to land or waters and for related purposes." This

act recognizes a form of native title, which, in those

cases where it has not been extinguished, reflects the

entitlement of the Indigenous Australians to their traditional lands, in accordance with their laws or customs.

This act overturned the notion of terra nullius (land with no people), as the legal basis for appropriation of Aboriginal Australia. At the time of making the Mabo decision, the High Court of Australia applied the principles

in question to the country as a whole with the clear

implication that native title may have survived in other

parts of Australia. Since then, Indigenous Australians

have made hundreds of applications for native title to

their traditional lands. Approved determinations of

native title by the High Court, Federal Court, and/or a

recognized body are contained in the National Native

Title Register (NNTR), a register maintained by the National Native Title Tribunal. This tribunal maintains a number of registers and databases that hold accurate and comprehensive records of native title applications,

determinations and Indigenous land use agreements

(ILUAs) made under the Native Title Act. For example,

the Mabo decision is recorded as a native title determination on the National Native Title Register.

Western and Indigenous Ways of Knowing

This paper keys into an emerging debate among Australian archaeologists and cultural heritage managers

about the most appropriate ways to identif/ and manage the living heritage of Indigenous Australians, the

land and seascapes of Australia. This is a direct out- growth of recent cooperative research with Aboriginal people and has resulted in concerted attempts to

develop a more culturally sensitive approach to cultural heritage management (Fullagar and Head 1999; Greer 1 996; Ross 1 996).

The most common criticism of contemporary cultural heritage management practice in Australia, as elsewhere, is that it fails to take into account Indigenous

peoples' needs (Isaacson 2003). In its strict scientific approach to classif/ing, assessing and documenting

sites, cultural heritage management tends to over- emphasize the material aspects of culture:

Until recently, the concept of "heritage," as an archaeological or scientific construction,

has been almost universally applied. In this construction, "heritage" may be defined as elements from the past, most particularly

archaeological sites or places where there is visible evidence of that past. Within this, heritage

preservation is aimed at preserving or conserving these elements which are the 'fabric' of the

past. (Greer 1996:103, emphasis added)

This results, inevitably, in an undue emphasis on specific sites or locales which, by definition, must be spatially bounded in order to distinguish those areas that

possess physical evidence from those that do not. In

Australian practice, this is as much a bureaucratic decision as it is a Western scientific one. With a focus on

discrete sites, management, too, can be easily bounded

and decisions about recording and salvage, or destruction, can be tightly defined using archaeological argu- ments (Ross 1996:1 1).

In Australia, the concept of the "site" became enshrined in cultural heritage management practice as a

direct result of the development of state and federal

cultural heritage legislation in the 1 970s, which was

the first concerted attempt by government to record and protect cultural heritage. Cultural heritage man- agement is at heart a relative process and in order to

be effective requires some foundational pool of information from which to draw comparisons. The administration of the heritage legislation thus required the

establishment of registers of the cultural resources

existing within each of the eight states and territories

of Australia.

380 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
The enormous amount of descriptive archaeological survey work that accompanied this push has often been characterized as the "dots on maps" approach:

compiling lists of sites into a database with little or no

exploration of the possible relationships between sites

or areas (Clarke and Hamm 1 996:82). Statewide cultural heritage registers created during the 1970s and

1980s were intended to provide a measurable index

of cultural value—hence the common use of the term

"resource" to describe the material components of

culture. This very notion of conceiving of culture as

a resource, however, is a reflection of the underlying chasm separating Western and Indigenous ways

of knowing.

The Western worldview is often characterized as based on essentialized and dichotomized hierarchies,

such as male/female; sacred/secular; culture/nature;

self/other. This way of viewing the world seeks and

finds discontinuity and boundedness (Wobst and Smith,

in press). Expressed in the development of scientific

instruments, from globes, telescopes and microscopes,

to watches, compasses and clocks, this was part of a mindset that viewed the world as being precisely

managed by mathematical principles. Under such processes, space is thought of as less an arena for social relations and more as a neutral, physical commodity. From a Western viewpoint, control over space

ceases to be a matter of custom and becomes a matter of formalized, abstracted knowledge Oohnson

1993:347).

Our intent here is to emphasize the widely held

notion that the cultural segmentation of space

and time—which allowed them to be viewed in measurable, interchangeable segments— is part of

a particular way of looking at the world, rather

than a natural phenomenon (cf. Handsman and

Leone 1 989:33; Johnson 1996; Thomas 1993:21).

In this way, new notions of space and time be- came closely linked to the capitalist experience

of assessing value through monetary relationships

and exchanges of equivalence.

Like all Western preserves, archaeology and cultural heritage management are firmly grounded in such

modes of viewing the world. Assessing the significance

of "cultural resources" is more a process of assessing

exchanges of equivalence: for example, comparing the

relative value of sites in a region by determining what

constitutes, or does not constitute, a "representative

sample." Such financial/economic terms, however, are

inadequate ways to represent the complexity of Aboriginal notions of heritage.

Indigenous constructions of knowledge, on the

other hand, arise from the fluidity and flexibility of oral

traditions. They recognize a plethora of social and cultural distinctions and are based on the premise that knowledge is owned and that access to knowledge

will be determined upon each person's specific position within society. The most significant difference in

the ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous

peoples construct knowledge is that Indigenous

knowledge is not "open" in the sense that all people

have an equal right to acquiring that knowledge. In

Indigenous Australian systems, for example, knowledge

is rarely definitive and often is restricted. Grounded in

oral traditions, knowledge has many levels and is open

to alternative interpretations according to the particular situation. It is a source of power and is curated

by people with the appropriate qualifications and

personalities. Often, only a few people will know

the knowledge that is most crucial to the spiritual

regeneration of the group. In terms of managing the

land, this means it is essential that developers and

cultural heritage managers obtain their information

about sacred or important sites from the correct

people, the people who hold the appropriate knowledge of those sites.

Conflict in these approaches to constructing

knowledge is at the basis of many recent controversies over the management of land and seascapes

in Indigenous Australia. These differences emerge in

clashes between oral and literary traditions, as well as

in how Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples conCLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 381
ceive of time and space.

Concepts of Space

Western concepts of space also arise from the capitalist disposition to separate, bound and control. Grounded

in a habit of classification, archaeologists deal with

space at a number of different scales, from individual

finds to regional territories or continent wide transects.

Invariably, like time, they conceive of space in terms of

discrete and bounded entities. One of the fundamental ways in which archaeologists control space is through defining boundaries. One effect of this is to

position Indigenous peoples within defined territories,

facilitating administration by bureaucracies and a close

counterpart to the process of colonialism (L. Smith

1999:53; Wobst and Smith 2003).

In contrast, Australian Indigenous peoples conceive

of space in terms of the inter-relationships that exist between places and peoples, as laid down during the Dreaming era. Indigenous places always exist in relation to other Indigenous places. In terms of land management, this means that each individual site has to be managed as a small facet of a wider cultural landscape. What happens at one site will necessarily impact other sites within a web of inter-relationships that

can span the entire country and extend into territorial

waters. Morphy (1998:108) argues that:

The whole of creation, all of human life, is mapped on the landscape, to which ancestral beings are inextricably connected.

Almost anything that exists has its place in the Dreamtime, whether it is an animal . . . an object ... a ritual practice ... or even an

illness. And everything that has a place in the

Dreamtime is likely to have a place associ- ated with it on earth.

This is not to say that Indigenous Australians do not

have a traditional conception of bounded areas. They

do, but the way in which they do this is paradoxically

through creating linkages, like interlaced fingers or the checkered patterns on a chessboard. Sharp, linear boundaries do occur in some places, usually where

quite clear geographical delineations, such as rivers.

allow them to be readily defined. An example of this is along the Mann River in central Arnhem Land, which

acts as a boundary between the lands of Jawoyn and

Ngalkpon peoples. Overall, though. Indigenous land boundaries are diffuse, and Indigenous conceptions of

territory are focused on the core areas that are indisputably owned by particular groups, rather than on

the lines that delineate the territories between them

(Hiatt 1987).

In many parts of Australia, the management of In- digenous lands is structured by a web of complex and

sophisticated social inter-relationships. In Arnhem Land,

for example, "owners," called gidjan and "custodians,"

called junggayi have a primary custodial relationship

to the other group. All people have birthrights that

place them in an ownership relationship to particular

tracts of land and in a custodial relationship to neighboring tracts of land. This system of reciprocal rights

and responsibilities is all pervasive, since all people are owners for some tracts of land and for particular cer- emonies and custodians for others. At a general level,

the society is divided into two moieties, Dhuwa and

Yirritja. Yirritja people will be the workers in ceremonies, such as Gunapippi, that are owned by Dhuwa

people and Dhuwa people will be the workers in cer- emonies, such as the Jabuduruwa, that are owned by

Yirritja people. This reciprocal responsibility ensures that ceremonies and land are cared for properly even if people of the preferred "skin" group are not available.

Ultimately, all Dhuwa people are custodians for all Yirritja

land and all Yirritja people are custodians for all Dhuwa

land (C. Smith 1 999).

The Western conception of defining space in terms

of boundaries is apparent in the failure until recently to

grapple with Indigenous notions of sea rights within

the existing system of cultural heritage management

in Australia. Grounded in a Western tradition of classification, the physical boundary between land and sea

has always been treated as a self-evident territorial

boundary. From a Western perspective, the point at which the land joins the sea is clearly the place where

382 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
Indigenous country must end. This view has been challenged by Indigenous conceptions of territory and of

land management and these views have been publicized through the Internet (http://www.nlc.org.au/

nlcweb/land_and_sea_rights). The traditional country

of coastal Indigenous groups in Australia often extended out to sea. Dreaming trails can include underwater sites, extending Indigenous territory well beyond

the shore. Indigenous peoples in coastal areas claim

comparable rights over areas of the sea that are contiguous to their lands and see this as a logical extension of land rights:

Some eighty percent of the Northern

Territory coastline is Aboriginal-owned

land. Coastal or "Saltwater" Aboriginal

people in the Top End of the Northern

Territory have a strong attachment to "sea

country." Connection to land does not stop

at the water's edge. The land and sea are one, providing sustenance. There are sacred

sites and dreaming tracks in and under the

sea, just as there are on the land (Northern

Lands Council 2001).

The principal test case involving native title rights to

3,300 square kilometers (1,275 square miles) of sea was pursued by the traditional owners of Croker Island, which is located off the coast of Arnhem Land,

Northern Territory. The original determination by Justice Howard OIney of the Federal Court in 1998 decided that native title sea rights did exist, but that

they were non-exclusive and non-commercial. He rea- soned that the Native Title Act 1993 itself allowed recognition of native title offshore by explicitly extending

the operation of the Act to coastal seas and any waters over which Australia asserts sovereign rights. However, common law recognition of a public right to fish and to navigation prevented an acceptance of a native title right to exclusive possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of the same areas. On appeal, native

titleholders have argued for exclusive possession, while

the Commonwealth of Australia has argued that native title cannot exist beyond the low water mark. In 1999 two out of three judges of the full Australian

Federal Court rejected both claims and approved Justice OIney's original decision (http://www.atsic.gov.au).

This result was disputed by the people of Croker Island; and in October 2001 the High Court of Australia

affirmed that native title rights extended out to sea,

but refused to give Indigenous Australians the right to

veto offshore fishing, tourism and mining activities (Haslem and Toohey 2001 :8). The way in which this dispute was played out highlights some congruence between Indigenous and nonIndigenous notions of space. Both the Croker Island

people and the Australian government had a notion of

territory extending beyond the shoreline. In terms of

land management, the difference is that the Australian government had not thought in terms of Indigenous

peoples having a notion of territorial waters. From

an archaeological perspective, this seems a perfectly

logical contention, given the long-term land use

patterns of the Australian continent and the submerging of large tracts of Indigenous lands by the

early Holocene rising of the seas. The interesting

point here is that these underwater sites remain in- corporated into contemporary Indigenous land

management strategies, around 8,000 years after

they were originally submerged.

Oral vs. Literary Traditions

In contrast to Western systems of knowledge, which

are grounded in the written word. Indigenous knowledge systems are based primarily on oral traditions and were communicated through dance, story, art, song

and everyday practice. Such knowledge—of the past,

of the land and its resources and of other groups of people—was the major device used by Indigenous

peoples to occupy the continent and successfully

manage the range of Australian environments. Oral traditions are more fluid and subtle than written systems

of communication. Oral forms of communication place

power directly in the hands of senior people, who are

the respected holders and interpreters of Indigenous

law. In many parts of Australia, Indigenous religious

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 383
and cultural knowledge is separated into "women's

business" and "men's business" (Hamilton 1981; Bell

]993). Under this system, the rights to knowledge

must be earned; and information is revealed to people

gradually, at particular stages in their lives and as they

prove themselves worthy of being entrusted with this

information and its attendant responsibilities. There is

not a simple gendered division of knowledge, as the

right to hold such cultural wisdom is dependent on

each individual's personal qualities and particular position in Indigenous Australian society. Affiliation to land,

specialist knowledge, age, initiated status and so forth

are all dimensions that come into play when the transfer of knowledge is being decided.

Moreover, there is great variation across Indigenous

Australia in the manner in which Indigenous knowledge is culturally organized (Fig. 120). In the Western

Desert, for example, gender-based distinctions are a

conspicuous feature of cultural organization (Bell 1 993),

while in Arnhem Land such distinctions are much less

obvious to an outsider's eye (Hamilton 1981; Smith

1 994).

The most significant difference in the ways in which

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians construct knowledge is that Indigenous knowledge is not "open"

in the sense that all people potentially have an equal

right to acquiring that knowledge. In Indigenous systems, knowledge rarely is definitive and often is restricted. Grounded in oral traditions, knowledge has

many levels and is open to alternative interpretations

according to the particular situation. It is a source of power and is curated by people with the appropriate

qualifications and personalities. Responsibility for caring for this knowledge is not something like that everyone could theoretically aspire to, as in Western sys- tems of knowledge. In terms of managing the land,

this means it is essential that developers and cultural heritage managers obtain their information

about sacred or important sites from the correct

people, the people who hold the appropriate knowledge of those sites.

Hierarchical Knowledge: A Case Story of the

Hindmarsh Island Bridge

A clash between oral and written traditions lay at the

heart of recent controversy over the building of a bridge

to Hindmarsh Island, near Adelaide in South Australia.

Ngarrindjeri women from the area, because the bridge's

construction would disturb an important site related

to restricted women's business, objected to this development. Other Ngarrindjeri women, however, challenged the objection, asserting that they were unaware

of this "women's business." The Federal Labor govern- ment in 1 994 stopped the bridge after an inquiry found

it would offend Aborigines because of secret women's

business. Subsequently, a Royal Commission was

called and anthropologists appeared, supporting both

sides of the debate. In 1995, the South Australian

Hindmarsh Bridge Royal Commission concluded that

secret women's business associated with the island was impossible. According to the commission's statement, the Ngarrindjeri women and others who had

made these assertions had fabricated their beliefs for

the purpose of obtaining a declaration under the Heritage Protection Act to prevent the construction of the

bridge (Stevens 1 995). This finding was based on a

determination that no secret women's business could

have existed in Ngarrindjeri culture before the controversy regarding the building of the bridge. In August 2001, the Federal Court of Australia denied an

application by Wendy and Thomas Chapman, the developers of the Hindmarsh Island Marina, for compensation from the Commonwealth, the relevant minister and academics, on the grounds that they had

been financially disadvantaged by the delay in building the bridge.

It is our view that the determination of the Hindmarsh Bridge Royal Commission was faulty and that

this emerged from a clash between Indigenous and

non-Indigenous worldviews. This discord is evident in

two principal respects: the manner in which the commission privileged evidence from oral and literary

384 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
/ 20/ Indigenous Women 's Dreaming Site, near Barunga, Nortlnern Territory, Australia.

sources and the inability of the commission to properly grasp the manner in which Indigenous cultural knowledge is formed and disseminated.

Embedded in a Western tradition of dichotomized

hierarchies, the commission consistently gave greater

credence to historical and ethnographic sources by

white people than to Indigenous oral histories. As

Nicholls (1996:62) writes, these ways of ranking oral and literary traditions appear so natural that the eth- nocentrism on which they are based has become

masked. Grosz points out that;

Dichotomous thinking necessarily

hierarchises and ranks the two polarised terms so that one becomes the privileged term and the other its suppressed, negative

counterpart. The subordinated term is merely

the negation or denial, the absence or

privation of the primary term, its fall from

grace; the primary term defines itself by

expelling its other and in this process

establishes its own boundaries and borders

to create an identity for itself (Grosz 1994:3,

cited in Nicholls 1996:63).

It is not utterly surprising that the Hindmarsh Island

Royal Commission gave greater credence to literary

rather than oral sources. In Western modes of thought

the former are characterized as detached, objective

and reliable, while the latter are viewed as emotional,

subjective, and changeable. This leaves oral evidence

open to challenge when sites are identified that are

likely to obstruct development, unless there is independently generated written substantiation of the information presented in oral evidence. As Bell (1 998:34)

states, "no texts, no sites" was the mantra of the Royal

Commission. From this perspective. Indigenous knowledge only achieves legitimization in the transformation of oral evidence into written texts.

Seeing the world from the Western perspective of

relatively open access to knowledge, the commission was unable to come to grips with Indigenous ways of segmenting knowledge and, more importantly, with

variation in how such knowledge could be distributed.

In trying to understand the idea of culturally segmented

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 385
knowledge, the commission grasped upon the notion

of a simple, exclusive gender division. From this perspective, evidence that not all Ngarrindjeri women were

aware of the significance of the Hindmarsh Island area

in terms of women's business was taken as evidence

that this women's business did not exist. The commission did not entertain the view that gender-specific

knowledge could be segmented at many levels, creating a fine and intangible cultural web. It failed to

recognize that this knowledge was probably always

restricted to a select group of women. Deane Fergie,

the anthropologist who documented Ngarrindjeri

women's secret-sacred knowledge in a report to the

Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, also attributed the

Royal Commission's findings to a clash in worldviews:

Importantly, the Commission seemed inca- pable of anything but the most literal interpretation of evidence. There is no

recognition by the Commission of the existence of idioms for conveying meaning . . . what came to light and was tested was

largely assumption and inference. This is the

inferential tautology and the fatal flaw of the Commission's findings (Fergie 1 996: 1 7).

The commission's findings drew heavily upon the evi- dence of two white males, an historian, Phillip Jones, and an anthropologist, Phillip Clarke, who argued that

there was no gender-based separation of knowledge

within Ngarrindjeri culture. Jones and Clarke arrived at

this conclusion on the basis of their analyses of a range

of historic and ethnographic sources, rather than a more

comprehensive anthropological method of field-based

research aimed at assessing the claim of restricted women's business through fieldwork with Aboriginal

people. Clarke contrasted the reliability of the sources

he used in developing a historical account of Ngarrindjeri culture with the "new formulation" presented

by the proponent Ngarrindjeri women, obtained, in his

view, from a concentration of material from a range of

oral sources (cited in Hemming 1996:32). It is notable

that while both formulations of knowledge derive from

an analysis of several sources, the reliability of historical and ethnographic sources was consistently privileged over that of oral sources. Hemming criticizes

this aspect of Clarke's testimony to the Royal Commission, arguing that:

This passage highlights the clash occurring in this Commission between Indigenous, oral accounts of history and the Western empiricist tradition dominating the legal system

and both Clarke and Jones' style of anthropology and history. Clarke's approach to the

discovery of "truth" through the assembling of

scientific facts, leads him to what can only be

characterised as a "traditionalist" understanding

of Aboriginal culture (Hemming 1996:33).

A flaw in Clarke's and Jones' methods that Hemming

identified is their failure to conduct fieldwork aimed at

testing the notion of restricted women's business or

to discuss these issues with the Ngarrindjeri people

concerned. Jones defended his position, asserting that ethnography often involves the practitioner in "just a desk-based, library-based, archive-based exercise"

(Lucas 1 996:43). This method of conducting ethnography, however, not only privileges the views of white

colonists over those of Indigenous peoples, but also

fails to recognize that these early colonists may not

have had access to all forms of information in Indig- enous societies and, indeed, that some important forms

of knowledge—especially women's business—may

have been actively hidden by Indigenous peoples. The

majority of early ethnographers were European men

who, understandably enough, tended to work mainly

with Aboriginal men. Often, these ethnographers consciously avoided inquiring into the "preserves of the

other sex" (Elkin 1 939:xx). Their failure to discover information about women's business has been the basis

for many misconceptions about women's roles in Indigenous Australian societies (Bird 1 991 ; Smith 1 993).

From this viewpoint, the Hindmarsh Island debacle can

be interpreted as a failure to seek Indigenous alternatives to Western assumptions about how Indigenous

knowledge is constructed and disseminated.

Concepts of Time

As part of the Western penchant to separate, bound

and classify. Western concepts of time are linear, with

386 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
the past being quite separate from the present. In fact,

people in the West go so far as to order their lives down to the unit of seconds, hours, and years. The

special expertise of archaeologists is that they can

track people's behavior through time; and the further

back in time archaeologists are able to delve, the more

satisfaction they derive. This way of looking at time

relates to how archaeologists view the significance of

sites. For most archaeologists, a Pleistocene site is selfevidently more important than a late Holocene or contact site. Moreover, this manifestation of Western control over the very distant past serves to distance the

subject of analysis from the investigators of the

present, keying into the complementary Western notion of the objectivity of science.

Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, view time

in a more holistic manner, in which the past is thought

of as impacting actively upon the present. Among In- digenous Australians, time is intricately tied to the notion of a Dreaming that exists in and somehow directs, the present. Morphy (1998:68) describes the Dreaming as existing independently of linear time and

the temporal sequence of historical events:

Indeed, the Dreaming is as much a dimension of

reality as a period of time. It gains its sense of time because it was there in the beginning,

underlies the present and is a determinant of the future; it is time in the sense that once there was only Dreamtime. But the Dreamtime has

never ceased to exist and from the viewpoint

of the present ... is as much a feature of the

future as it is of the past.

For Indigenous Australians, the past is never past. They

have no concept of a distant past that does not impact upon people in the present. The spirits of relatives who have died inhabit contemporary landscapes

and their assumed wishes have to be taken into account. Working together, ancestral beings and dead

relations monitor and regulate not only the limits of

territory but also the appropriate ways in which country can be used. Indigenous peoples relate to burial

sites and occupation sites in a way that is dictated by

their traditions associated with death, burials and

campsites associated with the "old people." Steve Hemming discusses this matter in terms of the

Ngarrindjeri people of southern Australia:

Burial sites provide contemporary

Ngarrindjeri people with a physical and

spiritual connection with their ancestors and

their "country." For Ngarrindjeri people the

spirits of the ancestors are still present at these sites and they believe that they can have an impact on contemporary people and

events. If disturbed they can be very danger- ous (Hemming 2000:62).

The intricate interconnections between the Dream-time

and the present, between the ancestors and living

people, have far reaching implications for what Indig- enous peoples consider to be a "site." For Indigenous

Australians, the land is the creation of the ancestral

beings who, in their journeys across it, produced the

various features of the landscape and left behind them

songs and story cycles, sacred objects and practices

that commemorate their creative acts (Morphy

1993:232). The physical places associated with these

acts continue to represent important aspects of traditional life and continue to be vital reference points for

delineating group territory and governing people's

movements within it. This means that Indigenous

peoples may give relatively similar significance to

recent sites and to sites of great antiquity. Equally,

a site does not need to contain physical traces (i.e.,

artifacts) for it to be considered significant by Indig- enous peoples.

Responding to Indigenous ways of constructing

landscape, when the Australian government established

the National Aboriginal Sites Authorities Committee

(NASAC), it was structured so that it distinguishes be- tween two types of "Aboriginal sites" in Australia as

follows:

(1) Archaeological sites, i.e., places that fall within the standard definition of archaeological sites, whose significance is defined "on the basis of scientific enquiry and general cultural and historical values;" and

(2) "sites that are the tangible embodiment of the

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 387
121/ Luma Lumo, a female ancestral being who traveled throughout northern Australia and whose image exists

in rock art throughout the region, material proofof her existence.

388 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
sacred and secular traditions of the Aboriginal

peoples of Australia." The latter may include the former, of course; but the Aboriginal custodians

only may determine the relative significance of these

latter sites.

One implication of this is that what some may regard as "ancient" or "old" archaeological sites with no

real connections to living Indigenous peoples, are actually places that have very particular cultural meanings for those people. Barbara Bender (1993:14) has

expressed this conflict as the difference between landscapes of memory (where the landscape is given value

by its place in history, typical of the Western notion of

time as a linear sequence) and landscapes as memory

(where creation myths are superimposed upon the land

in the present, thereby turning a temporal sequence

into a spatial grid). Western notions of objectivity often relegate this conflict to the arena of contemporary

politics, a particular "primitivist" construction of Aboriginal culture as a people without politics (Sutton

and Rigsby 1982). Therefore, contemporary urban

or rural Aborigines are often represented by contrast

as a people with politics but without culture (Hemming 2000:59).

An analysis of this situation leads to the recognition of a key limitation in the current cultural heritage

management process in Australia. Traditional European

notions of "sites" as pristine entities firmly bounded in

time completely lack the fluidity of Aboriginal notions

of heritage places as something to be used and

changed, in the present. From an Indigenous viewpoint,

sites are kept alive by being used, which keys into the

ancestral power that is inherent in each locale. Such differences in the way in which Indigenous

and non-Indigenous peoples conceive of time can be

inherent in conflicts over cultural heritage management

strategies, most notably in the debate over the repainting of ancient rock art in Western Australia's

Kimberley region. This project involved senior custodians and young Aboriginal people in the repainting of

several major rock art galleries as part of an Indig- enous cultural continuity and revitalization project. The

project elicited protests from non-indigenous station owners and others, who saw the repainting of these images as a desecration of national cultural heritage

(Walsh 1 992). The overwhelming response from Australian archaeologists who had conducted extensive

fieldwork with Aboriginal groups, however, was to

affirm the rights of Indigenous Australians to control

their cultural heritage (Mowlarjarii et al. 1 988; Vinni- combe 1992; Walsh, 1992; Ward 1992).

While the issues surrounding this debate are particularly complex, the point we will focus on here is

the clash between Indigenous and Western conceptions of time and the implications for cultural heritage

management. The Western view of time privileges the

original authenticity of an artifact and a past that is

ideally kept pristine. The conservation of images in Western culture focuses on restoring the original image, as in restorations of the Sistine Chapel. This can

be contrasted with the Indigenous view that conservation is ensured through a use that keeps the power

inherent in the object alive (Fig.121). This view incorporates change in a dynamic process of on-going cultural experience. David Mowaljarii, the Ngarinyin elder who supervised the Kimberley repainting project, highlights this: "We must draw. Repainting is allowed; we

must keep it going; it must glow; must not be put out"

(Mowaljarii, cited in Ward 1992:32).

Spaces and Places

Many of the places that are important to Indigenous

Australians appear simply as "natural" to non-indigenous

peoples. Lacking visible artifacts, the reasons behind

their importance are not readily apparent. The successful management of these places has posed a challenge to conventional cultural heritage management

strategies. Archaeological management recommendations are consistently based on a distinction between

space and place, or nature from culture, a separation

that is not a part of Indigenous constructions of the

land. From an Indigenous viewpoint, the Australian

continent is traversed by Dreaming tracks or songlines,

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 389
which link the spaces between the successions of placebased events that occurred during the creation era. The individual locales that are encoded in stories are

linked to other places within the region (Lewis and

Rose 1988).

This is demonstrated in the Western Desert style

painting (Fig. 1 22) depicting individual sites (shown as

roundels in the painting) in terms of the activities of an

ancestor that took place during the Dreaming. Sites

are linked not only in terms of other sites, shown through

the barred lines joining sites, but also through the

ancestor's travels in non-designated areas, the latter

of which is indicated through the rock wallaby's tracks.

This painting shows a worldview that emphasizes interconnections and is not congruent with the notion

of places as individual locales that are separated from

the surrounding landscape.

This notion of being part of an interconnected world

also exists in Arnhem Land art (Fig. 1 23). Here, the lines

at the joints of the figures are described by the artist,

Paddy Babu, as "power lines," threads that have an

invisible link to other parts of the culture. While the

significance of these lines is restricted knowledge, not open to sharing with academic researchers, their exist- ence demonstrates a worldview that emphasizes linkages, rather than boundaries, even when the manifestation appears to be segmentation.

From this perspective, Australia can be seen as a landscape covered by a cobweb of fine linkagesstrong, resilient, powerful, and not always perceptible

to an untutored eye. The integrity of each individual

place is thus linked to all other places, both visible and

invisible, by the topogenic narratives of the Dreaming.

McWilliam discusses this matter in terms of the current

criteria being used to assess compensation to Aboriginal communities for damage to places of cultural or

mythological significance:

The spatial and material connection between

sites is merely inferred and created by the

narrative or song. In such cases, successful

/ 22/ Wakulyarri Tjukurrpa (Rock Wallaby), acrylic on canvas painting by Lyn Nungarrayi Sims and Wendy Nunganayi

Brown.

390 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
/ 23/ Untitled acrylics on canvas painting by Barunga artist Paddy Babu, 1 992.

compensation for damage or obstruction to such significant un named spaces may be

difficult to achieve. In other instances, the

linkage between sites may well correspond

to a distinctive feature in the landscape. For example, in the Victoria Rivers District, a 60 km

limestone ridge represents the shed skin of the

walujapi black-nosed python Dreaming, as it moves along its mythological path. As far as

I am aware, this tract of land is not named as

a specific site, yet clearly damage or destruction to the limestone ridge would certainly

be challenged by Aboriginal custodians

(McWilliam 1998:9).

Wilderness Areas

The fundamental difference in Western and Indig- enous worldviews also underpins the conflict be- tween archaeological and Indigenous approaches

to the management of wilderness areas—in Australia, as elsewhere. Non-indigenous peoples tend to characterize "wilderness" as being exempt from

manipulation by humans. Such areas are perceived

to be pristine, unaltered and, above all, natural (Head

1 990; Ross 1 996; 1 2). From an Indigenous viewpoint,

however, wilderness areas are as much cultural as any other part of the Australian landscape. Ancestors travelling during the creation era created these

areas, they are owned by particular Indigenous

groups and they are attributed with social identity

in the same way as other tracts of land. From an Indigenous Australian perspective, both wilderness

and non-wilderness areas are artifacts of Indigenous

cultural and religious beliefs. The Western separation of culture from nature was

one of the mainstays of colonial arguments for the

appropriation of Aboriginal lands in Australia. The view

that the land was effectively unowned was accepted

because the Aboriginal system of land ownership was

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 391
not understood and because, to Europeans, the natural resources of the land did not seem to be effectively

exploited or managed by Aboriginal people. The overturning of the notion of terra nullius by the Mabo decision, however, necessitates a re-thinking of the idea of

wilderness, since the legal basis for the occupation of

Australia now accepts that the whole of Australia, including wilderness areas, was occupied and managed

by Indigenous peoples before white colonization (Ross

1996:12). Archaeological evidence in fact shows that

Indigenous peoples occupied the full range of Australian environments by around 20,000BP (Mulvaney and

Kamminga 1 999). During that time Indigenous peoples

developed a wide range of land management techniques, including the use of fire to maintain grasslands

Oones 1969; Hallam 1979), the building of weirs and

fish traps on rivers and streams (Allen 1 979; Godwin

1 988) and the construction offish traps in lakes, rivers and estuaries (Lane and Fullagar 1980; Godwin 1988).

Archaeological evidence that the entire Australian

landscape is a cultural artifact is not compatible with

the views of some environmentalists who retain the

stereotype of Aborigines as "children of nature," living

in equilibrium with the land (Toyne and Johnson 1 991

;

Stevens 1994; Ross 1996:12). The potential for conflict becomes activated when archaeologists challenge

this stereotype, pointing to substantial evidence for

Indigenous manipulation of the land in both the recent and the distant past. As Ross (1996:12) points out,

this occurred during the debate over the building of a dam on the Franklin River in Tasmania, when the environmentalists' argument for the area's being a pristine

wilderness was seriously challenged by archaeological evidence that Aboriginal people had lived in the

area before there were rainforests (Head 1 990). The

area was saved, partly based on archaeological research that demonstrated Pleistocene antiquity for In- digenous occupation of the region and the international significance of this for human colonization

(Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999:184, 189); but the

source of discord remains.

The conflict has implications for the management

of wilderness areas. While archaeologists recognize that

all of Australia was occupied by Indigenous peoples,

they are still influenced by a Western mindset that

equates wilderness with nature, rather than with culture. This means that wilderness areas do not receive

the same kind of archaeological attention as areas

that have substantive material evidence of Indigenous

occupation. Around the world, archaeologists tend to

avoid places where there is little evidence of human

occupation and to seek other, more obviously fruitful,

landscapes to analyze. Both the absence and the pres- ence of artifacts, however, are the result of specific

social strategies. Both speak about contexts, in which

(via artifacts or via their absence) particular social strategies were pursued as part of society's reproducing

itself. An Indigenous approach to archaeological analysis could well redress this archaeological bias. Such an approach may find space for the analysis of wilderness areas and buffer zones as well as that of massive

material finds and may integrate folklore and oral

histories into data collection (Wobst and Smith

2003). There is no doubt that this will produce more

insightful and holistic interpretations of both past

and present societies.

This is easier said than done, however, particularly

in rural and urban areas, which are not under the direct

control of Indigenous peoples. It is in these areas that development is often most intense. Being directly predicated on the notion of space-as-commodity, however,

such development requires the focus of attention on

small parcels of land and often the framing of mitigation strategies to deal with individual sites. Changes are occurring at a legislative level.

Queensland's Integrated Planning Act, 1 997 requires a

coordinated approach to land use, development, and

infrastructure planning. Once fully implemented, this

Act will bring together sixty separate state approval

processes from thirty statutes through the Integrated

Development Assessment System. The approval processes gathered under the Act will eventually include

392 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
those mandated by the Cultural Record (Landscapes

Queensland and Queensland Estate) Act, 1 987 and the Queensland Heritage Act, 1992. The process is designed so those triggers to agencies with the relevant

jurisdiction occur early in the planning process, allowing better management of community concerns and

streamlining the development process. Each shire is

required to conduct an inventory of known valuable

features, which may include significant Aboriginal

and non-Aboriginal sites and/or areas of cultural

heritage sensitivity. This inventory will form the framework for planning triggers, although there is no provision in the Act as to how such features are to be

dealt with. Under Queensland's Integrated Planning Act of

1997, local governments in that state have to deal

with ways of identifying and managing the cultural

heritage of their shire/city. Simply establishing lists of

heritage places within the shire is viewed as inadequate

by the Environmental Protection Agency, the statutory

authority that administers cultural heritage legislation

in Queensland, which is encouraging a focus less on

specific site data and more on the shires as cultural

landscapes. This trend is occurring Australia-wide. Of

primary concern in this process is the establishment of meaningful and effective planning codes to manage

this heritage. It is one thing to identif/ an area as a

cultural landscape, but quite another to define this in a

spatial sense that is meaningful under a town, or shireplanning, scheme. Paradoxically, while the cultural land- scape may have been the unit under study initially, all such schemes operate under Western administrative systems and therefore require sites to be spatially defined in some way. This runs the risk of either reducing

the outcome, once again, to the seemingly inevitable

list of sites, or generalizing the entire process so that it merely provides a forum for establishing protocols for Indigenous consultation. While limited, this latter ap- proach can seek to identif/ "areas of concern " or "areas of cultural sensitivity," which can still function as

planning triggers.

New Approaches to Interpreting Landscapes

One possible solution to this dilemma has been a land- scape approach, such as that advocated by Clarke

and Hamm (1996:80), who argue for a planning process that creates a space for the explicit recognition

and demonstration of community or social values be- yond those given the imprimatur of expert testimony

by archaeologists, historians, architects, and the like. Done properly, this is a lengthy process, the outcome

of which may be a reshaping of the project and a

renegotiation of land management strategies. Clarke

and Hamm imply that this more inclusive approach

will broaden the types of sites that will be conserved, addressing the problems of disarticulated

land management strategies, in which individual

sites and clusters survive but their relationships to

the landscape are lost. New ways of managing ancestral lands and waters are also emerging from a collaboration of Indig- enous and archaeological approaches. These new ap- proaches have begun to incorporate Indigenous ways

of constructing knowledge into the strategies and practices governing the management of land and seascapes. One of these strategies is the Australia-wide development of Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs), which

set out a framework for voluntary cooperation between

different interest groups regarding the access, use, and

development of land. A direct response to the postMabo regulatory landscape, ILUAs are mechanisms for

Indigenous empowerment through establishing regional

alliances with pastoralists (ranchers in northern hemisphere parlance), mining and conservation interests. The Native Title Act of 1 993 allows for local and state government and industry to negotiate land use agree- ments at a local or regional level with native titleholders. Although the successful use of these agreements

requires negotiations based on good faith, once registered they allow for the consideration of Indigenous

culture and experience when making decisions about

future land management issues.

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 393
One of the first such agreements was negotiated

in Cape York Peninsula, the northern tip of Queensland.

Stemming from a comprehensive study into existing

land use and management of the region and the compilation of a comprehensive inventory of its natural,

cultural, development and infrastructure assets, vari- ous stakeholder groups (including the conservation.

Indigenous, commercial herding, mining, local govern- ment and tourism sectors) signed an historic pact in- tended to establish a consensual approach to land management issues in Cape York. Despite the agree- ment lacking any enforceable provisions and neither the Queensland nor federal governments being

party to it, the Cape York ILUA established a set of

guidelines for the future use and management of

Cape York, including continuing rights of access for

traditional owners to pastoral properties for traditional purposes and a commitment to developing

sustainable management regimes. Once registered,

however, an ILUA is legally binding on the people

who are party to the agreement and all native title

holders for that area. The success of such land use agreements for industry partners is apparent in the response by Jim

Petrich, CEO of the Cape York Peninsula Development Association:

What we started in Cape York can be used as a template around regional and rural Australia. Indeed, it can be used in urban Australia

to give people some power back on the

ground to make decisions—and it is win/win

across the board (Petrich 2001).

One creative theoretical attempt at joining the dots is

Bill Boyd's, Maria Cotter's, Wave O'Connor's and Dana

Sattler's advocation of social construction theory as

"an analytical tool with which to tackle the complexities of multiple meanings inherent in social landscapes"

(Boyd et al.l 996:1 23). This is their attempt to take

into account the modern social landscape and the often conflicting claims of different groups (both Indig- enous and non-indigenous) with interests in the same

landscape:

For each party a site is defined by some

constructed meaning and represents a point

within a particular landscape, that point

being but one node within a network of

linkages, pathways, edges, landmarks and

areas within the landscape. . . .The site is rarely viewed by any party as an isolated

individual point; its landscape relationship is constructed in terms of individuals' cognitive

maps, these representing the cumulative

effects of a wide range of social and cultural influences. . . .Such construction is not confined to the present and indeed forms the

basis for much of the archaeological interest

in cultural landscapes (Boyd et al. 1996:125).

Rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of

verifying the truth of one claim over another, Boyd and

his co-authors advocate to shift the emphasis away

from assessing the validity of any one perspective and

toward the analysis of social issues. For them, in order

to manage the cultural heritage, it is enough to accept

that these competing claims exist, rather than to privilege one over another:

For each party, the site represents a point

within a particular physical, social and

political landscape; neither the point nor the landscapes are static. ... The emphasis... is not on the validity of the meanings but with

the reality of their existence and the out- come for cultural resource management in general includes a greater understanding of the processes of interaction between parties,

(ibid. :1 35-7)

While this approach has tackled the interpretation of

the modern cultural landscape, by drawing upon Indigenous notions of an interconnected world, Fullagar

and Head (1 990) explore the possibility of making interpretations of landscapes of the distant past more

multi-dimensional. Integrating both ethnographic and

archaeological evidence, the authors argue for the Pleistocene antiquity of mapped landscapes in the Keep

River area of the Northern Territory. They use the material manifestations of links between specific places in

the present in order to broaden the dimensionality of

analyses of archaeological excavations:

This cannot be attempted simply by trans- posing stories reflecting present-day perceptions backwards in time. What we have

394 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
argued is that, by demonstrating linl<s between these perceptions and

archaeologically visible materials, which, in this case, consist of stone, ochre and starch

plants, we can begin the task of tracing

changes in attachment to landscape over time (Fullagar and Head 1999:332-3).

The accommodation of Indigenous agendas into archaeological practice is reinforced by the structure of

the Australian government's National Competitive

Grants Programme (NCCP), the most recent manifestation of which was introduced in 2001 . The Australian

Research Council's (ARC) Linkage-Projects program, in

particular, is structured so that research is shaped by more than the agendas of the academy. The aim of

this program is to "encourage and develop long-term

strategic research alliances between higher education

institutions and industry in order to apply advanced

knowledge to problems, or to provide opportunities

to obtain national economic or social benefits" (ARC

2001). For archaeologists, a major reservoir of industry partners is Indigenous organizations. Moreover, ARCLinkage applications require that the applicant identify specific benefits that the research will produce for

the industry partner. This provision encourages archaeologists seeking funding from this source to shape their

projects so that they further the agendas of their industry partners. If the partner is an Indigenous organization, the project is shaped in accordance with the agendas of Indigenous peoples.

A recent example of this is Bird and Frankel's (1 998)

analyses of archaeological site recordings that had

been conducted under the auspices of the Victorian

state government by the Victoria Archaeological Survey during the 1 970s and early 1 980s. There was a need for a regional integration of the material, as most

of it was unpublished or published in a summary form

only. The project has implications for Indigenous heritage management in the region, the quality of which

should be enhanced by the more detailed regional

analyses. Both the aims and outcomes of Bird and

Frankel's research indicate an accommodation of aca- demic and Indigenous agendas:

The study of this material will allow a new

synthesis of regional prehistory, forming the

basis for the preparation of educational

material to meet the needs of local Aboriginal communities, as well as for site management of sites in the region. . . .A central aspect of the project is the explicit recognition of the importance of Aboriginal community interests in the material and its interpretation. . . .Our work will therefore provide the

basis for a range of products developed

specifically to address the requirements of

local communities. Possible outcomes

include pamphlets, posters and display

materials on various aspects of Victorian Aboriginal archaeology. (Bird and Frankel 1998:36-8)

While this particular project still uses Western ways of

classifying material, it is producing outcomes that are

of benefit to the local Indigenous community. It is a

small step to move beyond this consultative approach

that shapes research outcomes to include Indigenous

as well as archaeological products, to one of negotiation, in which integrated programs of collaborative

research are shaped by Indigenous Australian as well

as Western ways of knowing.

"Indigenous Archaeology:" The New Approach to Landscape Management/Preservation

Our intention in this chapter has been to explore the ways in which Indigenous and Western ways of the

constructing the world have engendered current debates about the management of Indigenous land and

seascapes in Australia. Recent areas of conflict can be

interpreted in terms of a clash of worldviews, particularly in terms of capitalist and Indigenous approaches

to the construction of space, time and knowledge.

Recent cooperative research with Indigenous peoples,

however, has resulted in concerted attempts to develop a more culturally sensitive approach to cultural

heritage management (Greer 1996; Fullagar and Head

1999; Ross 1996).

As practiced in Australia, Indigenous archaeology—

an archaeology informed by indigenous values and

agendas—is going through a period of rapid change.

Archaeologists are moving beyond research about

CLAIRE SMITH AND HEATHER BURKE 395
Indigenous peoples to focus on research that is con- ducted with and for these peoples. In doing so, archaeologists are developing a greater knowledge

of and appreciation for, Indigenous values, experi- ences and ways of knowing. Australian archaeologists recognize that Western methods are not the

only valid ways of managing land and seascapes.

Increasingly, they are willing to tackle the challenge

of developing new approaches that are culturally

appropriate to indigenous knowledge systems. This

trend is likely to continue as Indigenous peoples

pursue greater input into the day-to-day practice of

archaeology; as part of the ongoing recognition of

land and sea rights; and as the Australian govern- ment continues to direct major support into collaborative funding programs. The trend will be aug- mented by the increasing numbers of Indigenous

peoples who are training as professional archaeologists. This process is producing a new kind of synergism, with the potential for innovative and diverse

outcomes.

A different kind of archaeology is gradually emerging in Australia, with new approaches to the documentation and management of Indigenous cultural landscapes. With informed Indigenous ways of thinking,

the possibility arises of an opening up of new vistas of

land management strategies, encompassing areas of

research that previously have been neglected or discriminated against by archaeologists. This Indigenous

archaeology is self-consciously aware of entrenched

Western mindsets and is willing to address the intellectual challenges involved in engaging with the complexities of Indigenous knowledge systems. Moving

beyond the fetters of Western modes of thought, this

archaeology is likely to show greater interest in absence, as well as presence, in oral as well as literary forms of knowledge and in the interconnections of

space and place (Wobst and Smith, in press). It promises to be an intellectually exciting, and more socially

valuable, archaeology.

Conclusions

In summary, the flexibility of Indigenous notions of space and time views the landscape as an interconnected whole that is far more than just the sum of its

parts. Indigenous Australians tend to view sites at this

landscape level of abstraction, rather than in the spatially bounded sense commonly understood by Europeans, who habitually regard land as a commodity

and partition it into discrete parcels. From an Indig- enous Australian viewpoint, detrimental effects to one

part of the cultural landscape affect all other parts of

it; individual sites cannot be separated from the cultural context that gives them meaning.

Changes in the intensity of working relationships

between archaeologists and Indigenous Australians

have led to a recognition that lists of sites ('dots on

maps') are an inadequate way to represent the complexity of Aboriginal notions of heritage. For Indigenous

Australians, these dots are always joined and any focus on one dot in isolation will give only a partial and

inadequate view. From a cultural heritage management

point of view, the challenge becomes not only to join

the dots, thus seeing the bigger picture, but also to develop more inclusive and thoughtful planning

mechanisms that will make it possible for cultural landscapes to be regarded as a standard unit of cultural

heritage management practice.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Indigenous peoples with whom we have

worked and, in particular, Phyllis Wiynjorroc, the traditional owner for the Barunga-Wugularr region of the

Northern Territory, Australia, and her senior custodians,

Peter Manabaru and Jimmy Wesan. Also, we thank Igor

Krupnik for inviting us to write this paper and for providing detailed editorial guidance.

Notes

1. Following the increasingly common practice among Indigenous authors, we use the term

396 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ AUSTRALIA
"Indigenous peoples" in this paper. The capital "I" here emphasizes the nationhood of individual groups

while use of the plural "peoples" internationalizes

Indigenous experiences, issues, and struggles (L. Smith 1999:1 14-5).

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1 24/ Early spring time In the reindeer herders' tundra camp on the Yamal Peninsula, West Siberia. Nomadic

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400
epilogue

Landscapes, [Perspectives, an d Nations: What Does It Mcans

ELLEN LEE

When Igor Krupnik asked me to write this epilogue for

the international collection on northern ethnographic

landscapes, my first intention was to draw from the

various chapters to provide some kind of summary or

overview of the issues raised throughout the book.

Once I had read all the chapters, I realized what a daunting task this would be. When I considered the contributions to this volume coming from nations as diverse

as Canada, Russia, Australia, and Iceland, several questions jumped out at me that I would like to address in

this concluding section. Three fundamental questions

relate to the entire topic of northern ethnographic landscapes. First: What are northern ethnographic landscapes? Second: What is it about northern ethnographic

landscapes that merits our attention and our energies?

Third: What can we learn from northern ethnographic

landscapes?

The Definition: What Are Northern Ethnographic Landscapes?

The volume's Introduction discusses various terms used

in different countries for what are called here "northern ethnographic landscapes." In order to understand

the concept in another way, I would break the title

into its three constituent parts—"northern," "ethnographic," and "landscapes"—and examine each term

separately.

Why, in the first place, was it considered interesting or useful to look at northern landscapes as a group,

as opposed to including landscapes from other regions?

While this is not directly expressed in the Introduction

or in the individual chapters, I would venture to suggest that within the northern hemisphere, it is in the more northerly areas of North America, Europe, and

Asia that indigenous people are present and where

industrial exploitation is relatively small (or moderatewhen compared to other regions). One may say that

the northern part of the northern hemisphere, as a generalized region, is mostly made up of relatively undeveloped land, in comparison to areas further south. As

a result, fewer northern indigenous people have been

displaced from their traditional lands, and more of them

have retained their traditional languages and ways of

life. While this is particularly true in the northern areas

of Canada and Alaska, even in those geographical regions both languages and traditional ways of life have

changed dramatically as a result of European contact.

Nevertheless, northern communities are more likely than

others to have been able to maintain their links with

their traditional territories, and their cultural landscapes

are more clearly recognizable. All residents of the North,

whether indigenous or non-indigenous (including two

latter examples reviewed in this book, the Icelandic

"saga-travelers" and Norwegian fishermen), have a special relationship with northern landscapes, and one that

merits our attention. The second word, "ethnographic," has traditionally

been used to describe the study of communities or groups that are culturally different from the modern

dominant culture. As a Canadian, I find the use of the term "ethnographic" in this book intriguing; I am not aware of it being commonly used in conjunction with

401
the word "landscape" in Canada. In this volume, an

ethnographic landscape is generally seen as one associated with a group whose culture or history stands

apart from the modern dominant society. It includes

landscapes associated with or valued by indigenous

or Aboriginal communities, as well as earlier groups of

people who may not be considered indigenous to a

particular area, but whose cultures nevertheless differ

substantially from what is commonly called "Western

culture." The fact of cultural differences between those

associated with the landscape and those studying it

or attempting to manage those landscapes is one of

the major sources of question and debate on this topic.

Therefore, "ethnographic" here stands for differences,

for cultural distinctiveness, and peculiarities that are

so crucial in the field of heritage preservation and landscape management.

The term "landscape" is interesting to examine and

dissect, as well. A search of on-line dictionaries for the

definition of landscape revealed that while there is some

variation among the definitions, they generally include some reference to scenery: an expanse of scenery, a

broad view, a single view, a large area of countryside,

a portion of land or territory, and so forth. More than one source attributed the origins of the word to the

scenery depicted in Dutch landscape painting. The

essence of the definition of landscape and how its use

has developed is summed up in the Canadian Oxford

Dictionary (1998:801) as "natural or imaginary scenery, as seen in a broad view." Landscape refers not

only to the physical nature of the land itself, but also

to how it is imagined or perceived.

So, putting these three words together, northern

ethnographic landscapes are areas or regions of land

in the northern part of the northern hemisphere. They

are associated with cultural groups that are chronologically or culturally distinct from the modern dominant cultural groups. Further, they are imagined, perceived, remembered, or interpreted in a particular way

because of their physical nature and their relationship

with a particular cultural group or tradition. Those three

themes—the North, cultural distinctiveness, and specific visions or perceptions—all come together and

are addressed in one way or another in every chapter

of this book.

The Value: What About Northern Ethnographic Landscapes Merits Our Attention?

In other words, why do we care about these landscapes? While the aspect of being in the North gives

all of these landscapes something in common in terms

of environmental elements and the relative lack of development, the landscapes' presence in the North, in and of itself, does not give rise to major challenges.

What is critical is that the study of northern ethnographic landscapes opens up the ways to learn how

to preserve biodiversity and at the same time encour- age the cultural survival of the people associated with

these landscapes. The study of traditional ecological

knowledge in these areas presents tremendous opportunities for understanding how cultural values and

behaviors affect and enhance the sustainability of ecological zones, and vice versa. It is because of the

North, its peoples, and the ways we communicate

with them—politically, historically, and scientifically—

that we have the possibility of coming to understand

how cultural systems and natural systems are integrated, and are, in fact, part of each other.

Understanding and Communication: What

Can We Learn from Northern Ethnographic

Landscapes?

The most problematic aspect of northern ethnographic

landscapes seems to be the cultural differences be- tween the communities associated with the landscape

and the dominant (usually governing) cultural groupin other words, the ethnographic aspect. These differences show up in all facets of identification, evaluation, protection, management, and interpretation of

these landscapes. In fact, even listing these activities

separately reveals clear cultural differences. Aborigi402 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ EPILOGUE
nal groups who live in and are part of a landscape do

not think about "identification," "evaluation," "protection," "management," and "interpretation" of the land

they live in. Simply, they use other words and have

other feelings toward their lands. To look at landscapes

from the outside is the perspective of a dominant cultural group and of the system of dealing with the land

it created. The first, and in some ways the most basic, challenge is the factor of unequal power between the parties involved with these landscapes. Because of indigenous peoples' lower political status and recognition, in many situations these groups have little or no power to affect the disposition of their traditional land and how it is used. And where they do have some

influence, they are invariably forced to work within the

parameters set by the dominant culture or government.

While the existence of a situation of unequal power is now recognized by both parties in these cases, often

the implications of differing cultural approaches is inadequately understood by either side. The issue be- comes one of failed cross-cultural communication. For

such relationships to be productive, there needs to be

recognition that there are ways of seeing the world

that are different from one's own, but just as valid. The ways that governments manage the kinds of

landscapes referred to in this volume—by identification, evaluation, protection, management, and interpretation—are clearly developed by the dominant cultural perspective. They are now a reality for indigenous

peoples as well, because of the political situation most

indigenous northern groups find themselves in. Therefore, the most useful way to address these challenges

might be to examine each step with the goal of trying

to understand how it might be perceived by or might

affect the respective indigenous or traditional group. The first step here is to identify a landscape in terms

of its interest to a particular group and/or government

(in our case, to a governmental agency in charge of

the land and/or heritage preservation). It is important

to recognize that even though it appears to be a

simple, straightforward step, identification itself can be an intervention in an existing ethnographic landscape. Identification carries cultural baggage; the categories favored by government will invariably not rec- ognize the unique richness of meaning a particular landscape holds for its indigenous residents (Lee 2000:4-

5). The "protected landscapes" concept used by lUCN

(World Conservation Union) has great potential to work

around this difficulty as it provides "opportunities to

directly engage local communities in stewardship"

(Mitchell and Buggey 2000: 40-1) and thus avoid re- ducing the landscapes to biophysical models. Who

identifies a cultural landscape and what terminology

they use to categorize it could have a major impact on later decisions.

With identification usually comes documentation.

Documentation protocols need to be tailored to meet

both the cultural needs of the resident population and

the institutional needs of the relevant government pro- gram. It is crucial to ensure that the words used to document and describe the landscape are carefully

defined, so that the words have commonly understood

meanings, particularly when there are language as well

as cultural differences. It is important to document

both the physical and the intangible characteristics of

the landscape. In some cases, the work needed to document such a landscape may actually contradict

the intangible values inherent in the landscape. In such

instances, intangible values may not fit within standardized government programs and established documentation patterns. In reading through the different

stories presented in this volume, one gets the sense of

not only the complexity of ethnographic landscapes,

but also of the diverse possible dimensions that any

given landscape might have. For example, the patterns of ethnographic landscapes may not necessarily

match our common view of geography. What one

thinks of as the normal horizontal and vertical dimensions of a landscape take on new meaning when one

looks at a seascape (as in the case of fishermen's knowledge) or at a traditional tribal landscape lived with and

ELLEN LEE 403
built around hundreds of place-names, old stories, travel

narratives, and ancestral paths. Time and seasonality

are important, although often undocumented, dimensions of many landscapes. The boundaries of ethnographic landscapes may also be problematic in many

cases. They may not be part of the traditional cultural

conception of the landscape, and may therefore be

artificially imposed for the purposes of some institutional need. Croups often see all of their traditional

territory as important, even where it overlaps with the

territory of others, and are unwilling or unable to choose

smaller areas for the purposes of protection.

The challenges of documenting ethnographic landscapes also extend into the challenges of evaluation. An ethnographic landscape refers to a group or collective concept of land and place, so group values are paramount in determining the landscape's importance

and meaning. However, not only do values placed on

landscapes differ between local, indigenous people

and the dominant culture, but they also vary between

the male and female perspectives and among the different generations within a community. While there

are group understandings of landscapes, each person

also carries an individual and unique cultural landscape

in his or her head and heart, based on personal experiences. Thus it is important to be aware of the layering

of values and the potential for conflicting values, even between members of the same cultural group.

In considering the values associated with landscapes, it is important to remember that in the scientific approach, we tend to think of landscapes as concrete, physical things, with the values layered onto the

place. However, the origins of the word "landscape"

in Dutch landscape painting, suggest the original use

of the concept as an abstract representation of land,

that is, a way of thinking about the land. "The quintessential nature of the use of the term cultural landscape

is that its definition and meaning are in the eye of the

beholder" (Lee 2000:3). So if we think of landscapes

as imaginary, or as creations of our experience, behavior, and memories, evaluating them becomes more difficult, or at least more complex. When landscapes are

creations of memory, dreaming, or ritual, they require

us to reach further than our usual scientific recording

and evaluation techniques.

The challenge increases manifold when we are

dealing with more than one language. Place-names in

original languages are often the mnemonic devices

that help to continue to connect the stories and the

culture of the people to their land. Concepts are often

not easily (if at all) translatable from one language to

another, especially where cultures are radically different. Many indigenous peoples have identified the two

most important mechanisms for sustaining their culture as language retention and a continuing relationship to the land. The transmission of these values from one generation to the next in the face of global, electronic communications is an enormous challenge facing indigenous people today.

Protection and Management

After government agencies and local people have suc- ceeded in identifying, documenting, and evaluating an

ethnographic landscape, the next step is to find a way

to protect and sustain it. Assuming that the values have been adequately defined to accurately reflect

the essence of the landscape, it should not be difficult

to identify management practices that can help to

ensure that the ethnographic landscape is sustainable. However, in some cases, culturally inappropriate activities may be necessary because of clashes with

modern economy. Covernment protection might be

necessary - for example, setting an area of land aside

to prevent inappropriate commercial exploitation. Even though it may not be part of the traditional relationship between the landscape and the people, there may be a need to map and document places that

previously were never written down, or were culturally

protected because of their acknowledged power or

sensitivity. Unusual protective mechanisms may sometimes be required. In some cases, restoration of spiritual value may be carried out through the conduct of

404 COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES/ EPILOGUE
CATEGORY PROTECTED AREAS

(e.g. National Parks)

HISTORICAL SITES ETHNOGRAPHIC

LANDSCAPES

EVALUTAION

CRITERIA

Natural values Cultural or historic valuesCultural and natural

values

SIZE OF

GEOGRAPHICAL

AREA

Large geographical

areas to protect

ecosystems,

watersheds

Small geographical

areas to protect

buildings building

complexes and

archaeological sites

Large geographical

areas to encompass

all values

TANGIBLE OR

INTANGIBLE VALUES

Primarily tangible

values (biophysical)

Primarily tangible

values (cultural

resources)

Both tangible and

intangible values

BALANCE OF

NATURAL AND

CULTURAL VALUES IN AREA MANAGEMENT

Cultural or historical values secondaryNatural values

secondary

Cultural and natural

values integrated

appropriate rituals. The accumulation, documentation, and appropriate transmission of traditional knowledge can also be a mechanism for sustaining

a landscape. Participation of the associated local people in the management regime should, therefore, help ensure that these activities are appropriate and are properly monitored.

In most of the countries represented in this vol- ume, finding a management regime for an ethnographic

landscape is difficult. This is because existing protected

area regimes tend to separate cultural and natural landscapes, with different foci and characteristics. Thus we find that cultural landscapes often fall between the

cracks, not fitting very well into either type of protected area. Table 7 is modified from one published

elsewhere (English and Lee 2003:51); it demonstrates

the characteristics of the two types of regimes in comparison to the general nature of cultural (or in this case,

ethnographic) landscapes. This table illustrates that most

of the existing statutory mechanisms for natural protected areas and for historic sites do not adequately

address the important characteristics of ethnographic

landscapes; instead, these landscapes fall somewhere

in between. Currently, if a management regime is established for an ethnographic landscape, it ends up

being created as a modified version of either a historic

site or a natural protected area.

While I have spoken of the interpretation of ethnographic landscapes as a separate activity, in fact interpretation, if done appropriately, should be part of protecting or sustaining such landscapes. Since community elders see the transmission of knowledge and understanding of ethnographic landscapes as one of their

biggest challenges, it is only natural to look at the

potential to use these landscapes as classrooms and

teaching tools. In the end, sustaining human relationships with landscapes is the way to sustain the landscapes themselves.

Conclusions

In analyzing northern ethnographic landscapes and trying to get at their essential nature, I have tried to elicit what we can learn from these fascinating examples of

cultural interaction. Ethnographic landscapes fall someELLEN LEE 405
where between the cultural and the natural, between

tangible and intangible, between preservation and use, and between local and national. It appears to me that

the examples in this volume give us the opportunity

to step outside of the box in terms of how we view

ourselves in the world we live in. Finding environmental and cultural sustainability means finding effective ways of negotiating landscapes between dominant

and local or indigenous cultural groups. The necessity

to always keep the external (that is, dominant) and the

internal (that is, ethnographic) perspectives in mind is a

pervasive theme to this discussion. To follow through

with the theme of sustainability, we also have to address the question: "What are the limits of acceptable

change? We will need to determine measures of health

or sustainability and establish programs to determine

the effects of our management practices." (English and

Lee 2003:53).

One of the clear messages I have taken from this volume—and I hope will be also taken by landscape

managers, scholars, and protection agencies—is that

northern ethnographic landscapes, or cultural landscapes in general, are not static. They will continue to

evolve, both tangibly and intangibly, and we must do

our best to monitor and understand their evolution.

Our role in that evolution may be paraphrased from

the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm.

Acknowledgements

This paper draws substantially on the insights offered

in the various papers in this volume, in addition to conversations with and the writings of Susan Buggey, Christopher Hanks, Thomas D. Andrews, Lisa Prosper, and

AnthonyJ. English.

References

Canadian Oxford Dictionary

1 998 The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Edited by

Katherine Barber. Oxford University Press Canada.

English, Anthony J. and Ellen Lee

2003 Managing the Intangible. In The Full Value

of Parks: From Economics to the Intangible, David

L. Harmon and Allen D. Putney, eds., pp. 43-55.

Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers,

Inc. Lee, Ellen

2 000 Cultural Connections to the Land - a Canadian Example. In Non-Material Values of Protected

Areas. Allen D. Putney, ed., pp. 3-12. Parks: The

International Journal for Protected Area Managers , Special issue, 10(2). Gland, Switzerland: lUCN.

Mitchell, Nora and Susan Buggey

2000 Protected Landscapes and Cultural Landscapes: Taking Advantage of Diverse Approaches.

The Ceorge Wright Forum 1 7(1 ):35-46.

406 PAULA WILLEY
index

A

Aarseth, Bjorn, 81, 95

Abitibiwinni people (Canada), 27-28

Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (Australia), 37

Aboriginal cultural landscape designation, 7S-77

Adams, Ansel, 1 84 Ahtna people (USA-Alaska), 46, 56, 58. See also Athapaskan people. Place-names

Akingaghmiit (St. Lawrence Island, USA), 212, 219-220

Alaska, ethnographic landscapes in: documenting of, 323-

325; federal viewtoward ethnographic landscapes, 57-58;

in Glacier Bay National Park, 330-339; in Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, 325-330; laws and policies on, 52-57; policy implications, 60-61 ; protecting landscapes in, 45-50; regulation on, 1 99; research on, 1 96-1 98; subsis- tence in, 49, 5 5-56, 1 78-1 79; U.S. policies and, 50-52

Alaska, Native views toward landscape, 1 77-1 78; allocation, 198; developing shared view of landscape, 1 96- 1 99; environmental knowledge, 1 88-1 89; example of illogic of game regulations, 191-1 93; Native resistance, 1 89-1 93;

traveling landscapes, 58-60; Yup'ik human-"animal-person"

relationships, 187-188

Alaska, non-Native views of landscape, 183-187: all- terrain vehicles and, 184-186; fisheries case study, 195-196; landscapes reduced to biological models, 193-195; technology as resource management tool, 186-187; 'wilderness' landscapes, 184-186, 233

Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), 55, 192-195

Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA),

48, 54, 55, 56, 178, 184-185, 186, 199, 324-325, 330

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), 54, 55, 231,

243, 244, 248, 324-325

Albright, Horace, 67

All-Russian Society for Protection of Nature (ARSPN; Russia), 123

Alta rock carvings (Norway), 96-97, 101

Alutiiq people (USA-Alaska), 59. See also Eskimo people

American Indian Religious Freedom Act (USA), 2, 52, 61 Ancient Monuments and Buildings Act (Norway), 82, 83

Antiquities Act, 67, 323 Apache people (USA), 1 79, 230

Applied Ethnography Program (NPS; USA), 50, 53, 58

Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA), 52

Archaeological Sites Management Information System (ASMIS;

USA-Alaska), 58

Arctic Studies Center (ASC), 2-3

Arnberger, Robert, 55

Arvia'juaq National Historic Sites (Canada), 26, 36

Associative cultural landscape (Canada), 20, 21-22

Athabaskan, 231, 328, 329-330

Athapaskan people (USA, Canada): Ahtna 46, 56, 58; Dena'ina, 46, 58, 180-183; Han, 182; Koyukon, 46, 49,

58; mobility of, 58; place-names of, 179-183;

storvtelling by, 48-49; Tanana, 46, 48, 49, 179-180

Austin, Ken, 339

Australia: Aboriginal landscapes as discrete/intercon- nected areas, 32; Dreamtime/Dreaming concept in, 59, 379, 382, 387, 389-390; Indigenous archaeology in, 395-396; Indigenous land/landscape protection in, 2, 37, 38, 393; land use agreements, 393-395; managing

land/seascapes in, 379-380; monitoring Aboriginal

cultural landscapes in, 38; wilderness areas, 391-393

Australia: Western vs. Indigenous worldview, 380-382;

concepts of space, 382-383; concepts of time, 386-

387, 389; example of oral vs. literary [hierarchical] knowledge, 384-386; spaces and places, 389-391 B

Babu, Paddy, 390

Baikalova, Anna, 145, 146

Balalaeva, Olga, 145, 147

Barnhardt, Ray, 1 80

Barr, Gideon/Kahlook Sr., 237-238, 242, 246, 247, 248

Barth, Fredrik, 98, 1 00

Bartlett Cove, Alaska, 330, 331

Basso, Keith, 1 50, 1 70, 230

Battlefields, 67, 71, 77, 116, 323

Bell, Diane, 385

Bender, Barbara, 389

Beringia International Park, 2 Beringia Nature-Ethnic Park (Russia), 115,118

Bering Land Bridge National Preserve (USA-Alaska), 1 1 8, 230, 247

Berry, Wendell, 71

Bethel, Alaska, fisheries case study, 1 95-1 96

Big Dish (Huna breadbasket), 334, 336, 337

Bird, Carolyn, 395

INDEX 407
Bjarnason, B., 262

Bjornsson, Bjorn C, 265

Blondin, George, 27

Boas, Franz, 230

Bogoslovskaya, Lyudmila S., 118, 119

Boiarskii, Peter V., 122, 167

Bollason, Arthur Bjorgvin, 266

Botanical monument, 164

Bourdieu, Pierre, 100

Boyd, Bill, 394

Breidfjord, Sigurd, 259

Brody, Hugh, 1 70, 230

Brown, William E., 232

Buggey, Susan, 75-76, 278

Burch, Ernest S. Jr., 59

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA; USA): archive of Alaska

Native traditional knowledge, 54-55; ecosystem model

of, 58; research on Native place-names, 231; subsis- tence management and, 55

Bureau of Land Management (BLM; USA), 55, 58, 61, 185

Callicott, J. Baird, 1 84

Canada: Aboriginal woddview in, 17-18, 19-20; cultural landscape categories in, 20-22, 22-25; fisheries management in, 26, 28-29, 34, 36; introduction to Aboriginal landscapes in, 1 7-1 8; national historic site designations, 22-25; national historic sites with Aboriginal

values, 28-30; protection for Aboriginal cultural landscapes

in, 34-39; recently designated Aboriginal cultural land- scapes, 25-28. See fl/so Northwest Territories (NWT); Nunavut; Parks Canada

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), 38 Cape York Peninsula, Australia, 393

Caribou, 194-198, 307-308. See also Kazan River Fall Caribou Crossing National Historic Site Caribou Inuit, 33

Catlin, George, 323

Center for Humanitarian Research on Indigenous Minority

Peoples of the North (CHR; Russia), 155, 168, 170 Chapman, Thomas, 384

Chernetsov, Valerii N., 347, 348

Cherokee, resettlement of, 32, 60

Chilkat/Chilkoot people (Canada), 328

Chilkoot Trail, Alaska, 60, 326-327, 328, 329 Chipewyan people (Canada), 313-314

Chookaneidi people (Canada), 334, 335, 338

Chukchi Autonomous Area (Russia), 110, 118

Cibecue Apache people (USA), 1 79

Clarke, Phillip, 386, 393

Collingwood, W.G., 262

Collins, Henr/ B., 205-207, 216-218

Commemorative Integrity Statement (CIS; Canada), 37-38

Convention on Biological Diversity, 84

Cooper, William, 333

Croker Island, Australia, 383

Cross, Bessie Barr, 248

Cruikshank, Julie, 230

Cultural Heritage Act (Norway), 84, 85-87, 93, 98, 357,

369, 373

Cultural Landscape Inventory (CLI; NPS; USA), 58, 325

Cultural Landscapes Program (CLP; NPS; USA), 1, 2, 3, 50,

51, 61-62, 67, 68-69, 70, 722

Cuppopgieddi, Norway, 372

D

Dascent, George, 260

Deisheetaan people (Canada), 325-326

Deline Traditional Fisher/, 26, 28-29, 34, 36

Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska), 45-50, 54 Dene Cultural Institute, 318-319

Dene First Nation (Canada), 314; land claims and, 304,

311; participatory action research by, 24; worldview of,

19, 301, 303; Yellowknives, 312, 313. See also North- west Territories; Sahtu Dene

Dene Mapping Project, 309

Density dependent model, 193 Department of Environmental and Cultural Heritage (Sami; Nonway), 82, 85 Department of Resources Wildlife and Economic Develop- ment (RWED; Canada), 308

Dhuwa people (Australia), 382 Diamond mining, in Northwest Territories, 306, 308, 310,

313, 314

Dictionary of Alaska Place Names (Orth), 180-183

Directorate for Cultural Heritage, Riksantikvaren (Nor- way), 82, 85, 87, 88, 94-95, 356, 368, 371-372

Directorate for Nature Conservancy (Norway), 87

Documenting ethnographic landscapes: as cooperative

process, 9-10; in Alaska, 323-339; in Canada, 34-36.

See Alaska, ethnographic landscapes in Dogrib people (Canada), 31 3; boundaries of landscape, 32; education and, 31 2, 31 6, 31 9; worldview of, 1

9

Downer, Alan S., 32 Dundas Bay, Alaska, 330-331

Dyea, Alaska, 326-329

E.

Eastern Khanty. See Khanty people (Russia) Eastern Sami, 102, 358, 362 Emmons, George, 335

Eriksson, Leif, 259

Eskimo people. SeeAlutiiq; Inuit; Inupiat; Yupik; Yup'ik

Eskimo Heritage Program (USA-Alaska), 241-242

Ethnicity: defining through archaeology, 98-1 01 ; instrumental, 99

Ethno-ecological area, 1 1 0, 1 23

Ethnographic landscape history, writing: Aboriginal cultural landscape designation, 75-77; definition issues in, 71 -72;

effect of National Register on, 67-68, 69-71 , 72, 73, 76;

effect of NPS Cultural Landscapes Program on, 68-69;

traditional cultural properties designation and, 72-75 408 INDEX
Ethnographic landscape report (NPS; USA), 53

Ethnographic landscapes, defining, 4-5, 7-8, 72

Ethno-natural park (Russia), 1 65-1 66

European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage, 84 The European Landscape Convention, 84-85, 87

Executive Order no. 1 3007 (NPS; USA), 1-2,52 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS; USA-Alaska), 57, 189

Eythorsson, Einar, 283

r

Fall, James A., 231, 242

Famine, in Alaska, 207, 218-219

Federal Forestry Service (Russia), 114

Federal Subsistence Board (USA-Alaska), 57, 1 99

Federal Subsistence Management Program (USA-Alaska), 49, 55,56-57

Fienup-Riordan, Ann, 1 88

Filipenko, Alexandr, 146-147

Finnbogadottir, Vigdis, 258

Fisheries management: in Alaska, 56, 195-196; in Canada,

26, 28-29, 34, 36; in Russia, 164, 166

Fisherman knowledge, 280-288; catching fish, 281-284;

multiple seascapes, 286; sharing knowledge with other

fisherman, 286-287; time dimension and, 286; traveling to fishing site, 284-286. See also Northern Norway seascape

Frankel, David, 395

Fullagar, Richard, 394-395

Fur trading, 45, 49, 304, 306, 307, 328

G

Cambell. See Sivuqaq/Cambell, changing ethnographic

landscape(s) of Cambell, Vene, 208, 214

Came Management Units (USA-Alaska), 56

Ceist, Otto, 2 14-2 15, 2 17-2 18 Ceographic Information systems (CIS), 145, 186-187,314

Gerrard, Siri, 288

Gitsan people (Canada), 29

Glacier Bay National Monument (Alaska), 331

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (Alaska), 71, 77; documenting Tlingit homelands at, 330-339

Global Positioning System (CPS), 1 45, 243, 280, 282, 284

Cold rush/prospecting, in Alaska, 46, 49. See a/so Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Goldschmidt, Walters., 336

Golovnev, Andrei V., 1 62, 349

Grant, Katherine, 334

Grasslands National Park (Canada), 30

Crosz, Elizabeth, 385 Ground Zero (USA), 233

Cuba, Ramachandra, 1 89-1 90 Gumand the Good (Bishop of Iceland), 256

Curibye, Ragnhild, 93

Cwich'in people (Canada; USA-Alaska), 27, 303; collaborative research by, 314; education and, 31 2-31 3; European

disease and, 306-307; land claims and, 304, 306, 310-

31 1; language of, 307; worldview of, 19

Cwich'in Social and Cultural Institute (GSCI), 312-313,

314, 318-319

Gydan Federal Nature Reserve (Russia), 1 64 Gydan Nenets people (Russia). See Yamal-Nenets Autono- mous Area, sacred sites mapping

Cydanskiy Federal Nature Reserve (Russia), 164 h

Haas, Theodore H., 336

Habitus, 100

Haetta, Odd Mathis, 95

Hagen, Anders, 95, 96

Haida people (USA-Alaska), 22, 23, 25, 29, 336

Haines, Alaska, 328

Hamm, Giles, 381, 393 Hammond, Austin, 326

Hanks, Christopher C, 26-27

Harvaqtuuq Historic Site, 37-38

Hatzic Rock (Canada), 25-26

Haze, Esther, 334

Head, Lesley, 394-395

Helm, June, 308

Hensel, Chase, 190, 195

Heritage Protection Act (Australia), 384

Hindmarsh Island Bridge (Australia), 384-386

Historical-cultural territon/ (Russia), 107-108

Historical-landscape complex (Russia), 1 1 3 Historical Resources Act (Canada), 39

Historic Places Initiative (Canada), 39

Historic Route (USA), 66, 60

Historic Sites Act of 1935 (USA), 67-68

Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC),

18, 22-25, 30-31 Hjemmeluft site (Norway), 101 Holme, Jorn, 93

Hughes, Charles, 204 Huna Tlingit people (USA-Alaska), 331, 332-333, 334-337

Hunting and gathering, 57, 245, 325

IIceland, 255. See a/so Saga landscape

Idea Trail (Canada), 19, 25, 32, 316

Ikpekmiut people (USA-Alaska), 236

India, 189-190

Indian Reorganization Act (IRA; USA), 222

Indigenous/Aboriginal view toward landscape, 3-5

Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA), 380, 395-396

Ingold.Tim, 359

International Labour Organization (ILO), 83-84, 95, 1 00; ILO Convention No. 1 69, 83-84, 95, 1 00

Inuit people (Canada, USA-Alaska, Greenland) 303, 31 3; history from perspective of, 28; landscape protection and,

36; recently designated cultural landscapes of, 26; . See also Caribou Inuit; Inupiat people; Inuvialuit people

INDEX 409
Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project, 309

Inuksuit (Nunavut), 22

Inupiat people (Alaska), 59. See also Eskimo people

Inuvialuit people (Canada): education and, 315, 316; gas

industry and, 306, 309; land claims and, 304, 310; worldview of, 301

Ipnauraq, Alaska, 234-235

1

Jackson, Albert, 336

Jackson, J.B., 73

Johnson, John, 32

Jones, Phillip, 386

Jones, Slan, 98-99, 100

Jorgensen, Joseph C, 189

Karacharov, Konstantin, 146, 351

Kari, James, 180-181, 231, 242, 268

Katie John decision, 49

Kawagley, Oscar A., 56 Kazan River Fall Caribou Crossing National Historic Site (Canada), 26, 36, 37-38

Keewatin Regional Land Use Plan (Canada), 26, 36

Keithahn, Edward L, 242

Kejimkujik National Park (Canada), 24-25, 33

Kennecott Mill Town, Alaska, 53 Kenozersk National Park (Russia), 122

Khanty Cultural Conservation Program (Russia): context of,

1 31-1 34; history of, 1 34-142; projects under, 1 36-1 41 . See

fl/soYugan Khanty Biosphere reserve Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area (Russia), 113,118-1 22

Khanty people (Russia), 1 05, 1 1 5, 1 1 8, 1 20-122, 155,161,

1 67; worldview of, 1 32, 1 35-1 36

Khanty Traditional Land-Use Atlas Project, 1 37-1 39

Kharyuchi, Nikolai M., 171-172

Kharyuchi, Sergei N., 1 67

Khekhe khan soteya ritual site (Russia), 1 59-1 60

Kilbuck Caribou Herd Co-Management Regime, 1 98

Kimberley repainting project (Australia), 389

Kiyutelluk, Morris, 231

Kizhi Museum-Conservation Area (Russia), 116

Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (USA-Alaska),

53, 60, 325-330

Kniffen, Fred, 230

Kobelev, Ivan, 231

Kogonchin, Igor, 145

Kogonchin, Vladimir, 134, 145, 146, 147 Konda Lakes Nature Parks (Russia), 119, 122 Koonooka, Christopher, 224

Kot myx (Khanty, 'earth house'), 1 36

Koutsky, Kathryn,231

Krupnik, Igor, 3, 1 1 Kuskokwim River, Alaska, 46, 1 77

Kvaenangen, Norway, 91-92

L

Lar, Leonid A., 1 55, 168, 172, 354

Laxness, Halldor, 258

Leopold, Aldo, 233

Likhachev, Dmitrii S., 106, 109

Lindoff, Jennie, 34

Little Copper Shield (Alaska), 335, 338

Lorenz, Einhart, 92

Lowenthal, David, 73

Lukaax.adi people (Canada), 329

Luke, Howard, 1 79, 1 80

M

Mabo V. Queensland (Australia), 380, 392

Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry (Canada), 309

Magnus, Bente, 95-96

Malecite people (Canada), 30

Marstrander, Lyder, 90

Mauken-Blatind area (Norway), 365-368

McDowell decision, 49

McWilliam, Andrew, 390-391 Memory landscape, 54, 230

Mentasta Caribou Herd (Alaska), 1 94-1 95, 1 98

Menzies, Archibald, 331, 337 Messoyakha "natural monument" (Russia), 164

Metis First Nation (Canada), 1 7, 24, 29, 30; history from

perspective of, 28; land claims and, 35, 36, 304; worldview of, 20, 301 , 303

Metis Heritage Association of the Northwest Territories, 28

Mi'kmaq people (Canada), 24-25, 33

Ministry of the Environment (Norway), 81 -82, 86, 368

Mishler, Craig, 182-183

Mohs, Cordon, 25-26

Moore, J. Bernard, 340

Moore, Riley, 191,208

Morphy, Howard, 382, 387

Morrow, Phyllis, 1 90, 1 95

Mortensnes site (Norway), 96, 1 01 -1 02

Moszinska, Wanda I., 347, 348

Mt. McKinley National Park (Alaska), 45, 46-48. See also Denali National Park and Preserve Mount McKinley, Non-Native vs. Native view toward, 49

Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nations (Canada), 28, 29-30

Mowaljarii, David, 389

Muir, John, 331-333

Murray Islands, Australia, 380

Museum-conservation areas (Russia), 109, 115-116

Myhre, Bj0rn, 95 N

Nash, Roderick, 325

National Aboriginal Sites Authorities Committee (NASAC;

Australia), 387, 389

410 INDEX
National Historical Preservation Act (NHPA), 51-52, 67, 331

National Historic Landmark (USA), 78, 326

National Historic Sites system (Canada), 23, 34

National Native Title Register (Australia), 380

National Park Advisory Board (USA), 65

National Park Service (NPS; USA): Applied Ethnography

Program, 50, 53, 58, 72, 73; classification of cultural landscapes, 50; Cultural Landscape Inventory (CLI), 58, 325;

Cultural Landscapes Program, 1 , 3, 50, 51 , 61 -62, 67, 68-69,

70, 73, 322; definition of cultural landscape, 50, 68; early

cultural resource studies, 67; ethnographic landscapes use

of, 50; historic designed landscapes, 50; historic sites, 50;

historic vernacular landscapes, 50; landscape histories of, 69; lands owned by in Alaska, 1 85; on importance of

cultural landscapes, 68-69; selection of boundaries for

traditional cultural properties, 33; subsistence management

and, 55; Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP), 52, 60, 61 , 72- 75,331,334,339

National Register Bulletin 38,61

National Register of Historic Places (NRHP; USA), 42, 60,

66, 67-68, 73, 75, 327, 330, 331

National Science Foundation, 225, 231, 235, 249

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRPA; USA), 1 , 52

Native Title Act (Australia), 380, 383, 393

Nature Conservancy Act (Norway), 84-85

Navajo Nation (USA), 32

Nenets people (Russia), 105,115. See fl/so Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area; Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, sacred sites mapping project

Newfoundland, 23, 265, 288

New Zealand, 2 Ngarrindjeri people (Australia), 384-386, 387, 389

Nicholls, Christine, 385

Ninaistakis (Chief Mountain), Canada, 37

Ningeulook, Davey, 242, 249

Ningeulook, Edgar/Nunageak, 231 , 236, 241 , 245

Ningeulook, Frieda, 242, 250

Ningeulook, Hattie, 230, 232

Njal, saga of, 260-263

Northern ethnographic landscapes: defining, 401-402;

value of, 402; Western vs. Indigenous view; of

identifying and managing, 402-404; of protection and management, 404-405;

Northern Khanty people , 132. See Khanty people (Russia) Northern Native History initiative (Canada), 26

Northern Norway seascape: basic feature of, 278-280; compared with landscape, 277; current status of coastal

fisheries in, 288-290; legal and general framework for, 290-

292; management approach to, 292-295; preservation of, 295; value of fisherman knowledge, 295

Northwest Territories (NWT; Canada): cultural landscapes in, 301 , 303; educating youth in, 31 1 -313; history of cultural landscape research in, 309-3 1 0; maintaining cultural landscapes in, 310-319; mitigating land use conflicts.

313-314; negotiating preservation, 310-311; overview

of, 305-309; pace and degree of change, 303-305;

partnership with museums, 315-316; protecting

cultural landscapes, 316-319; taking control of research agenda, 31 4 Norway: Ancient Monuments and Buildings Act, 82, 83; Church and Churchyard Act, 82; Cultural Heritage Act, 84, 85-87; cultural heritage management system

overview of, 84-85; historical overview of legislation, 82-84; international treaties, 83-84; Listed Building Act, 82; Nature Conservancy Act, 84, 86-87; Planning and

Building Act, 83, 84, 86; Planning and Zoning Act , 292,

294; role of Sami Parliament in, 368-371, 372-373. See

also Norway, Sami cultural heritage in Norway, Sami cultural heritage in: conclusions about,

371 -372; cultural management of Sami landscapes, 87-88;

definition of Sami monument under, 90-97; organization of Sami cultural heritage management system, 356-357;

practical management of, 357-358; reindeer herding

landscape, 362-364; role of local knowledge in managing

cultural heritage, 358-362, 364-365, 368

Norwegian Conservation Act, 290-291

Norwegian Cultural Heritage Act and Sami remains, 88-97; age of remains protected under, 88-89; definition of Sami, 90-91 , 98-1 01 ; main objectives, 89-90; protected Sami

cultural landscapes, 1 01 -1 02; overview of, 88

Norwegian Cultural Inheritance Act, 291 -292 Nova Scotia, Canada, 23, 24 Numto Lake Park (Russia), 1 1 9, 1 22

Nunavut, Canada, 1 7, 22; creation of, 301 ; Inuit perspective on

history, 28; land claims at, 304; landscape protection at, 36 Nyamboy natural monument (Russia), 1 64 O

O'Connor, Wave, 394

Oil and gas: in Canada, 35-36, 306, 31 9; in Russia, 1 1 8, 1 20,

1 33, 1 34, 1 37-1 38, 1 39, 1 53, 1 55-1 56, 1 64, 1 66, 1 67, 343, 344,348,351,352,354

Okotetto, Michael, 1 70, 354 Okpowruk, Charley, 234, 236, 239

Old Fort Franklin, Canada, 28-29

Olsen, Bj0rnar, 97

Oovi, Lloyd, 21

1

Oral history: in Australia, 383-384; knowledge of, 73; land ownership rights and, 17, 27; Sami, 358, 359

Oseberg Viking ship, 82 Oshchepkov, Konstantin, 352

r

Paleontological natural monument, 164

Parks Canada: Aboriginal cultural landscape designation

of, 75-77; Aboriginal cultural landscape protection and,

34, 37, 38, 39; commemorative integrity approach by, 24-25, 33-34; definition of cultural landscapes, 22; role

in cultural landscape preservation, 18, 75

INDEX
Performance Management Data Systems (NPS), 57

Petrich, Jim, 394

Pimm, Stuart L, 193

Place-names: of Athapaskan people, 1 79-1 83; Bureau of

Indian Affairs research on, 231 ; conflict in Alaska, 57; Denali

National Park and Preserve study, 54; difficulty in translating, 404; in Gambell, 21 6; in Shishmaref, 236-239; of Dogrib

people, 31 5-316; of Nenets, 1 61 ; of Sami, 360; ofTlingit, 56, 234, 338-339; research on, 231 , 239

Pootoogooluk, Harvey, 246

Primorskii Krai (Russia), 1 1 0, 1 1 7-1 1 8

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC), 3 1 5 Protected Area Strategy (PAS; Canada), 35, 39, 31

8

Pugughileghmiit, 211-212, 214, 218

Punsi Nature Park (Russia), 1 20, 121, 1 22 Q,

Qikiqtaarjuk, USA-Alaska 26, 33

Qividluamiut, 234,243

Qividluaq, USA-Alaska 2 34, 243

Queensland Heritage Act (Australia), 393 Qvens (Finns), 90, 94 R

Ralph, Jessie, 254

Rankama, Tuija, 230

Ray, Dorothy Jean, 231, 243

Reeves, Brian, 37

Regional Advisory Councils (Alaska), 57, 1 99

Reindeer landscape, Sami, 362-364

Roberts, Alexandra, 32 Rock art: in Australia, 389; in Canada, 24-25; in Norway,

96-97, 101, Sami Parliament and, 371-372

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Canada), 1 7, 30

Russia: fisheries management in, 164, 166; heritage research trends, 106-108; interpreting cultural landscape concept, 108-110; public attitudes effect on scientific approaches, 105-106, 117-123

Russia: landscape preservation, 1 08-1 1 0; museum-conservation areas, 1 09, 1 1 5-1 1 6; national parks, 112,114; nature

parks, 1 12, 1 14-1 1 5; overview of, 1 1 3-1 14; Russia: protected landscape legislation, 1 1 0-1 1 3; On the

Status of Protected Natural Areas, 112; On Unique

Historical and Natural Landscape Territories, 113; Regulation for Natural Preserves, 1 64;Regulation for Protection of Monuments of History and Culture, 346

Russian Associations of Indigenous Minority Peoples of the North (RAIPON), 167, 170

Russian Orthodox Church, 132, 142-143

Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage (RRICNH), 109-110, 112, 122 5

Saami. See Sami

Sacred Trust Project (Russia), 1 34, 1 39

Sacrificial stone (Graksesteinen; Norway), 116

Saga landscape, of southern Iceland: books about land, 256-258; cultural centrality of sagas, 258-259; cultural context of landscape, 255-256

Saga Centre (Iceland), 263-267; bus tours at, 268-271;

conclusion about, 273-274; guides at, 271 -272; tours at, 267-273; using imagination during tour, 272-273; visitor

profile at, 266-267

Saga of Burnt NJal, 260-263; Icelandic landscape and, 260-262; local identity and, 262-263; sagas in Icelandic daily life, 259-260

Sahtu Dene people (Canada): creation myth of, 303; landscape protection and, 34-35; potential Aboriginal

cultural landscape of, 28-29; worldviewof, 20, 303, 318

Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim Agree- ment, 35, 36, 31 1 Sahtu Heritage Places and Sites Joint Working Group, 36, 39, 303,311,318

Sahyoue and Edacho National Historic Park (Canada), 34, 3 1 7- 318

Salym River Khanty, 1 22. See Khanty people (Russia) Sami people (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia): cultural heritage management legislation concerning, 85; defining, 90-91 , 92, 99-1 01 ; estimated numbers of, 81 , 91 -92; in Finland, 81 ; in Sweden, 81 , 92; languages of, 81 ; recognizing prehistory of, 364-365. See also Norway, Sami cultural heritage in; Sami Parliament Sami Act, 90-9 1,3 56

Sami Cultural Heritage Council, 87, 357

Sami Parliament, 82, 85, 87, 88, 91, 94, 95; cultural survey

of Mauken-Blatind area, 366-367; establishment of, 356-357; rock art and, 371-372; role in heritage management, 364, 372-373; role in Norwegian governmental

system, 369-371 ; registration of Sami sites, 362

Saniq-Saniniq coast. See Shishmaref, Alaska

Sattler, Dana, 394

Sauer, Carl, 68, 108

Schaaf, Jeanne, 231

Schanche,Audhild, 92-93

Schneider, William, 179-180

Scott, James C, 189

Selkup people (Russia), 1 55, 1 67

Shared Beringian Heritage Program (NPS; USA), 2, 54, 231 Shem Pete's Alaska, 180-183, 242

Shishmaref, Alaska: function of place-names in landscape, 231-234; geographic context of, 236-239; Inupiat

place-names project at, 236-239; Non-Native vs. Native view toward land, 244-245; place-name classifications, 245-248; uses for research from, 248-249

Shtormovoye field (Russia), 1 65

Sidney,Angela,326, 328, 330

Sierra Club (USA), 47-48

Silook,Paul,210,21

1

Simeone, William E., 182-183

Simpson, Harry, 319

Sitkas people (Canada), 328

41 2 INDEX
Sivuqaq/Gambell, changing ethnographic landscape(s)

of: beach and surf zone, 213-214; burial areas and

ritual sites, 214-215; ethnographic landscape ele- ments, 213-216; evolution of, 216-220; fortification/ defense sites, 215-216; historic trails, 216; physical

changes In landscape, 205-210; preserving ethno- graphic landscapes, 221-225; seascape, 216; setting

of, 204-205; social construction of landscape, 210-

213; sports areas, 213-214; use of place names in, 216;

Skoltebyen, Norway, 87, 102

Smith, Winnie, 334

Solovetskii Museum-Conservation Area (Russia), 116

Sommerseth, Ingrld, 366

Spaeder, Joseph, 191, 195

Speranskli, Mikhail M., Ill

Spirn, Anne Whiston, 66

St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. See SIvuqaq/Cambell,

changing ethnographic landscape(s) of

Stikeen people (Canada), 328

St6:l6 people (Canada), 24, 25-26

Subsistence: management/Issues in Alaska, 49, 55-57, 178-179; as more than economic, 178-179

T

Tagish people (Canada), 326, 327, 328, 329, 330

Tallekpaiek, Alex, 181-182

Taskscapes, 359

Taz Bay Fishery Preserve (Russia), 164

Thornton, Thomas, 230-231 , 234, 334

TImbishaSho-shone people (USA), 50

Tlingit people (USA-Alaska, Canada), 327-328, 329-330; In Glacier Bay, 230-239; HunaTllngIt, 331 , 332-333, 334, 336,

337; place-names of, 56, 234, 338-339

Tobias, Terry N., 293

Tobollakov, V., 1 56

Tourism: In Alaska national parks, 45; In Iceland, 263-274;

Khanty-MansI Autonomous Area, potential at, 121-122;

Sivuqaq/Gambell, potential at, 224-225

Traditional Cultural Properties aCPs; NPS), 52, 60, 61, 72-

75, 331, 334, 339

"Trail of Tears" National Historic Trail (USA), 32, 60

Traveling landscapes (Alaska), 58-60

Tr'ochgk Heritage Site (Canada), 36

Tsimshlan people (Canada, USA-Alaska), 29 U

Uluru-KataTjuta National Park (Australia), 38 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization): Conference on Natural Sacred Sites, 1 37; Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural

Heritage, 290; World Heritage Convention, 2, 8, 20, 290,

291

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 1 80, 1 81

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS): ecosystem model of, 58, 61; lands owned by/wilderness lands in Alaska,

185; subsistence management and, 55, 198

U.S. Forest Service: ecosystem model of, 58, 61; lands owned by In Alaska, 1 85; subsistence management and, 55

Ust-Poluy site (Russia), 347, 348

Utrenn'ee (Morning) oil and gas field (Russia), 1 65

Uwatangaghmllt (St. Lawrence Island, USA), 21 2, 21 9-220 V

Vancouver, George, 331

Vanuito, Awo, 1 62

Vaygach Island, Russia, 1 74 Von Kotzebue, Otto, 218,235

W

Waterman, Thomas T., 230

Western Arctic Caribou Herd (WACH; USA), 1 94-1 98

West Kitlkmeot/Slave Study Society (WKSS; Canada), 313-314

WIget, Andrew, 145, 147

Wildlife Management Units, In Alaska, 56 Wood, Charles, 331 World Heritage List, 2, 1 1

; Canada sites on, 21 ; Norway

sites on, 96-97, 101 Y

Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area (Russia): contemporary

demographic status of, 344-346; legislation base for preservation, 346-350; living culture monuments, 350; new trends and prospects In protection, 1 22, 354-355;

registration and protection resources, 350-352; status of preservation efforts, 352-354

Yamal-Nenets sacred sites mapping project: conclusions

about, 170-174; ethnographer personal background,

1 56-1 58, 1 70-171; need for special protection for

sites, 1 72-173; outsider vs. insider researcher, 171-

1 72; preservation of, 353-354; survey area, 1 63-1 65; surveying and documenting model, 1 74 Yamal State Wildlife Preserve (Russia), 1 64

Yellowknives Dene First Nation (Canada), 312, 313 Yugan Khanty Biosphere Reserve, Inventory and

assessment (Russia): community engagement, 142-

144; ethnographic findings, 148-149; methodology,

1 40-1 42; policy implications, 1 49-1 52; project Implementation, 1 45-1 48; recommendations 1 52-1 53 Yugan Khanty people. See Khanty people (Russia); Yugan

Khanty Biosphere Reserve, inventory and assessment Yukon First Nations (Canada), 35-36

Yup'lk people (USA, Alaska): conservation practices of, 196; worldvlew of, 56, 187-188

Yupik people (Russia, USA-Alaska), 1 1 8 Yuquot, Canada, 28, 30 z

Zapovednik (Federal nature reserve; Russia), 113,139

Zoological-botanical monument (Russia), 1 64

INDEX
i 4

Illustration credits

Title/ Photograph by John S. R. Hood, 2002.

1/ Photo courtesy National Park Service, Alaska Region.

2/ Photograph by Sergey Bogoslovkiy, 1981, courtesy

Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution.

3/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1991. 4/ Map produced by Dan Pag, courtesy Parks Canada,

Archaeological Services Branch. 5/ Photograph by Ellen Lee. Courtesy of Parks Canada,

Archaeological Services Branch. 6/ Photograph by Lyie Henderson, Parks Canada.

7/ Photograph by LyIe Henderson, Parks Canada, 1991. 8/ Photograph by David Neufeld, courtesy Parks Canada,

Archaeological Services Branch. 9/ Photograph by Morris Neyelle, courtesy Parks Canada,

2000.

1 0/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews.

11/ Photograph by John McCormick, courtesy Parks Canada, 2000. 12/ Courtesy Parks Canada, Archaeological Services Branch.

1 3/ Courtesy National Park Service, Alaska Region.

14/ Courtesy National Park Sen/ice, Alaska Region.

1 5/ Courtesy Alaska and Polar Regions Department, Elmer

E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks,

Stephen Foster Collection, #69/92/330.

16/ Map source: Office of Subsistence Management, USFWS.

17/ Map source: Office of Subsistence Management, USFWS.

18/ Map source: Office of Subsistence Management, USFWS.

1 9/ Courtesy National Park Service, Alaska Region.

20/ Map adapted from Haetta 1 996:6. 21/ Photograph by Ingegerd Holand, 2000. 23/ Photograph by Ingegerd Holand, 1997. 24/ Photograph by Ingegerd Holand, 1992. 25/ Photograph by Ingegerd Holand, 2000

26/ Map produced by Marcia Bakry, Smithsonian

Instituttion; adapted from Espeland and Sveen 1989:162. 27/ Photograph by Ingegerd Holand, 2000. 28/ Photograph by Arve Kjersheim, NIKU, 2000. 29/ Photograph by G. Lebedev, 1911. 30/ Photograph by Pavel Shul'gin, 1991. 31/ Photograph by C. Lebedev, 1911. 32/ Photograph by Pavel Shul'gin, 1999. 33/ Photograph by G. Vedmid', 1999. 34/ Photograph by Olga Shtelle. 35/ Photograph by Olga Shtelle. 36/ Photograph by Vladimir Eviadov, 1928. Courtesy

Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 37/ Map courtesy Andrew Wiget.

38/ Photograph by Andrew Wiget.

39/ Map courtesy Andrew Wiget and Olga Balalaeva. 40/ Photograph by Andrew Wiget.

41/ Map courtesy Andrew Wiget.

42/ Map courtesy Andrew Wiget.

43/ Photograph by Andrew Wiget.

44/ Photograph by Andrew Wiget.

45/ Photograph by Andrew Wiget.

46/ Map produced by Igor Krupnik and Marcia Bakry, Smithsonian Institution. 47/ Photo courtesy Calina Kharyuchi.

48/ Photograph by William Fitzhugh, courtesy Arctic

Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 49/ Photo courtesy Galina Kharyuchi.

50/ Photograph by Vladimir Eviadov, 1928. Courtesy

Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 51/ Photograph by Galina Kharyuchi.

52/ Photograph by Galina Kharyuchi.

53/ Photograph by Vladimir Eviadov, courtesy Arctic

Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution. 54/ Photo courtesy National Park Service, Alaska Region.

55/ Photo courtesy National Park Service, Alaska Region.

56/ Photo courtesy National Park Service, Alaska Region.

57/ Relief map courtesy National Park Service, Alaska

414
Region.

58/ Map courtesy National Parl< Service, Alasl<a Region.

59/ Ahtna place-names map courtesy National Park

Service, Alaska Region.

60/ Graph adapted from Halpin 1987:31. 61/ Photograph courtesy National Park Service 62/ Mentasta caribou herd density dependant model

courtesy Don Callaway.

63/ Photograph by Igor Krupnik, 1 999, from the panel

photo at Sivuqam Inc., Gambell, Alaska. 64/ Map reproduced from Collins 1937: 32. 65/ Photograph by Peter Bonnett, 1 889. Courtesy NAA-SI 85-814. 66/ Photograph by Leuman M. Waugh, 1930. Courtesy

National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian

Institution, N42787.

67/ Photograph by Riley D. Moore, 1912. Courtesy NAASI, neg. SI 76-705. 68/ Drawing by Willis Walunga, 2001. 69/ Photograph by Henry B. Collins, Courtesy NAA-SI,

neg. 2000-4459.

70/ Photograph by Peter Bonnett, 1 889. Courtesy NAA-SI

85-81 5. 71/ Photograph by Igor Krupnik, 2001. 72/ Photograph by Igor Krupnik, 2001.

Pg. 228/Courtesy Sandra Haldane, 2004. 73/ Photograph by James Magdanz, Kotzebue, 1993,

courtesy of the photographer.

74/ Map courtesy Susan Fair. Cartography by Nadia

HIibka, Ikarus Design, Tucson, AZ. 75/ Hand-drawn map, 1902. Courtesy Kathleen Lopp

Smith and Verbeck Smith, Seattle. 76/ Watercolor courtesy Alaska State Library, Wickersham

Collection, MS 107, Box 73, Folder 6, #35.

77/ Photograph by Fred Machetanz. Courtesy Alaska and

Polar Regions Department, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library,

University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fred Machetanz

Collection, #73-75-452.

78/ Photograph by James Magdanz, Kotzebue, 1 997,

courtesy of the photographer.

79/ Photo by Glen Simpson, Fairbanks, 1987, courtesy of the photographer.

80/ Photograph by Edward L. Keithhahn, courtesy

National Park Service, Alaska Region, Keithhahn

collection, neg. 047. 81/ Courtesy Edgar Ningeulook and Shishmaref IRA

Village Council (SH/EN-83-F01 2-6). 82/ Photograph by Susan W. Fair, 1 998. 83/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001.

84/ Illustration courtesy Gisli Sigurdsson.

85/ Map adapted from Hreinsson et al., 2000b:388.

86/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001

.

87/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001. 88/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001. 89/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001. 90/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001. 91/ Photograph by Elisabeth Ward, 2001. 92/ Photograph by Anita Maurstad. 93/ Photograph by Anita Maurstad. 94/ Photograph by Anita Maurstad. 95/ Photograph by Anita Maurstad. 96/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1992. 97/ Map produced by Miles Davis, Archaeology CIS

Facility, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,

Yellowknife, NWT, Canada. 98/ Map produced by Miles Davis, Archaeology CIS

Facility, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,

Yellowknife, NWT, Canada. 99/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1 996. 100/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1991. 101/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1996. 102/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1 992. 103/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1993. 104/ Photograph by Thomas D. Andrews, 1991. 105/ Photo courtesy National Park Service, Alaska

Region, 2001. 106/ Photo courtesy Anchorage Museum of History and

Art, Anchorage, B70.22.14, #271.

1 07/ Photograph by George T. Emmons, 1 889. Courtesy

Dept. of Library Services, American Museum of Natural

History, New York, neg. 41619.

108/ Photograph by Mikhail Sherhsnev, 1995. 109/ Photograph by Mikhail Shershnev, 1997. 110/ Photograph by Natalia Fedorova, 1995. 111/ Photograph by Natalia Fedorova, 1996.

I 1 2/ Photograph by Marianne Skandfer.

1 1 4/ Photograph by Marianne Skandfer.

I I 5/ Photograph by Marianne Skandfer. 116/ Photograph by Marianne Skandfer.

1 1 7/ Photograph by Marianne Skandfer.

1 1 8/Photograph by Marianne Skandfer.

1 19/ Photograph by Thetus Smith, 2001.

1 20/ Photograph by Claire Smith 121/ Photograph by Matt Schlitz.

1 22/ Photograph by Claire Smith. 123/ Photograph by Claire Smith. 124/ Photograph by David Dector, 1995. Courtesy Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution.

41 5
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES

CONTKi5UTION5 TO CiKCaMrOLAK ANTMROPOLOGY

Vol.1 : Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 1897-1902. Edited by Igor Krupnik

and William W. Fitzhugh. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC. 2001. xvi+335 pp.

Vol. 2: Honoring Our Elders. A History of Eastern Arctic Anthropology. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh, Stephen

Loring, and Daniel Odess. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC. 2002. xvi-i-319 pp.

Vol. 3: Akuzilleput Igaqullghet. Our Words Put to Paper. Sourcebook in St. Lawrence Island Yupik Heritage and

History. Edited by Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, and Vera Metcalf. Compiled by Igor Krupnik and Lars Krutak. Arctic

Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC. 2002. 464 pp.

Vol. 4: Constructing Cultures Then and Now. Celebrating Franz Boas and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Edited by

Laurel Kendall and Igor Krupnik. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

Washington, DC. 2003. xviii+364 pp.

Vol. 5: Leonid P. Khiobystin. Taimyr. The Archaeology ofNorthernmost Eurasia. Edited by William W. Fitzhugh and

Vladimir V. Pitul'ko. Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Washington,

DC. 2004 (in press).