Sustainability and Subsistence in Arctic Communities

Abstract

Thirty years ago, Chance (1966) wondered if hunting and fishing traditions of the people of the Arctic Slope of Alaska would survive the transition from nomadic to village life. The oil boom of the 1980s brought change to the region to an extent neither Chance nor Arctic dwellers themselves might have predicted (Knapp and Morehouse, 1991). Yet despite a vigorous wage economy fueled by two decades of oil revenues that yields a per-capita income exceeding the national average, subsistence traditions remain strong. Average per-capita harvest of subsistence foods in Alaska's North Slope Borough still exceeds a pound per day (Fuller and George, 1997). This document was prepared for presentation to the Western Regional Science Association annual meeting in Monterey, California