Native Youth Olympics

Growing up in Chevak, Alaska, Casey Ferguson recalls jumping back and forth on chunks of ice, practicing for native games. The self esteem and leadership he learned in his village, led to a coaching position at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, where he teaches the strength, skills and traditions of each individual game.

pribilofs

For seven years, more than a hundred scientists have been studying the Bering Sea, one of the most productive marine ecosystems in the world. 

The eastern Bering Sea shelf, has undergone significant change in recent decades and is likely to shift further as the climate continues to warm.

As part of the study, a team focused on the Northern fur seals, thick billed murres and black legged kittiwakes of the Priblof Islands. Their populations have been in decline on the Islands of St. Paul and St.George, while they have flourished 150 miles south on Bogoslof Island.

Wolly Mammoth

Dr. Daniel Fisher has been studying mastadons and mammoths in North America and Siberia for decades.  A professor at the University of MIchigan, Fisher is currently researching the paleobiology and extinction of these mammals by studying their tusks and teeth. 

Fisher has made many important discoveries, among them evidence of human association, but it all began with an idea formed in a Michigan backyard.

HIGH KICK

A granddaughter carries on the traditions that have meant survival for generations. Autumn Ridley, part Inupiaq Eskimo, part Tlingit Indian, is a world champion athlete.

Since elementary school, she has competed in the Native Youth Olympics, Arctic Winter Games and World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. 

These games celebrate the contests of strength, skill and knowledge that were held throughout Beringia. Although the world has changed considerably, the values the games continue to endure.

Friendship Flight

On June 13,1988, a single plane left Nome, Alaska, headed to the eastern Siberian port of Provideniya. The 45 minute flight was the first step toward opening a border closed for 40 years. Siberian Yupik people once freely crossed the Bering Strait to visit and trade with relatives, but passage was cut off in 1948, amid Cold War tensions.

Offshore Oil

Increasingly, the oil industry is looking at the Arctic as the next best place to drill. As the climate warms and ice melts, exploration and  development become more feasible in places once considered 
too extreme. But Royal Dutch Shell's first attempts to explore the outer continental shelf in two decades proved disastrous. The Inupiaq  eskimo village of Wainwright, the closest to Shell's most prized leases,  has been part of the boom and bust.