Yup’ik Atlas Receives White House Recognition
ELOKA Partnership is One of Five Honored as “Champions of Open Science”
Storyknife, May/June 2024 edition
Indigenous knowledge projects in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Region, including the Calista Education and Culture, Inc. (CECI) Yup’ik Atlas, were honored by the White House this spring as “Champions of Open Science.”
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced in March five winners of its nationwide challenge to highlight efforts to use open science to tackle a unique problem.
One of the five winners is the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA), a National Science Foundation-funded collaboration with Indigenous organizations, including CECI, to collect and protect Indigenous knowledge.
“Working with ELOKA, Yup’ik Elders created the Yup’ik Atlas to share place names with their youth to keep them safe on the land and sea. And they open the atlas to people everywhere to show that southwest Alaska is not wilderness, but homeland. Those who share, they say, are given another day,” said Ann Fienup-Riordan, CECI anthropologist.
Created in 2010, the Yup’ik Atlas now includes more than 4,000 place names contributed by Elders throughout the Y-K Region, including names of old villages, rivers, lakes, mountains and ocean channels.
Yup’ik Elders created the Yup’ik Atlas to share place names with their youth to keep them safe on the land and sea.
Ann Fienup-Riordan, Calista Education and Culture, Inc. Anthropologist
Along with place names, the Yup’ik Atlas includes traditional tales, war stories, photographs and Elder video presentations.
Today the Atlas is used in schools as part of the Yuuyaraq curriculum. And just last year we added a new section on climate change and how it effects our communities. Everyone is welcome to visit and explore the Atlas.
Other ELOKA projects highlighted in the nomination include the Chevak Traditional Council’s Nunaput Atlas and the Alaska Arctic Observatory and Knowledge Hub.
Calista Education & Culture, Inc. is an Alaska Native 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization. CECI’s mission is to celebrate and promote Yuuyaraq, the traditional/cultural way of being in the Calista Region which inspires and encourages our people to achieve their dreams through education. CECI provides scholarships, conducts and publishes cultural preservation research, provides burial assistance, and holds culture camps that facilitate the sharing of traditional knowledge between our Elders and our youth.