Posted by mariej on 07/24/2006 5:36 pm

The following posting is from Carroll, who is onboard in the Bering Sea... 

St. Lawrence Island

On the morning of the 21st, we awoke off the southwest corner of St. Lawrence Island to the sound of thousands of birds. St. Lawrence is a major stopover in the flyway between Asia and North America. In addition to the murres, puffins and cormorants nesting on the sea cliffs above us, huge numbers of geese, eiders and cranes stop to rest and feed here each spring and fall before continuing their journey between east and west. As a result, St. Lawrence is considered a globally important bird area. Unfortunately for the birds, and for the Yup’ik Eskimos who live here, St. Lawrence is among the places where the effects of global warming are becoming most apparent.

The history of the Yup’ik on this island stretches back some 2,000 years. Walking through the gravel streets of Gambell, our first stop on St. Lawrence, there were testaments to that history all around us. Bits and shards stuck out from the ground everywhere we looked; and all day long, artisans came in to share their stories, offer carvings, and show us artifacts pulled from the fields and hills near the town. Needles. Harpoon heads. Even a snow shovel made of bone. I was a little dumbstruck that ancient Eskimos used snow shovels. But after a while, it kind of made sense. What with all the snow and everything.

Talking informally with people in Gambell, we heard how their environment and their lives are changing. There are little signs, of course, like the cranes coming earlier than before, and the arrival of new species of birds from the South that hadn’t been seen here before. But there are also larger, more troubling, signs. The ice is coming later now, and retreating sooner, not just on the sea but on the lake behind the village. And the very nature of the ice is changing—from thick, solid cakes pushed down from the north, to smaller, broken up chunks that are not safe to walk or hunt on. For people who make their living from the sea, and the ice, it’s an unwelcome and threatening change.

With the early retreat of the ice, gray whales are spending less time near the island, and more in the colder waters to the north. We asked about the humpbacks, as well, and began to understand the results of our own search. For a long time, in the wake of commercial whaling, few if any humpbacks came near St. Lawrence. Sometime after whaling for humpbacks was banned, the species gradually reappeared around the island, but never in large numbers. Then, about five or so years ago, one man told me, there were a whole bunch of them. But not so many since. People see humpbacks occasionally, but they’re still uncommon. Whatever brought the humpbacks to this region in 1999, they haven’t returned in the same numbers in the last few years. Ironically, while the rest of us were onshore in Gambell, James finally saw a whale—a minke—right from the ship. And two bowheads showed up just around the point. Our luck.

As for the killer whales, they come when the gray whales come, heading north in the spring then south again in the fall. There were lots a few weeks ago, people tell us. Two men from Gambell, Mika and Clarence, agreed to ride along for a day to show us where the whales are. There won’t be as many as in June, they told us. But maybe some. So, with their guidance, we headed down along the west coast then around to the south side of the island, where we’d been just the day before. As we made our way along the coast, through the ever-changing fog, we talked with Mike and Clarence about their environment, their culture and their lives as subsistence hunters. They told us stories about their families, about friends lost to the ice and waves, and their own narrow escapes. About their efforts to maintain a centuries-old way of life in a culture and a society awash in change. And to be honest, I didn’t mind so much that we didn’t see a whale.

-Carroll

Posted by mariej on 07/24/2006 4:08 pm

The following posting is from Adam, who is onboard in the Bering Sea...

St Lawrence Island. Town - Gambell. Weather - still, 45 degrees warm, some cloud and a little patchy fog.

From the beach you can see Siberia, people walk there in winter across the ice to visit relatives and to hunt bear and walrus. The town is built on a gravel spit of land, exposed to the elements, a few tufts of grass the only green in the whole place. The gravel is deep, made up of small round rocks and pebbles that are extremely tiring to walk in. As a consequence everyone drives around on 4 wheel farm bikes, I mean everyone. The population is 600 and there must be about 600 bikes there. We were the only ones on foot.

The one way people can make money here is by selling ivory carvings, and artifacts that are in abundance buried all through the village. Gambell has been here for thousands of years, it’s a good spot for fishing and hunting.

As soon as you step off the boat onto the beach there are people wanting to sell you new ivory and ancient tools, bone harpoon heads, bone needles, fishing weights, bone shovel heads, and many other tools from the past. Beautifully carved whales and bears in gleaming white ivory with baleen eyes and polar bear claw tails.

 Above the beach is the refuse from years of subsistence whale and walrus hunting. Huge bones the size cars, sculls that weigh tons. Walrus hides stretched out on wooden frames, drying till ready to skin the frames of sleek wood frame skiffs. Big chunks of the meat also hang near by drying, the smell is intense.

The people are tough and hardened to life. I spoke to one man who had harpooned a whale from his little skiff with a hand held harpoon, just like the drawings in Moby Dick. He said whales are scared of human hands so when the whale tried to come up under the boat he would lean over and put his hands and arms down in the water where it could see them, and the whale would go back down. This is survival, not even vaguely related to the commercial mechanized hunts that Greenpeace so strongly opposes.

The one thing the Upik are worried about is climate change. I was surprised that this topic was brought up straight away without a word said about it by us. They say the big ice from the north isn’t coming down, and the ice around the island is only as thick as a man's height. They know it’s to do with carbon dioxide and what people down south are doing, but that it's clearly too big to fight. They said what can Greenpeace do?? You guys going to fix it?? What an awful question.

I do not know how Greenpeace wants to respond to that question to these people at this time, so all I could do was commiserate and tell them stories of the native island peoples of the south pacific, where I come from, and the problems they are facing there as a result of climate change. And that all over the world people are fighting the burning of oil and coal. It was a solemn conversation.

At the end of this eye-opener of a day we are back on board. Two men from the village are with us and we are heading down the coast in search of whales. We will hear their tales, and show them how to record what they see, so that it can be useful as data for the science people need to argue more strongly the case of the Bering sea.

I better stop there or I’ll end up writing a book!

SAVE OUR SEAS! For the people and animals that live there.

Adam

Posted by mariej on 07/24/2006 08:47 am

The following posting is from Adam, who is onboard in the Bering Sea... 

I could throw an apple into Russia from the back deck at the moment. The water over there looks exactly the same as the water here though. The birds are blatantly flouting international regulations and casually flying this way and that across the line with a total disregard for the law.

The sea came back down during the night (all 3 hours of it) and the dawn brought another calm day on the water, the boat shrouded in fog. Frustrating stuff for all involved. People are starting to get a little annoyed at not being able to see anything.

All that changed though at the end of the last zig, or zag, not sure which, when we approached St Lawrence. The fog lifted and there in front of us was a spectacular sight. Shear and craggy cliffs with snow and ice reaching down to the water in the gully sections that the elements have cut away. Millions of birds swimming and diving and flying along have congregated here from all over the world. That’s how important the ecosystem is here. It’s a major stop over and destination for birds all the way from Tasmania and beyond, its rich waters feeding them and its cliffs giving shelter. All of us breathed a sigh of relief to have something solid to look at. After a week of nothing other than fog and flat ocean (apart from yesterday’s stormy stuff), it actually feels good on the eyeballs to look at a real feature.
There has been no sign of sea mammals on this side of the island so we are headed back out for another night (like day) of zigzags, then in the morning we will head into the northern of the two towns on the island, Gambell. There we will see George again and do some more of the community work that went so well in the Pribeloff Islands. We will also find out what the locals know about whales in the area and hopefully take some of them out so Dave the scientist can show them how to record what they see in a way that is useful as scientific data.

I’m really looking forward to meeting the people here and hearing what they have to say about the environment and how it’s going. What their concerns are and what they think of Greenpeace being in the area. Hopefully we will ally as strongly as we did south of here and build another block in the Bering that wants to see its ecosystem protected from the factory trawlers and ignorant fisheries management.

Let's leave some fish for the birds and the animals and the locals!!!!!!!!

Adam