The Tundra

In the land we know as Alaska, a poet considers a melting landscape also ablaze. What does it mean to live in a “sepia-toned” world, to be forced to distance your ties to your culture, and to truly understand that what happens to the land also happens to the people? “June really isn’t June anymore / is it?” 

In this episode, we visit the land currently known as Alaska. Joan Naviyuk Kane, Iñupiaq poet and scholar, joins us with the title poem of her collection “Hyperboreal” and her experience watching the landscape she grew up in change drastically because of climate change. Local activist Enei Begaye centers an Indigenized perspective as she works toward a more sustainable and just future for the native communities around her, and Siqiniq Maupin works to strengthen Iñupiaq cultural identity despite the poisonous grip of the oil and gas industry on her homeland. 

Take action:

• Support Enei’s work at NativeMovement.org: volunteer, donate, sign petitions and more.
• SILA, Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, has similar opportunities to support organizing efforts to protect and preserve Alaska’s North Slope. You can join their monthly meetings as a respectful member to learn more about frontline efforts.
• You can find more of Joan’s work and poetry books on her website. Her newest book, “Dark Traffic,” is out now.
• Join efforts to put pressure on world leaders, who should be taking radical action on climate change, at COP26 and beyond:
  • Support SheChangesClimate, which is trying to get more women in top-level leadership at COP26 and other delegations around the world.
  • Check out Greenpeace’s campaign: you can get involved with a local volunteer group in the UK or sign the Greenpeace petition

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