“I was there, after all, before Gore-Tex replaced muskrat and wolf skin in parkas, before moon boots replaced mukluks, before the gas drill replaced the age-old tuuq we used to dig through five feet of ice to fish. I was there before the snow machine, back when the huskies howled their eagerness to pull the sled. I was there before the outboard motor showed up, when the qayaq and umiaq glided silently across the water, and I was there when the candle and the Coleman lamp provided all the light we needed. I was there when two feet of sod and a dirt floor protected us from the winter elements and the thin walls of a tent permitted the lapping waves, loons, and seagulls to lull us to sleep in the summer.” -William “Willie” L.Iggiagruk Hensley, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow (Source accessed 20 July 2021).
Humans have been using energy since the beginning of time. The first time humans created fire by hand, we unknowingly started a highly energized chemical reaction. The fire produced light and heat, both forms of energy that would change the trajectory of human innovation forever. Fire is now used to heat our homes, cook our food, and extract the potential energy of organic materials to produce power.
Although on the Eurasian continent, people started leading an agrarian, instead of nomadic, lifestyle about 10,000 years ago, it was much more recent that Alaskan Native communities stopped moving to different village sites throughout the year. Willie Hensley, an Iñupiat man, two-term Alaska legislator, and integral drafter of the Alaska Native Settlement Claims Act (ANCSA) in his book Fifty Miles from Tomorrow quoted above illustrates a dramatic change in his way of life over a short period of time. Valerie Tony, a Yup’ik educator from Alukunuk, said, “We only started staying in one place because of the post office.”
Villages worldwide used to be built using producets of the immedicate land. They were energy efficient and built to succeed in very specific environments. However, the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700’s, fueled by the steam engine and fossil fuels, sparked the renaissance of technological science and innovation needed to sustain a skyrocketing population. It took 200,000 years for the human population to reach 1 billion. The human population has increased to almost 8 billion in just the last 200 years! This dramatic population increase was both cause and effect of more efficient technology, primarily in regards to transportation, food storage, healthcare, shelter, and power.
Today, our modern technologies are becoming more advanced and efficient. Although our energy system are highly dependent on fossil fuels, technological improvements aimed at increasing energy efficiency and conservation within vehicles and buildings are cutting costs for people and reducing our carbon emissions. Some of the most tangible advancements in the modernization of society have been in transportation, food, shelter, power, and our personal objects including clothing and electronics.
Traditional and subsistence lifestyles still exist in the modern world. In Alaska, we are fortunate that Indigenous cultures and traditions are still very much alive today. Subsistence hunting is still a way of life for many Alaskan communities. But the movement of the modern world into the traditional cultures of the Alaska Native people has forced a blending of lifestyles for all of their energy uses.
The presentation associated with this lesson focuses on transportation and electric use, comparing older western technology with newer western technology. However, to make the lesson especially impactful, we encourage you to invite an elder into your class to talk about technology in Alaska pre Western contact and post Western contact. The UniteUS “Community Energy Use” lesson linked in Additional Resources has examples that could be a starting point as well (the lesson is geared for students in 7th and 8th grade).