Iñupiaq Food Sovereignty in Seattle

We are a group of four young adults from the Iñupiaq village of Kivalina in Northwest Alaska who have been invited to share our food culture and traditions at the University of Washington Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge Symposium: Living Breath of wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ.  

 In Northwest Alaska, we love our Nikipiaq (Native food)—everything we get from our ocean, land, rivers, and sky.  Our Iñupiaq food is what nourishes our people and makes us healthy.  Our hunting and fishing traditions keep our culture strong.  We’re proud of the knowledge we’ve been taught by our parents and grandparents, passed down from generation to generation.

 
But our community also faces many challenges.  It is expensive to live in the Arctic and some of our people do not have access to the food that they need--climate change is a real concern for us.    

In January we started the Kivalina Food Soveriegnty Project  to make healthy food more accessible, to support sharing of our Iñupiaq foods, and to plan ahead for climate change, which is already affecting our community. We want to make hunting, fishing, and gathering more accessible to our people by training and supporting our youth, and sharing knowledge between generations. 


This May, we have been invited to the Living Breath of of wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Symposium on Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge at the University of Washington.   We are excited to share our Iñupiaq traditions, knowledge, and culture with this gathering of tribal leaders from around the country.  We look forward to learning how other indigenous people are building food sovereignty in their communities around the world. 

In the next month, we are raising $1,200 to offset the cost of our travel from to Seattle.  Please support food sovereignty in Kivalina by sending us to the Living Breath Conference where we will share our knowledge and continue our learning.