Beringian Plants

Traditional ways people in Western Alaska and Chukotka, Russia use plants for food, medicine and other purposes.

About the project

Project Overview

This five-year research project is an ethnobotanical study of three cultures in the Bering Strait region. We worked with Naukan and Chukchi people on the Russian side and Central Alaskan Yup’ik people on the US side, documenting and comparing how people use the same (or very similar) plant species as food, medicine and for other purposes.

Naukan Ethnobotany

Check out our research article on traditional edible, medicinal and spiritual uses of plant species among the Naukan people of Chukotka, Russia.

Another view of the Old Village of Naukan

Akuliik Valley, Near Naukan, Where Many Plants Were Harvested

Lavrentiya, where most Naukan people now live

Chukchi Ethnobotany

We worked mostly with coastal Chukchi in the Chukotskiy district, in the villages of Lorino, Lavrentiya, Uelen, Inchoun, Enurmino and Neshkan. We made brief visits to reindeer camps in the interior of this district and also did some work in Ryrkaypiy (Iultinskiy district) and the adjoining tundra.

Central Alaskan Yup’ik Ethnobotany

During the summer of 2017, we worked with elders and others in the villages of Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay and Kotlik to document traditional uses of plants for food medicine and other purposes.

Principal Investigator, Kevin Jernigan also edited a book on the ethnobotany of the larger Central Yup’ik area, while working with the Ethnobotany Program of the Kuskokwim campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Here are some images from the Central Alaskan Yup’ik region.

Project Area

Project Team

Dr. Kevin Jernigan

Team Leader and Grant PI

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Olga Belichenko

Linguist

PROMT Ltd.

Valeria Kolosova

Ethnobotanist

Darlene Orr

Linguist

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Maria Pupynina

Linguist

Institute for Linguistic Studies,

St. Petersburg, Russia

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the National Science Foundation which funded this research through an Arctic Social Science Program grant, award number OPP1304612. Thanks also to the Beringia National Park in the Chukotkan Autonomous Region of Russia for allowing work to take place.