Moving to the back of the boat

How a new approach to Arctic research can help us better understand and respond to environmental change.

All eyes in the boat are on the sivuyagta (the St. Lawrence Island Yupik word for the striker or harpooner) as he stands in the bow closing in on a surfacing whale. Behind him are several crew handling paddles, sails, and lines, and behind the crew in the rear of the boat, the angyalek (captain) steers with the tiller. As the boat closes in on the whale, the sivuyagta signals with head movements which way the angyalek should steer. Up until those final moments, however, the captain decides everything. He decides who will be the striker and crew, whether and when to launch the boat, which whales to pursue, and when to give up the pursuit. One of us (Merle Apassingok) describes moving from the front of the boat as sivuyagta to the rear as angyalek as a profound shift in awareness and responsibility: