Chronicling her quest for wildness and home in Alaska, naturalist Marilyn Sigman writes lyrically about the history of natural abundance and human notions of wealth—from seals to shellfish to sea otters to herring, halibut, and salmon—in Alaska’s iconic Kachemak Bay. Kachemak Bay is a place where people and the living resources they depend on have ebbed and flowed for thousands of years. The forces of the earth are dynamic here: they can change in an instant, shaking the ground beneath your feet or overturning kayaks in a rushing wave. Glaciers have advanced and receded over centuries. The climate, like the ocean, has shifted from warmer to colder and back again in a matter of decades. The ocean food web has been shuffled from bottom to top again and again. In Entangled, Sigman contemplates the patterns of people staying and leaving, of settlement and displacement, nesting her own journey to Kachemak Bay within diasporas of her Jewish ancestors and of ancient peoples from Asia to the southern coast of Alaska. Along the way she weaves in scientific facts about the region as well as the stories told by Alaska’s indigenous peoples. It is a rhapsodic introduction to this stunning region and a siren call to protect the land’s natural resources in the face of a warming, changing world.
This site report describes excavations since 1963 on Kodiak Island, Alaska. The seven millennia of cultural continuity accorded to Kodiak history and prehistory have an important bearing on the past of the northern North Pacific region as well as on Inuit origins.
This report describes excavations from 1963 on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and defines an early local phase of the Kachemak tradition called the Old Kiavak phase. The investigations describe a prehistory of 7,000 years duration that have an important bearing on the past of the northern North Pacific region as well as on Inuit origins. Chapters of the report cover the history & characteristics of the site, the late historic occupation of the site, the dating of the Koniag and Old Kiavak phases, the artefacts & faunal remains found at the sites, archaeological sources, other Early Katchemak components on Kodiak Island, an Early Kachemak site at Kachemak Bay, the inception of the Kachemak tradition, and implications for further research.
Chronicling her quest for wildness and home in Alaska, naturalist Marilyn Sigman writes lyrically about the history of natural abundance and human notions of wealth—from seals to shellfish to sea otters to herring, halibut, and salmon—in Alaska’s iconic Kachemak Bay. Kachemak Bay is a place where people and the living resources they depend on have ebbed and flowed for thousands of years. The forces of the earth are dynamic here: they can change in an instant, shaking the ground beneath your feet or overturning kayaks in a rushing wave. Glaciers have advanced and receded over centuries. The climate, like the ocean, has shifted from warmer to colder and back again in a matter of decades. The ocean food web has been shuffled from bottom to top again and again. In Entangled, Sigman contemplates the patterns of people staying and leaving, of settlement and displacement, nesting her own journey to Kachemak Bay within diasporas of her Jewish ancestors and of ancient peoples from Asia to the southern coast of Alaska. Along the way she weaves in scientific facts about the region as well as the stories told by Alaska’s indigenous peoples. It is a rhapsodic introduction to this stunning region and a siren call to protect the land’s natural resources in the face of a warming, changing world.