Class participation includes regular attendance, handing materials in on time, staying through films and slides, and attending when others are presenting posters.

POLICY ON MISSED EXAMS

If you miss an exam, bring in or mail a written medical excuse from a care provider within one week from the exam date stating there was a death or serious medical emergency or illness in your family or that you were treated for a medical or dental emergency or illness on the specific day of the exam. Routine dental appointments or doctor/clinic appointments do not count. You will be allowed to take a makeup exam.

TERM PROJECT

Each class member will carry out a term project on a topic related to arctic or subarctic ethnology, archaeology, prehistory, health, or ecology. While choice of the topic is up to each individual, the instructor will give guidelines for carrying out research. Projects involving exclusively on-line research are not acceptable; students must do some standard library research as well (check out some books!).

You may work on your topic with one other individual and present your work together. Each member of the team will receive the same grade. Projects done by two people are expected to be more extensive than those done by one.

A preliminary proposal is due February 1, and a final project description and progress report showing any changes is due March 27.

There is a choice of two presentation formats. One is a research poster (trifold or larger) with a 15 minute presentation to the class. The other format is a Power Point disk, to be presented in class (15 minutes) and submitted with a 5-page supplement identifying sources.

Examples of broad areas which class members have explored in the past to develop more narrow and specialized paper or poster topics are:

traditional ecology and material culture: e.g., topics such as hunting methods, clothing and boots, migration patterns, housing, tools, transportation, traditional foods, warfare & feuding
ideological culture: e.g., topics such as shamanism, drum and song duels, myths and theology, taboos, art motifs, masks and carvings, drum dance groups
health and healing: topics such as childbirth, ethnomedicine, physiological adaptation to the cold, dental health, traditional vs. modern diets, treatment of elderly, infanticide
socio-economic patterns: topics such as wife exchange, men’s houses, hunting partners, feuds and duels, adoption, gender relations, trade fairs, etc.
contact history: topics such as impact of Christianity, impact of whalers, interactions with explorers, accommodation to new educational systems, changes in economy, etc.
recent political movements: e.g., Nunavut territory, Greenland history, James Bay impact in Canada, land claims settlements in Alaska, status of Siberian groups, Saami, etc.
recent ecology and resources issues: e.g., constraints on whaling and fishing, boycotts on seal skins, land use issues

COURSE OUTLINE

January 16: Introduction: definitions of arctic and subarctic

January 18: who (and where) are the northern peoples? What languages do they speak? What are their origins?

Study suggestion: Learn the defining characteristics of arctic and subarctic biomes. Create some blank maps of arctic regions

and pencil in names and territories of indigenous groups as you learn about them. The map at the beginning of the Balikci

book is suitable.

READ for Jan. 23-25: in Balikci, Preface, Introduction, chapters 1-4

January 23: arctic ecology and natural resources – traditional Central Eskimo

January 25: seasonal variations in subsistence and social groupings

Read for Jan. 30-Feb 1: in Balikci, chapters 5-12

January 30: collaboration and partnerships

Prepare for Feb. 1: proposal for project

February 1: demographic constraints and social tensions

February 6: religion and cosmology

Study suggestion: From the readings and discussions, develop an understanding of the traditional adaptations of northern peoples to maritime and inland resources.

Read for February 8-13: in Chance, Introduction, chapters 1-2

February 8: overview of traditional cultural patterns and ecologies in Alaska

February 13: early European contacts in Alaska

READ for Feb. 15-20: in Kawagley, Appendix (Research considerations), and chapters 1-3

Study suggestion: Use the study guide by Jill Brody in Kawagley (back pages) to help in reviewing and clarifying major points.

February 15: Yupiit and other central Alaskan peoples

February 20: culture contact and social/political change in central Alaska

Study suggestion: From lectures and library materials, figure out (and chart) some of the ecological and sociocultural differences between the Central Eskimo (Balikci material) and major groups in the Western Arctic (Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Siberian Yupik-speakers) , and other populations in the Western Arctic.

READ for Feb. 22: in Chance, chapters 3-5.

February 22: village life in northern Alaska

READ for Feb. 27: in Kawagley, chapters 4, 5, and Epilogue

Study suggestion: Compare Canadian and Alaskan peoples in terms of traditional patterns and contact history. Are there important similarities between indigenous peoples in the two countries? What are they? What are some differences?

February 27: education and traditional knowledge in Alaska

March 1: Mid-term exam (in-class essay exam)

READ for March 6-8: in Jarvenpa, Prologue, chapters 1-3

Study suggestion: Use the study guide in Jarvenpa by Karla Poewe to help in reviewing and clarifying key points.

March 6: subarctic peoples of western Canada

March 8: subarctic peoples of eastern Canada

March 13, 15: no class (spring break)

READ for March 20-22: in Jarvenpa, chapters 4-6, and Aftershock

March 20: fieldwork, stress, and culture shock in northern communities

March 22: studying traditional peoples in modernizing contexts: Greenland

Hand in March 27: a one-page description of your final choice of project. Include:

citations for at least four library references that you are using that are not on-line materials
If a poster, include a sketch of poster layout
If a Power Point, include an outline of topics
Your e-mail address (and your partner’s, if you are doing a combined project)
Any questions you have about format, content, sources, etc.

READ for March 27-29: Chance, chapters 6-9

March 27: land claims, autonomy, and political change: Alaska, Canada, Greenland

Study suggestion: Consider the legal status of native groups in various nations and regions; their land compensation negotiations; and grievance and compensation processes for involuntary relocation, environmental damage, etc.

March 29: cultural integrity and technological change: Saami of northern Europe

READ for April 3-10: in Ziker, chapters 1-4

Study suggestion: review the study guide by McElroy in the back of Ziker.

April 3-5: Indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation, subsistence patterns and social organization

April 10: Culture contact and change in Russia; alcoholism and health problems

READ for April 12: in Ziker, chapters 5-7

April 12: Shamanism, politics, and ecological patterns in indigenous Siberian peoples

Study suggestions: in what ways are Siberian indigenous people, the Yupiit of Alaska, and the Inuit of Canada similar? In what ways are they different? Is this due to ecological, historical, or national differences?

April 17: Second in-class exam

April 19: Power Point presentations – all students attend

April 24: Power Point presentations – all students attend

April 26: Poster presentations – all students attend

Text Box: Elders of Iqaluit proudly show their sewing skills in modeling their summer amautit (mother’s parkas).
Photo by Ann McElroy

POSTER TIPS

1. You can mount your materials on pre-cut, stiff poster boards available at stores like Office Max. These boards come in three and four panels (trifold), are portable, and stand upright.

2. If you want less expensive materials, you can purchase 3 or 4 separate poster sheets and mount each one on the wall. Bring mounting materials (tape, thumbtacks, etc.).

3. Words can be prepared in large type (18-48 pitch) on your computer, or in regular size and then enlarged on a copy machine, or put on with stick-on letters. Do not write your information by hand. Words and pictures (graphs, maps, etc.) should be easily viewed from 3-4 feet back. Do not make any of your letters smaller than 16 pitch.

Size 20 can be used for captions, and size 26-28 for titles and main heads.

4. Use a mix of media and colors for aesthetic appeal. Photographs can be copied from old magazines like National Geographic, Natural History, etc. but may need to be enlarged. (These magazines can be purchased for a quarter at used bookstores and may very well be found in your parents’ attics or basements). Maps and graphs may be available from Internet sites. Any image you use must have the source credited, and make sure that images are large enough (at least 4 x 6 and preferably 5 X 7 or larger). Be careful about printing photos from internet sources, as they are often poor quality.

5. Be careful with the glue you use. Many types of glue dry up, and pasted material begins to come loose after a few days.

6. Make sure that your name(s), the title of the poster, and the class name are on the top of the poster. A list of selected references should be at the bottom right. If you don’t have enough room, you can put the list on handouts. The instructor will make copies for you if you bring them in early.

7. Present ethnographic or historical or scientific information on your poster that demonstrates what you have learned in a focused way. Make sure that you are not just making a collage of images or a board full of printouts from various websites. This is not an artistic project, but rather one using anthropological information. The board needs to demonstrate your original work and media from an array of sources, including conventional library books and journal articles.

8. Posters often take twice as long to prepare as people estimate, so make sure to leave enough time to prepare. Ideally, your poster should be ready at least 24 hours ahead of time so that you can fine-tune it (is the glue holding? Does your printer have enough ink? Can you read the words from 5 feet away? Is the spelling correct? Do you have plastic bags to carry it in, in case it’s raining?)

9. Proofread, proofread, proofread. There is nothing more embarrassing than a poster full of misspellings. Here are a few of the typical ones: Artic (yes, there is a beer spelled this way, but it’s really arctic: ARC TIC – think: “there are two seas –c’s—in the arctic”); Intuit (yes, there is a computer program called Intuit, but the people we study are called Inuit: Inu [human] it [= s ]; Cariboo (no doubt some commercial product is spelled this, but it’s Caribou. Another silly mistake: drawing penguins on your poster.

10. You are expected to bring your poster to class at the beginning of class on April 26 and set it up quickly. (If you have a class right before, you may want to bring it to Dr. McElroy’s office that morning, or the day before). Do not come in half an hour late!

Similar guidelines for Power Point formats and brief talks to the class will be handed out.