In Yup’ik, it’s the carbon ‘measurer’

ALEX DeMARBAN

June 26, 2008 at 10:33AM AKST

The way Anna Davidson sees it, global warming threatens the Alaska Native lifestyle.

Not far from the Yukon River village of Akiachak where she once lived, vanishing ice habitat could eliminate important subsistence foods such as seals and walrus.

And of course, the salmon that plow up the river seem increasingly fouled by Ichthyophonus hoferi, a parasite whose presence in the Yukon is blamed on climate change.  

Over the decades, elders have seen the most change.

“They’re seeing it with their eyes and knowing it’s there,” she said. “They’re living with it.”

Many of them speak mostly Yup’ik and don’t read English. So last year, Davidson came up with the idea of creating Alaska-mi Carbon-aam Cuqyutii.  

That’s Yup’ik for Alaska Carbon Calculator. Well, to be literally correct, it’s the Alaska Carbon Measurer, since the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s ancient language has no word for calculator.

At any rate, it debuted earlier this year. It’s modeled after an online carbon calculator with questions in English created by Alaska Conservation Solutions, an Anchorage-based environmental group where Davidson works part-time.  

Carbon calculators, a popular educational tool, give a general idea of how much carbon dioxide people emit when doing such things as driving, flying and flicking on lights.

The hope is that if people know what activities produce the most greenhouse gases causing climate change, they might alter their behavior.

One irony of the Yup’ik calculator is that the delta’s older residents don’t use computers much. But their more tech-savvy children and grandchildren do. They can help elders tally their carbon contribution, said Davidson.  

More students will try it starting this fall. The Lower Kuskokwim School District — which offers Yup’ik immersion courses in several elementary schools — will make it part of the online science materials for high schools and possibly junior high, said Julie McWilliams, a district administrator.  

Teachers can use it when they discuss the environment.

“The fact that it’s in Yup’ik is a bonus,” she said.  

The Yup’ik version, like the English one — they’re both at www.alaskaconservationsolutions.com — comes with an Alaska twist to distinguish it from other carbon calculators.

For example, a subsistence and recreation category lets users input the amount of time spent hunting on a snowmachine or four-wheeler. That’s snowguuk or four-wiilat in Yup’ik.  

The translator, Elena Chingliak of Akiachak, said finding the right Yup’ik words was a struggle. Some of those things we don’t have words for, she said.

For calculator, she used cuqyutii, pronounced choke-uh-yuti, which means “to measure anything,” said Chingliak.  

For the word alternative, as in alternative energy, she used atuunqigcugngalria. Even phonetic English can’t describe that word — there’s a throat-gargling sound at the end for which the English language has no equivalent. The word means “Something you can use again.”

One of the toughest translations was hydropower. To help describe that word, she used merem carvanra qaillun pitangata, which means “how strong the water current is.”

Reached last week in Akiachak after a long night of cutting salmon, Chingliak said she was glad to hear the calculator will be used in science classes.

The youngest children in the village speak more English than Yup’ik and that needs to change.

“I don’t want it to be lost,” she said.

Mike Williams, a 13-time runner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, said he’s used the Yup’ik calculator to get an idea of his carbon footprint in the village of Akiak.

Williams, 55, isn’t quite an elder. Some consider 65 to be the cut-off age before they can use that title, a respected status in many tight-knit villages.

“I think it will help with the elders to get the message across to them,” he said.  

The calculator, plus links to information about global warming at the Website — they’re in English — has helped Williams consider ways to use less energy. The good thing is that reducing energy use will save money on rural Alaska’s outrageous gas and electric prices, Williams said.

One change he’ll make has to do with fishing. When the salmon reach his Kuskokwim River village this summer, he’ll catch his year’s supply from a shore-fastened set-net.

He won’t pull a net with a gas-powered boat, unless he must.  

“I want to continue running the Iditarod in cold weather and get frostbite in the face,” Williams said.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at (907) 348-2444 or (800) 770-9830, ext. 444.