Abstract
The SIKU (Sea Ice Knowledge and Use) project emerged in response to the growing public and scholarly attention to the environmental knowledge of the Arctic residents, as well as to the rising concerns about the impact of climate change on Arctic environment and polar sea ice. The special momentum for the SIKU project was created by International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008 that launched a new era of international and interdisciplinary collabration and partnership with northern communities. This introductory chapter tells how the SIKU project has originated and developed in 2004–2005; it reviews its structure made of various regional and individual initiatives, and covers major activities undertaken by the team during 2006–2009. It summarizes the key scientific outcomes and public messages of the SIKU project, as well as its contribution to the overall science program of IPY 2007–2008. It ends up with the synopsis of the present volume with the acknowledgements to many institutions and individuals who were instrumental to the success of the SIKU project.
Natural sciences should no longer dictate the Earth system research agenda; social sciences will be at least as important in its next phase
(Reid, Bréchignac, and Lee in Science 2009, 2451)
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Acknowledgments
The SIKU volume and the entire SIKU project network would never have become a reality without the support and dedicated input by many organizations, research institutions, and individuals. Many of them are acknowledged in individual chapters in the volume; here we would like to name people and agencies that helped build and implement the SIKU initiative.
We are grateful to the IPY 2007–2008 planners – Chris Rapley, Robin Bell, Eduard Sarukhanian, Ian Allison, Robert Bindschadler, and others – who worked with us to open the field of socio-cultural (“human”) research in IPY 2007–2008, of which our SIKU project (IPY #166) became a vital part. We thank the Joint Committee for IPY 2007–2008 and the Canadian, Greenlandic, and Danish National IPY Committees that endorsed the SIKU project and its contributing initiatives. Many colleagues participated in the earlier planning of the SIKU activities; the role of Ernest S. Burch, Jr., Louis-Jacques Dorais, Milton Freeman, Karim-Aly Kassam, Richard Nelson, Rick Riewe, Frank Sejersen, Natasha Thorpe, Peter Usher, George Wenzel, and Stephen B. Young should be acknowledged with most gratitude.
In Canada, we are grateful to the IPY Canada Federal Program Office for their continuous and dynamic support of ISIUOP, particularly to Kathleen Fischer (executive director), Robert Fortin (director), Sarah Kalhok (manager, IPY Science), Katherine Wilson (coordinator of Logistics and Licencing), and Scott Tomlinson (coordinator of Data Management). We would like to thank Jamal Shirley and Mary-Ellen Thomas of the Nunavut Research Institute for their guidance and support through the IPY process. We are also indebted to the administrative and technical support we received from Carleton University, particularly to Barbara George, Amos Hayes, Sandra Nelson, and Darlene Gilson.
In the U.S., we are grateful to the “Shared Beringia Heritage Program” of the U.S. National Park Service, Alaska Office (Peter Richter and Katerina Solovjeva-Wessels) that provided funding for the SIKU-Alaska and SIKU-Chukotka activities in 2007–2010. Additional support was given by the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; the National Science Foundation (to the “Seasonal Ice Zone Observational Network,” SIKU–Inuit–Hila Project (“The Dynamics of Human–Sea Ice Relationships: Comparing Changing Environments in Alaska, Nunavut, and Greenland”) and the “Nelson Island Natural and Cultural History” projects), the University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Alaska Press, and other institutions. Special thanks to William Fitzhugh, G. Carleton Ray, Sergei Bogojavlenski, Gary Hufford, Vera Metcalf, Martha Shulski, Martin Robards, Matthew Sturm, and others who offered valuable advice and shared their knowledge with the SIKU-Alaska team.
In Russia, the SIKU-Chukotka activities were conducted in collaboration with the Russian Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage in Moscow (director, Dr. Yuri Vedenin), the Chukotka Branch of the Northeastern Research Institute (SVKNII) in Anadyr (director, Oleg Tregubov), and the “Beringia” Ethno-Cultural Park in Provideniya (director, Natalya Kalyuzhina). The crucial role of many Russian SIKU contributors, Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya, co-chair of the Russian SIKU program, Boris Vdovin, Victoria Golbtseva, Igor Zagrebin, Nadezhda Vukvukai, Anatoly Kosiak, Roman Armaergen, Arthur Apalu, Alexander Borovik, and many others should be specially acknowledged. Their contribution to the joint SIKU effort will be presented in a separate Russian volume to be published later.
In Greenland the Inuit Circumpolar Council provided funding and support for the Sila-Inuk Project (Chapter 2) and the SIKU–Inuit–Hila Project (Chapter 11). KNAPK (Kalaallit Nunaani Aalisartut Piniartullu Kattuffiat) and Greenland hunters and fishermen’s organization also provided support and partnership to the Sila-Inuk Project.
We are grateful to the organizers of the 6th International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences in Nuuk (August 2008), Birger Poppel (chair), Yvon Csonka (IASSA president), Inge Seiding, and Janus Chemnitz Kleist, who assisted us in making our session on the SIKU project an inspirational event. Grete Hovelsrud helped us connect to Springer’s IPY publication program. Margaret Deignan at Springer kindly navigated us through Springer’s application and submission process. Milton Freeman and Lenore Grenoble offered valuable comments to the original manuscript and Aqqaluk Lynge endorsed its publication on behalf of the ICC-Greenland. Cara Seitchek and Chase Morrison were instrumental in editing and processing chapters and illustrations. Lucian Read kindly offered his photograph from Qaanaaq, North Greenland for the book cover and Anya Vinokour produced cover design. Shari Gearheard and Hajo Eicken offered valuable comments to the earlier versions of this chapter. We thank you all.
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Krupnik, I., Aporta, C., Laidler, G.J. (2010). SIKU: International Polar Year Project #166 (An Overview). In: Krupnik, I., Aporta, C., Gearheard, S., Laidler, G., Kielsen Holm, L. (eds) SIKU: Knowing Our Ice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8587-0_1
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