Our World of Nanuuq

FAIN: ZR-256775-18

GoNorth! Adventure Learning (Willow, AK 99688)
Mille Porsild (Project Director: February 2017 to September 2024)

A humanities-based educational program focused on the Alaskan Arctic coastal community and their work on the preservation of culturally significant polar bear populations.

The project, called “Our World of Nanuuq – A Community of People Living & Learning with Polar Bears”(OWN) will begin as a collaboration between GoNorth Adventure Learning (GoNorth) and the Native Village of Wales Tribal Council (Wales). Eventually the project will reach 15 communities along the coast of Alaska: Kaktovik, Nuiqsut , Barrow,Point Lay, Point Hope, Kivalina, Kotzebue, Shishmaref, Wales, Brevig Mission, Savoonga, Gambel, Little Diomede, and King Island (with representation in Nome) (FIGURE 1). OWN aims to increase awareness of the active and meaningful role Alaska Native people have in conservation and management of Alaska’s polar bears; for the world beyond to know about it—and for the Native people in Alaskan Coastal communities to own it. The primary objective of “Our World of Nanuuq: Polar Bear Story Maps from Alaska Coastal Communities” (OWN) is to create a humanities-based educational program that links the villages in the region through a common theme: polar bears.