Several years ago, seven boaters went missing in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region and were never found. The loss motivated residents to find ways to better understand their changing waterways.
Nalaquq, an organization that integrates Indigenous knowledge into research in the region, joined a nationwide initiative called the Backyard Buoys project this year. Nalaquq deployed three buoys in the area for the first time this year.
"We wanted to understand what was going on in our ocean during the changes of season from spring to fall," said Lynn Marie Church, Nalaquq's chief executive officer. "What was going on in our community, in our waterways, especially with the changes in the environment that we've seen over the past 10 years."
The Backyard Buoys project helps Indigenous coastal communities in Alaska, as well as in the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Islands, use wave data to support maritime activities. Buoys installed in frequently trafficked areas track wave height, temperature and barometric pressure in real time. Residents can see that information in an app and decide whether it is safe to travel.
Church said that accessing this type of data is often cumbersome, but using the Backyard Buoys app has been easy, in part because of how it's designed.
"When you look at where the locations are, it's not by latitude and longitude, it's by place names," she said. "That's how we learn in rural Alaska, and that's how we're going to continue to do the research."
The locations for buoys in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region were chosen in consultation with local boaters, said Sean Gleason, the head of research and development at Nalaquq.
"We picked locations where people travel for subsistence or daily travel," he said.
Gleason said they ended up with three spots. One is outside of Quinhagak, where locals harvest seals and salmon. The second buoy was placed close to the mudflats near Eek, where boaters encounter big waves and get stuck. The third spot was further south, close to where people go out for halibut.
Gleason said the goal was also to spread the buoys out, so communities in different parts of the region can use the data.
"We're always trying to share the resources when we can, because there's no one community. Everyone's related," he said. "And when you're out there, everyone is traveling from different places to different places."
Working on the project also helps residents learn to work with drones and mapping systems, to grow their future employment opportunities. And Gleason said it brings together the younger generation, with their grasp of modern technology, and elders who hold traditional knowledge about the region.
"The buoy project is an example where you can have that kind of unison," he said.
This fall, residents decided to retrieve the buoys right before the remnants of Typhoon Halong hit the region, Gleason said. He said they plan to redeploy the buoys again next year.
Meanwhile, the project has been ramping up in northern Alaska as well. The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission facilitated the installment of buoys in six communities this year, including near Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island.
The commission worked with whaling captains in each community to see where they wanted the buoys, said Martin Edwardsen, the commission's coordinator for the project. Edwardsen, a whaling co-captain, said the app helped his hunting.
"I was looking at the app and seeing that the waves weren't too big in the general area where we were headed," he said. "So we went out that way and we successfully harvested a whale and brought it back to our community to feed."
The whaling commission is now looking for translators to allow users of the Backyard Buoys app see information in their Native language, Edwardsen said.
He said that in the Arctic – like in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region – more communities are considering joining the app as well.
"There is interest from other villages, and we're excited about that," Edwardsen said. "If we can get someone to step up and willing to take it on."
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