For American Indians, Coping with Climate Change is Ancient History

[xchrom]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=for-american-indians-coping-climate-change-ancient-history

When Quileute Nation elder Chris Morgenroth III was growing up in La Push, Wash., first-graders spent recess at the beach, where a few miles offshore, thick beds of kelp waved underwater. Today, those kelp beds are all but gone.

In tiny Kipnuk, Alaska, flooding is eroding the banks of the river that lies close to 17-year-old Nelson Kanuk's family home. Last year, he said, 10 feet disappeared, swallowing a shoreline trail.

And in the Olympic Mountains of Washington state, Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp wonders how a glacier's retreat will affect the Quinault River's salmon. A chance helicopter flight last fall revealed no traces of Anderson Glacier, which sends cool meltwater into the river when the blueback come to spawn.

"My heart sank," Sharp said. "I can't imagine trying to explain to another generation of Quinaults how our rich blueback salmon tasted. That's a central part of who we are and that glacier keeps the waters cool and the water levels at an appropriate place. Now it's gone."