City of Kivalina

Hi everyone, seeing how everyone term paper coming along. I thought I would share on what I was doing with my term paper idea so here so of my thoughts and ideas on my project.

City of Kivalina
The city of Kivalina is a unique region that is located in the Southwest Artic region of Alaska. The Department of Commerce of the State of Alaska specifies the City of Kivalina “Is at the tip of an 8-mile barrier reef located between the Chukchi Sea and Kivalina River. It lies 80 air miles northwest of Kotzebue. Kivalina is located in the Kotzebue Recording District. The area encompasses 1.9 sq. miles of land and 2.0 sq. miles of water. Kivalina lies in the transitional climate zone which is characterized by long, cold winters and cool summers” ( LHMP,13).

This area is an important issue to my family and me. My father and brother who both work for the Department of Commerce in Alaska have been studying and working on this project for a long time. This region consists of a rich Inupiat Eskimo culture and is the only village left in the region where people hunt the bowhead whale. Todays issue’s in our society like global warming has affected Kivalina Village. Due to severe erosion and wind-driven ice damage Kivalins is eroding away every day. The result of this happening would be the history of Eskimo culture washing away and also Kivalina still holds much economic value to Alaska. The state of Alaska has been working on getting grants to move this village for the past year.
In my project I want to talk about where this village has been located in the past and how this region and village has evolved to what it is today. I also want to research on how and where this city could possibly move to and the affect of the traditions, economy, and resources are affected from the new region around them. Also I would like to research on the history of the Inupiat Eskimos, climate, location, economy, transportations, and the culture of the region and how it affects land and the areas around them.

Sand Mountain

Hey everyone,

Outside Fallon there is sand dune called Sand Mountain. One of are geography class's went there last semester, everyone should check it out. Plus it has one the old historic Pony Station next to this Sand Dune. For more information check out this website :http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php?tip_AttractionNo=%3D924

Thoughts about "Coming Home to Eat"

I’m almost done reading Coming home to Eat and my thoughts about this book is that the message that the author Nabhan is getting across is very powerful. He doesn’t tend to preach that everyone should eat locally or produce there own food, but he does send this message that really impacted me about how people have forgotten to use the land, and how everything today we eat is almost toxic to us. In my thoughts I wish that I could grow a garden or eat strictly locally, but it’s hard to find time as student and working full time. I know its not a excuse , but this book made me realize that maybe I could start small by going to the local farmers market at least once of week. I wanted to know abut people thoughts about this book and if anyone takes place in slow food movement or eating locally?

Slow Food

Hey everyone, this article just came out. I think everyone should take a look at it. It’s about the slow food movement and eating locally in Nevada.


Livin' la vida local
Reno woman accepts the challenge to eat only foods from our region for a year -- bye-bye bananasJOHNATHAN L. WRIGHT RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL -->Posted: 3/5/2008 STORY
Web page: http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080305/FOOD/803050419/1089/liv

Also I think the national slow food website is also a great thing to take a look at. It has interesting ideas, articles, and recipes and also talks the concept of the idea of the slow food movement. Web page:
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.html

Google Earth

In reading the commentary of GIScience Tens after Ground Truth was really interesting to me, but what really got my attention was the idea of how Google Earth has changed the science of geography. Google Earth was made a huge impacted in the geography world around 2005. Since then it has brought new ideas to GIS and has also made society more interested in the outlook of how the world function. On page 691 the author expresses some interesting question about Google Earth and I wanted to repeat then and see what people thoughts were about Google Earth. The author questioned – What determines the variability in Google Earth from high resolution in some areas to much lower resolution in others- whose agenda is being served here? 2. What features are visible in Google Earth coverage, and what does it make invisible? 3. Who does it empower, and who does it marginalize? 4. What applications are being built on Google Earth, and by whom and for what purpose? (Goodchild, 691).

Axioms and McPhee

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it through the book Coming into the Country but I did read the John McPhee book In Suspect Terrain. I loved this book it was all about challenging the theories of how are Earth came together. The article that I talk about this week The Axiom’s by Peirce Lewis made me really think about this book. There were so many connections in this article that related to John McPhee’s book that I read. The book displayed many of Lewis’s axioms of observing the landscape. In Suspect Terrain John McPhee and his partner go on a drive for the East coast of the Appalachian Mountains to the tip of the Great Lakes. On this drive they observe the unique landscape to the ordinary landscape. They research each landscape along the way and using their techniques and knowledge of land. They talked about how the history has affected the land, they displayed an axiom of cultural unity, and also looked how a landscape reflect people’s behavior and even there society. It was really interesting in seeing how McPhee truly master at the concept of a viewing a landscape and all the elements around the landscape. McPhee gets the big point and overview of how landscape should be observed.

Another View of San Joaquin Valley

San Joaquin Valley

I have already read James Parson’s piece on the San Joaquin Valley and let me tell you every time I read this article it still gets better every time I read it. I love how Parsons tells a story of the history of this valley. I almost feel like he is telling me a story and not just reporting an article, and I think this is one reason why this piece is so good. Parsons tells the history and even adds some of J.B Jackson methods on viewing a landscape, and then he goes into the patterns of agriculture, development with the land, the many ethnic groups like Chinese or the Dust Bowl immigration who took influence on the San Joaquin Valley. Then he talks about the land and how in this general over view how humans have changed it over time to being of a ranching area to now an petroleum area for the oil industry. Parson also goes into discussion about how urbanization has pressure the Valley to become less land for the farmers that are still left. This article talks about these different aspects that have affected the land over a time period to now in such rich detail. One of my favorite lines is at the end of the article and he talking about the how San Joaquin Valley is just a small piece of land but in reality it has affected us greatly. He states, “The San Joaquin Valley is only one small piece of the gigantic tapestry that is the American land, but it is lavishly rich in scale and promise for exploration and discovery, for landscape and for the study of changing human imprints on the earth as a form of culture history”(Parsons, 389). That is a great line.