Katherine Reedy Conducts Research in Alaska

Anthropology Professor Katherine Reedy traveled to Cold Bay and King Cove, Alaska, for Spring Break with graduate students Kiley Heaps and Jaime Campbell-Lavallee, undergraduates Jerimiah Phillips and Bryan Schmitt, and research collaborator Andrea Kayser. The team conducted household subsistence surveys in both communities as part of a project funded by the Office of Subsistence Management of the US Fish & Wildlife Service. The surveys gathered data on the harvests of all wild species, sharing patterns, household economies, harvest locations, environmental observations, and concerns about subsistence access and management. These data will be used to inform federal and state management of the myriad challenges that remote Aleutian communities face and to ideally improve local access to important foods for their long-term sustainability. Part of the project documented wild food sharing networks between community members, and the researchers quickly found themselves included in the networks by incredibly generous locals, enjoying salmon, crab, clams, wild strawberries, salmonberry jelly, among many shared foods.