Ben Weissenbach was in conversation with fellow Scholar Mia Bennett about the past, present and future of the Arctic this week.
Two authors of the Arctic were in conversation at Bill Gates Sr. House this week to celebrate the publication of Ben Weissenbach’s new book North to the Future.
Ben was in conversation with fellow Gates Cambridge Scholar Mia Bennett [2012], associate professor of geography at the University of Washington and founder and editor of the blog Cryopolitics who has also just co-authored her own book, Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic.
Ben [2023] is a journalist who decided to leave behind his screen-bound life and venture to Arctic Alaska at the age of just 20. His book charts his experiences and conversations with environmental scientists along the way as he comes face to face with the impact of a fast-thawing region. Mia’s book explores the state of the Arctic today, showing how the region is becoming a space of experimentation for everything from Indigenous governance to subsea technologies.
In addition to reading passages from his book, Ben spoke about how studying what is happening in the Arctic provides a window on Earth’s future. He said the Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the world which could radically compound warming elsewhere. “Models can’t tell us what that means on the ground,” he stated.
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The call of the wild
Ben said the motivation for writing the book was a craving for a world he hadn’t experienced. He had spent a lot of time indoors on a screen and wanted to go out into the natural world, inspired by authors such as Jack London and John McPhee.
He did some short wilderness trips beforehand and learned through mentors how to ‘be outside and connect more to a place’. When he set off for Alaska he didn’t intend to write a book, although he pitched it as a reporting project. He aimed to learn from people from Alaska, explore how much the North is changing and how it will affect everyone and help readers think through their relationship with technology.
Mia asked him about the experts he met along the way. Ben said when he got to Alaska he asked people who he should talk to and many mentioned climate experts. They included Roman Dial, a larger-than-life ecologist with whom Ben ended up walking and rafting 1,000 miles across Alaska’s Brooks Range, tracing how the region’s trees are advancing northwards. Ben says he had not thought about forests in the Arctic before, even though the boreal forest is the world’s largest terrestrial biome, accounting for a third of all terrestrial carbon on the planet.
Ben spoke of the vastness of Alaska, the lack of infrastructure and the fact that there are fewer than one million people there which means you can walk for days and weeks without encountering anyone.
Another expert he met was Kenji Yoshikawa, a reindeer-herding, self-taught permafrost expert from Japan. His expertise relies on his own observation which means he can be sceptical of scientific modelling. Yoshikawa left Ben for 11 days in a cabin looking after his reindeer in -40 degrees temperatures. Despite his remote location, Ben said he had very good internet connection. Mia and Ben then discussed the pros and cons of connectivity, how the internet is changing the way people relate to each other and to their environment and how it can also help traditional knowledge to be shared and to survive.
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Ben also met Matt Nolan, an independent glaciologist, who taught himself to fly and flew Ben to the largest glaciers in the American Arctic. He has produced maps of the area through taking photos of the landscape and is able to monitor changes over time with a good degree of accuracy. Ben said being on a glacier is completely different to looking at a picture of it. “It’s the sheer scale, the silence except for the sound of creaking, the way glaciers slide down mountains and make weird crevasses, the thing light does to them,” he said.
Why place matters
Ben also spoke to indigenous people to understand the importance of generations of intimate knowledge of the land. He heard stories of winners and losers and experienced competing narratives. He saw how some valleys were falling apart as the permafrost thawed, saying it was like viewing an apocalyptic landscape, but he also experienced some of the wildest places on Earth [including being tracked by bears] and a feeling of continuity.
In addition to speaking about how he got his book published, Ben talked about his next project and how he is interested in exploring how technology can redirect people back to the environment instead of just acting as an attentional vacuum, drawing us away from nature.
*North to the future: An offline adventure through the changing wilds of Alaska is published by Grand Central Publishing.
Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic by Mia Bennett and Klaus Dodds is published by Yale University Press.
The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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He did some short wilderness trips beforehand and learned through mentors how to ‘be outside and connect more to a place’. When he set off for Alaska he didn’t intend to write a book, although he pitched it as a reporting project. He aimed to learn from people from Alaska, explore how much the North is changing and how it will affect everyone and help readers think through their relationship with technology.
