Definitions

ALASKA NATIONAL INTEREST LANDS CONSERVATION ACT (ANILCA)

A 1980 act that designates more than 100 million acres of federal land in Alaska as new or expanded conservation system units, including national parks and federally protected wilderness areas.

AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (AIM)

A grassroots movement founded by activists in Minneapolis in 1968 that first sought to improve conditions for Native Americans who had recently moved to cities. It grew into an international movement whose goals included the full restoration of tribal sovereignty and treaty rights.

ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE (ANWR)

A 19.64 million acre refuge stretching 200 miles from the Arctic Ocean, south over the Brooks Range, and into the boreal forest of the Yukon River basin.

ATHABASCAN

A family of languages spoken in Alaska, Canada, and in the Western and Southwestern United States. Gwich’in is one of the languages in the family.

ARCTIC COASTAL PLAIN

Often referred to as the “coastal plain,” this is the northwestern portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge beside the Beaufort Sea (Arctic Ocean).

CARIBOU

Tall, shaggy creatures found all over the circumpolar north that are in the same family as deer and elk. Both the males and females grow big, branched antlers. Unlike reindeer, which can be semi-domesticated, caribou are completely wild.

GWICH’IN

A northern nation of Indigenous peoples living in fifteen small villages scattered across a vast area extending from northeast Alaska in the U.S. to the northern Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada.

INUPIAT

Members of the Inuit culture, spanning the northern coasts of Alaska and Canada to Greenland.

POLAR ICE (OR ICE CAP)

A thick layer of ice and snow that covers large areas in high-latitude regions of the planet.

PORCUPINE HERD

Caribou herd named for the Porcupine River with a range that includes the Northwest Territories (NWT), Yukon, and Alaska. Much of the herd’s calving and post-calving ranges exist within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.