Each of these confirmations arrived decades or centuries after Indigenous peoples had already embodied the knowledge in their practices.

The pattern is consistent: Western science eventually confirmed what Indigenous peoples had been doing correctly all along, while the systems designed to replace Indigenous knowledge with Western education had nearly destroyed the very thing that Western science was now racing to document.

The Legacy — From Wrangel Island To Climate Research

In 2022, researchers affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published findings on sea ice changes in the Arctic that drew, in part, on observations made by Iñupiat hunters and community members over decades.

The observations included specific changes in ice thickness, timing of freeze and thaw, and the emergence of new ice types and movement patterns that were affecting traditional hunting and travel routes.