UAF Museum Community Projects: Ice Cellar

In January of 2002, Dick Weyiouanna's Inupiat language class explored a Barrow ice cellar, a pit dug into the tundra and owned by whaling captain, Bill Aishanna. Whales give themselves to whalers who respect the animal and treat it properly. This reverence continues each year when the whaling crews clean out their ice cellars, the places where maktak and whale meat are kept frozen at about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. They remove the old meat and share with Elders and those in need. They pick away old, dirty ice from the floor and walls and replace it with a layer of fresh, new snow. In this video, one can see different whale meats, fish, and wild bird stored in the ice cellar.

Background Essay

The Iñupiat have used ice cellars for thousands of years. Siġḷuaq - Piqpakkutiqaġniq Aġviġmun, Tutquqsivik Nigipianun translates to “Ice Cellar - A Place of Respect, Storage for Meat”. People in some far-north places have dug, and still dig into permafrost to make “ice cellars” to store whale blubber and meat, and other game meat. Iñupiat whalers replace the snow floors in their ice cellars each spring in a cleaning effort that is also spiritual in a way: “A whale will not give itself to you unless there is a clean place for it to rest,” whalers in Barrow have said.

According to an Iñupiaq whaling family, one ice cellar is usually shared with a family. Every spring, the Iñupiat clean it out to prepare for spring whaling season. They remove everything that they stored and either share it with others or eat it. The dirty snow and ice is picked off with an axe by young crew members and hauled up by bucket from the ice cellar. Clean, fresh snow is brought down to the ice cellar and spread over the floor. Iñupiaq whalers say, “A whale will not give itself to you unless there is a clean place for it to rest.”

Frozen land underlies much of Alaska and the terrestrial Arctic. Land has been frozen for at least two consecutive years is classified as permafrost. At the highest latitudes, a zone of permanent permafrost exists. Immediately to the south, is a zone of semipermanent permafrost. In this zone, the topmost layer - called the active layer - thaws to a depth of a few centimeters each summer and re-freezes in winter.

Permafrost consists of large cavities of pure ice and ground ice, or ice that forms in pore spaces and bonds sediments in the soil. Under normal conditions, the active layer responds to changes in climate, thawing as surface temperature rises. Over the past few decades, all regions in the permafrost zone have experienced thawing and an overall decrease in permafrost. By all accounts - including observations from Alaska Native people - this results from increasing surface temperatures. Because permafrost is melting deeper in the ground, the tundra absorbs more water. Moreover, as permafrost melts, the surface layer is more prone to cave-ins and landslides. As the ground gets disturbed through slumps and landslides, more and more permafrost gets exposed to the heat and wind and subsequently melts.

To learn more about the Native perspective on climate change, check The Melting Ice Cellar.

To learn about other consequences of melting Arctic permafrost, including insects and fires, check out Changing Arctic Landscape.

To learn more about the challenges of building over permafrost, check out How to Build A Road.

To learn more about the different types of soils and how they are distributed over the planet, check out Soils Around the World.

To learn more about permafrost, check out University of Alaska Fairbanks Permafrost Outreach.