This chapter discusses an environmental communication approach, using certain Indigenous place names as examples of how residents of communities around Iliamna Lake, Alaska, not only use place names to convey environmental and spatial information, but also to emphasize the temporal and spiritual relationships between the people and the land. Place names and stories about these places often reveal local histories and affirm cultural ethics. Elders sharing their feelings and stories about these places with younger generations affirm the residents’ connection to the streams, lakes, and other landmarks in the Iliamna Lake area. Participating in daily activities and sharing oral traditions of the landscape are at the core of the environmental communication used by residents of Iliamna Lake communities to live in harmony with nature.

Humans tend to mark their presence and thus their lands by naming charismatic places such as mountains, canyons, rivers, and lakes. Toponyms is the term for marking places with names. In doing so, cultural groups claim the lands and the recognition of their presence through names in their language and behaviors reflecting their culture. When other cultures occupy these lands, they similarly mark them with their own place names, thus replacing earlier names and evidence of occupation. A conflict of toponyms occurs when one cultural group uses their power to maintain a superior attachment to the land. This chapter uses six toponym ethnographic studies to understand the origins of debates between Native American and settler colonial peoples in North American. Research findings from these studies define both the importance of toponyms to cultural groups and possible resolution of heritage conflicts. All studies have been reviewed and approved for public use for place interpretations, visitor education, and culturally appropriate man-agement by funding agencies and participating Native American tribes and pueblos.

This article is an ethnographic field report on the study of uses of underground food storage facilities (“meat caches”) relating to sociocultural and climatic changes in arctic and sub‐arctic communities in western Alaska. In the summers of 2022 and 2023, the authors (a Japanese female anthropologist and an American male anthropologist) conducted fieldwork in the partner communities, recognizing that our roles in participant observation were somewhat different because of our differing identities. This paper introduces how our ethnic backgrounds and genders have affected our experiences of participant observation and how ethnographers can learn about community and family food traditions from community perspectives based on diverse identities (gender, age, language) in relation to those of research partners.

Humans tend to mark their presence and thus their lands by naming charismatic places such as mountains, canyons, rivers, and lakes. Toponyms is the term for marking places with names. In doing so, cultural groups claim the lands and the recognition of their presence through names in their language and behaviors reflecting their culture. When other cultures occupy these lands, they similarly mark them with their own place names, thus replacing earlier names and evidence of occupation. A conflict of toponyms occurs when one cultural group uses their power to maintain a superior attachment to the land. This chapter uses six toponym ethnographic studies to understand the origins of debates between Native American and settler colonial peoples in North American. Research findings from these studies define both the importance of toponyms to cultural groups and possible resolution of heritage conflicts. All studies have been reviewed and approved for public use for place interpretations, visitor education, and culturally appropriate management by funding agencies and participating Native American tribes and Pueblos.