Honoring 50 Years of Arctic Insight
by Alison Bowen, CLA Staff Writer
Mary Ehrlander remembers trekking down to the Yukon years ago with students with a van full of students.
One year, they drove about 12 hours down to Yukon College at Whitehorse to participate in the program she had organized, called Canada Day and highlighting common issues between Canada and Alaska – historical, political, economic, social, cultural. During these events, topics included everything from Canadian films to land claims.
The road trip itself was a special adventure.
“That was just so much fun,” she said laughing. “There was a terrific sense of camaraderie in the van.”
But then, after arriving at Yukon College, days of meaningful interactions followed. Students were hosted by the Inland Tlingit First Nations people one year; another year they were able to celebrate the 50 years of Alaska statehood alongside 100 years since the Yukon’s territorial status. “These two symposia were terrific cross-cultural and cross-national exchanges and wonderful experiences for the students and faculty who participated.”
For half a century, UAF has been a leader in studying the Arctic and the North.
The university’s Arctic and Northern Studies (ACNS) program started in 1971, with a B.A. in Northern Studies, an interdisciplinary degree with multiple disciplines across campus focusing on the North.
Now, the department is the only program in the country offering full degrees on the Arctic. The program offers a B.A. in Climate and Arctic Sustainability, an M.A. in Arctic and Northern Studies, and a Graduate Certificate in Arctic and Northern Studies. A number of Interdisciplinary Studies Ph.D. students also are housed in Arctic and Northern Studies.
The program began during the Cold War, with the tensions that came with it. Also at this time, indigenous people were beginning to communicate more, and environmental issues were emerging as pressing issues -- spurring more need for collaborative problem solving and more travel among the circumpolar regions.
Decades after the program’s launch, professors worked together to create a M.A. program, noting the great access students could have from both faculty expertise and the library collection -- plus, of course, proximity to the North itself.
Ehrlander herself was one of the first graduates of the M.A. program. She was finishing her B.A. in political science when the program was being launched, and she was allowed to start the program in her final undergraduate year. So after earning her B.A. in 1992, in 1993 she was one of the first two graduates of the M.A. program.
“That was pretty exciting,” she remembers.
This timing coincided with the Soviet Union’s collapse, as well as opportunities for more collaborative research projects.
Of this time, Ehrlander remembers how relations between East and West were thawing, inspiring the recognition of the circumpolar north as a region with common histories, economic characteristics, political challenges, cultural characteristics and social issues – all worthy of comparative study.
After she got her M.A., she moved to Virginia for her PhD at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, later returning to Alaska to complete her dissertation.
“I came back to Fairbanks, which was my home,” she said.
After teaching at Lathrop High School for four years and completing her PhD, she joined the faculty as assistant director of Northern Studies and Assistant Professor of History in 2001.
“It was all a bit daunting,” she said, “having my former professors now as colleagues.”
The founding director, Dr. Judith Kleinfeld, mentored Ehrlander.
“It was a very nurturing culture, where the faculty got to know the students well and were very supportive, and really took an interest in their academic progress,” Ehrlander said. “And so that’s been a culture that we’ve fostered all these years.”
Professors host potlucks; small class sizes are intentional.
“The best decision I ever made was to recruit Mary Ehrlander,” Kleinfeld said. “Her door was always open to students as was mine. Students did not have to make appointments to see us.”
Of the program’s beginnings, Kleinfeld noted how Anne Shinkwin, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts, thought it was important to have an Arctic-focused program, as opposed to a traditional discipline like history or biology.
Mary Ehrlander, with Brandon Boylan, created the Model Arctic Council in 2016.
At the time, this was unusual, she noted. Students were used to doing work in a discipline and it was challenging at the beginning to recruit students. “I wanted to find strong students, with academic talent, who were interested in the region and making a contribution to it. The students were able to use knowledge from a discipline but would apply it to the region.”
By using personal contacts, she found strong recruits, including Julian Tomlinson, who told Kleinfeld he had never seen a professor who called him on a Friday evening to talk about his interest in the program.
One of their goals was students making contributions to overall understanding of the Arctic, including publishing an article on the subject in a scholarly journal; students could use the tools of historical analysis to illuminate a question of the North, like the influence of missionaries on rural Native communities, and in fact this was a student’s thesis subject.
In another example, Julian Tomlinson, documented a trip mushing dogs through the Canadian Arctic, arranging for Canadian students in elementary schools to follow his progress and learn a great deal about dog mushing and the geography of the North.
At times, Ehrlander has co-directed the program; she also directed the program from 2010 to 2018. During that time, she recalled, much attention was being paid to the Arctic. For example, because of the way the ocean circulates, pollutants end up concentrating in the Arctic and created toxic levels of pollutants in the food supply of Indigenous peoples.
All of these were topics they tackled in the department and reasons prospective students were interested in the program.
People have always been interested in the Arctic for exotic reasons, Ehrlander noted – the travel to the wild landscapes, the beauty of the Northern lights.
But beyond that, students were drawn to the many factors in such a region.
“They were interested in taking a holistic approach to the conditions in the Arctic,” Ehrlander said. “And that’s what we do as an interdisciplinary program. We recognize the relationship between the Arctic environment and the forces that shape it, and the people who live there as well as the historical and current economic and political and social forces that shape our lives there.” At the time, because of the thawing from the Cold War, more opportunity was opening up for collaborative research and travel back and forth across the Arctic.
“It was kind of a happening scene,” she said. “It was a very stimulating environment.”
In 2020, Ehrlander launched a fully online version of the M.A. program with Brandon Boylan, chair and professor of Political Science and the current Director of Arctic and Northern Studies.
And in 2022, the program also created a Graduate Certificate in Arctic and Northern Studies for working professionals who care not seeking an M.A. degree but want to develop expertise on the Arctic.
Half a century after it began, the program endures with its magnetic appeal as a multidisciplinary program allowing diving deep into myriad topics of our times.
Former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Bryce Ward speakers on politics in the north for the Arctic Leadership Lecture Series, a public lecture series held by the UAF Arctic and Northern Studies program and Department of Political Science.
Allowing students the flexibility to choose their course of study within this matters because it matches students' wide variety of interests in the North, Boylan said. “Our program affords students a great deal of flexibility, so that they can pursue the topics they want in the way that they want.”
Students study everything from climate dynamics to international relations and natural resource management, as well as Indigenous cultures and Indigenous peoples’ concerns. Woven within the program are fields like anthropology, geography, history, psychology and literature. The department focuses on the Northern setting and everything from colonial history to migration trends.
The curriculum also educates students about topics like common and distinctive features of the peoples, regions, and countries, alongside the issues, opportunities, and challenges of the circumpolar North.
Students benefit not only from the geographic location -- offering firsthand experience -- but also holdings at the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections and Archives at the Rasmuson Library.
And, of course, they can conduct their research in communities where the issues facing the Arctic aren’t theoretical, they’re experienced daily – coastal erosion, sea ice melt, crumbling infrastructure from melting permafrost. Students may visit places like Denali National Park and the Toolik Research Station in the Brooks Range.
“Alaska is on the frontlines of climate change, and the impacts are intense,” Boylan said. “Permafrost is thawing, coasts are eroding, and wildfires are becoming more severe. Alaska is also different from the Lower 48. Its geographic location, lack of infrastructure in most of the state, rural population, harsh winters and drastic contrasts in dark and light create a host of unique challenges for people here. Studying at UAF gives students access to locations and people to research these pressing concerns.”
Ehrlander, with Boylan, also created the Model Arctic Council in 2016, allowing students to have the work together to address pressing Arctic challenges like potable water access and ocean pollution.
“Our program aims to include delegates to the real Arctic Council, and it is a pleasure to watch the students interact with these officials,” he said. “ In some cases, students get to meet the individuals they are role-playing.”
University of Alaska Fairbanks Professor Mary Ehrlander socializes with colleagues during the 2016 Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching, Research and Service Awards.
Continuing the distinguished legacy of the program, current Arctic and Northern Studies associate director Brandon Boylan receives the Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching Award in September 2024.
He added, “The Arctic community is easy to enter, and it feels like a family in many ways. It’s been wonderful to watch these students go on to become the next generation of Arctic leaders.”
Students come from all over the globe, including countries like Denmark, Norway, Austria, China, Germany and Japan.
Alum have gone on to serve in many roles; many, for example, are on the Alaska Historical Society. Despite it sometimes being difficult for history Ph.D.s, for example, said Kleinfeld, to find employment, graduates have found and created jobs for themselves in government agencies. One example is Mike Sfraga, who created a job for himself—an Ambassador-at-large for Arctic Affairs and who was also Chairman of the US Arctic Research commission. Others have created businesses, like a dog mushing business where people can learn to mush and enjoy dog sled rides, or become authors or work in North-focused museums.
For Erhlander, teaching these students was so meaningful because each student came with unique ideas, passions for challenging problems and fascinating research topics.
“I really did thoroughly enjoy my students,” she said. “I made a point, because I wanted to, of getting to know my students personally as best I could but also showing an interest in their research and in their studies.”
In 2016, Erhlander was honored with an Emil Usibelli Award for Distinguished Teaching. Now professor emeritus of history and Arctic and northern studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, she spent nearly two decades in the Department of History as well as spearheading and co-directing the ACNS.
Ehrlander has also written two books: Walter Harper: Alaska Native Son and Hospital and Haven: The Life and Work of Grafton & Clara Burke in Northern Alaska, which was co-written with Hild M. Peters. She won the 2018 Alaska Historical Society James H. Drucker Alaska Historian of the Year Award, as well as the Alaska Library Association’s 2018 Alaskana Award.
Her books and research have “had an enormous impact on Alaska and the circumpolar North,” Boylan said, adding, “She has researched a number of other important topics including education, religion, and alcoholism in Alaska.”
The Alaska Legislature made June 7 of each year Walter Harper Day; she is also touched that Alaskans were so impressed with his life story that a group formed to erect a statue in his honor at Doyon Limited in Fairbanks in the summer of 2022.
Ehrlander officially retired in 2020, but she continues to teach a Ph.D. seminar, and guides students writing their dissertations and theses.
Boylan began to work closely with Ehrlander when he became Associate Director of the program in 2015. “She has worked tirelessly for the program and given a tremendous amount of time and mentorship to each student,” he said. “During our years together, she has served as a model scholar-educator and shaped my career at the University.”
Of being able to work with the ACNS students, Ehrlander said, “It is just such a delight to work with these students, because the program somehow attracts the most interesting people who are working on the most compelling topics.” She added, “I’ve had a very gratifying career.”