Kivalina is a 500-person Iñupiaq community located 80 miles above the Arctic Circle in Northwest Alaska. Like many Alaska Native peoples, we depend on the land and sea to provide food for our families and to teach our cultural traditions to the next generation. We are an all-volunteer organization of hunters and community members who respond to emergencies on the land, rivers, ocean, and in town. Climate change is changing the nature of our work as new ice and land conditions make hunting, fishing, and travel more difficult and dangerous.

We are raising funds to train 10 volunteers from Kivalina Search and Rescue in Wilderness First Aid and life-saving Marine Rescue Techniques. With your support, we will fly a trainer from Wilderness Emergency Medical Education to Kivalina and cover the costs of a three-day training from June 12-14, 2023.

Since early 2020 we have partnered with our friends from the University of Washington to create a strategic plan as we respond to the challenges of climate change. This training is a first-of-its-kind opportunity for us and an important step forward in our growth as an organization. Through this training, our volunteers will receive a two-year certification in Wilderness First Aid. You can read more about our work in this new article in The Conversation.

You can support our work in the following ways:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!

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Kivalina through the seasons:

February 2021

June 2022

Kivalina SAR and UW Science and Culture Workshop, June 2022

Good times on the ice!