Arctic Studies Center

About the Arctic Studies Center

Message from the Director

Staff

Contact Information

Alaska Office

Overview

Congress provided funding for the Arctic Studies Center in 1988 as a permanent program for northern research and education within the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. In keeping with the Smithsonian's mandate for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge," the Center is dedicated to the study of northern peoples, their history and environment. Since the beginning of this century, the industrialized world has established bridgeheads in the remote Arctic that have changed ecological conditions and forced traditional circumpolar cultures to join the modern global system with astounding rapidity. The Arctic Studies Center works with Native groups to foster cultural preservation in several ways. For example, world class museum exhibitions are being assembled from international collections and brought to northern native communities. In the "Crossroads of Continents" exhibit, some of the artifacts are returning for the first time to regions they were collected from almost two centuries ago. Scientific field research is also coordinated with local native communities throughout the North. Expeditions are closely tied with public communication programs aimed at general audiences both locally and through international television. Scientists from the Center remain connected to the areas they work in, developing educational programs that involve local people. These include community archeology projects that train native youth to carry the research into the next generation. Both science and politics are changing rapidly in the Far North. After World War II, the entire Arctic was viewed as a Cold War battleground with the U.S. and U.S.S.R. confronting each other directly across the short stretch of Bering Strait. But the formation of the Arctic Studies Center has coincided with global political change that offers a new opportunity for neighbors to work together; to approach northern social and ecological problems in a way that considers the circumpolar world as a unified, shared environment. Today, the Arctic Studies Center works closely with Native communities and scientists from Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe to facilitate research and international communication.

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