Firewood, four wheelers, and chest freezers: The importance of modern energy to Alaska Native subsistence in Yedatene Na’

A Just Transition to renewable energy requires decolonizing approaches that center disenfranchised communities and their values. For Alaska Native communities, one of these values is subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering that is fundamentally tied to Indigenous Knowledge. We investigated the relationship between renewable energy and subsistence in Yedatene Na’ (The Native Village of Cantwell). To do so, we centered and learned from Indigenous Knowledge Experts using semi-structured interviews ( n = 10) and participant-observation methods. Alaska Native people have always been adaptive and inventive in preserving their subsistence practice. In our investigation, we found that people in Yedatene Na' have continued adapting, as shared from the living memories of modern day community experts who continue practicing subsistence with modern technologies. Adaptation has been complex and non-linear, with new and old technologies coexisting in the community, such as diesel-powered heating stoves alongside wood stoves. Many of these technologies were adopted to address colonial pressures of assimilation, such as the adoption of chest freezers to preserve access to traditional foods in response to hunting regulations. Most importantly, we found that these technologies are integral to ongoing Indigenous Knowledge in Yedatene Na’, such as gas-powered vehicles providing elders access to hunting grounds. Throughout the renewable energy transition, the toolset for subsistence will continue to change, as it always has. Policies that seek to encourage renewable energy should empower Native communities to adopt technologies that preserve their subsistence culture and stop technologies that would be harmful to their subsistence culture, thus supporting a Just Transition.