Landscapes are formed by a variety of methods. One such method is by the shifting of tectonic plates. This can be seen in the photo below.
As you can see, the plate below the Aleutian chain is being driven underneath the plate north of the chain. This subduction zone forces the magma below the plates to be driven up to form volcanoes and islands which make up the chain. I am specifically looking at St. George Island which is marked with a yellow pin in the picture above. It is located on the edge of another convergent boundary. Other than nearby St. Paul Island, it is completely isolated from any other land mass. This would mean that the local natives would be almo
st completely reliant on the resources of the ocean. Anything taken from the ocean would have to be used for food, clothing, shelter and any other daily necessities. There is a strong Russian Orthodox culture on the islands. The local natives were placed there likely during the 1700s by Russians as slaves for hunting purposes. My grandfather was born on St. George Island, but was moved by the military during World War II to Southeast Alaska. Although he resides in Anchorage today he still maintains a close identity with the Russian Orthodox church. The church in St. George can be seen to the right. Photo courtesy of "St. George Island", Alaska Magazine, Tom Walker, January 2006.Google earth is an excellent tool for establishing connections between peoples and places. It eliminates the need to house maps in the classroom or to check out maps from a university or library. You can quickly look at a three dimensional representation of the area being studied and quickly identify what resources are available to the indigenous peoples. As scary as it may seem, the internet is actually a great tool in identifying how landscapes are formed. A quick search in google yields how plate tectonics work, how earthquakes are measured and other geologic forces which shape our lands. When I was in school, the internet was extremely limited in what was available for research online. Now you can find encyclopedia entries without having to flip through 20 volumes of books. As more and more books are being converted to digital copies you eventually will never have to visit a library again except for nostalgic purposes.
Having instant access to information that answer questions I have has been highly valuable to me. Even during this class if I see a reference or a word that I haven't seen before I just do a quick web search and find several definitions or examples. I've seen how erosion and deposition can literally move mountains, how glaciers are formed and also carve deep scars into mountains, how volcanoes are forced upward creating islands and mountains and how weathering breaks down rock and decayed organic matter into a mixture that can sustain life.
Culture may be influenced by landscapes, but I don't believe that landscape forms culture. Traditions across Alaska look extremely different from one end of the state to another. Whether you are looking at the Unangan people who rely almost entirely on survival from the ocean or the Athabascan people in central Alaska who rely on the land and fishing from rivers there is one common theme. They all have a deep respect for the land and everything that contributes to their survival.
I do believe that culture has a direct connection to how we interact with the landscapes and environments that surround us. In many rural communities they respect the land and do everything they can to ensure it remains in a condition that will continue to support them. In some urban environments there is a culture that does not value the landscape and surrounding area. Those living in the city do not depend on the land for their survival and therefore do not have the respect for it that others do.
In a way cultures are shaped by their landscapes and environments. Maybe not too much from one rural area to another, but there is definitely a gap in knowledge of the land from rural to urban cultures.
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