Do Alaska Native People Get Free Medical Care*?: Larry Merculieff

Do Alaska Native People Get Free Medical Care*? is the companion reader for UAA and APU's Books of the Year, from which this passage is taken.

'"Traditional ways of knowing" and "traditional knowledge and wisdom" are western terms that have evolved out of a gradual awareness on the part of western scientists and researchers that Alaska's Native peoples are experts about their environments and embody worldviews critical to the human future.
...
Because their lives have depended on the natural world for at least ten thousand years, Alaska's Native peoples have traditionally been trained to observe the subtlest changes in wildlife and environment, and are therefore often aware of trends and anomalies in their regions far in advance of the western scientific community. No other peoples in the world, and no science, can replicate what Alaska Native Elders and cultures know and understand about their immediate environments and the wildlife that breed in their areas.'