Hosted by the Elmer E. Rasmsuon Library.
Paul H. McCarthy Award winner, Lydia Blanchet, presents:
Carved by language: A border, a river, and the Arctic National Wildlife RefugeThe Canning River drains the southern slopes of Alaska’s Brooks range, flowing 125 miles north to its mouth in the Arctic Ocean. For 65 of these miles, the western border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) parallels the river, separating the Refuge to the east from State land and Prudhoe Bay to the west.
In her archival research for the preliminary stages of her English M.A. thesis, Lydia Blanchet uses the lens of river-as-border to explore a range of topics, from the parceling of land in Alaska under ANCSA and ANILCA and the establishment of the Refuge, to the colonial implications of the concept of wilderness and the constructed nature of borders themselves.