As the Permafrost Melts, The Human Resilience Project Turns to Nome

NOME, Alaska - Rezul -- On September 3, The Human Resilience Project (THRP) begins its third expedition, traveling to Nome to study how the Iñupiat community maintains psychological resilience in a region where the ground is no longer stable enough to trust.

The expedition carries Explorers Club Flag No. 12, an Explorers Club Rolex watch, and the Explorers Club Pacific Northwest Chapter Flag, continuing THRP's practice of conducting each expedition under the Club's formal auspices, a signal to the communities it works with that the research meets a standard of rigor and accountability recognized well beyond THRP itself.

Across the communities surrounding Nome, thawing permafrost is undercutting roads, water systems, and homes, and that instability compounds a documented mental health burden already carried by Alaska Native communities, a legacy of colonization intensified by the acute, ongoing stress of watching the land itself give way. National Institute of Mental Health-funded research into Alaska Native resilience has begun to identify the community-level protective factors, cultural connection chief among them, that buffer against that burden. THRP's fieldwork extends that evidence base, treating the Iñupiat not as a population to be studied for its deficits, but as holders of resilience knowledge that has kept communities intact under conditions engineering alone cannot solve.

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"Nome is losing solid ground in the most literal sense, and that's exactly where resilience research has to go, to those places of extreme and ongoing stress," said Dr. Constance Scharff, THRP's Founder and Principal Investigator. "Every community we learn from adds to what we understand about human potential and fortitude. Better recognizing how the Iñupiat hold together as their landscape gives way will sharpen that understanding for all ten communities in this project, and beyond."

Fred A. Eningowuk of the Nome Eskimo Community, an enrolled Native Alaskan, is serving as community liaison for this expedition. It was Eningowuk who invited THRP to learn with and from his community.

THRP's field team is composed entirely of women, most of elder age, a composition chosen because in many of the communities THRP partners with, elder women hold the social authority that determines who is trusted with knowledge and how it moves through a community.

Nome is the third of ten planned THRP expeditions investigating resilience at the intersection of climate change and conflict. The project has already completed fieldwork with the Gabra of Kenya and the Māori of New Zealand. The fourth expedition, departing in October, will work with the Guarani of Paraguay. Findings from all ten expeditions will inform THRP's synthesizing book on human resilience, due in late 2028.

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About The Human Resilience Project

The Human Resilience Project is a global initiative documenting how Indigenous and remote communities sustain psychological resilience amid climate disruption and conflict. Founded and Directed by Dr. Constance Scharff, THRP is conducting fieldwork across ten planned expeditions under a framework of Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, and Responsibility, positioning the communities it studies as partners in the research rather than its subjects. More information is available at www.THRProject.com.