Paper short abstract:

This paper proposes to explore vernacular weather observations amongst rural people on Sakhalin, Russia’s largest island on the Pacific Coast, and their relationship to the ice. It is based on a weather diary (2000–2016) of one of the local inhabitants and fieldwork that I conducted on the island.

Paper long abstract:

My paper proposes to explore vernacular weather observations amongst rural people on Sakhalin, Russia’s largest island on the Pacific Coast, and their relationship to the ice. It is based on a weather diary (2000–2016) of one of the local inhabitants and fieldwork that I conducted on Sakhalin in 2009, 2013 and 2016. The diary as a community-based weather monitoring allows us to examine how people understand, perceive and deal with the weather both daily and in the long-term perspective. My research argues that amongst all natural phenomena, the ice is the most crucial for the local inhabitants as it determines human subsistence activities, navigation and relations with other environmental forces and beings. People perceive the ice as having an agency, engage in a dialogue with it, learn and adjust themselves to its drifting patterns. Over the past decade, there have been numerous changes in the environment related to climate. At the local level, these changes have resulted in the uncertainty amongst local people concerning the ice’s behaviour and the future of winter fisheries. In my presentation I will show that vernacular or rural weather diaries can serve as a good source of information on the links between the weather, natural events, multiple beings, including fish and dogs, subsistence practices and local inhabitants. These sources can be further integrated into research on climate change and fisheries management policy.