#TheYearofBelief | #TYB1stStep

The seagulls are back. That means it’s time.

🌿 From the Land: The First Step in Starting Respectful Research Is Finding the Joy of Just Beginning, Even Imperfectly

The regular calendar tells us the new year starts on January 1.

But in the Arctic, the real new year begins in spring—with thawing snow, returning birds, and signs from the land.

You hear it as you feel it.

This week, Corina went out ice fishing with her family on the sea ice near Kotzebue. The wind was light. The snow had a spring crust on it—just enough to walk across. And before they could even drop a line, they heard it: a roar of wings, cries, and air shifting overhead.

The nauyaq had come.

Hundreds of them—laughing, swirling, shrieking—flooded the sky above their heads. Flying low, calling to each other, watching the ice holes for scraps. The kind of noise you feel in your chest. Corina took a short video to capture it—one of those moments that’s so ordinary, and so special, at the same time.

🎥 Watch the video →

The nauyaq—loud, laughing seagulls—circle the ice fishing spots, hoping for scraps. Their return is noisy and relentless. They don’t care if you’re ready. They’re hungry, playful, and alive. And they’re part of the land’s announcement:

The season has changed. It’s time.

One of the first acts of this season once you can go out on your boat is egging.

You go out with family to gather eggs from the marshy and grassy sandbars, even when the ground is unstable and the nests are unpredictable. You don’t wait for the perfect moment. You move because the season has moved.

When you find those first eggs, you often give them away—offered to an Elder or to the people who’ve helped you make it through winter.
The value isn’t in how many eggs you found.
It’s that you went. That you returned. That you remembered your place in the rhythm.

This is how starting respectful Arctic research begins, too. It doesn’t start with polished proposals. It starts with one meaningful gesture of presence, shared before  practice and perfection set in.

🏛️ From the Institutions: The Right Time to Begin Is When It’s Needed, Not When It’s Convenient

Institutional timelines tend to follow chronos—rigid, measurable time.
The semester. The fiscal year. The deadline.

But in both community life and Arctic research, we often move through kairos—right time, not scheduled time.

That deeper signal of now is when it matters.

Kairos reminds us that starting respectful Arctic research doesn’t always follow Institutional calendars. It unfolds when community members are ready, when the land is speaking, or when the timing honors that —not just when a grant deadline is near. 

Philosopher Allen Buchanan (“Perfecting Imperfect Duties: Collective Action to Create Moral Obligation,” 1996) speaks to this through the idea of imperfect duties—ethical responsibilities that aren’t clearly assigned or enforceable.

You know you need to act—but no one tells you when or how. And so, we delay.

But Buchanan argues that imperfect duties are only made real through action—especially collective action. When we name them, move imperfectly, and invite others into the work, we begin to create the ethical systems that didn’t exist before.

This is why starting respectful Arctic research requires more than institutional readiness—it requires personal and relational readiness. It asks us to show up early, to listen longer, and to begin even when the path isn’t fully mapped.

Humility is the key, and Indigenous communities know when someone is truly trying and learning as they go. 

This is also what happens when we engage in effective community engagement in equitable Arctic research:
We don’t wait until it’s convenient or scheduled and tidy. We act when we are needed.

🧭 TYB Framework: This Week’s Practice

This week’s focus:

1. Know Who You Are
   What shift are you feeling internally that tells you it’s the right time?
2. Do the Next Right Thing, Even Imperfectly
   Start without guarantees. Let your motion be your genuine offering.

Belief doesn’t arrive first.
Building belief comes after you act.

This Week’s Challenge: Take Your First Step

Pick one thing you’ve been circling, waiting to do, or unsure how to begin.

And begin.

🧺 It could be:

• Opening a notebook and sketching a research contribution
• Sending a message to someone you hope to work with
• Reading something from a community you hope to support
• Or just saying aloud: “I hope to…”

Then, if you feel moved to share, use:
#TheYearofBelief #TYB1stStep

“Here’s what I did, even though I wasn’t ready.”

Post your ideas for first steps in comments, on our EAR Facebook Group, ARCUS’s Connect the Arctic portal, or simply offer your action as a quiet gesture, like you would offer the first eggs of the season.

Remembering Forward

Belief isn’t a feeling you wait for.
It’s a practice. A way of moving with the world already in motion. A way of listening and responding to the season.

The land is already thawing.
The nauyaq are already circling.
Our new year has already begun.

You’re not behind.
You’re in season.