#TheYearofBelief | #TYBThaw

Clear Space to Move in Respectful Arctic Research

🌿 From the Land: Before the Fish, Clean the Freezer

It’s May, and families are getting ready for the next phase of the subsistence calendar: fishing, eggs, freshwater ice, and GOOSE SOUP!

But before we can fill the freezers, we purge. There’s a job that can’t be skipped:
Clean the freezer.

Not the metaphorical kind—the real one.

The one where the last of last summer’s trout is waiting to be the next meal.
The one where you’ll find those berries you forgot about.
The one full of intentions that didn’t quite make it into meals.

This cleaning is practical, yes.
But it’s also emotional.

Sometimes you find things left by someone who you dearly love[d].

Sometimes you find those morsels of goodness that soothe the soul right when you need it.

Sometimes you find something you regret not sharing.

Sometimes you find something you clung to—just in case—but never used.

Just recently, our mom, Gladys I’yiiqpak Pungowiyi, and Corina’s son Tyler got a caribou roast out of the freezer to thaw for dinner. They were just planning a quiet meal for the two of them—but once they pulled out the roast, they realized it was more meat than they needed that night.

Instead of putting it back or wasting it, our mom sliced the extra caribou thin and hung it in the kitchen to dry into paniqtuq—dried caribou meat.

It takes days. It requires attention, air flow, and care.

When it was done, she had made two full bags of dried meat—preserved from a moment of abundance, set aside for a time when they might not have that same access, energy, or season.

This is part of the rhythm of equitable Arctic research, too.

Not every moment in research feels full.
Sometimes we’re overwhelmed; other times we’re depleted.
So when you find yourself with more—more insight, more time, more trust, more momentum—preserve it.
Put something away in a way that future you, or your community, can return to and share.

Freezer cleaning reminds us:
Yes, clear what’s expired.
But also: honor what’s abundant.
And prepare for the times ahead.

What are you storing that could be shared or preserved for later?
What abundance have you overlooked or underused?

We have to examine what we’re carrying—and determine what no longer fits the season ahead.

What old frameworks, habits, fears, negative baggage, or roles are still ‘frozen’ in your research?

What needs to be thawed, released, or composted to make space for new forms of Respectful Research?

🏛️ From the Institutions: Moral Laxity, Enabling Structures, and Freezer Time

In Perfecting Imperfect Duties (1996), Allen Buchanan describes a problem many of us know too well and we have been discussing this month: When responsibilities are unclear, we delay them.

He calls it moral laxity—not because we don’t care, but because we haven’t made the duty real through action.

This week, we reflect on how that delay shows up in research:

• The idea we keep in the back of our mind but don’t write down
  
• The tension we feel about a project that no longer aligns with our values
  
• The vague plan to “engage the community better next time”—but without a timeline, a partner, or a plan
  

Sometimes, our freezer is full of deferred responsibility.

That’s where enabling structures matter.

Scoones et al. (2020), in Transformations to Sustainability: Combining Structural, Systemic and Enabling Approaches, argue that real transformation requires more than new information and analysis—it requires creating environments where people can act. These are spaces where it’s okay to start small, to improvise, to make change even if the system hasn’t formally changed yet.

This is a kind of “freezer cleaning,” too—making space in institutions, workflows, and funding processes to honor lived timing, local wisdom, and seasonal shifts.

Enabling structures are flexible systems, tools, and routines that make it possible to move forward, even when institutional change is slow. They’re the cleared shelf in the freezer, the written reflection you revisit later, the simple framework that lets others join in. They are part of clearing space for respectful Arctic research.

They don’t require perfection—they require readiness.
They let us act in-season, even when the system hasn’t caught up yet.

So if belief is a practice, then freezer cleaning is one of its rituals.
It says: I’m making space to move again.

If belief is a practice, then freezer cleaning is one of its rituals.
It says: I’m making space to move again.

🧭 TYB Framework: This Week’s Practice

This week, we focus on:

1. Know Who You Are
   What are you holding onto that no longer reflects who you are or want to be?
   
2. Reinforce Hope with Grit
   Releasing something takes strength. So does facing what’s expired. Make room to begin again.
   

This Week’s Challenge: Thaw Something

This week, clear some space.
It might be literal (your inbox, your freezer, your desk).
It might be mental, emotional, or scholarly.

Try one of these

• Celebrate the memory of something, enjoy it, savor it
• Give something you don’t need to someone who would love to have it.
• Write down one idea you’re done trying to force
  
• Let go of an institutional expectation you’ve outgrown
  
• Archive a project you’re not continuing—and say why
  
• Return to a source or story you’ve avoided and ask: What needs to be different now?
  

Then, if it feels right, share something about what you’ve let go of using:
#TheYearofBelief #TYBThaw

“Here’s what I’m clearing out to make room for what matters…”

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.

❄️ Closing Thought

You can’t be ready for  what’s coming if your freezer’s still full.
You can’t grow belief if all your energy is going to maintaining what no longer serves.

Respectful research sometimes means stopping.
Equitable Arctic research sometimes starts with release.

Let go.
Make room.
The fish are coming.

PS: Here’s the answer to last week’s egg puzzle: