Carole L. Seyfrit

Resources and hopes in Newfoundland

Newfoundland has historically relied on its natural resources, without broader industrialization. Exploitation and population growth have now exceeded these resources’ sustainable yields. With fisheries a disaster, and mining and forestry in decline, Newfoundlands government places hope on offshore oil development. A survey of rural Newfoundland high school students finds that few plan oil industry careers, however. More often, they expect public sector or service employment. The profile of oil‐interested students resembles profiles of students interested in mining, forestry, and fishing. Students with college and professional goals do not aspire to resource occupations; instead, many plan to leave Newfoundland. Students’ low expectations regarding resource‐sector jobs reflect recent historical experience, but hopes for public‐sector employment could perpetuate Newfoundlands economic dependency. Our data depict an extractive society experiencing early stages of overshoot. Other North Atlantic societies ...

Environment and sex ratios among Alaska Natives: An historical perspective

Human-environment interactions can affect the sex ratios of resource-dependent societies in a variety of ways. Historical and contemporary data on Alaska Native populations illustrate such effects. Some eighteenth and early nineteenth century observers noted an excess of females, which they attributed to high mortality among hunters. Population counts in the later nineteenth century and well into the twentieth found instead an excess of men in many communities. Female infanticide was credited as the explanation: since family survival depended upon hunting success, males were more valued. Although infanticide explanations for the excess of males have been widely believed, available demographic data point to something else: higher adult female mortality. Finally, in the postwar years, the importance of mortality differentials seems to have faded- and also changed direction. Female outmigration from villages accounts for much of the gender imbalance among Native populations today. Natural-resource development, particularly North Slope oil, indirectly drives this migration. In Alaskas transcultural communities, the present gender imbalances raise issues of individual and cultural survival.