Crossing Divides: The Bering Strait
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.06.05 | 10:17 PM ET
The final story in Tom Haines’ four-part Boston Globe series, “Crossing Divides,” was published during our winter break. It was an eloquent end to an ambitious project. The article looked at the remote world of the Bering Strait and the people who live there. “After the ice age thaw,” Haines writes, “Chukchis, Inupiat, and other indigenous peoples crossed the strait freely in skin boats in summer. But in the 20th century, distant capitals, Moscow and Washington, split the Arctic into communist and capitalist lands, making a barrier of the border through the middle of the strait and changing forever how natives and newcomers on both sides live.” The installment also featured a fascinating look at how Haines and photographer Essdras Suarez navigated the region. “The strait crossing was made aboard a 9-seat propeller plane chartered for a flight from the coastal port town of Provideniya, Russia, to Nome,” he writes. “Passengers on board included an elderly Siberian Yupik couple traveling to visit relatives on St. Lawrence Island, in the Bering Sea, and a Russianborn anthropologist returning to Alaska after months of research on the traditional use of mushrooms in native culture.” Finally, the Globe created a handsome Web page for the entire series.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
