This article deals with the history of whaling in Norway, and provides an overview of the current situation of coastal minke whaling in the northern part of Norway and the commodity chain of minke whale meat in Norway. The first section briefly illustrates the history of whaling in Norway: how Norway developed the modern method in the mid-19th century, and how Norway developed pelagic whaling in the Antarctic Ocean in the early 20th century. While modern whaling had its roots in seal hunting for its fur and blubber, pelagic whaling in the Southern Ocean was exclusively for the oil. Aside from the pelagic whaling for oil, Norway has practiced small scale coastal whaling for meat since the late 1920s. When IWC decided to put the Moratorium in place in 1982, Norway objected to this decision, which allowed Norway to continue its commercial whaling. Using various secondary statistical data, I explore the current situation of minke whaling in Norway, that started in 1993 when Norway resumed commercial whaling after the voluntary moratorium set in 1988. Based on data gathered from my fieldwork, a case study of one whale meat processing company, operating in Lofoten Islands, Norland county, is also discussed. The characteristics of coastal whaling in Norway can be summarized as: 1) domestic demands for minke whale meat is about 600 tons, 2) whale meat processing industry heavily depends on seasonal migrant workers from eastern Europe, 3) supply of whale meat has been decreasing since 2015, 4) this is probably due to low price of whale meat, and 5) major processors target Japanese sashimi market for their products, which may cause structural changes in minke whaling in Norway in the future.

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Berry picking is an important subsistence activity, especially for Sakha people living in central Yakutia in east Siberia, whose predominant source of livelihood is pastoralism and fishing. The purpose of this study is to clarify an actual situation of the berry picking activity of Sakha people. It also analyzes the amount of berries picked in a specific time period by means of a field survey in Magaras village in the Gorny District of Sakha Republic. The field survey recorded 11 species of wild berries which local residents use as a food resource. The local people who gathered the wild berry used two areas for berry picking; the region near the village was accessed by foot and that which was further away, was accessed by car. From the results of the survey on berry picking for two days, the amounts of berries gathered per unit time of one gatherer, varied from 0.47 kg/h to 1.26 kg/h. This implies that there is a difference of nearly 1.5 times in the produce which is picked at different instants of time, although the gatherers picked berries in the same area, and in the same time duration. Moreover, it was observed that there existed a difference of 2.1 times in the amount picked between the first and second days, for different gatherers in different places. Three out of four people sold berries to merchants of agricultural companies from Yakutsk, and to local residents. Although some residents received income from picking berries, many of them used the berries for self-consumption.

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This text is a brief introduction of the Aleut (Unangan) language, especially in the Attu dialect, which was written by Karl Kaoru Kasukabe (春日部薫 1913-1995), who was an interpreter of the Japanese army while WWII. It includes 157 Aleut words and short sentences. Mr. Kasukabe was born in the U.S. and grew up there until he becomes a teenager. After that, he and his family moved to Japan. So he graduated from high school in Japan. After high school, he studied English and Russain while working at an airplane factory and got licenses of English and Russian interpreter. In June 1942, the Japanese army invaded and occupied the Attu and Kiska islands of the Aleutian Islands. Mr. Kasukabe attended this ‘’ Aleutian campaign’’ as an interpreter. In those days, 42 Aleut people and one white married couple lived on Attu Island. As an interpreter, Mr. Kasukabe researched the Aleut language and culture to teach them Japanese for military service. The original text was handwritten in 1942. It is housed in Hokkaido University Library (Identification No. 497/KAS/別シ). This library has two manuscripts of Mr. Kasukabe. One is this text, the other is mainly about the culture which we published in previous research ( 野 口 ・ 大 島 2019).Ethnographic and linguistic records about Attu Islanders have been very rare. This text is one of the most detailed records in researches by Japanese during WWII. Of course, Mr. Kasukabe was not a professional linguist, so there were some confusions about Aleut language such as a confusion of “k” and “q” sounds. However, these problems don’t reduce the overall value of his work. Hence we modified mistakes and added detailed commentary to the original text.

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This glossary includes some 250 Evenki words relating to reindeer herding in Aldan district in Sakha Republic, Russia. The author Sardana Romanovna Stepanova is an Evenki woman who works as a teacher of Russian language and literature in Aldan district and serves as the president of agricultural production cooperative society “Timpton”. In her booklet published in 2009, she recorded Evenki words used by reindeer herders in this region. The present Japanese translation is intended for Japanese readers to understand some aspects of the Evenki traditional reindeer herding and their language. An Evenki index with the reference to the Comparative dictionary of the Tungus-Manchu languages (Цинциус и др. 1975, 1977) is added in the present work.

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In 1804, Russian envoy Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov sailed to Nagasaki, where he demanded diplomatic relations and trade with Japan. However, the Shogunate rejected their request. Dissatisfied, the Russians attacked Japanese strategic points of Etorofu Island and Karafuto (Sakhalin Island) in 1806 to 1807, and the shogunate forces there were defeated. The shogunate ordered the Tohoku lords to protect the northern region. Takano Uta Tomoaki was also one of the people ordered to guard Ezochi (Hokkaido). He was samurai in the Sendai domain. In 1808, he was commanded to protect Kunashiri Island. What's unique is that he and his men read waka poems as the Russian threat loomed

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The Kawanishi Okhotsk site, Yubetsu, Hokkaido was excavated in 1991-1993 by Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples. At first, it was thought that this site belonged to the late period of the Okhotsk Culture. But close observation of unreported archaeological materials shows that this site belongs to the early and middle Jomon, the epi-Jomon, the Satsumon period and the middle and late period of the Okhotsk Culture. These unreported archaeological materials have an important information of the character of this site. So, this paper introduces these unreported archaeological materials of the Kawanishi Okhotsk site. As metal products had been already introduced by other paper, this paper introduces the other materials: pottery, stone tools, bone, antler and tooth tools, and so on this time. Unreported pottery indicate that this settlement was built between the end of the early Jomon period and the beginning of the middle Jomon period and people culturally acted on this site in the Satsumon period after the Okhotsk Culture period. And in this research of these unreported archaeological materials, many arrowheads and crude side-scrapers made of obsidian were found. And unprocessed obsidian round gravels were found in the pit house No.8, too. It is thought because people lived in this site could collect obsidian gravels on the lower section of the Yubetsu River having obsidian source Shirataki on upstream, obsidian stone tools were actively made in the Okhotsk Culture period. In the future, these unreported archaeological materials will be analyzed in detail.

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