Lessons From travel to Alaska and Yukon -- brains, indigenous culture, Vietnam, etc

 I owe great thanks to my wife Ludmilla, who has unique world-class skills in leading us to places all over the world, where we have learned many things known to VERY few Westerners. One month under her unique planning equates to about three advanced graduate courses across many new disciplines.

ONE of those trips, in the summer of 2025, was to Alaska and the Yukon. I recently sent a summary of what we learned on that trip, that few others ever learn, to a group of friends and family:

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1. New discoveries about how our brains work:

FOR EXAMPLE -- Frontiers in Neuroscience asked me to organize a special issue this year, bringing together all the best radical advances in our understanding of how brains really work to generate intelligence. I put together a position paper on this ( https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2024/09/position-paper-for-next-great-advances.html). Section iii, just past halfway through the paper, reports on radical improvements in our understanding of how mammal and bird brains attain the highest levels of general intelligence that they are capable of. The final improvement can be credited to this tour (though it also reflects a foundation we built on from previous trips we have photos for.)

2. Indigenous People

The second group of incredible learning involves indigenous cultures. From earlier trips, we knew how human civilization arose from three MAIN streams of progress beyond the hunter-gatherer stage: "people of the boat, people of the horse, and people of the vegetable." (After our recent trip to Indochina and Thailand, I would refine this a bit, paying more respect to highlanders and elephants.) We knew that the Tlingit people, especially, were important well-integrated people in the ancient high civilization of the people of the boat of the Pacific, crossing the ocean, ranging from places we have seen from Pacific islands, like Hawaii and Maori, to

Peru, to the Champa people of Vietnam. In this trip, we saw more of them (and other great fisher people), BUT ALSO of inland Athabascan people who have a lot to teach us, and others. 

BEFORE this trip, I mainly thought of  early shamanism as MAINLY "mother earth, father sky" (or  mother sky, as Hava has taught us about early Israeli culture). HERE, the role of clans and connections with specific species was VERY striking. For example... in the Yukon (around Dawson) we saw the place where gold was first really discovered, causing a massive change in the world economy. We saw the faces of the group, and the real leader.. a Tlingit guy living inland, whose house (we visited) displayed a prominent statue of an orca, his clan, and ... a bird.  My brain paper mentions orcas... but we now know a lot more about them, about this guy's spiritual connections. And WE met a lot of creatures, like a family of friendly ravens we connected to. 

3. Human-huskie collaboration and brain synchronization

OK -- third most important, but some would say first. In Denali, especially, but also other places, we saw lots of cooperative behavior of humans and huskies, especially. Suddenly I add the names of my long-time friend and collaborator, Robert Kozma, and Scott Kelso, a world leader in the study of brain synchronization. Last year I was amazed by the collaborative, synchronized behavior I saw (unique in the world, in many ways) connecting humans and huskies. At Denali, a lead place of USGS, I saw VERY serious well-funded research teams studying these teams, connecting very important basic science with practical realities of life important to the lives of people in Alaska and Yukon, now and in the past, Euro-American and indigenous both. (I DID see great teams of humans and horses in Iceland, as well, but both places are unique, and I have to say THESE teams in Alaska and Canada were the most impressive.) Above all -- I see exciting NEW opportunities for very important fundamental research strengthening these connections and understanding, making full use of the newest mathematical and cybernetic  tools. 

A lot to learn for those with open eyes... and ears and hearts. 

The geology and the worlds of rocks, the economics and history were ALSO very interesting, but this post is already long enough. 

WAIT: MORE:

History of earth and Champa people of the boat:

SEE https://youtu.be/ghmjIBD2Fd4

After our return from Vietnam, which made me wish SOME of the people in UDSGOV knew half of what we learned, Ludmilla said: "You still have a lot to learn. Watch this video, and the others in the series." I was astounded at how much NEW I learned, complementary to the things Ludmilla and I learned (not in that video), but consistent, and crucial to the whole story. Since we visited the main center of the Champa people in Vietnam, and even met some, and knew the history in Vietnam... we knew SOMETHING, but did not realize how much power they had in earlier centuries. At one point, their power in Southeast Asia...  reminds me a little of my own ancient Viking ancestry (which visited all of Britain and Ireland and penetrated into Germany and France and... on Ludmila's side as far as the Black Sea). Creative and innovative and open people, but a bit oppressive to others at times. Essential parts of humanity and even the genome of humanity, but only PARTS, always in need of balance. As the video made clear!!