Abstract

Migration has always been an important feature of the Arctic. This paper highlights geographic patterns of human migration in Arctic Alaska using origin and destination micro-data from the US Census Decennial Survey. Important migration patterns identified in this paper include large village to village migration flows and large negative net migration from villages to rural regional centers. Hierarchical or step-wise patterns of migration that are not purely distance determined are also observed. Also, migration backto Arctic Alaska from other Alaska and US places is important and these migration patterns conform to general hierarchical migration. Models in the new economics of migration literature appear to better explain Arctic migration patterns in Arctic Alaska compared to models focusing purely on expected wages.