KHANTY OF SIBERIA Alicia Patterson Fellowship 1999

Having followed a subsistence-based life among the forests and rivers of northwestern Siberia for hundreds of years, the Khanty people today find their deep association with the natural landscape severely threatened by rampant energy development. Producing some 60% of Russia's oil, their homeland is being devastated at an alarming rate. After making my first trip to the region in 1997, I was awarded an Alicia Patterson Fellowship to spend a year documenting the Khanty in 1999. In 2000 I photographed the Khanty for Smithsonian Magazine and, most recently, I returned with a Discovery Channel film crew in tow. In all, I have visited Siberia ten times.