FORUM Magazine | Summer 2023

Alaska’s Blue Economy

First Sea Otter Hunt

Breaking Up in Anchorage

Rivers of Life

It’s About Relationships

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Judith Owens-Manley, Chair, Anchorage

Ben Mallott Vice Chair, Anchorage

By Kameron Perez-Verdia

What does it mean for our community to be polarized? It doesn’t simply mean disagreement and conflict over civic issues. Those challenges are not only inevitable but essential for a diverse and thriving community. Is it contention over “deeper” things— like facts, sources of information, or the meaning of words? That’s getting closer to understanding polarization, and why these kinds of disputes make it feel like “we’re living in different realities.”

When talking about polarization, we are really talking about relationships. We’re talking about how we define who belongs to our community—who is an “us” and who is a “them.” We’re talking about how we regard the people we disagree with. Do we approach others with curiosity, patience, and empathy? Or have we masked them in stereotypes, stopped talking, and stopped listening?

Polarization—the loss of functional relationships across communities—tears our neighborhoods, cities, and state into a series of isolated, self-selected groups. Depolarization is the process of mending those tears. It’s about restoring relationships and human connections wide enough to encompass a common civic destiny and a thriving community.

How do we define who belongs to our community? Who is an “us” and who is a “them”?

The Alaska Humanities Forum has taken depolarization into the heart of its work, through projects like Leadership Anchorage, Ilakucaraq (being together), Kindling Conversations, and the many experiences and encounters we host to bring people into relationship with one another. We gained valuable experience through our work in response to the contentious public dialogue about the COVID-19 vaccine. Talking about vaccination aroused powerful feelings about safety, health, freedom, autonomy, and responsibility to the communities we care for.

Conversations like these often became heated quickly. At the Forum, we’ve honed tools and techniques to conduct effective conversations on difficult topics with diverse audiences. These tools—like compassionate listening; checking assumptions; playing the long game—are hallmarks of the humanities, too. The tasks of improving our conversations and restoring our civic relationships can—must—happen together.

It can be hard, slow, and emotional work. At the Forum, we believe Alaskans can do it, and we’re working to make it happen.

Warmly,

Kameron Perez-Verdia President & CEO

Jeffrey Siemers , Treasurer, Soldotna

Rachael “Ray” Ball , Member-At-Large, Anchorage

Thea Agnew Bemben , Anchorage

Stephen Qacung Blanchett , Juneau

Keneggnarkayaagaq Emily Edenshaw, Anchorage

Kitty Farnham , Anchorage

Charleen Fisher, Beaver

Kristina Mason , Anchorage

Peter Metcalfe Juneau

Jayson Owens , Anchorage

Carrie Shephard , Anchorage

Jeannine Stafford-Jabaay, Hope

Renee Wardlaw, Anchorage

Kristi Williams , Anchorage

STAFF

Kameron Perez-Verdia , President & CEO

Shoshi Bieler, Grants & Special Projects Manager

Emily Brockman , Youth Program Manager

Polly Carr, Vice Preside of Programs

Amanda Dale , Director of Cross-Cultural Programs

Kim Fasbender, Operations Coordinator

Kelly Forster, Youth Leadership Program Manager

Gordon Iya Cross Cultural Program Coordinator

Helen John , Youth Program Coordinator

Kari Lovett , Director of Operations

Emily Lucy, Public Outreach Manager

Rachael McPherson , Vice President of Development & Community Engagement

Ryan Ossenkop, Vice President of Operations

Eiden Pospisil , Youth Program Coordinator

Julie Rowland , Cross Cultural Program Manager

Chuck Seaca Director of Leadership Programs

Taylor Strelevitz , Director of Conversation Programs

Molissa Udevitz Youth Program Designer

FORUM MAGAZINE STAFF

Rachael McPherson , Publisher

Bree Kesslet , Editor

Dean Potter, Art Director

Contributors:

Michael Armstrong, Chris Avessuk, Jessica Cherry, Angela Łot’oydaatlno Gonzalez, Adan Hernadez, Judy Owens-Manley, Rosanne Pagano, Lexi Qass’uq Trainer, Erica Watson

3 Editor’s Note

An effort to increase representation in this issue

Bree Kessler

4 DISPATCH FROM HOMER Orientation

A new sculpture evokes an Indigenous wayfinding system

Michael Armstrong

6 The Hunt

A journey to the inner-self by way of Columbia Bay

Lexi Qass’uq Trainer

12 Bloom and Rust

Reflections on Alaska’s blue economy around Chugachmiut

Jessica Cherry

18 Rivers of Life

Reconnecting to place

Judy Owens-Manley

24 ALASKA LANGUAGES “degheyukk kk’e” Ocean in Denaakk’e Angela Łot’oydaatlno Gonzalez

26 Snowbergs, Puddles, and Buried Treasure

Spring break-up in Anchorage

Photos by Adan Hernadez

32 READING ALASKA Grandmothers’ Patterns

Children’s book Alaska Boots for Chelsea is more than a story

Rosanne Pagano

LESSON PLANS

You’ll see some QR codes at the ends of articles in this issue. These link to lesson plans developed by pre-service teachers in the education programs at Alaska Pacific University. Lessons are designed for K-8 classrooms; focus on differentiated and interdisciplinary instruction; and take one class period.

34 PROGRAM NOTES

Ilakucaraq Project

Strengthening Alaska Native youth and Alaska teachers

36 Oscillate Raw

Meet the Drumlin Poets and the Word Stitch

38 At Our Best

A dream for Alaska tourism

Erica Watson

41 AFTER IMAGE

“Our Side of the

Story”

At the “Indigenous Resistance” film premier

Photo by Chris Avessuk

FORUM is a publication of the Alaska Humanities Forum, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with the purpose of increasing public understanding of and participation in the humanities. The views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the editorial staff, the Alaska Humanities Forum, or the National Endowment for the Humanities. Subscriptions may be obtained by contributing to the Alaska Humanities Forum or by contacting the Forum. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission. Copyright 2023.

“Tuyanitun: Tuggeht,” a sculpture by Argent Kvasnikof newly installed in Homer. See page 4.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG

SUMMER 2023

Editor’s Note

An effort to increase representation in this issue

When I was approached to edit FORUM, I instantly realized that I was being asked not because of my editing skills but because of my previous experience in community engagement. To me, FORUM is collateral in an evolving process to engage community members in storytelling. This magazine offers a lot of opportunities to share stories and create art outside of the typical limitations of traditional media. Unlike many magazines, this one does not rely on advertising. We aren’t selling this magazine either. FORUM will be printed and distributed regardless of who has paid for the limited advertisement in the magazine and their personal interests.

My primary goal as editor is to increase representation of diverse voices so that FORUM does not replicate many Alaska publications that share the same dozen writers who then maintain their place as authorities of narratives about Alaska. I want to uplift individuals who may not be professional writers, but certainly have stories to tell and ones that have yet to be heard widely. With that in mind, the essays in this issue are lightly edited to ensure clarity of each piece, rather than a consistent voice between articles. I’ve also advised our writers that their essays can present their lived experience and do not need to be journalistic with a balanced perspective.

The theme of this issue is water. You’ll read throughout the magazine the myriad of ways that water intersects with the lives of those living in Alaska. My hope is that the magazine will provide readers with a new way to think about their own experiences of water and the experiences of others not like them.

You will also notice QR codes throughout the magazine. These codes are links to lesson plans graciously and thoughtfully prepared by a class of graduate students at Alaska Pacific University. The hope is that by connecting many of the articles to lesson plans we can ensure that these amazing stories are not only read, but also generate conversation and understanding among our young readers.

Thank you for the chance to hold space through curating this issue.

— Bree Kessler

COVER: Lexi Qass’uq Trainer prepares to shoot while on her first sea otter hunt, in Columbia Bay on Prince William Sound.

PHOTO BY HOPE ROBERTSUPICKSOUN

Orientation

A new sculpture evokes an Indigenous wayfinding system

By Michael Armstrong

Since the fall of 2022, a new sculpture has stood like a beacon at the beach end of the Beluga Slough Trail at Bishop’s Beach in Homer. Consisting of five rounded forms the color of sea glass stacked on a metal pole and topped by a five-faceted amber colored finial, artist Argent Kvasnikoff’s “Tuyanitun: Tuggeht” references an Indigenous wayfinding system used by his culture, the people of Nichił, or Ninilchik. “Nichł” means “house” but also “birch bark,” Kvasnikoff said. Bunnell Street Arts Center sponsored Kvasnikoff’s sculpture through a $50,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with in-kind support from the City of Homer and artist and landscape designer Rika Mouw. The project came out of Bunnell’s ongoing efforts in decolonization and land acknowledgment.

Kvasnikoff said he conceived the sculpture as a reinvention of the Nichił navigational system used by the Indigenous people of the Ninilchik region. In the Dena’ina language, “Tuyanitun” (tee-yah-nee-toon) is the name of the wayfinding system while “Tuggeht” (to-get) refers to the greater Homer area. Kvasnikoff, 36, describes wayfinding as “how we make sense of the physical world” and explains how the Tuyanitun system was historically used by the Nichił people to orient themselves in the landscape surrounding Ninilchik Dome. Even though contemporary Nichił people might not use the language of the Tuyanitun system, Kvasnikoff said the concept remains. Out on Oilwell Road near Ninilchik where Kvasnikoff lives, people who go snowmachining or hunting still wayfind by using the Ninilchik Dome as a reference, he said.

“People know roughly how far they are from this dome point and they use it as a term to describe where they are on the horizon,” Kvasnikoff said. “Are they behind it or in front of it from the inlet? The way they talk about it from all sides is proof it [Tuyanitun] still exists.”

In the Tuyanitun system, Ninilchik Dome cen-

ters a pentagon-shaped area, with the pentagon divided into five equal areas. A person would be oriented toward the center from one of those regions. Stacks of rocks placed as geographic markers indicate the distance from the center, with each rock representing the distance a family or group could travel in a day, about 5 to 10 miles. The five sections of Kvasnikoff’s sculpture indicate the distance from the Ninilchik Dome.

“It’s like a reimagining of what those directions could mean if somebody using what we have access to now was given tools and able to make a system based on that,” Kvasnikoff explained of his sculpture.

In researching materials to use for “Tuyanitun: Tuggeht,” Kvasnikoff said he corresponded with glass artist Deborah Czerseko, one of the stars in the Netflix reality TV show, “Blown Away.” Czerseko gave Kvasnikoff suggestions for materials and he decided on polymer acrylic, a media that has the look and feel of glass. “It’s a lot stronger. It’s more durable,” Kvasnikoff said. In looking for a foundry to manufacture “Tuyanitun: Tuggeht,” Kvasnikoff searched throughout the Pacific Northwest and further. He even considered funeral businesses that made acrylic monuments for graves.

“It took a long time to find a place that was going to even take it on, something like this, still an experimental shape and format that’s intended to be permanent,” he said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kvasikoff said a lot of foundries weren’t running. Eventually he found Midton Acrylics of Lochgilphead, Argyll, Scotland. Midton Acrylics fabricated the sculpture using partly recycled acrylic plastic and Homer fabricator Dave Gronseth made the metal stand. “I was just lucky enough I got a random response back from these people,” Kvasnikoff said. They responded with, “This sounds amazing. Let’s work on it,” he said. Midton made the pieces of the sculpture in Scotland and shipped it by air freight and truck to Alaska.

For more information on “Tuyanitun: Tuggeht,” visit bunnellarts.org/ tuyanitun-tuggeht. Other supporters of the project include the Alaska Community Foundation Social Justice Fund, the Alaska State Council on the Arts, the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, the Rasmuson Foundation, the Ninilchik Village Tribe and community donors.

Michael Armstrong recently retired after 23 years as editor and reporter for the Homer News. He has published five novels and numerous short stories, most recently the novel Truck Stop Earth.

“Tuyanitun: Tuggeht” started with Kvasnikoff’s rough design of the piece.“It’s supposed to look a little, sort of a nod to the trees and the way the individual glass stones are stacked or supposed to look a bit like the tsunami beacon,” he said, referring to a tsunami warning tower at Bishop’s Beach that is a stack of loudspeakers shaped like flying saucers. The aqua green color of “Tuyanitun” also evokes sea glass, particularly that of Coca-Cola bottles, Kvasnikoff said.

“Sea glass is to me—it’s just so representative of the area, because to me sea glass—it’s one of those things that is quasi natural,” he said. “It’s almost supernatural in a weird way, to use that word, because it’s something that’s man made, but it’s also something that we see and connect with nature.”

The amber colored finial also references agates found on Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet beaches, with the five sides symbolizing the pentagon of the Tuyanitun system. Kvasnikoff said he sees the finial as being like a Christmas tree ornament. He associates Homer with the Nutcracker Ballet and fair. “It is meant to be the representation of, this is my piece, but also it has been done with the idea that it’s indicative of this broader sense of place,” he said.

“Tuyanitun: Tuggeht” got the blessing of the Ninilchik Tribal Council, a solicitation Kvasnikoff suggested seeking. “If it’s supposed to be about an Indigenous marker, I feel that it’s kind of our responsibility to present it to a representative body of who actually has a living jurisdiction,” he said. An interpretative sign will be installed in the spring of 2023, with a formal celebration of the art project around the same time. ■

Argent Kvasnikof with his sculpture “Tuyanitun: Tuggeht.”

PHOTO BY MICHAEL ARMSTRONG

A journey binds the thrill of a successful sea

By Lexi Qass’uq Trainer

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

The cold glacial air is making my hands feel stiff as my heart races and the hum of the boat is the only sound I can hear. The sound of the motor disappears as we slow down and coast alongside an iceberg with a sea otter looking at us with curiosity and then concern. I don’t know if I’m still breathing as I look through the .22 rifle scope and I fire my first shot. The sea otter jumps into the water, and I cringe as it dives, leaving behind a trail of blood.

24 HOURS EARLIER

I still can’t believe I’m doing this. As an “urban Native” for the last 20 of my 31 years, traditional hunting practices were not something I had the privilege of experiencing since moving to the city from Chevak, and even as a child I had never hunted an animal myself. As I walk across the tarmac in Anchorage towards the Ravn flight bound for Valdez, a small part of me wonders if I’ll even be successful. I have never even fired a rifle. An hour later, my stomach is still full of butterflies, and I can’t tell if it’s the turbulence or the idea that this weekend, I’m going to be learning how to hunt marine mammals from a woman I’ve never met.

My cousin, Michelle Sparck, connected me with Hope Roberts, an Athabascan and Tlingit woman. A talented marine mammal huntress, she also runs Surreel Saltwaters with her partner Charles Upicksoun (Inupiaq). She has been hunting marine mammals for a while now and wanted to share her knowledge with other Indigenous women. Despite having never considered participating in a hunt, I have been working on reconnecting with my roots and figured, why not? Her knowledge around the processes for hunting marine mammals is extensive, and she believes that Alaska Native people need to participate in this traditional practice before the knowledge is lost and to work towards keeping marine mammal hunting rights for Alaska Native people.

PHOTO BY CHARLES UPICKSOUN

Shortly after my arrival, Hope, Charles, and myself are talking about hunting plans when Charles asks me if I’ve ever hunted before. I say no. He turns, “Have you ever shot a rifle?” Again, no. Charles looks at Hope in surprise. She tells him that we all start somewhere, and we have plans to go to the range to practice. Thirty minutes later, we’re heading down a dirt road with .22 rifles and targets. As we set up at the range, the rain is coming down steadily and I’m thankful for the covered area as I’m shown the rifle and begin my lesson. After learning rifle basics, I sit, lean into the rifle, put my eye to the scope and immediately sit back up, confused. I turn around, remembering all my time behind a camera lens. “I forgot, I’m left-eye dominant,” I say as I panic, wondering if rifles are specific like hunting bows. They aren’t and a few seconds later, I look into the scope with my left eye and fire my first three shots, all within the bullseye. I am absolutely stoked! Apparently, years of sports

Hope Roberts and Lexi Trainer during a sea otter skinning lesson on Lexi’s first marine mammal hunt.

otter hunt to the heart of Alaska Native culture

photography and tracking moving subjects has paid off in a way I didn’t expect. I can’t believe I can shoot a gun well! Charles nods in approval, then mentions he wants to try some new bullets out and hands them to me. I shoot three again but this time they’re about two inches too high, but still a nice cluster. He gives me the original bullet type and I again, have a good cluster. He sees no reason to waste bullets if I don’t need the practice and tells me that tomorrow, I’ll shoot from the boat at a cardboard box bobbing in the ocean.

THE HUNT

The rain is coming down hard as we head to the boat. I have no idea what I’m getting into so I’m relieved when I see it has an enclosed cabin so I know I won’t be getting soaked or be exposed to excessive wind. A short while later, we’re coasting to a stop on the southwest end of Port Valdez and I’m handed a rifle as a small cardboard box, roughly the size of an otter’s head is tossed into the water. Charles drives the boat a small distance away as Hope gives me tips on shooting from a boat.

The boat is bobbing in the water as I’m trying to focus on the box. This suddenly seems like an impossible task. How am I supposed to be able to shoot something that small from a moving boat? I finally convince myself to go for it and I am disappointed by a small splash in the water as I miss the small cardboard box. Hope, seeing my disappointed face, tells me it was close and to try again. She coaxes me through with reminders on paying attention to the way the boat is moving and using that to help me decide when to fire my shot. A few seconds later, I pull the trigger again and am rewarded when the cardboard box jolts due to a hit! Excitement courses through me as I breathe, then fire again and the cardboard jolts for the second time. Hope is talking about how I’m going to be a marine mammal huntress as Charles says he thinks I’m ready for the real thing and steers the boat over to collect the box.

Alaska Natives who live within 50 miles of an Alaskan coast and are at least 25% Native are permitted to hunt marine mammals. The traditional uses for seals include food, raincoats, boots, and other crafts, whereas sea otters are not eaten but the warm fur is used for a variety of crafts and essential clothing. Today, we’re looking to hunt both. After stopping in a few locations looking for sea otters and seals, we had only seen a sickly-looking seal along with a mom and baby seal. While some may be comfortable shooting a baby seal or its mother, I wasn’t.

I see on the boat GPS that we’re at the entrance to Columbia Bay. I ask if this is the Columbia Bay fed by the Columbia Glacier and mention that it has been on my bucket list to see the glacier up close. Hope and Charles mention that they’ve never actually gone deep enough into the bay to see it

above: Lexi salts her first sea otter in preparation for the tanner.

left: Lexi making the first cuts in her first sea otter.

PHOTOS BY HOPE ROBERTS-UPICKSOUN

and there will be otters and seals back there as well so we might as well. I am overwhelmed by the experience as we coast our way through the icebergs. We can feel the temperature in the air dropping by the second.

We follow a few otters and seals around as we head towards the glacier but they disappear quickly and I am realizing that hunting is not just about finding them but also being close enough and fast enough to shoot. Many times, the animals would pop out of the water, see us, and disappear before I could even line them up in the scope. A short while later, I temporarily forget why we’re there as I stare in awe at the glaciers that feed into Columbia Bay. After about twenty minutes of exploring the bay, we begin heading back and that’s when we spot it. A sea otter is lying on an iceberg, staring at us curiously. Harvesting an otter requires a headshot. A sea otter on an iceberg means that it can’t duck under the water, giving the hunter a few extra seconds to shoot. For a first-time hunter like myself, that can be helpful. However, experienced hunters like Charles and Hope can quickly harvest seals and sea otters out of the water within a few seconds of spotting them.

As the boat slows down, Hope is whispering encouraging words and directions to me while keeping an eye on the otter as we get closer. Soon, the boat engine is turned off and we are floating within shooting range of the otter. The silence is deafening as I peer at the otter through the scope, and after a lot of self-doubt I realize if I don’t shoot, the opportunity will be gone, and I finally pull the trigger and shoot it in the butt as the otter disappears beneath the iceberg, leaving behind a trail of blood.

“Well, you hit the otter so now we have to follow it around so we don’t leave it out here wounded,” says Charles as he starts the engine and we begin our fifteen minutes of pursuit. The three of us all have our eyes peeled waiting for the otter to resurface. A few times, when it does resurface, I shoot in vain knowing I’m too far away, apologizing out loud and begging it to please let me finish it so it’s not in pain anymore. It might seem like a weak thing to do, but it was in the spirit of ending its suffering and not because I felt bad for hunting it. My goal was to harvest, not to maim.

I finally managed a headshot fifteen minutes and six bullets later and was surprised to learn that sea otters float even after they have died due to the millions of hairs per square inch that give them buoyancy. I hooked the floating otter onto the back of the boat and we made our way to a quiet cove so I could learn how to properly skin it.

Thirty minutes later, we coast to a stop in the cove and the boat engine is shut down. Charles pulls out a few different types of knives and proceeds to

After a lot of self-doubt

I realize if I don’t shoot, the opportunity will be gone, and I finally pull the trigger

show me how to make cuts to reduce the amount of fur that is wasted. They showed me how to cut in an “I” pattern and how to slowly slice away the fur pelt from the body. About 40 minutes later, the fur was only attached to the head and the tail, both of which require different techniques to remove them. Charles demonstrated cutting through the mouth of the sea otter to better remove the fur around the head in one piece and then sliced the tail, allowing it to lie flat.

A few small nicks in both the fur and myself later, I triumphantly hold up my pelt. It’s taller than me if you include the tail in its height and at 5'8'' I’m already pretty tall for a Cup’ik woman. After taking a few photos, we then punctured each lung to help the otter’s remains sink to the bottom of the cove to be eaten by fish, seals, and other animals. Sea otters often have parasites, making them an inedible choice for humans. By returning it to the water in which we harvested it, it will be useful for other animals surviving and not be wasted.

When we get back to Valdez, I spend some time clearing extra fat off the pelt before salting it in preparation for the trip back to the tanner. Over the next two days, I shot two otters each day for a total of five during the trip. I managed to get each otter with just one shot, which made me quite happy with myself. I had already gotten used to the bobbing of the boat and noticed when the otter was likely going to dive before I could shoot.

AFTERWARDS

Upon my return to Anchorage, I called the US Fish and Wildlife Department to make an appointment to get the sea otters tagged. I filled out one sheet per otter, answering questions about where I harvested each otter, gender, and how many other otters were in its raft and more. It was at that moment that I learned a group of otters is called a raft. Afterwards, I took the tagged sea otters to the one tanner in Anchorage that has a permit to tan them, Arctic Wolf Taxidermy. The gentleman who greeted me was friendly and let me know that I could expect to pick up the pelts in late December. I was surprised. That was nearly four months away.

I had a trip to Everest Base Camp planned in November, and I had hoped to sew myself a headband before the trip. I asked if there was any way I could pick just one otter up in six weeks and he said that he would see what he could do. Over the next few weeks, I learned to skin sew with beaver and rabbit fur thanks to my great-aunt Cathy Wold. Six weeks after the initial dropoff, I got a phone call and all of my otters were done! He said that I could come and pick them up and he hoped that I still had time to make my headband before my trip. I managed to complete my sea otter headband in time for my trip to Nepal and plan to make my husband a hat with the remainder of the first otter.

Three of the other four otters have been donated and shared, as is the Cup’ik/Yup’ik way. I donated one otter to a local Alaska Native artist and student for a contemporary school project, donated half of one to the local Alaska Native Heritage Center artist-in-residence and the other half to my great-aunt Cathy as a thank you, and traded one with my great-aunt Teresa Pingayak in exchange for a headdress and dance fans. The last otter pelt was sold at Cama-i and funded two new qaspeqs, a new pair of earrings from Shirley Hootch, and an ivory ring from Ashley Brankovic.

Three of the other four otters have been donated and shared, as is the Cup’ik/Yup’ik way

Lexi learned to skin sew and made herself a sea otter headband from her first otter. She has also donated a portion of her otters to Alaska Native artists as part of traditional values around giving back from your first hunt.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

I am pretty obsessed with marine mammal hunting now and hope to gift my first seal to Elders this year. While out on the water, I felt connected to my inner-self and my ancestors in a way that I had never experienced before. The rocking of the boat, the balanced breath as I confidently harvested my last few otters, and the realization of a useful skill, gave me confidence that I would have made my ancestors proud. This was confirmed when my aunt Christine Matchian teased me and asked, “Are you a nukallpiaq now?” My great-aunt Cathy also told me that my great-grandfather was a trapper and he would have been telling all of his friends how proud he was of his little Qass’uq (my Cup’ik name).

This experience brought me confidence in myself, connection to my culture and history, and developed my creativity.

Life doesn’t get much better than that. In the words of Hope, I am a marine mammal huntress and nobody can take that away from me. ■

Lexi Qass’uq Trainer (Cup’ik/Yup’ik) is originally from Chevak, Alaska. She is the founder and owner of Yaaruin Consulting; her mission is to help businesses and organizations achieve their strategic goals through the power of storytelling. When she isn’t working, you’ll find her hanging out with her husband and dog on local hiking and backcountry ski trails or volunteering for a variety of local causes. This year, she hopes to harvest her first of many seals and to continue to complete meaningful projects within the Alaska Native community.

PHOTO BY LEXI QASS’UQ TRAINER

BLOOM RUST AND

Reflections on Alaska’s blue economy around Chugachmiut

By Jessica Cherry

The term “blue economy” refers to a vision for sustainable use of ocean resources, but it’s also true that for years now, by most measures, Alaska’s larger economy has had a stubborn case of “the blues.” The future of oil and gas extraction in our state is uncertain, due not only to its contribution to climate change, but also its role in international geopolitics. The loss of jobs and dividends from that sector has had clear impacts in our state, leaving questions about how to train our future workforce. The nature of our fisheries has also shifted, with low returns or outright crises in some populations, and booms in others. Keeping infrastructure functioning— roads, ports, pipelines—as the climate grows ever more extreme, poses its own expensive challenges. Last fall, I had the chance to travel around the Chugachmiut region, including Cordova, Valdez, and Seward, to learn and think about Alaska’s past and future choices, and the challenges for our Blue Economy.  These are part of the traditional lands of the Chugach Sugpiaq and Eyak people, now modern cities trying to maintain ocean and urban infrastructure, healthy ecosystems, and highly trained employees.

FISH AND WATER IN CORDOVA

It’s mid-September and I’m standing in the Chugach National Forest with a dozen or so hydrologists and environmental managers, and we are experiencing what is called an atmospheric river, which is a fire hose of very heavy rainfall, pointed directly at the eastern part of Prince William Sound. Despite studying or even forecasting rain for a living, most of us are beginning to wonder if we are really wearing the right clothes for this tour of culverts led by the Copper River Watershed Project’s Kate Morse. This is a day for the sort of commercial grade foul weather gear a fisher would use; as Alaska’s Climate Services Director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), I should have known better. Along the forest’s edges, the bright fall colors of the wetland shrubs and grasses are barely visible behind white sheets of rain.

Copper River Watershed Project’s Kate Morse leads tour of culverts near Cordova during an “atmospheric river” rainfall event.

PHOTO BY JESSICA CHERRY

Eastward from the city of Cordova, past Eyak Lake and its outlet the Eyak River, runs the Copper River Highway. The highway runs over the roadbed of what once was the 200-mile-long Copper River and Northwestern Railway, past the former Eyak village of Alaganik and half a dozen retreating glaciers, to the Million Dollar Bridge over the Copper River, and north to the Kennecott Mines near McCarthy. After millions of dollars of copper were extracted by companies led by J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family in the early 20th century, the road that replaced it never made it much past mile 50. Damage from the 1964 earthquake slowed further roadbuilding. Then, in 2011, river migration and erosion took out another crossing at mile 36, past which now a traveler peers only onto the raging Copper River.

This highway is at the center of one controversy about Cordova’s future. On our field trip, Morse is showing us how the road forms a barrier to salmon crossing and spawning in this dynamic landscape of glaciers, forests, and wetlands. The area’s heavy rains have clogged the culverts, habitat has grown poor, and even some of the Alaska Department of Transportation’s culvert repairs have not restored fish habitat. Climate-driven changes in the number of extreme rainfall events1 will only move more gravel. Connecting Cordova to the rest of Alaska’s road system would require an enormous cost to build and maintain. In a budgetary environment where even marine ferry service to Cordova and surrounding communities has been reduced or suspended for months, it’s hard to imagine the road being built again past mile 36. The road does provide access for locals and visitors to subsist, recreate, and utilize “Mudhole” Smith Airport, all important to the predominantly fishing-based local economy.

1. This follows from projections of more extreme precipitation described by the Fifth National Climate Assessment (forthcoming) and previous National Climate Assessments, as well as NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card, which has documented the increased frequency of heavy rain- and snowfall in Alaska.

top: University of Alaska Fairbanks’ research vessel Sikuliaq docked near Lowell Point in Seward. middle: Dr. Maile Branson, science director of the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute in Seward. below: The old townsite in Valdez. PHOTOS BY JESSICA CHERRY

When I meet with Samantha Greenwood, the city’s Public Works Manager, she talks about the way gravel makes its way into the storm sewer systems and how some of that infrastructure is a century old now. The water supply is another concern. Local fish processing requires a huge supply of fresh water, and during the 2019 drought that hit Southcentral Alaska, the city had to start to make choices. Greenwood and Clay Koplin, CEO of the Cordova Electric Cooperative, worry about the future of droughts in Cordova. Cordova gets about 70% of its electricity from hydropower. When creeks start to run dry, the utility has to burn more diesel fuel. While precipitation is projected to grow more intense, drought is also expected to increase in frequency and intensity; both are part of a trend toward a more extreme climate.

OIL AND EARTHQUAKES

Valdez might be what Cordova would look like if it was on the road system. I’ve flown into town on the heels of that same atmospheric river, but for a brief window the sky is bright with light reflecting on silvery cloud wisps. It’s hard not to notice the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) terminal from the airplane: a cluster of glistening white storage tanks on a hill in the harbor. But crude oil production in Alaska peaked 35 years ago, the year before the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, about 30 miles to the south of Valdez, spilling more than 10 million gallons of oil into the ocean and coastal ecosystems. Now my husband is here, having driven from Anchorage, and for a couple of days we explore the area and I watch him fish cohos from the beach near the pipeline terminal. The rain returns, but it’s only a light mist and rainbows come and go, as black bears wander down the beach. In the evenings, we enjoy the breweries in town and even this gritty place makes a strong case for itself.

By now, Dr. Amanda Glazier, a professor from Prince William Sound College in Valdez, has contacted me; we’d met knee deep in a flooded culvert in Cordova, where her students were learning to take water flow measurements. She is running a new program to teach young people, mostly high schoolers, how to work as environmental technicians. I think this is a great idea and I’d like to help, but their current course load won’t qualify the

students for the federal jobs my agency can’t seem to fill in places like Valdez. Offices have closed or been mothballed because they can’t keep employees in Alaska’s smaller towns. Despite years of deep funding cuts to our state’s university and community colleges, it’s clear that workforce training and retention are central to this region’s economic future.

The local cemetery seems like a natural stop on a quintessential autumn day. One monument written in Russian memorializes someone born shortly after Alaska’s sale in the mid-19th century. I’m reminded that not so long ago, the world was quite different, and Alaska’s Russian economy at that time was centered around the fur trade. Russian Orthodox crosses on new headstones show the long tail of that history. Out in the Bering Sea, the Northern fur seal populations, having never recovered from the Russian fur trade, are now in decline from a warming ocean impacting their food supply. The fur seals tell one story of ocean extraction gone horribly wrong. I hope our contemporary fisheries don’t suffer the same fate.

But here in Valdez the Steller sea lions are happy. With other late-season tourists, I watch them feed and fight at the outlet of the Solomon Gulch fish hatchery.  In a gentle drizzle, my husband and I hike up the road to the Solomon Gulch dam and lake. Built just after the oil pipeline, this hydropower facility provides the majority of the power needed by the Copper Valley Electric Association. In fact, the penstock is made from left-over pipe from the TAPS. Someone had the foresight to make a lasting energy solution here.

The old townsite is my last stop in Valdez before my flight will be delayed and canceled and delayed again by another atmospheric river. It’s eerie to see the townsite laid out in historic photographs before the 1964 earthquake, tsunami, and underwater landslide that claimed 32 lives here and 115 throughout Alaska. Accounts describe the water being sucked out of the Valdez harbor. Nearly all who died drowned. We hope our training drills and tsunami warning sirens will save

Offices have closed or been mothballed because they can’t keep employees in Alaska’s smaller towns.

lives next time. The rapid recession of Barry Glacier in western Prince William Sound makes climate change-induced landslides a possible mechanism for future tsunamis. Today, though, the ocean looks innocent and at the edge of this marsh and a hundred gulls swarm around a pier of rusting waste.

BLOOMING THE SEA

Seward is my last stop on this particular wander and I see the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ research vessel Sikuliaq docked. It brings back memories of my time at sea on other research vessels, long before this one was born. Each summer, the northern seas are crisscrossed by not only commercial, military, and tourist vessels, but also a whole science research economy out of the US, Russia, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and now China. A few months ago, a landslide let loose behind the Sikuliaq’s dock, at nearby Lowell Point. Amazingly, no one was hurt, but the only road to the small community of Lowell Point was blocked for some time.

On a prior visit, I’d been briefed by the borough’s Seward-based flood service area manager Stephanie Presley about local mechanisms for flooding. “Seward doesn’t so much have a flooding problem as it does a gravel problem.” Ah, yes, gravel again. And whole new extremes in heavy precipitation pushing it around. Because of an avalanche threat in Turnagain Pass, I once missed a tour of the newly flushed Lowell Creek Tunnel, a project by the US Army Corps of Engineers that diverts water from downtown Seward through a mountain, and of course that tunnel fills with gravel. The Resurrection River, Exit Creek, Japanese Creek, Sawmill Creek, and others are all gravel factories left behind by glacial retreat. Some might argue that a reliable gravel supply is the basis of a modern economy, but it’s possible that Seward has too much of a good thing.

Finally, I visit the Alutiiq Pride Marine Institute (APMI) to talk to Dr. Maile Branson, the science director. With her foot rocking her sleeping baby’s carrier, we chat about the mariculture and kelp farming programs that APMI is leading. She takes me on a tour of the shellfish tanks and explains how they are helping replace stocks of local Indigenous foods. She shows me the ocean acidification lab and the cultures of harmful algae, whose blooms are responsible for shellfish poison-

ing. Branson and the other staff explain the kelp inoculation process in the seawater tanks. A farmer-intern shows me the growing kelp under a microscope. This is incredible. And hopeful. But it’s also hard to imagine the effort and capital it would take to scale this potential new industry to “Alaska sized.” Just a stone’s throw from the Lowell Creek Tunnel outlet, Branson complains about the gravel clogging APMI’s sea water intakes. It’s not cheap to run a lab in this environment. Maybe by the time her baby is grown, the incentives for more investment in sustainable ways of life will be there. For almost certainly, the oil will be gone.

Traveling around parts of Prince William Sound—Chugachmiut—I’ve learned more about this dynamic environment and the resilient people who live and work here. A meaningful vision for a Blue Economy must acknowledge the changing conditions in the ocean and the atmosphere: generally, a warmer, more acidic ocean, and more extreme swings in precipitation. Critical fish habitat, where it’s disrupted by human infrastructure and industries, needs to be restored and maintained, for fish and shellfish to thrive again. Regulations for sustainable harvesting of ocean resources must account for changing ecosystems. There needs to be ongoing investment in local opportunities for education and workforce development, and reliable air and ferry service. Residents need to be prepared for other large earthquakes and tsunamis. Across Alaska, we’ll have to build and expand sustainable municipal and marine energy systems, to meet the demands of local economies. Finally, ongoing investments in ocean research will reveal new understanding and, potentially, whole new ways of life. ■

Jessica Cherry is a geoscientist, writer, and photographer living in Anchorage. She currently serves as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Regional Climate Services Director for Alaska, but all opinions expressed here are her own. More at freshandsalty.org.

“Seward doesn’t so much have a flooding problem as it does a gravel problem.” Ah, yes, gravel again.

What is something that happened you would want to happen again tomorrow?

What is something you don’t want to happen again?

How Was Your Day?

My family and I have a special way of sharing about our days. We ask, “What is something that happened you would want to happen again tomorrow. What is something you don’t want to happen again?”

I started asking this as a way of getting past the eye rolls and the “my day was fine” (from the seven-year-old), and turning toward gratitude. Now my kids turn around and ask me the same thing. It really makes me stop and think about what moments in my day make me feel connected to others, and ground me in the work I do.

So many of us are hungry for the types of connection the Forum creates, and I’m reminded of this every time the Forum receives a donation—someone's tangible belief that what we are doing matters. Someone has taken their precious time and shared their treasure so that more Alaskans can experience something valuable: learning something

Make a Gift

• Give online at akhf.org—make a monthly pledge or one-time gift

• Call Rachael McPherson, Vice President of Development: (907) 770-8401

• Use the enclosed envelope, or mail a check to the Forum: 421 W. 1st Avenue, Suite 200, Anchorage, AK 99501

• Double your impact—ask your employer about making a matching gift

• Select Alaska Humanities Forum when you Pick.Click.Give

about themselves, learning about others through shared experiences, and ultimately feeling more connected to their fellow Alaskans.

As a C3 teacher working in the North Slope Borough School District wrote in 2021, “I have realized that for my students to trust me, I need to be open and honest with them about who I am and what I care about.” When we open ourselves up, connection follows.

The Forum’s mission is to connect Alaskans through stories, ideas, and experiences that positively change lives and strengthen communities. In one program this looks like gathering Alaska Native high-school students from across the state to learn about how their cultural identities are a source of strength. In another, it looks like supporting emerging Anchorage leaders in developing the perspectives, relationships, and skills to become compassionate changemakers. Across our programs, we are building a solid, shared grounding for the future.

Supporting the Forum is the way to say that you want this programming to continue—tomorrow and beyond.

— Rachael McPherson, Vice President of Development & Community Engagement

Rachael McPherson, her son Ali, daughter Charlie, mom Libby Silberling, and Anchorage School District intern Mio Kushibiki at the Kesugi Ken cabin

RIVERS OF LIFE

Reconnecting to place

By Judy Owens-Manley

Adecade or so ago, I moved to the frontier with my husband, Brian, to work at the University of Alaska Anchorage. We didn’t quite know what to expect or how to prepare ourselves. Anchorage, Alaska was a big move from upstate New York, 4,500 miles away, a leap of faith, especially for Brian. He had lived in one community in upstate New York his entire life, but me? I had lived all over and called no place home. I flew to Anchorage and two months later, Brian loaded whatever furnishings fit in a U-Haul van, drove across the country to Bellingham, Washington, got on a ferry for three-and-a-half days, and then drove another two long days to get to Anchorage, and to me. Ironically, this “frontier” is the biggest city that we’ve ever lived in. I didn’t know why, but I felt like I was home almost as soon as I landed here.

The first year, especially, we were both charmed by all that was new. There might be moose outside our door, leaning up a snowbank with their oh-so-long legs to reach the upper branches of a tree or leisurely stepping down the street, while cars waited patiently for them to cross. Night lasted well into the morning during the time of the winter solstice, and we were shocked that people commuted by bicycle through that darkness and snow and ice, even when it was below zero degrees. The roads stayed snow-packed during the winter, rarely down to the blacktop, and the periodic hoar frost was an odd delight, misty fog encasing tree branches and turning the world glistening white.

I became obsessed with picking raspberries, blueberries, and cranberries that blanketed the hillside in the late summer. The inescapable light in the summer months, which at its peak at summer solstice barely had the birds quiet for an hour before they started

Renewal and remembrance, Old ways, forgotten in new times, We reach back to learn.

chirping again, proved to be more of a problem for me than the winter darkness. I had just finished my first academic year at UAA, and I was still wonderous about being in Alaska when I read about the opportunity for the Educator Cross-Cultural Immersion program (ECCI), sponsored by the Alaska Humanities Forum. I had read about the challenges for Alaska Native students, and I wanted to be able to respond in a way that would support them in their education. Thankfully, I was one of a group of faculty chosen to spend a week in one of several Alaska Native villages and to participate in a course in which I’d learn about this very special place that already meant so much to me; to learn about Alaska Native history and culture and to better understand our Alaska Native students at the university.

Each village in the immersion program brought a different experience, as I later found out. There were culture camps all over the state, and some were more focused on Alaska Native art or customs. Mine was to participate in Fish Camp, a week-long program intended to preserve and teach culture to young Native people, as well as to outsiders. More traditionally, fish camps were for families who traveled together for the specific purpose of fishing for subsistence.

A four-seater plane flew me into Haines, the closest town to Klukwan, where I was headed, a Tlingit village in Southeast Alaska, situated on the bank of the Chilkat River. After a commercial flight to Juneau, getting on a small plane, we flew so close to the earth that I was awestruck by the different shades and textures of water in the rivers, streams, and creeks—names unknown to me, but resplendent in browns, silty grays, frothy, turquoise, churned, spilling, smooth. So many that I wondered if this Native language, which I soon found out was Tlingit, had more capacity for describing water in all of its facets, far beyond what I had adequate description for. I began writing in haiku long before I arrived; I was moved to document the journey in this way.

I was picked up in an SUV by my host at a small, boxy, nondescript building that serves as the airfield office. I and one other participant in the program, a tall, burly, bearded man, younger than me, were picked up by our host, the Klukwan Tribal Council President. She had a ready smile, brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, and eyeglasses. She made us immediately comfortable— what had I expected? She could have been my sister, a cousin, a friend, and we hopped into her SUV for the twenty or so mile trip to Klukwan.

I was disappointed at first to learn that I’d be staying in a conventional wood-framed house and surprised to find that I had a large, comfortable bedroom that faced the river. It didn’t feel different,

not the cultural separation I had been anticipating. Then I realized that I was relieved, having heard from a friend, assigned to a village where she was sleeping in a tent; the mosquitoes were said to be numerous and thirsty. The one road of Klukwan had more woodframed homes up and down the road; most were smaller, none that stood out from the others. A community garden offered up greens and other vegetables halfway down the road, in front of the village hall. That my bedroom faced the river gave me a glorious place to begin and end my day, a silent and dreamy space to journal and reflect on my experiences.

Mornings were slow in the village, meals often communal in Fish Camp for the village nurse from the health center, a nephew of our host, other youth attending fish camp. The village ordinarily seemed to have a communal dinner once a week. We had salmon salad every day for lunch, half regular salmon, half smoked, from their home-canned cache of the previous year, and on pilot bread—a large, round, hard cracker that serves as bread for a village that lacks easy access to a grocery store. Afternoons we walked down the one road to the river for whatever the next lesson was for Fish Camp. We were a mix of adults and youth and only about half a dozen of us. Everyone but the two of us who had flown in was from Haines or Klukwan. We learned about cleaning salmon, cutting, brining, smoking, canning—not fish catching—one of the village men checked the nets and brought them in. I vacuumed in the morning for my host—we had been urged to make ourselves useful—and she told me, with a laugh, that I could stay forever.

I met ten-year-old David, skinny, all bones and legs and elbows, darkeyed, soon after arriving, a nephew of my host. David was there each day bright and early. He arrived from a few doors down looking like he rolled out of bed and pulled t-shirt and jeans on in a hurry, anxious not to miss any of the action. He attached himself to me and was my constant companion for a week, tagging along after me everywhere, followed by the village dogs.

TO NOT HAVE A SMOKEHOUSE IS BAD ENOUGH, BUT TO NOT HAVE A RIVER WAS UNIMAGINABLE.

Back and forth, up and down the one dirt road. Towards the end of my stay, David and I were smoking salmon in the smokehouse by the river. By then the smell of salmon was constant with me, redolent in my clothing, boots, ever-present in my nose, not unpleasantly. The smoking added another layer to the sensory buildup, stinging my eyes as well; one of my jobs was to take turns watching the temperature in the smokehouse and keeping a low fire smoldering.

David was curious about my life outside of his village.

“Where is your smokehouse?” he wondered to me.

“I don’t have one,” I replied. He looked at me, incredulous.

“Well, where is your river?”

“I guess I don’t have a river either.”

David looked at me with sorrow in his eyes. To not have a smokehouse is bad enough, but to not have a river was unimaginable.

I appreciated how his life was grounded by the river. What was I grounded by, my rootless self, a nomad of sorts, not really belonging anywhere that I called home in the same way that David did?

“I bet this is really different for you,” my host suggested one day as we were talking. But in one way it wasn’t. Although I now live in an urban area, and thousands of miles away from any family, I grew up in a small town in Delaware. Being in Klukwan had a similar feeling to my childhood - timeless days, slow pace of life, the knowing of everyone in town and everything that was happening. It seemed as though I was related to the whole town of New Castle as a child, with four grandparents who each had 10 or 11 brothers and sisters, most of them still living in town.

That memory also connected me to the river that I knew as a child. I hadn’t thought about it in years, the smell of it, musky and

noxious, yet somehow fresh at the same time, the dampness on my bare arms from the hot moist air, cooled by the breeze, the sounds of the lapping waves, the ships far out in the distance. The Delaware River was larger than the Chilkat River that runs alongside Klukwan, but New Castle, on the river with a sign, “William Penn landed here,” was also small at the time. My river was no meandering stream, but rather a shipping channel that ran north and east into Philadelphia. A park of sorts ran alongside with a winding trail around the banks of the river. My house was several blocks away, and if there was an “out of bounds” rule assumed by my mother, I ignored it in favor of running to the river where my friends were, where my older sister was with her friends. We weren’t in the river, after all, but on the huge slabs of rock, stacked and jumbled, that the water licked at different levels depending on the tide. The separation of moving far away from this place and these loved people happened when I was eight years old, and the similarities of lifestyle and connection to extended family are long gone for me now, though there were yearly visits. But in conversation with my mother before she passed away last year, I became more conscious of my family’s history with the river. My great-great-grandfather was a Civil War prisoner at Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island in the middle of the Delaware River, and the woman who became my great-great-grandmother was a young immigrant from Ireland and the prison cook when they met and fell in love. Many years later, but before there was a bridge over the river, my grandfather worked on the ferry that went across. He was an engineer of sorts, kept the diesel engine running below deck, or sometimes he worked on a second ferry with a much cleaner steam engine. My mother used to walk to the river with her father’s dinner, packed by my grandmother in a brown wicker basket, and ready for his short break to eat while the ferry passengers and cars lined up, waiting patiently or not, for him to finish refueling himself. For the men in my family, the wharf was a place to fish, to

The C3 Program: Creating Cultural Competence

THE FORUM has been generating programs to train and develop teachers to work in both urban and rural Alaska for many years now. The current iteration of this program is Creating Cultural Competence (C3), where Alaska teachers participate alongside Elders, culture bearers, local youth, and their own peer teachers in a cultural immersion experience. In addition, they complete a three-credit graduate-level course that supports them in translating their immersion experience into more culturally responsive classroom practices. This course counts toward their Alaska teacher certification, which many need to earn by the end of their first year in the state.

The goal of the program is to improve the school experiences of Alaska Native students through reducing teacher turnover and supporting educators in bringing their students’ cultures and values into their classrooms. Data has shown that educators who have strong relationships in their community and with their students are more likely to stay in that community longer, and that those who participate in a cultural immersion experience express higher satisfaction with their first year of teaching than others who did not have the same experience. Research also shows that students are more likely to become educators themselves when they feel like school is a place for them, where their whole selves are respected and appreciated. By improving students’ experiences in this way, the C3 program hopes to increase the number of local teachers in rural Alaska in the years to come.

Currently, the Alaska Humanities Forum is partnering with communities, Alaska Native organizations, and school districts in the Bristol Bay Region to provide the Creating Cultural Competence (C3) program for newly hired teachers. The

C3 journey invites teachers to develop a deeper understanding of the racial, ethnic, and cultural identities that shape their values and assumptions about teaching, as well as learn about the cultures of the community they are joining. As one 2019 participant remarked, “My key takeaway from the program was hearing the expectations the Elders had for us.”

The C3 program in the Bristol Bay Region is open to teachers hired within the past five years. They attend a culture camp over the summer and supportive programming during the school year. Partners include Bristol Bay Native Corporation and BBNC Education Foundation, Bristol Bay Regional Career and Technical Education Program, University of Alaska Anchorage School of Education, Bristol Bay Borough School District, Dillingham City School District, Lake and Peninsula School District, and the Southwest Region School District. A five-year evaluation of previous C3 programs in the Lower Kuskokwim and Northwest Arctic Borough school districts showed significant retention of C3 teachers compared to non-C3 teachers (65% and 50% respectively, compared to 33% and 29%), and that the C3 model becomes cost effective by year two or three, depending on the rate of teacher replacement in a district. The Forum intends to continue this critical work in two more regions next year, with the goals of continuing to build educator cultural competency, increasing teacher retention and student performance, and planting the seeds for more Alaska students to become teachers themselves.

catch Maryland blue crabs, an everyday social meetup to visit and smoke, to be in the open air and perhaps connected to something big and limitless. The gifts and the dangers of the river were a part of the life of the town, as is the Chilkat River in Klukwan.

I’ve always dreamt of rivers. Once, long before coming to Alaska, I walked upriver in a dream, crowded by big animals coming downriver toward me, brushing against me, knocking me off balance. My therapist suggested the big animals symbolized my daughter, then in the throes of being a difficult teenager. In another dream, an Algonquin Indian came again downriver and passed, from his large brown hand to my much smaller white one, something symbolizing health, how to be healthy. Why specifically Algonquin I do not know, but the Algonquins populated the east coast at one time in small villages, dependent on hunting and fishing. Perhaps I learned about them in school. What passed hand to hand, in any case, was a warm and intimate communication, a feeling that all would be well, an important message in my dreams of struggling, always upstream. Those dreams had a parallel in my life during those years; a single mother, never enough money, spending my days supporting others’ lives as a social worker and my nights raising my two children.

I didn’t cross a river to get to David’s village, but my trip to Klukwan became a bridge to my past. The first few days that I was in the village, I kept falling asleep, unable to keep myself awake without the electronic stimulation that I was used to (we were urged to leave our phones and laptops at home), the important things happening that I must attend to. It was late summer and a busy time around the river to harvest salmon in gill nets, to put up food for the winter months, but being busy in the village was still pretty slow for me.

The village lifestyle and family ties were in danger of being lost here, as our host confided to me. The Native residents of Klukwan, with about 90 residents, and losing population still, wonder how their subsistence way of life will survive. At the end of the week, when I say goodbye to David, my gaze lingers on him. What will his life be like by the time he reaches adulthood, I wonder? Will he still have his smokehouse? His river? How will he adapt to a world where traditional ways of life may be vulnerable to dying out?

The river was ever-present in Klukwan, something I saw each morning from my bedroom window. I took delight in noting the changes each day in the light, the cloud formations, the reflections on the water. For this Native village, the importance of the river is clear and close. For thousands of years, Indigenous people have been subsisting on land and river. The river of my childhood was

important for commerce, beginning with the original colonies in the 1700s, but only for the past few hundreds of years. The men of Klukwan fish on the river and hang out by the riverbed carving or smoking, similar to how the men in my family fished and hung by the river.

I miss having a river after all, and I understand the sorrow in David’s eyes for my loss. I was taken away from my river, moved with mother and stepfather away from all else that I knew when I was just a little younger than David. The Chilkat River gives his life a daily rhythm, a heartbeat, that once I had too. I had an initial regret that I am not as connected as ten-year-old David to the soul of this earth. But though life has brought me far from the Delaware River, I never completely lost that connection. I find that I am grounded, after all, in Alaska, as well as in the land and the river of my childhood. It seems I have a foundation that is reliable and sturdy, something to draw on and continue to be nurtured by. In my life now, no river by my side, I turn more immediately to mountains, truing myself daily by their changing countenance. My time in Klukwan opened into a new window of spiritual growth and to standing tall on the shoulders of my ancestors. I returned to Anchorage, thankful for the opportunity given to me by the Alaska Humanities Forum. I was gifted with a greater appreciation of a way of life for Alaska Natives and this new home for me and a window into the lives of Alaska Native students in rural Alaska that I would not otherwise have understood.

Our life is close by our food, Our drumbeat close by our hearts

An ancient village, Klukwan

— Haiku written in Klukwan, August, 2010. ■

Judy Owens-Manley has a Ph.D. and master’s in social work and is currently enrolled in a low-residency MFA/Creative Writing program. She is a retired university administrator and professor, now engaged in board service with the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame.

I FIND THAT I AM GROUNDED, AFTER ALL, IN ALASKA, AS WELL AS IN THE LAND AND THE RIVER OF MY CHILDHOOD.

ALASKA LANGUAGES

“degheyukk kk’e”

Ocean in Denaakk’e | By Angela Łot’oydaatlno Gonzalez

Ocean in Denaakk’e is degheyukk kk’e, according to the Koyukon Athabascan dictionary. Degheyukk is actually a loanword from the Central Yup’ik language. Spellings varied as the orthography was being developed, and one Alaska Native language to another may vary even more.

The Koyukon Athabascan people reside mainly in northwest interior Alaska. There was a time when people spoke more than one Alaska Native language. Much like Koyukon Athabascan people traded goods like hides, foods, materials, and tools with the Yup’ik and Iñupiat people, we also traded words.

As a novice Denaakk’e language learner, I have much respect for our Elders, like Dr. Eliza Jones of Koyukuk, who have dedicated their lives to preserving the language. The Denaakk’e dictionary is a large and thick book where each page contains expansive definitions, knowledge, and nuanced stories. You could spend a lot of time learning about each word and the concepts embedded in this cultural repository.

Tokuh is another meaning for ocean or large body of water. Yoooaane means “a long distance across; outside of Alaska, across the ocean, overseas, foreign.” The Koyukon Athabascan people from long ago had a deep understanding of the lands and how we are connected through oceans despite being further inland.

Koyukon Athabascan people are very descriptive and have Denaakk’e names for the lakes, sloughs, rivers, and tributaries along with the lands surrounding them. For instance, there are different names for each part of the Koyukuk River, like upper, lower, and areas around certain mountains. The names often tell stories of why they are named, like where birds nest or salmon spawn. We also have many words

Taak’edzee’aan De’oyh Denh

(proper noun) a lake near Bear Mountain on the Koyukuk River, literally “osprey’s nest place”

Delbegge Ts’oolneek Denh

(proper noun) a lake on the Koyukuk River above the Huslia River, literally “place where someone grabbed a ptarmigan”

Dotson’ De’oyh Denh

(proper noun) on the north bank of the Koyukuk River, 30 miles northeast of Huslia, literally “place where raven cust. places compact object [its nest]”

Eleanor Yatlin cutting salmon; the Koyukuk River.

PHOTOS BY ANGELA ŁOT’OYDAATLNO GONZALEZ

for water and different types of actions that take place or things that occur in water.

As someone who grew up on the Koyukuk River near Huslia, my love for the river runs deep. For thousands of years, it has given and sustained life to animals, plants, and humans. As a tributary of the mighty Yukon River, it feeds us and brings fish from the sea. In turn, it feeds other rivers, streams, and creeks.

In fish camp, we learned about survival by cutting and drying fish, picking berries, and cooking over the fire. The salmon from the Koyukuk River is often described as tasting rich and oily. It tastes a lot different than fish from the ocean from communities like Savoonga or Toksook Bay. Even though we may be geographically distant from the ocean, we are deeply connected to it as it sustains us. ■

Angela Łot’oydaatlno Gonzalez is Koyukon Athabascan. She is originally from Huslia, Alaska, along the Koyukuk River. She loves beading, writing, and photography. She has been fortunate to travel to many communities in Alaska and enjoys sharing stories of life in Alaska, with a focus on Alaska Native culture, people, and our ways of life. She has written two children’s books, Button Up! Fall in Alaska and Koyukon Fish Camp.

Forum Welcomes

Polly Carr as Vice President of Programs

This spring, the Forum welcomed Polly Carr as the new Vice President of Programs. Growing up in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, Polly moved to Alaska twenty-five years ago and is proud to live, work and raise her family on Dena’ina lands in Anchorage.

Polly’s prior work in Alaska has included youth environmental education, leadership development, advocacy and philanthropy. She was honored to work with teens in founding the Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA) program in 1998, which was one of her “most profound work journeys in Alaska —working and engaging with youth will always be one of my first passions.”

Polly has worked as a youth program manager, a foundation program officer, and more recently a nonprofit executive director. After a long professional tenure in advocacy, politics and fundraising, she’s ready to get back to her roots in youth engagement, and focus more time on supporting leaders, exploring cultures, and connecting communities. A true Gemini, Polly’s interests are widespread and include writing poetry, spending hours outside, and cooking for friends. In her spare time she connects with other parents on child care and educational issues facing families.

Polly is a graduate of Leadership Anchorage cohort 3, and excited to engage with this and other programs the Forum has developed in recent years. She’s looking forward to working with the talented Programs team to facilitate experiences that positively impact Alaskans.

“I've had a wide range of passions including youth engagement, connecting with diverse audiences, and engaging with communities. I hope this position at the Forum will help me explore in my next chapter!” ■

Proud Supporter of the Alaska Humanities Forum

@MatsoninAlaska

“I've had a wide range of passions including youth engagement, connecting with diverse audiences, and engaging with communities.”

Snowbergs, Puddles, and Buried Treasure: Spring Break-Up in Anchorage

Break-up season has arrived again. Alaska springs are a special time of year. Snow piles diminish, puddles expand, and seven months of buried treasure is revealed. Couches, mattresses, and even unopened cans of beer are just some of the things unveiled during this magical season. One of my favorite parts of break-up is how rapid the changes take place. Unpredictable weather can also add a splash of fresh snow on top of dirty snow piles for that “cookies and cream” effect. I’ve recently been working on a project documenting break-up on 35mm film captures. I have also included some of my past favorite break-up images for this piece.

Montañas de Nieve, Charcos, y Tesoro Escondido: Ruptura de la Primavera en Anchorage

La temporada de break-up ha llegado de nuevo. Las primaveras de Alaska son una época especial del año. Los montones de nieve disminuyen, los charcos se expanden y se revela un tesoro enterrado de siete meses. Sofás, colchones e incluso latas de cerveza sin abrir son solo algunas de las cosas que se revelan durante esta temporada mágica. Una de mis partes favoritas de break-up es la rapidez con la que se producen los cambios. El clima impredecible también puede agregar un toque de nieve fresca sobre montones de nieve sucia para ese efecto de “galletas y crema.” Recientemente he estado trabajando en un proyecto que documenta break-up en capturas de películas de 35 mm. También he incluido algunas de mis últimas imágenes digitales favoritas de break-up para esta pieza.

Photographs by Adan Hernadez

Photographs by Adan Hernadez

I was born and raised in Anchorage. Although I have no formal photography training, I have a lifelong love of capturing images. I’ve always had a fondness for lost and forgotten items. I can trace this back to childhood. There was an abandoned car in a vacant lot in my neighborhood, broken glass, floppy discs scattered everywhere. It became a fort for the local kids that summer. I’ve been doing gallery shows and making photo zines since 2016. Some of my past projects include “The Ingra Couch Diary,” “Disposable Anchorage,” and “Something Nice (A Tribute to My Mother).”

Nací y crecí en Anchorage, Alaska. Aunque no tengo formación formal en fotografía, tengo un amor de toda la vida por la captura de imágenes. Siempre me han gustado los objetos perdidos y olvidados. Puedo rastrear esto hasta la infancia. Había un auto abandonado en un terreno baldío en mi barrio, vidrios rotos, disquetes esparcidos por todas partes, se convirtió en un fuerte para los niños locales ese verano. He estado haciendo exposiciones en galerías y haciendo revistas fotográficas desde 2016. Algunos de mis proyectos anteriores incluyen “The Ingra Couch Diary,” “Disposable Anchorage,” y “Something Nice (A Tribute to My Mother).” ■

— Adan Hernandez

Photographs by Adan Hernadez

Grandmothers’ Patterns

Children’s book author Phyllis Adams wants readers to know a tale is more than a story

By Rosanne Pagano

‘These

As gray and cold November arrived at classrooms throughout Alaska, elementary school teachers like Phyllis Adams prepared for Native American Indian Heritage Month, a time to recall contributions and achievements of Indigenous people. The observance gained federal recognition in 1990. By then, Adams had been teaching for a decade in Anchorage, where more than 90 languages are represented in the public schools and home to the state’s largest concentration of Alaska Native people. Her love of teaching began early: As a first-grader in the mid1950s growing up in the Interior town of Nenana, population barely 300, Adams turned cardboard boxes and mounds of snow into desks for instructing imaginary pupils. Her favorite outfit was pleated skirts and penny loafers, just like the ones her teachers wore.

Now with real-life students before her, Adams realized that cherished memories of growing up Athabascan—watching Tanana River ice go out, hunting spruce hens in the fall, hearing her grandmother whistle while she beaded and sewed—deserved a place in heritage month lessons. And because traditional stories and knowledge of living off the land were overlooked, Phyllis Adams, the girl who gladly spent summer days in an empty schoolhouse, standing at the front of a classroom, talking away to vacant seats and writing on the chalkboard, would come up with her own lessons on Athabascan life, tailored to whatever grade she happened to be assigned.

“I was concerned about the lack of Athabascan children’s stories that I could identify with,” she recalled. Despite early encouragement from one of her profes-

sors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Adams found that starting her career as a classroom teacher—along with obligations to her family—left her without time to write the recollections she wanted her students to know. Today a list of children’s books by Alaska Native authors includes at least a dozen titles. Adams’ solution was personal: “I would show my own artifacts and regalia, I’d talk about the culture I was raised in,” she said. For Alaska Native students, heritage week was a chance to foster recognition. For everyone else, it was an introduction to people, places and things that Adams believes all Alaskans must know.

‘It is important to listen to your

Elders’

Chelsea—of Adams’ picture book, Alaska Boots for Chelsea—is not only a real girl but the author’s granddaughter. Twenty years retired from teaching, Phyllis Adams has vibrant brown eyes, a wide smile, and an easy way of talking about her family that makes you think you’ve known them forever. There is Chelsea, the little girl who loved to laugh and dance. There is Grandma Daisy Alexander, daughter of Chief Alexander of Tolovana. And there are Nina, Adams’ mother, and grandsons Owen and Quinn, the boys who on sleepovers grew tired of hearing the Gingerbread Man story and prompted Adams to rework a shopworn fairy tale into the

are the boots our Athabascan people have used for many generations’

story of a griddle-cake moose that comes to life. Her retelling, Alaska Gingerbread Moose, was published in 2006 when retirement afforded time to write. The book, her first, is a half-dozen copies away from being out of print.

Adams followed in 2016 with Alaska Boots for Chelsea, illustrated by the British Columbia watercolorist Kathleen Lynch, whom Adams sought out after seeing Lynch’s work for other children’s books. “I thought, ‘That’s exactly the person I’m looking for,’ ” Adams recalled, and a first meeting confirmed her hunch: “We hit it off.” Lynch brought to life a pony-tailed Chelsea, clutching her beaded, pinktassled, moosehide boots the way other children hold tight to a security blanket. The handmade boots are from Sitsu, Chelsea’s grandmother, who begins by drawing an outline of the girl’s bare foot for a perfect fit. “Basee’ dineega,” Chelsea says. Thank you, moose.

Deciding to feature her granddaughter as the main character, a stand-in for any child who cherishes a gift and risks losing it forever, stemmed in part from Adams’ teaching days when she went looking for stories of Athabascan life.

“Including Chelsea was not only my gift to her, as part of her heritage, but a way of drawing interest to other children so that they might learn the importance and value of the Athabascan culture,” Adams says. Grandma Nina did indeed make wonderful footwear for Chelsea, Adams added, just as Grandma Daisy had sewed moosehide boots for a young Phyllis whose Athabascan-speaking grandparents lived just blocks away.

“I came upon the story idea while watching my mother sew beaded slippers for Chelsea,” Adams recalled. The moment instantly brought to mind Grandma Daisy’s handiwork. “She made her own patterns and had different stages of finished boots, mittens, and beadwork lying on the rug of her bedroom floor,” Adams said. “There she always sat, whistling softly as she sewed.” It was for Grandma Nina that Chelsea danced.

‘Each star twinkled in the moonlight’

For Kathleen Lynch, the artist who so captured Nina’s likeness that Adams says it brought one close friend to tears, illustrating Adams’ story drew on Alaska memo-

ries of Lynch’s own. An anthropologist who arrived in Alaska in 1972, Lynch traveled to Athabascan and Inuit sites for a decade-long adult literacy project overseen by the University of Alaska. She contributed writing and illustrations for booklets that explained traditional survival skills like how to make snowshoes or drive a dog team.

“It all came back to me,” Lynch said. Her pre-oil boom adventures included time spent living among Alaska Native people of Pedro Bay, attending potlatches, observing wildlife. Writers need not be illustrators themselves, Lynch has learned, to have an image in mind about how a scene or character should be depicted; instead, bringing a story to life becomes a matter of writer and illustrator seeing things the same way. “You get into the spirit of the story,” Lynch said. Working back and forth by email, she sent draft drawings for Adams to comment on; disagreements were few. “I had a pretty good idea of what was in Phyllis’s head, what she was talking and writing about,” Lynch added. “I could visualize it pretty well.”

The result is a 32-page picture book of soft-edged, full-color images that reward a close look. Some drawings—a potlatch circle, a snowy night—occupy the whole page. Just as Adams tells a story specific to one culture while inviting all others to come along, so do Lynch’s drawings range from scenes known to Alaska children— moose standing in deep snow, a storage cache perched on stilts—to moments known the world over: A little girl’s hot tears, a grandmother’s reassuring embrace.

Alaska Boots for Chelsea devotes its last few pages to a glossary of Athabascan words, an explanation of traditional ways of Athabascan people, illustrated descriptions of wildlife featured in the tale. True to the little girl who liked to dress as a teacher, educating her readers is never far from Adams’s mind. Just as heartwarming for her is when children speak up during one of Adams’ read-alouds, eager to tell what they know about Native dance or receiving a priceless gift. That’s when Adams knows her story has been understood. ■

Anchorage-based writer and online content producer Rosanne Pagano teaches at Alaska Pacific University. Her writing, “Speaking of Salmon,” appeared in FORUM in 2017.

“I came upon the story idea while watching my mother sew beaded slippers for Chelsea... There she always sat, whistling softly as she sewed.”

Ilakucaraq Project

Forum-managed program strengthens Alaska Native youth and educates Alaska teachers

The Ilakucaraq Project (IP) envisions a future where Alaska Native (AN) people and cultures are thriving, respected, and valued; and has a mission to preserve and strengthen the traditions, languages, and art of AN people through statewide collaboration, celebration, and education. IP makes this vision a reality by creating space for AN youth and teachers to engage with personal reflections, positive self- and cultural identity formation, cross-cultural experiences, peer-to-peer learning and discussions, Elder and culture bearer teachings, and art and storytelling. Ultimately, IP strengthens connections between AN youth across the state, educates teachers on the diversity of regional cultures, and results in significant educational benefits for the community at large.

This work is broken into the following four tiers. The Alaska Humanities Forum staff is responsible for tiers one through three. These tiers focus on executing programming for AN youth (ages 13-17), with the goal of including participants from all regions of Alaska. IP participants build confidence in their cultural identities while forming a supportive community with other Alaska Native youth from around the state. Understanding culture as a source of strength helps students navigate high school and find success in postsecondary opportunities and beyond. The fourth tier is intended to develop cross-cultural knowledge for K-12 teachers who teach within the Alaskan/ Alaska Native context.

TIER 1

90 YOUTH YEAR-LONG, STATEWIDE STUDENT COHORTS

IP Cohorts bring rural and urban Alaska Native youth together to explore their heritages, share their cultures, and find strength in being Indigenous. The experience allows each group to become a tight-knit community that supports one another as participants build confidence in who they are and their relationship to their cultures.

Virtual sessions from our Year 1 cohorts wrapped up on May 3. Elder Marge Hakak told of her life experiences living in St. Michael and St. Mary’s and shared beautiful handmade crafts, beadwork, and sewing.

Participants in Deering made drums.

right: IP carried out an on-site immersion March 8–10 at Mount Edgecombe High School in Sitka. MEHS students were joined by youth from Sitka and Pacific high schools. Culture Bearers and role models included MEHS Superintendent Mary “Suzzuk” Huntington, MEHS Cultural Integration Coordinator Chohla Moll, and staff from Sitka Tribe.

For more information about the Ilakucaraq Project, contact Alice Hisamoto at 907-802-0250 or Ahisamoto@alaskanative.net. IP is funded by the US Department of Education’s Alaska Native Education Program.

TIER 2

315 YOUTH MT. EDGECUMBE HIGH SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP

The Forum also leads Ilakucaraq programming for Mt. Edgecumbe High School (MEHS). This on-site immersion guides high schoolers through the process of identifying their values and post-high school aspirations.

Through multi-day intensives and virtual sessions, students talk with Alaska Native role models about their experiences after high school, learn how a strong sense of cultural identity is related to college success, and further their understanding of how their identities are shaped.

sense of pride about who they are and where they come from.

The IP Team traveled to Deering April 17-21. Curriculum covered positive identity development and how to navigate culture shock. We also did hands-on activities like braided mats, fried bread making, and making drums. Students and staff were joined by local Culture Bearer Daisy Weinard who led us through sheefish fileting.

by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development for teacher certification in Alaska. This three-credit course for K-12 educators, including veteran teachers seeking recertification, is offered through a partnership between the Alaska Native Heritage Center’s Ilakucaraq Project and the Alaska Pacific University.

above: Marge Nakak presented her handmade crafts and reflected on life experiences.

right: Tier 1 student cohorts hail from all regions of the state.

Oscillate Raw

Meet the Drumlin Poets and the Word-Stitch

THE DRUMLIN POETS

In April 2022, during National Poetry Month, Vivian Faith Prescott offered a workshop class through 49 Writers called “We Hold Our Poems: Bringing a poem to life. “After the class, a handful of participants wanted to continue to meet via Zoom, so the Drumlin Poets, named after a glacial term, was established. There are six poets from different locations across Alaska: Wrangell, Seward, Anchorage, and Kenai who meet virtually once a week. The group focuses on writing to a prompt using various forms, sharing their first drafts, some workshopping and critique, and they also develop innovative poetic forms. Mostly, the Drumlin Poets group is an opportunity for poets to practice the art of being a poet and to encourage one another.

THE WORD-STITCH

This poetic form grew out of the Sitka Alaska writers’ group, Blue Canoe Writers. Vivian Faith Prescott is one of the founding members. The form was named by Sitka poet, Kersten Christianson.

How to word-stitch: Each writer in a group selects two favorite words to contribute to a list. During a meeting, the words are chosen at random from other poems or texts. Writers can also take turns sharing a complete list of 8-12 favorite words to inspire their fellow writers’ next poem/ prose. Writers are instructed to use as many words in the list as possible in their poem (or prose). “Cheating” is allowed, meaning you can use the words in a title, or separate compound words, change or add suffixes, or if uninspired, look for a synonym or an antonym. Word-stitching is highly generative. The reward for using all the words is a “Gold Star,” which is a self-affirmation for doing the work. The accompanying word-stitch list was comprised by the Seward poet Justine Pechuzal.

THE ANNUNCIATION

Smudge ochre on the canvas. Depict the angel’s Halo vibrating with the velocity of an oscillating fan.

Outside the window a raven croaks As it joins a trash can jamboree. The scavengers seek the sour, the raw, The spilt milk of breakfasts past.

Create a scene: honeysuckle and bougainvillea climb lattices.

The virgin in blue is as serene as the thawing sea.

Tires screech on bare streets. An annunciation of spring. The earth is expectant with tulip bulbs Beneath the melting snow.

Shape the distant landscape along the river. Tree limbs Still, but hint a gentle movement of leaves.

by Ray Ball

FADING GRACE

The screech of owl off the limb on the hum of milk-white wings out over the darkening valley to the west and into the slow velocity of the sun as light oscillates down through a lattice formed by the evening’s jamboree of sour smudged and ochre clouds.

by Eric Gordon Johnson

HOW TO TRAVEL THE RAINFOREST

First, pack saltines along with smoked salmon spread mixed with chopped pickles and onions because your father likes it that way.

This is the only way to travel now, oscillating between beats of drizzle and deluge— The velocity of your father’s decline means you’re mapping these lingering days.

Let these dwindling days convince your 83-year-old cancer-hospice-father to drive you in his old blue truck out Pats Creek Valley on the logging roads.

The old muddy logging road passes waterfalls rushing down hillsides, and ochre-milky ponds, and muskeg hummocks latticed with flattened dead grass.

Dead limbs, fallen from snow’s weight, crisscross the rutted road, and the robin’s jamboree flutters and flits here and there.

Here and there, you look through a windshield smudged with muck and forget something sour and raw is pressing on your father’s bladder and time itself.

Time wings itself into the truck’s cab with the screech of the blue jay’s holler through the open window.

The window into the hum of earth opens, spills you back to the present and you stop for lunch, share crackers and salmon spread with the dog sitting between you.

Between you and the rainforest, all is not well, and yet it is—everything is soddened with both unfurling and decay. If you could gaze right now into that tiny dome of raindrop, that single raindrop, hesitant and trembling on the tip of a hemlock needle, you could see every moment—magnified.

That moment beside the truck, beyond windworn bullpine and beard moss when you are sure of it— that there’s a marten den in the hollow of an old growth spruce and a trio of kits is huddled there for warmth, covered with fine hair, eyes ready to blink open.

by Vivian Faith Prescott

SCATTERING

Yesterday my father cupped a chick in his hand and I smudged night into the aurora borealis. He is so far away. The distance between us hums. I draw landscapes he will never see again.

Today I am on skis, sinking like a overladen ship into spring's slow, milky melt. His legs, which used to jog laps around our neighborhood, idle in a wheelchair, limbs stiffening into a sinew lattice.

Way back when we lived in the constant jamboree of three young girls, two working parents and other support scattered across continents, I feared the strength that held us together.

Now mom frets about his fiber cereal, oscillates between praise for the visiting Frank Sinatra impersonator and sour remarks about his home care. I know, mom, it's hard to let go.

This evening, I'll take the kids on the waterfront path, the baby walking teeter-totter steps, her brother zipping past ochre beach grass on his new pedal bike, and me, gasping somewhere between velocities.

It's a raw deal, this life. You are either owl/ car brakes/hungry child screeching to attack/be heard/attended to, or a chick, happy to sit in the warm palm of an expectant stranger's hand.

by Justine Pechuzal

AT OUR BEST

A dream for Alaska tourism

by Erica Watson

Last summer on a bus trip into Denali National Park with visiting family, I sat next to a man in his early twenties who seemed intent on disappearing into his window seat. As a Denali local, I often find myself straddling a line between exaggerated disinterest in yet another distant caribou, and the unbridled enthusiasm of an unpaid tour guide because, despite their familiarity, caribou are undeniably amazing.

As our bus slowed for the first bear sighting of the day, I offered to switch with my seatmate so he could join his family in pressing their phones to the window across the aisle. He politely declined. We stayed seated, taking no photos. “Do you ever feel like we’re the wildlife, and the animals are watching us?” he suddenly whispered, and I wasn’t sure he was speaking to me but I was the only one in earshot. “I think at our best, we have a kind of exchange,” I said.

He perked up a bit. I did too, and learned the following about him: he’d made an exception to his rule against flying for this family trip, and was dismayed to find that Indigenous history and climate justice was not front and center of the Alaska tourist experience. He wanted to know if there was a way to visit Denali and other landmarks that wouldn’t contribute to corporate profits. He wanted to know if this amount of being viewed was healthy for a bear.

I had some answers but of course not all, and I share a lot of his questions. I’ve spent years living in uneasy proximity to industrial tourism, watching hundreds of thousands of people pass through on a rushed itinerary designed for efficiency rather than connection, and the strain it puts on travelers, industry employees, and infrastructure. I’ve heard friends, colleagues, and myself repeat the same tired jokes and semi-facts for an easy laugh. You probably know the lines: Alaska’s two seasons (winter and road construction), bring a slow friend in bear country, riffs on the size of Texas, or of mosquitoes.

Rather than insights into the place they’ve visited, many tourists bring home a cartoon image of an imaginary place, its people, animals, and economies. I worry that when we say tourism can take the place of the oil economy, we minimize the ways these extractions mirror each other. Travel writer Bani Amor outlines how travel media and advertising speaks to the audience’s “inner colonizer”: Alaska tourism ads offer a quick checklist of “untouched” and “untamed” landscapes to “discover” and “explore,” not unlike every industry that preceded it in extracting wealth and stories for profit. Too many visitors approach their travels with the entitlement of a prospector rather than the curiosity of a student.

I believe that awe is a necessary place to start in connecting to a new place; I told my seatmate—and meant it—that there is always one person in even the most obnoxious crowd whose worldview changes with their first bear sighting. The experience might push them towards deeper connection with their own home place, or advocating for environmental protections nationally. That one person might be lost among forty voices joking about sacrificing their slow friend, but we have to trust one another in our capacity for awe, or else what are we doing? I’d been reading social justice dreamer and writer adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategy, and thinking about her categorization of systems and practices into “Wow!” and “That’s not wow. Why not go with the wow option?”

To me, the “wow option” in Alaska tourism would be smaller and slower than it is

To me, the “wow option” in Alaska tourism would be smaller and slower than it is now.

now. I want to see an industry that puts Alaska’s ecological needs and limitations before the economic interests of corporate leaders or unimaginative legislators. Unregulated wastewater disposal, stressed animals, and exhausted travelers who barely know where they are is not wow, and all of us who live alongside tourism can and should imagine other possibilities. This might include fewer multinational cruise companies and more well-funded, tribally managed educational programs. It might look like visitors staying in one place long enough to notice a shift in twilight hours rather than a hustle from ocean to mountains without time to sleep or eat. It might look like a joke about construction season leading to a conversation about what it takes to maintain roads on melting permafrost, and uneven distribution of infrastructure resources throughout the state. It could look like a professionalized tourism workforce comprised of people who want to be here more than a few months at a time, who earn good money with benefits and build knowledge and skills to share about their home with nuance and compassion year after year, and conscientious visitors who are eager to learn and stay in conversation after they go home.

An exchange, rather than an extraction. ■

Erica Watson lives and writes on the boundary of Denali National Park with her partner and dog.

Too many visitors approach their travels with the entitlement of a prospector rather than the curiosity of a student.

LESSON PLAN

we are VISIONARY

are PRACTICAL

We help people, places and organizations engage stakeholders, craft viable plans and policy, and implement community-wide improvements.

We help people, places and organizations engage stakeholders, craft viable plans and policy, and implement community-wide improvements.

AGNEWBECK.COM

THEO BAYOU performed during the premier of the film “Indigenous Resistance” at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage in April. This program was funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant called “A More Perfect Union.” Joe ('Wáats'asdiyei) Yates of Alaskan Films produced and directed the film; he was guided by a community advisory board. Holly Guise, the lead historian, helped to curate archival footage and guide the narrative. The film covers many topics including language revitalization, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, intergenerational healing, and missing and murdered Indigenous women. Yates describes it as a film "about our people’s recent history. This is our side of the story. From in front of the camera, to behind."

Photo by Chris Avessuk.

“Our side of the story”

421 West First Avenue, Suite 200

Anchorage, AK 99501

907-770-8400

akhf.org

LEADING CONVERSATIONS THAT BUILD COMMUNITY

A two-day workshop at the Forum

Wed., August 30 and Thurs., August 31

8:30 a.m – 4:30 p.m.

How can we design satisfying conversations that connect us not just in spite of differences but because of differences? How can we convene people in ways that allow their intelligence, creativity, and unique perspective to shine? At this two-day workshop we’ll discover the answers together!

For more information or to register:

akhf.org/events • tstrelevitz@akhf.org

(907) 770-8413