Forum - Fall 2012

T H E M AG A ZI N E O F T H E A L A S K A H U M A N I T I E S F O RU M George Attla running the 1974 Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Race. PAGE 5

Maxine Vehlow

FA L L 2012 $5.00

George Attla: True Dog Man | Nina Kemppel: Our New CEO | Carol Comeau: EXIT INTERVIEW

LETTER FROM THE CEO

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s I complete my second month as the CEO of the Alaska Humanities Forum, I want to reflect on my experience thus far and on our vision for how we move forward.

First off, I recognize and welcome that I have an amazing team of leaders within the Alaska Humanities Forum and an energized board of directors with great vision for our organization. We are in the process of completing a three-year strategic plan, and I look forward to a spectrum of exciting opportunities to emerge from this effort. I am confident that we are on a clear path for continued success and focused growth.

However, true reflection requires us to ponder the more difficult questions as well. Here are two specific questions I would like to discuss:

ALASKA HUMANITIES FORUM 161 East First Avenue, Door 15 Anchorage, Alaska 99501 (907) 272-5341 | www.akhf.org board of directors Jonathon Lack, Chair, Anchorage Joan Braddock, Vice Chair, Fairbanks Ben Mohr, Secretary, Eagle River Evan D. Rose, Treasurer, Anchorage

Why are the humanities important?

Dave Kiffer, Member-At-Large, Ketchikan Mary K. Hughes, J.D., Former Chair, Anchorage

Through the humanities, we learn to think critically and creatively, as well as strengthen the bonds to our culture, history and other Alaska communities. The Alaska Humanities Forum creates venues through which we increase awareness of and embrace Alaska’s cultural diversity.

Jeane Breinig, Anchorage Christa Bruce, Ketchikan Michael Chmielewski, Palmer John Cloe, Anchorage Dermot Cole, Fairbanks Ernestine Hayes, Juneau

The humanities remind us of who we are, help us to understand our past and shape our future.

Nancy Kemp, Kodiak Catkin Kilcher Burton, Anchorage Scott McAdams, Sitka Pauline Morris, Kwethluk Wayne Stevens, Juneau

The Alaska Humanities Forum provides quality, innovative humanities grants and programs to communities across our state. One of the best parts of my job is watching our grantees complete projects that have profound impacts, or hearing students who have just completed a Sister School Exchange program describe how the opportunity impacted their lives. The humanities in Alaska change people’s lives and give them a broader perspective on how they can live and thrive in their communities.

And perhaps more thought provoking, why does supporting the humanities in challenging economic times remain important?

The public debate in times of economic hardship often pits the humanities against other entities that provide what are considered essential, baseline services. I would argue, however, that the humanities are just as essential. The humanities become our moral compass, allowing us to navigate the essential connection with our culture, heritage and history.

The humanities remind us of who we are, help us to understand our past and shape our future. It is in times of economic hardship that we need all the more to link Alaskans to our strong culture, embed the lessons of the history of our people, invest in our communities and develop future leaders. The humanities do that — and they remind us of what is so special and important to all of us as we pursue our goals and dreams.

Nina Kemppel CEO Alaska Humanities Forum

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Hugh Short, Anchorage/Bethel Kurt Wong, C.P.A., Anchorage

STAFF Nina Kemppel, CEO Susy Buchanan, Grants Program Director Laurie Evans-Dinneen RURE Programs Director Larry Campbell Director Leadership Anchorage Lisa Butler, Finance Director Liza Root, Office Manager Matthew Turner, Special Projects Coordinator Amber Frizzel, Take Wing Alaska and C3 Project Mgr. Jonathan Samuelson RURE Programs Associate Veldee Hall, RURE Sister School Guide Erika Quade, Project Associate

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. ©2012.

Printed in Alaska.

T H E M AG A ZI N E O F T H E A L A S K A H U M A N I T I E S F O RU M

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FORUM 2

Letter from the CEO

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George Attla, Making of a Champion

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True Dog Man

By Nina Kemppel GRANT REPORT

An appreciation of champion sled dog racer George Attla By Jim Welch GRANT REPORT

10 Lost Ledgers Project

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Alaskan, Olympian, CEO Q&A with new Alaska Humanities Forum CEO Nina Kemppel GRANT REPORT

16 Belmore Browne Expedition Revisited FROM THE ARCHIVES

18 Aleut Art

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100 Years of Activism

The centenary of the Alaska Native Brotherhood

By Maria Shaa Tláa Williams ALASKA HUMANITIES FORUM PROJECT

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Artist and author Angela Ramirez on life in Spenard, “where the desire to be good smacks up against the habit of being bad.”

23 C3 Camp on the Kobuk

24 Life

in Spenard

Where the streets are crooked, in words and pictures

By Angela Ramirez

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On Neighbors

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Robert Service

Great Nature and the choice to be a neighbor

By Gary Holthaus

An aspiring writer takes encouragement from a “lesser poet” By Jonathan Lack

GRANT REPORT

43 Kenny Lake School Documentaries DONOR PROFILE

44 Carol

Comeau

Anchorage’s former superintendent of schools on education, teaching, and the humanities GRANT REPORT

50 World War II and Cold War Models 51 First Fridays at the AKHF

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GRANT REPORT

Kathy TurcO: George Attla –

The Making of a Champion K

Kathy Turco and George Attla collaborated on a multi-media website, attlamakingofachampion.com, that showcases seven decades of Attla’s mushing accomplishments. The website supports his current mission, promoting dog mushing among Alaska Native youth and helping kids gain confidence and faith in themselves.

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athy Turco’s first kids gain confidence and faith in impression of George Attla themselves. came years ago on a stormy “Because I had tuberculosis November night. The Fairbanks- when I was a boy, and I went to based science educator and a hospital 1,000 miles away, I audio producer was in Huslia was not taught to make a living off the country,” Attla told Forum working with youth and Elders on a climate-change project, during a recent visit to the and was walking around the AKHF offices. “When I came village with Attla’s great niece back to Huslia I didn’t fit in with when they got turned around in village life. I was a very bitter the blowing snow and stumbled young man until I started workupon Attla’s cabin. And there he ing with dogs. The dogs, they was, the world’s greatest sled saved me. So the way I look at dog racer, sitting by a kerosene it, if working with dogs did that lamp reading The Da Vinci Code. for me, I don’t see why it can’t That meeting, and the many work for the rest of the village that followed, made such an kids today.” impact on Turco that a major If there’s an underlying theme to the George Attla – Making project came of it. With the help of a Champion website, it’s the of a $5,000 Alaska Humanities Forum grant, she and Attla colimportance of Athabascan vallaborated in producing a website ues to his success. Respect for that shares the life and mindset the dogs, respect for the land, and respect for the Elders who of the “Huslia Hustler.”

The multi-media website, four showed him the way.

“When my career first got years in the making, is online at underway, I won the [Fur Renattlamakingofachampion.com. dezvous] World Championship It includes news stories, interon my first try,” Attla told Forum. views, photographs, and television clips gathered from more “But once I was back in Huslia, than 50 photographers, journalthis old guy, [veteran musher] ists, videographers, historians, Bobby Vent, he came up to me archivists, dog mushers, and and said: ‘You’re not a dog man others, and is rich with the yet. You ran those races with sounds of dog exuberance, of dogs that were trained by somesnow crunching beneath their one else.’ This was in 1958. For feet, of sled runners on icy trails, the next four years, I raised and of cheering fans at finish lines. trained my own dogs, and when It showcases seven decades I won again in 1962, he came of Attla’s accomplishments, from up to me and said, ‘By God, you his first Fur Rendezvous win are a dog man.’ I’ve never been in 1958 to his current mission, prouder, because for a guy like promoting dog mushing among to him to say that, I knew for a Alaska Native youth, and helping fact, ‘I’m a true dog man.’” ■

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

George Attla starting fast at the 1988 Open North American Championship.

“If the guy with the fastest dogs won every time, it wouldn't be any fun.”

– George AttlA

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used to say that George Attla was the Crocodile Dundee of Alaska.

Now I see him more as a combination of Tiger Woods in his prime, when Tiger seemed to play with magic wands instead of golf clubs, and Steve Jobs at his creative best. Attla always had the rabbit-out-of-a-hat chops of Tiger that allowed him to make Lazarus-like comebacks, along with the prescient focus of Steve Jobs to create solutions before there were problems. Tiger Woods made

TRUE DOG MAN

By Jim Welch

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Attla "clapping up" his lead dogs at the Fur Rondy starting line, 1970. Maxine Vehlow 6

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golf fans out of people who didn't know a nine iron from a waffle iron. George Attla made sled dog racing devotees out of people who didn't know a swing dog from a hot dog.

Every George Attla bio starts out listing his ten Fur Rendezvous World Championship victories, and eight North American Championship wins, but few put those achievements in their proper jaw-dropping context: Attla was winning or close to winning the most competitive races in the world for more than 30 years.

For 30 years, he defeated generation after generation of emerging contenders: Gareth Wright, Roland “Doc” Lombard, Carl Huntington, Charlie Champaine, Harris Dunlap, Eddy Streeper and many more. He beat all comers, and outlasted most of them to boot.

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y good friend Marvin Kokrine grew up in Tanana in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He said that back then everybody in the villages had dog teams.

He recalled times when many, many families in his village would drive their dog teams to a nearby frozen lake, build campfires in a giant circle, and visit fire to fire. This was years before the advent of snow machines.

Marvin told me that back then, when dog teams were so ubiquitous and integral to life in the villages, “champions like Bergman Sam, Cue Bifelt and George Attla might as well have been Elvis Presley.

I even remember Bergman Sam showing up at a gathering with a girl on each arm.”

All the old champions were friends of Marvin’s father, Henry Kokrine, and Marvin would sit and listen when they visited and talked around coffee. He remembers so much dog knowledge shared.

"You don’t even know you’re learning at the time; not until later," Marvin said.

“These were heavy duty guys.”

When someone from a village won the Fur Rendezvous or the North American, it showed that if one of their own could do it, “you knew you had a chance, someday.” A Native winning a major championship brought pride to all the villages.

When George’s duels with Doc Lombard took center stage on the streets and back trails of Anchorage for more than 15 years, Alaskans focused attention on the Rendezvous race and took pride when A L A S K A H U M A N ITI E S F O R U M F A L L 2 01 2

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a fellow Alaskan claimed the victory.

Even though Doc Lombard was a hard man not to like, he was still an outsider; George was pure Alaskan. Those were the times when the World Championship Sled Dog Race was the centerpiece of Fur Rendezvous, and Fur Rendezvous was the centerpiece of Anchorage winters.

George persisted in winning. He lost several close races in an era of extreme competition, but won even more. His dog teams were not always the very fastest, but more often than not they were the very best.

Dog drivers came to assimilate, almost as an axiom, that George Attla could do things with dogs that no one else could, or even imagine how. I know it’s something I always believed. But no matter how much was myth or how much was reality it had the same effect on the mindsets of anyone racing against him. It takes more than a fast dog team to win the race, especially when Attla’s competing.

play the race like a chess game, with an opening, middle game, and endgame.

The best drivers

T

hey call it “sprint racing.”

What a joke! The Fur Rendezvous is no more a sprint than a marathon is a stroll in the park.

At 25 miles per day, the Rendezvous is the equivalent of three marathons. Whereas the best human runners may run a 26-mile marathon in a little over two hours, then not run another for six months, the winning Rendezvous team will run almost the same distance in under 90 minutes, in snow, pulling a sled with a human, three days in a row. It is impressive, but it’s not a sprint.

Both the Fur Rendezvous and the North American begin with a burst of speed to establish position and set the stage for the remainder of the race. This is a starting tempo the dogs set on their own because of their enthusiasm and training. But this is just the start, and with a radio in their ear, drivers gauge their relative pace and position to their competitors. The best drivers and teams

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can respond and adjust the pace, but only within the limits of the dogs’ training and physical capabilities, and the drivers’ judgment and control of the team. Speed is one thing; knowing how and when to use it quite another.

In the longer speed races such as the Fur Rendezvous and the North American, the best teams do not run the same pace the entire race. The best drivers play the race like a chess game, with an opening, middle game, and endgame — the finish. The best teams always finish fast because there’s still fuel in the tank.

No one has ever played the race game better than George Attla. Drivers today use wrist-borne GPS units for real-time speed monitoring. They have drop down mats to step on to slow down a “too hot” dog team. The technology finally caught up to what George Attla was doing for decades.

One longtime dog driver told me George could be a cold-blooded son of a gun. If you knew him as a competitor, sooner or later “you were going to get bit.” To his competitors Attla was singleminded, which made him all the more intimidating an adversary. I’ve heard more than one dog musher affirm that no competitor could be his friend; his onetrack mind would never allow that. He would lure opponents into antagonizing him, and use that as fodder for payback incentive. For the winner at that level, the race begins long before the starting line.

But outside of the headlines he was a generous man. In the late 1980s, I once drove to Fairbanks in late November with a friend. Not far from Nenana we stopped to fill up the dog truck, assuming the station had stocked the right diesel fuel for winter. When we got to Fairbanks the temperature sank to -40° and the #2 diesel in our tanks turned to jelly. After getting towed to a garage and having the fuel tanks drained, we were on our way.

In the evening, dark by then, we pulled into George's yard in North Pole, and the truck once again sputtered to a halt. It wouldn’t start. George came out to greet us. We explained our troubles, and he told us to go inside and get warm. Meanwhile he fiddled with the fuel injectors, used some kerosene and got the truck started again. Mind you, it was -40°. He was our hero.

N George running the Rondy, 1982. Kirby Smith

Jim Welch, author of The Speed Mushing Manual, How to Train Racing Sled Dogs, says his claim to fame is that one season he beat George Attla in three out of four races, including the Fur Rendezvous. Jim bought his first five sled dogs from George Attla. He lives in Eagle River.

ow at 79 years old, George keeps 20 or so dogs at his home in Huslia, feeds, waters, cleans up after them, and keeps them in training. Often he will loan or give dogs and advice to encourage young mushers.

During his racing years, George had a fused knee (childhood tuberculosis), nine fingers, one functional eye (glaucoma), and cataracts. Since he retired from steady racing he has prevailed through open-heart surgery and cancer.

When doing a Q&A at a symposium in Norway some 20 years ago, a musher asked George how he felt about competing while being handicapped. George responded, “I don’t consider myself handicapped.”

The fastest dog is not always the best dog. It takes more than having the fastest dog team to win a race; it takes more than winning a race to make a champion. ■

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GRANT REPORT

Lost Ledgers Project

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ad it not been for J. Pennelope Goforth’s rummaging ways, a valuable piece of Aleutian history might have been lost forever.

Instead, with the help of a $4,470 Alaska Humanities Forum grant, her multimedia project, Bringing Aleutian History Home: The Lost Ledgers of the Alaska Commercial Company, preserves fragile historical documents from the Aleutian Island fur trade era.

The Anchorage-based writer and historian lived in Unalaska in the 1980s, and traveled throughout the Aleutians. She had examined some of the Alaska Commercial Company’s early records for other projects, so was familiar with ACC ledgers when she stumbled upon six of them quite by accident at a relative’s house in Washington state.

“I was rummaging around in a basement, it was kind of dim and dark down there, and I came across this Nordstrom bag,” Goforth told Forum.

“Inside was a U.S. priority mail box. It had been opened at the top so I could see the tops of the books inside. And I just knew. The hair went up on the back of my neck. My hands got a little quivery.

After I pulled them out and looked at them, I had to sit down.”

What she found were six ledgers, 700 pages worth of notes and records that together chronicle ACC activities in the Aleutians from 1875-1897.

Until her discovery, historians believed all the records from ACC trading posts in now-abandoned villages like Tchernofski and Makushin either burned in the company’s San Francisco headquarters after the great earthquake of 1906 or were lost during the World War II occupation of the islands.

The relative, who’s keeping a low profile, inherited the ACC ledgers when her grandmother passed away, but had no idea what they were.

Goforth could see that they had been mailed to the grandmother from Petersburg, but that’s as far as she’s been able to trace their journey from the Aleutians to the bag in the basement.

The ACC was the first government-sanctioned business to set up shop in Alaska after the United States bought the territory from the Russia in 1867. With no law enforcement in many areas, no government anything, the ACC became the de facto civil authority in Alaska. In addition to launching extensive fur-hunting operations in

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the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, the company handled everything from the mail to putting criminals in leg irons and locking them in storage sheds, according to the ledgers.

Station agents kept track of when ships came in, when they left, who was on them, who got married, what babies were born, and who died. Among entries was an account of a stabbing, another of a two-man “bydarki” (kayak) capsizing and both men drowning, and a rant against the price of mustard.

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he Lost Ledgers project has been a long journey for Goforth, author of Sailing the Mail in Alaska and founder of The Aleutian Eagle, now the Dutch Harbor Fisherman. She first held the ledgers in her hands in 2004.

“At first I thought I’d just do this in my spare time. It took me almost a month here and there to do three pages.”

Although primarily in English, the language is archaic, and the penmanship of the day, as well as the mark of time, made the ledgers difficult to decipher. What Goforth needed was a dedicated block of time. Goforth was able to get it through grants from the AKHF and others, enough to scan, transcribe and digitize the records and create a guide.

Bringing Aleutian History Home: the Lost Ledgers of the Alaska Commercial Company consists of DVDs containing high-resolution scans of all 700 pages, written transcriptions of each page that are keyword searchable, and guides to the ledger books written by Goforth Three-disc sets were distributed to the Anchorage Museum, the University of Alaska, the Alaska State Historical Library, the Museum of the Aleutians, the City of Unalaska Library, and more than 20 other organizations and institutions throughout the state.

“The quality [of the images] invites you right back to 1875; the aged brown of the ink on yellowed pages comes through so well, along with odd creases and the crumbled edge of a wellused ledger,” said Goforth. “You won’t, however, have the slightly musty, mildew-y, 135-year-old smell that had me sneezing.” ■

“I could see the tops of the books inside. And I just knew. The hair went up on the back of my neck.

My hands got a little quivery.”

— J. Pennelope Goforth

Second page of a letter to Sanak Station agent Henry Dirks dated May 13, 1896 from Unalaska:

...accounts in a Pass Book enclosed herewith, and in which you can keep their summer accounts, returning the same to this office with the party.

Mr. R. Newmann will come on the May mail steamer from Sitka and will likely call at your station.

Hoping you will have a successful season with plenty of furs I am Truly Yours, N. Gray A L A S K A H U M A N ITI E S F O R U M F A L L 2 01 2

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Forum sits down with new AKHF President/CEO Nina Kemppel

Alaskan, Olympian, CEO “T

he skier?”

So went the reaction of many Alaskans July 2012 upon learning the Alaska Humanities Forum Board of Directors had just named Nina Kemppel the forum’s new President/CEO. Yes, the skier.

“For more than a decade, Nina Kemppel reigned as America’s queen of the ski trails and Alaska’s queen of the mountain,” reads the website of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, to which Kemppel was inducted in 2009.

“Her record as one of the country’s best cross-country skiers is documented in the U.S. record books.”

Kemppel was born in October 1970 in a Colorado canyon when her mother fell while rock climbing and went into labor. But she grew up in Anchorage, became a standout athlete at West High School, and then a two-time NCAA All-American at Dartmouth College. Kemppel went on to win a record 18 U.S. national championships over the course of a 13-year intentional racing career that included four Winter Olympics.

Back home in Alaska during skiing off-seasons,

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Kemppel won the Mount Marathon Race in Seward a record nine times between 1993 and 2003, including eight years in a row.

Her athletic triumphs are the stuff of Alaska lore.

Yet Kemppel’s no slouch in a classroom, or a boardroom. After retiring from international skiing, she received her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, one of the world’s top business schools.

After consulting for a host of Fortune 500 companies, she redirected her professional focus to non-profit, mission-driven organizations as a consultant with the Coraggio Group, a strategy firm based in Portland, Oregon.

In 2010 Kemppel was appointed to a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee. She officially took the helm at the Alaska Humanities Forum in late August after fulfilling her USOC responsibilities at the London 2012 Olympics.

For the past two decades Alaskans have known of Nina Kemppel the skier.

Now it’s time to meet the CEO.

“I was drawn to the Humanities Forum

because I have sort of this closet humanities side that wouldn’t otherwise get to come out much professionally.”

Before you joined the Alaska Humanities Forum,

the last time most Alaskans read or heard about you in the media came during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. What were up to in the last decade?

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fter the 2002 Olympics I retired from international ski racing and spent the next year racing domestically just for fun and doing public appearances, motivational speaking and talking to kids. Also I was in the process of applying to graduate school. Then in 2003, I started business school at Tuck [ed. note: the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth]. I got my MBA in 2005 and then went into consulting. My first job out of grad school was with Oliver Wyman, a large, global management consulting firm. I traveled all over the world for that job, mostly focused on strategy work, a lot of it in the technology sector, consulting for Microsoft, IBM, companies of that sort. I was traveling five days a week, and I was living in Boston, which is a long way from good snow and the mountains that I am used to. So in 2008 I moved to Portland, Oregon to go to work for the Coraggio Group, still in consulting, but for a much smaller firm, where I had more control of which clients I worked with and traveled less. The change allowed me to start doing a lot more work specifically for non-profits and other mission-based organizations. That was a better fit for me than Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies. I did a lot of work for schools, a lot of work in health care and energy, almost all of it for non-profit organizations. I was doing strategy and business analysis and performance management systems, and that enabled me to really find out what practices work and don’t work in the non-profit sector.

What made you interested in becoming the

President and CEO of the Forum?

I always knew I was going to move back to Alaska eventually. Then in early- to mid-2011, I started actively looking for the right opportunity. I was coming to a place professionally where I was interested in actually becoming part of an organization rather than just consulting for

them. I wanted to not only make strategic recommendations, but also be able to stick around and see the changes implemented and make sure they worked. I was also drawn to the Humanities Forum because I have sort of this closet humanities side that wouldn’t otherwise get to come out much professionally. When I was skiing professionally, it was a great opportunity to see the world, and since you can only ski race for so many hours a day, on my off days or downtime I’d make a point of exploring the local culture. I’d walk the small valleys in Italy or Russia, for example, and talk to people, to try to learn from them the local history and unique culture of the place where they lived. Hearing the voice of the elders was especially valuable. This sort of cultural exploration was my favorite hobby when I was a skier.

Did your favorite hobby lead you to a favorite

place or cultural discovery?

Sappada, Italy stands out in memory. It’s a town located in a deep valley in the Dolomite Mountains. I visited there one cold day in December after a somewhat disappointing finish in the World Cup. I wandered into a sweet café and ordered a cappuccino and started chatting up the local residents. They recommended I take a walking tour of Sappada’s churches and chapels, many of which predate the United States. That night I still wasn’t ready to return to my life as a ski racer, so I went to sample the local cheeses and polenta at what seemed like a hot spot. I noticed many of the older gentlemen seemed curious about my presence, and we began talking. One spoke some English, and since my Italian was very limited he translated for the others as they gave me the oral history of the region. They related stories about how their unique dialect had been shaped by their connections with communities in Austria just a few miles away, and how World War I and World War II had shaped their culture.

They also went into great detail about how wooden masks played a unique role in local celebrations. In some small way that day helped me feel more complete and at peace with the world.

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“The complexity of the Alaska Humanities Forum is a response to the unique history and cultural environment of Alaska. But it brings with it a responsibility to articulate what we do at the Forum in a concise way.”

After retiring from ski racing, what made you

decide to pursue an MBA?

Well, my husband’s a lawyer, my father’s a lawyer, my sister’s a lawyer, my brother- in-law’s a lawyer, and everyone just kind of always expected me to go to law school. But then in 1998 in Nagano [ed. note: Nagano, Japan was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics], I got really sick. Like, hard-time-getting-out-of-bed sick. I’d overtrained and worn my body down to a dangerous point.

The doctors said, “You’re done. You may never ski race at a high level again, but also you’re definitely not going to do anything active for at least six months.” Well, it’s a little tough to tell a person who’s fairly used to training for five or six hours a day that they can’t do anything physically demanding or aerobic for the next half of a year. After a long negotiation, I managed to convince the doctors that rock climbing was not too physically demanding, so I moved to Boulder, Colorado for the climbing. When I wasn’t climbing I sat in on University of Colorado Law school classes and business school classes. And while I found the law school classes interesting, I realized I didn’t really want to be a lawyer. The MBA classes, to me, were far more interesting. They were learning accounting and marketing and organization design and how to put all those pieces together to create a successful business model, which I found more intellectually stimulating, so I decided business school was the way to go.

Looking to the near future , what do you see as

key challenges for the Alaska Humanities Forum?

The Humanities Forum is well-positioned for growth. We have a very good reputation among those who know us, but we need to do a better job of creating wider public awareness of the Alaska Humanities Forum, our role in the community and what we do as conveners and promoters of the humanities throughout the state. We need to be much more engaged with the community. Also, and this is true of many non-profits right now, in this challenging economic environment, we need to diversify and grow our funding sources in multiple ways. We are formulating and implementing

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a strong development plan. There’s not as much federal grant money to be had, and we need to adjust to that reality.

We also have challenges in terms of our branding. We need to get a better sense of clarity about what brand we are and what brand we want to be. Right now we have seven different programs operating under the Alaska Humanities Forum, and they all have their own brand.

As a result, I find that when I’m out in public talking about who we are and what we do, many people have heard of Leadership Anchorage, for example, or they’re well aware of Rose Urban Rural Exchange, but they don’t always know those are Alaska Humanities Forum programs. So we need to better establish what I would call a “brand architecture” that leads with the Alaska Humanities Forum, and provides better clarity on how all the great programs fit together and interrelate, so when we do raise public awareness of the Forum, we’re creating awareness of something that’s intently focused.

If you look at all of the state humanities councils and forums, there’s no doubt the Alaska Humanities Forum is one of the most complex forums in the country in terms of the number, ambition and scope of our programs. That’s not a bad thing. Alaska is a unique state, and the complexity of the Alaska Humanities Forum is a response to the unique history and cultural environment of Alaska. But our complexity brings with it a responsibility to be able to articulate what we do at the Forum in a concise way.

In 2010 you began a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Olympic Committee. How do you see being on the USOC board impacting your role with the Alaska Humanities Forum?

Being on the USOC board has been a fantastic experience. It includes the CEOs of some very big companies, and we do everything from strategic planning to budgeting at a very high level, so it’s proving to be a very good learning experience. Specifically, I think being on such an exceptionally well-run board will prove quite helpful in figuring how best to interact with our board and what the right level of involvement is between the board, staff, and myself as CEO.

Kemppel skiing the 30K at the 2002 Olympics. Today, she brings her focus and drive to the Forum as CEO. “I want to stick around and see the changes implemented and make sure they work.”

Getty Images / Adam Pretty

“People were running alongside me with American flags, cheering me on, and the world just kind of slowed down. Every thing went into slow motion .”

What’s the best race you ever skied? Not neces-

sarily a race you won, but your favorite?

I skied in four Olympics, and in each Olympics I raced at least five times, and my best event was always the longest event, the 30K, which always was held on the last day of the Olympics. In the winter of 2002, patriotism was exceptionally high. The tragedy of 9/11 really put the fans in Salt Lake City in a “Go Team USA” frame of mind. So the last day of my career I was racing the 30K in Solider Hollow in Salt Lake City, which is a wide-open venue, sort of like Arctic Valley. It did not begin well. It was 32 degrees out, with a mix of rain and snow falling, which made for conditions that racers hate, because the tracks are wet and slow, and it’s almost impossible to figure out with any comfortable level of certainty which set of skis or which wax to use. I was going back and forth, back

and forth on which skis to go with, and by the time I made up my mind I got to the starting line with only two minutes to spare, just hoping that I’d made the right call.

Starting out, my skis were slipping underneath me, and I was thinking, “Oh, boy. It’s going to be a looong hourand-a-half.” But then as I started going up the first hill, my skis started to grab, and I noticed that people were running alongside me with American flags on both sides, cheering me on, and the world just kind of slowed down.

Everything went into slow motion. And I had a great race.

I started moving up: 25th place, 20th place, all the way to 15th, which was my best finish ever in the Olympics.

When I came across the finish line I just sort of collapsed and laid there in the snow for a couple of minutes. I was exhausted, but I was exhilarated. It was the culmination of my career, and I’d ended on a high note.

So that was my favorite race. My last race. ■ A L A S K A H U M A N ITI E S F O R U M F A L L 2 01 2

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GRANT REPORT

Brian Okonek:

The Belmore Browne Expedition, 100 Years After L

ike many who have stood on the summit of North America’s highest peak, or even dreamed of it, Brian Okonek has long been an admirer of Belmore Browne. Beginning in 1906, Browne, a writer, painter, explorer, and climber, made three attempts to reach the top of Denali, once coming within 300 vertical feet.

Those who’ve spent time on the mountain have a special appreciation for what Browne and his teammates were able to accomplish back when there were no maps to speak of, climbing techniques were in their infancy, and rescue was out of the question.

“I’ve been climbing in the Alaska Range for years, and it seems like everywhere I’ve been I’ve crossed his [Browne’s] path,” said Okonek, who with his wife, Diane, founded Alaska Denali Guiding in 1983 and directed it until 2001. “It’s phenomenal how much territory he covered.”

As the 100th anniversary of Browne’s final attempt in 1912 approached, Okonek couldn’t let it go by unnoticed. With help from the Alaska Humanities Forum in the form of a $2,000 mini-grant, Okonek traveled to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, home of the Belmore Browne Archives, to research photographs and other materials in order to properly commemorate Browne’s “near miss on Denali.”

For his 1912 run at the mountain, Browne arrived in Seward by steamer and, with teammate Herschel Parker, headed for the mountain by dogsled team in the dead of winter.

There are so many great stories within Browne’s story, but one of them involves his decision to bail on the Iditarod Trail over Crow Pass and instead go by boat from Portage to Knik, the center of commerce for the Susitna Valley at the time and where two other teammates, Meri LaVoy and Arthur Aten, awaited. At Fire Island, he and Parker ran into ice, whitecaps, and snow, and had to paddle like mad all night long to keep from being swept out into Cook lnlet. After another failed attempt to get past the island, they turned around and paddled back to what’s now Girdwood, and went over Crow Pass after all.

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Five months after Browne and Parker left Seward, they and LaVoy (Aten stayed with the dogs) made two attempts to reach the top of McKinley. On the first, they got within 300 vertical feet of the mountain’s 20,320-foot summit, but encountered winds so strong they could barely stand, let alone move forward, and were forced to turn back. Violent weather turned them back the second time, as well.

All the while, they’d been unable to digest their highfat pemmican at their upper camps, a major problem since that was their primary source of calories. But that turned out to be a good thing.

“there was a huge

that triggered numerous, massive avalanches.

Had they still been on the mountain it is very likely that they would have been killed.” earthquake

— Brian Okonek

As Okonek tells it, “If they had been able to digest it, they may have stayed up at their high camp longer to attempt the summit again. As it was they got back to base camp on July 4. On July 6 there was a huge earthquake (from Novarupta) that triggered numerous, massive avalanches and shattered Karstens Ridge. Had they still been on the mountain it is very likely that they would have been killed.”

Browne wrote of this and of his earlier attempts in his climbing classic, The Conquest of Mount McKinley.

T

o bring Browne’s epic story home, Okonek spent four days sitting at a worktable at Dartmouth, hands in the requisite white gloves, going through cartloads of boxes brought up from the

library’s climate-controlled vault. Each box was filled with folders, and each folder contained a trove of materials — journals, sketches, photographs, blackand-white negatives, and hand-colored glass slides.

There were also photo albums of the expedition with handwritten descriptions, like “Hauling supplies up the Tokositna River” and “Snowshoeing up the Ruth Glacier.”

“It was really exciting,” Okonek said. “Every folder was like opening up a treasure chest.”

In addition to selecting 275 images to be scanned, Okonek was able to photograph pages of Browne’s journals. He chose not only Browne’s work, but also photographs taken by his teammates to document what traveling across Alaska was like 100 years ago.

“They did a great job of photojournalism, I’ll tell ya,” he said. “They really documented their travels well.”

With the help of Northern Susitna Institute Director Joe Page, Okonek and others organized a daylong celebration in Talkeetna in July, culminating with a slideshow presentation Okonek put together.

Supplementing the show were some of his own images, including aerial shots, from years of climbing and wandering through the Alaska Range in order to show the “then” and “now,” as well as fill in some gaps in the storyline.

“Talkeetna loved it,” he said. “It was a full house at the hangar. Lots of them had climbed in the range, and a lot were familiar with the history of the mountain. So they were very curious to learn more.” ■

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Project #52-1982

Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin, Unangan of the Aleutian Archipelago

The first edition of 1982; a revised and expanded edition was published in 2003.

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A

leut Art was a book whose time had come. In 1980, the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association reported, “The realm of Aleut art was virtually unstudied and the objects of Aleut art themselves were scattered over much of the globe.” No books, no comprehensive museum catalogs, no curricula connected these works for a larger understanding of the culture and history of the Aleut people.

To begin the work of pulling together the threads of knowledge held in the many “lost” pieces of art, the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association created the Aleut Cultural Heritage Project. Association members assembled an advisory committee of scholars, elders, and artists for this groundbreaking project and secured funds from the U.S. Department of Education.

The Committee went to work with the goal of completing “a study of Aleut art which could stand as a comprehensive work as well as an incentive to future investigators to delve still deeper into the study of Aleut culture.”

Along with celebrated anthropologist and author Dr. Lydia Black and project director Patricia J. Petrivelli, the Committee put together an exceptional work in Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin (Things Made by the Aleut People). The first edition was published in 1982 and the second, revised and expanded edition, was published in 2003. No other book has taken its place in the field.

Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin is a landmark work that provides a comprehensive picture of the Unangas, or Aleut people, and the place of art in their lives, both past and present. The book serves as a comprehensive review of Aleut art from prehistory to 1982. It was the first publication to treat Aleut art forms and tradition separately from Eskimo art, at the same time including aspects of neighboring cultures for comparative reasons to show various influences on Aleut art traditions. The book catalogs and annotates Aleut holdings in museums and archives in the United States and Europe, providing color plates and photos of objects previously unavailable.

Dr. Lydia Black introduces Aleut Art in part with these words: “Art is a part of human existence everywhere and at all times, inseparable from other aspects of life and an integral part of objects of ordinary, but especially of ritual, use and significance. From the point of view of an anthropologist, art is a form of social communication. Like language, art in any given society is a system of symbols through which members of the society encode and communicate the essential principles and ideas underlying the group’s value and belief system.”

Dr. Black begins the book with the “strands” of prehistory that form the “historically known Aleut art of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.” In Part One, in sections from the Eastern to Western Aleutians, Dr. Black discusses prehistoric tradition and culture, art and artifacts, using historical source descriptions from multiple languages and accounts written by early archaeologists and anthropologists, as well as journals she translated from early Russian visitors to these areas.

In Part Two: History, Dr. Black showcases materials, placing them in their cultural context, and arranging them by art of men and that of women. Topics include wood, bone, and ivory, painting and tattooing, hunting and ceremonial hats, as well as kamleikas (parkas made of sea mammal gut) and embroidery, and basketry. As noted by the University of Chicago Press, current distributors of the second edition, “Black covers both works recovered from archaeological sites and modern Aleut artists whose work now resides in museums worldwide.”

T

he author herself was a noted international scholar in the field of ethnohistory and social and cultural anthropology relating to Russian and Aleut cultures. Her personal story is remarkable. Dr. Black spoke six languages. After surviving forced labor for Nazi Germany during World War II, she became a janitor for American soldiers in Munich who learned of her language

proficiency. She was hired as a translator.

In 1950, she moved to the United States with her husband, who passed away when she was 44.

Following his death, she studied at Northeastern University and Brandeis University in the Boston area, and in two years earned both her BA and MA. She went on to receive her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From there she taught anthropology at Providence College in Rhode Island and then at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she was based from 1984 to 1998. She authored more than 66 scholarly articles and books on topics such as Russian cartography of Alaska and the history of Russian-Aleut contact and conflict. Aleut Art: Unangam Aguqaadangin is one of her best-known books. Her other works include Russians in Alaska, 1732 – 1867; and Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka, 1802 and 1804, which won an American Book Award.

In 2001, Russia awarded her the Order of Friendship, honoring her contribution to promoting cross-cultural understanding between Russia and America. She received the Alaska Anthropological Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the Alaska Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award for the Humanities in 2005.

Alaska Humanities Forum awarded Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. (APIA) a $15,000 grant in 1982 to assist with publication costs for the first 1,500 copies of Aleut Art. One of just over 20 grants made in 1982, the publication was looked to with anticipation, as the high quality was recognized in the manuscript that was included with the application. The book sparked multiple projects with Dr. Black, who began teaching at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1984, and it represented one of several grants awarded to APIA. The book’s creation and printing also found small grants of less than $3,000 with the State of Alaska’s Alaska Historical Commission and Alaska State Council on the Arts. Dr. Black passed away in 2007. ■

40 The Alaska Humanities Forum

has been making grants to organizations and individuals for humanitiesrelated projects throughout Alaska since 1972. This recurring feature in Forum will take a detailed look at some of the more than 1,500 books, films, oral histories, exhibits, symposiums and other grant projects that were accomplished through AKHF funding, which in most cases was a “regrant” from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more “From the Archives” profiles, visit the Alaska Humanities Forum blog, Door 15, accessible via the AKHF home page (akhf.org) or its own URL: akhfblog.typepad. com/door-15.

Dr. Lydia Black at Kenai Fjords, 2002.

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100 YEARS OF ACTIVISM

The Alaska Native Brotherhood

By Maria Shaa Tláa Williams ANB convention at Sitka, Alaska, 1914. Alaska State Library ASL-P01-4570

T

he Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012. The ANB is one of the first civil rights organizations in the United States, and certainly the first one in Alaska. The ANB and the Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS) were founded in Southeastern Alaska, home to the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

In the early 20th century, there was a lot of frustration among Native people in Southeastern Alaska because they could not vote, they could not own land, it was very difficult for them to participate in business ventures, and they lived in a strong climate of racism. The increasing alienation within their Native homeland was alarming.

In 1908 the federal government established the Tongass National Forest. This 17-million-acre area included traditional lands of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.

The Tlingit saw almost two-thirds of their traditional lands removed from them with no consultation. The effect of this, in addition to the growing number of can-

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neries that depleted entire runs of salmon, exacerbated an already tense situation.

As the Native people of Southeastern Alaska witnessed terrible discrimination, mistreatment of their children, segregated schools and no access to civil protections, they organized the ANB and ANS into political organizations and were able to achieve remarkable accomplishments.

The founding members of the ANB were soon joined by individuals who contributed to such accomplishments as securing the right for Native people to vote, electing Native people to the Territorial Legislature, desegregating schools, and getting the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945 passed. The ANB was also the first organization in Alaska to tackle the land claims issue.

Many outstanding individuals, such as William Shgúndi Paul, Sr., Louis Paul, Andrew Kaa.ooshtí Hope, Elizabeth Kaaxgal.aat and Roy Lk’uteen Peratrovich, and other inspiring leaders too numerous to mention continue to be

recognized for their dedication to human rights and their bravery in the face of monumental obstacles.

The birth of the organization is remarkable, and illustrates unique and innovative forms of activist practice that are notable because they represented a radical departure from the social and political landscape of Alaska Native people in 1912.

The United States and the Territory of Alaska in the early 20th century remained segregated and painfully racist. Alaska Natives did not have the right to vote, nor did American Indians. During the Gold Rush period, Alaska Natives could not stake claims, because they were not citizens. Alaska Natives were not even recognized as owners of their own land. In 1912, most Alaska Native people operated under their traditional time-honored systems of indigenous government, and there was little solidarity from one Alaska Native group to another. Most Alaska Native people recognized their village and/or clan

affiliation as their only political and cultural identification. The idea of a Tlingit Nation, or Haida Nation, simply did not exist. The ANB was an Alaska Native organization not specific to one tribe or village group; this was a political organization in the Western sense, and based on human rights issues, such as voting, land ownership, education, and civil rights. This was an important aspect of the ANB because it was inclusive, rather than exclusive in terms of membership.

The “father� of the Alaska Native Brotherhood was Peter Simpson (1871-1947), a Tsimshian individual.

Simpson is regarded as one of the most inspired prophets produced among the Native people in modern times.

He provided a new vision and new approach, and began to organize other like-minded individuals in Southeastern Alaska, and he, along with a handful of other mostly Tlingit individuals, founded the Alaska Native Brotherhood. The founders of the ANB include Peter Simpson,

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George Xwaálk Hutson Field, William Tl’akaw Éesh Hobson, James C. Lgein Johnson, Eli K’adanóokt Katanook, Seward Shaanch Gageitl Kunz, Paul Aanyáanáx Liberty, Frank Sgáaxk’ Mercer, Marie K’óots’ee Orsen, Frank David Saatan Éesh Price, James Lgeik’I Éesh Watson, Chester Gunáak’w Worthngton and Ralph Looshkát Young.

These were remarkable individuals who collectively enacted powerful change. It is also important to note that the founders of the ANB included one woman, K’óots’ee Marie Orsen.

The ANB was an Alaska Native organization, not specific to one tribe or village group; this was a political organization in the Western sense...

Peter Simpson and the other founders of the ANB had been exposed to Christian missionaries, such as Father Duncan (Anglican), Fathers Donskoi, Kashevarov, and Soboleff (Russian Orthodox), and Sheldon Jackson (Presbyterian). Most of them learned to read and write English, and had sophisticated knowledge of Western culture. Some had been educated at Chemawa Indian School and Carlisle Indian School, early boarding schools in the Lower 48. Many of them were entrepreneurs, boat builders, and carpenters, and some had religious training. They were all dedicated to the idea of Native rights above all.

There were pre-existing religious brotherhoods or fraternal orders, such as the St. Gabriel’s Indian Brotherhood, organized by Aanyáanáx Paul Liberty in 1904.

These religious brotherhoods undoubtedly provided the model of an association. The introduction of parliamentary law and procedures were certainly from the Anglican and other Christian schools, as was the ANB’s predominant use of the English language. Most of the founding members of the ANB were Christian. The hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” was a part of all ANB meetings, and English was the required language of the gatherings.

This illustrates the “moderness” of the Brotherhood at

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that time and its progressive agenda. In 1912, most Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people were not fluent English speakers, and only those individuals who attended Western schools were able to read and write and speak in the English language. At that time, it was important to master the English language, and to use Western systems of government in order to level the political playing field. Also, the idea of ‘endangered languages’ did not yet exist in Alaska; the indigenous languages were so predominantly spoken that the idea of losing a language was not a consideration.

I

t is important to recognize that during the past 100 years, the ANB has remained active and relevant. The ANB and ANS remain a vital part of the political and social landscape, especially in Southeastern Alaska. At a recent event in Anchorage commemorating the 100th anniversary, Senator Al Kookesh spoke eloquently about his involvement with the ANB. He ceremoniously donned his ANB sash that was left to him by Dr. Walter Soboleff. He mentioned how the ANB provided some of his first professional mentoring upon his return to Alaska after law school.

“The ANB knew Robert’s rules so well, parliamentary procedure was a political art form,” he said. “When I came back to Alaska after law school, the ANB supported me as I started out my career in public service. There should be an ANB Day, and a William Paul Day, in addition to the Elizabeth Peratrovich Day.” Writer/actor/director Ishmael Hope, who is the descendent of a many well-known ANB members, is commemorating many of William Shgúndi Paul’s speeches during the 100th anniversary. In October 2012, during the Sitka celebratory event, Senator Lisa Murkowski credited the Native vote for her re-election campaign victory in 2010, and said that the Native vote “…would never be underestimated again.”

The ANB and ANS have had 100 years of success in the area of civil rights, and the history of the organization, the success of the organization, and most importantly, the individuals behind the organization, deserve accolades.

Their dedication is a testament to resilience, creativity, and solidarity. ■ Dr. Maria Shaa Tláa Williams is director of Alaska Native Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She edited The Alaska Native Reader, published by Duke University Press, 2009.

Sources cited:

Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer, editors.

Haa Kusteeyí Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories. University of Washington Press (Seattle) and Sealaska Heritage Foundation (Juneau), 1994.

ALASKA HUMANITIES FORUM PROJECT

C3 Camp on the Kobuk L

ast July, 16 new-to-Alaska teachers spent a week at a working subsistence camp on the Kobuk River outside Kiana, an Inupiaq village located 57 air miles east of Kotzebue. Their cultural immersion experience was organized under the new Alaska Humanities Forum project Creating Cultural Competence of Rural Early Career Teachers, or C3 for short. Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, C3 is designed to increase teacher retention rates in rural school districts by orienting new teachers to rural Alaska ways of life, values and traditions before they start work. The program also partners C3 educators with master teachers for a two-year mentorship through the Alaska Statewide Mentor project.

Teachers at the camp on the Kobuk for the most part were recent college graduates hired last spring at job fairs in the Lower 48. Most had never been to Alaska before. They were bound for jobs in schools throughout the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. Earlier last summer, a similar contingent of new hires in the Lower Kuskokwim School District attended a C3 camp near Marshall, a Yup’ik village on the Yukon River.

New experiences were the rule for the teachers at the Kobuk Camp. They ate Spam for the first time. And caribou.

They caught sheefish, and learned to wield an ulu. They played cards with local kids when it rained, which was often, and they performed Eskimo dances in the midnight sun by the fire. They swatted at constant swarms of mosquitoes.

They ran the Kobuk in bad weather in open boats powered by outboard motors. They picked berries, hauled water, and used an outhouse. They listened to elders telling stories late into the night.

They learned to read the weather. They bushwhacked through a mile of alders to overlook the Kobuk Sand Dunes.

One month later they were on the job. ■■ A L A S K A H U M A N ITI E S F O R U M F A L L 2 01 2

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Life in Spenard Words and pictures by Angela Ramirez

If you look at Anchorage from above, you will see that most of the city is laid out in a perfect grid pattern. Built during WWII and the rigid 1950s that came after. Straight lines paying no heed to streambed, forest, or hill.

But not Spenard.

I

n Spenard we live on a crooked road, where the desire to be good smacks up against the habit of being bad. Being bad came first. Our founding father was Joe Spenard: Homesteader, taxi driver, dance hall owner, bootlegger. With cows.

Joe’s cows broke trail on Spenard Road. He took them to the lake for water. They would meander though black spruce forest and boggy streambeds for three miles. Some improvements turned the cow trail into a logging road. At the end of it Joe built his dancehall.

Then, as now, the big money in Spenard was in alcohol sales. Shipping just kills you up here. Joe wisely made his own brew. The dance hall burned to the ground one night.

That was it for Joe. One road bled off another. Dead-ending against the railroad tracks, looping around the edge of Fish Creek.

The old homesteads becoming small lots with small houses that were easier to heat in the winter, located in small bits of forest that you could hide in between. A scruffy little town, with lots of bars. That’s one of the ways you know you live in Spenard. Then as now, you didn’t have to cross a stoplight to buy a drink. Joe’s dance hall was gone.

But the disreputable behavior stayed.

People mirror the land they live on. In Spenard, behavior is twisted somehow. People acting like the land. The ground beneath us heaving with the winter freezing of peat bog. Collapsing in on itself every spring. It’s like living on shelled Jell-O. Nothing is straight.

F i reg u ys Anchorage firemen love Station 1. Sweet Home Spenard. Yeah, they get their share of “man down” calls.

“Man face down on the pavement” is more accurate. But a lot of the calls have that unique Spenard flavor.

Not too long ago. One night, one man. He only told 911 that he was bleeding. They found him in his kitchen.

Pantsless, sobbing, on his knees, hands over his crotch, in a growing puddle of blood. “We can’t help you if you don’t show us what is wrong.” He’d tired to pierce his own penis. He wanted it to be good, a surprise for his girlfriend.

But it went bad.

G o Boom Another night, I watched as they dealt with the meth lab that blew up across the street. The explosion took out all the windows in the apartment building and shook my house like an earthquake. The EMTs took care of the cook. Burned on most of his torso — but his face and lungs were okay because he wore a safety mask. He was lifeflighted to Harborview Medical in Seattle for treatment. Word in the neighborhood was the State of Alaska did not arrest him because they did not want to pay his hospital bills. When the docs moved him out of the burn unit, he got up, checked his ass out of there and walked away. Very Spenard.

Black Flags Over Spenard 24

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Affordable Housing

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take care of each other. If your house caves, someone will let you put a tent up in their backyard. Another can wire up your storage shed if you have to live in it for a while.�

“ L ong -term Spenar d i e s

I like to think that in Spenard homeless people get treated just a tiny bit better than they do in other parts of Anchorage. Where they would be put out of a business immediately downtown, Spenard will let them stay, so long as they pay for their coffee.

I’m in K-Bros, getting my own morning fix of caffeine and people. It’s cold out, single digits. In line I watch as one of two homeless guys starts to pull Rx bottles out of the many pockets of his many layers of coats and jackets. He has five bottles. He starts to stack them one on top of the other. He slaps the last one down like a domino player. They don’t fall over. Gathering them up he stands. He can barely walk. Staggering from chair to counter to water jug. His buddy goes face down on the table. It’s cold out, and you always get sleepy when you warm up.

transportation they have. A bud of mine made the classic mistake of leaving his bike unlocked because he could see it though a window. Bad idea, the bike was there and then gone with a teenage boy riding.

We trolled the neighborhood hard for three days.

The bike is a fixed gear painted a very unique lime green. Finally he got the call that the bike was in the hands of a 50-plus-year-old street drunk outside In and Out Liquor at 36th and Arctic. But my friend is only 5’4 and 120 lbs, and there were four dudes with the bike.

Another friend who is built like a barrel made of muscle raced over on his own bike. It was shock and awe time.

“That’s Not Your Bike!”

“Ahh, yes it is.”

“No It’s Not! Give It!” And the bike was back. Never to be left unlocked again.

A De s i re to b e G oo d

A H a b i t of Be i ng Ba d

The DIY Alaskan ethos is strong in Spenard. I have a roommate, a born and raised Spenarden, who drives a beater car year-round. No block heater, it won’t start below a certain temperature. What that temp is, depends on what time she wakes up.

She solves this problem by rewiring her electric space heater to a 25-foot, 220-volt extension cord. Runs that out to her car and slides it underneath. Tilting it up as far as it can go. Then comes back inside to finish her coffee and put her face on.

She wants to be good, getting to work on time.

Is it the rewire, or the unattended heat source under gas and oil that makes me more nervous? Wouldn’t be the first time something blew up in the ‘hood. Honestly, I’d rather it be the car than the house.

But if my house blew up I’d be okay. Long-term Spenardies take care of each other. If your house caves, someone will let you put a tent up in their backyard.

Another can do miracles with a hammer, nails and a handsaw. Another can wire up your storage shed if you have to live in it for a while.

B i ke ‘ H oo d

Liquor stores, strip joints and massage parlors. Multiple motels close to the airport. A 24-7 porno shop. A head shop that is closed on Saturdays because the owners are Seventh Day Adventists. That crooked road with dark patches of nothing much.

During the oil boom years a “Spenard Divorce” was a joke of the blackest kind. Being that it meant a breakup via 12-gauge shotgun. The gender of who was holding the shotgun did not matter. Their aim, and how fast their spouse could run certainly did.

These days it seems the common phrase is, “Alcohol was involved.” Of course it was “involved.” It is always involved. When you watch television news you can predict when the reporter will say it and sing along.

M orn i ng F i x

Theft of property can be solved without the cops in Spenard because of your friends. Spenard is so compact. Everything you could want within a mile.

You don’t need a car and for many a bike is the only

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F ear N ot We Spenardies are generally a friendly lot. We look you in the eye when we say, “How’s it going?” We’ll swing our arm back so the door to the store does not smack you in the face. Politely quiet in the coffee shop during the early, early a.m. Knowing that hangovers are widespread any day of the week. We won’t give you the stink eye if you wear fur or chuckle if you say you don’t eat meat. We are unafraid. How can you be afraid when you are surrounded by friends, some of whom are well-armed, whether you know their names or not?

I’ll never leave this twisted land. I love Spenard. ■

Sleeper

Big Pork

Freelance writer and visual artist Angela Ramirez has lived in Spenard since 1989. More of her writings and illustrations are available on her popular blog Life in Spenard: lifeinspenard.wordpress.com.

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On Neighbors

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On Neighbors

By Gary Holthaus

hen we are in the wilderness, we can feel the brunt of the indifference of Nature, and we may feel small, diminished.

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hen I was 50 I set out on a solo backpacking trip; a couple of hundred miles of high plains sagebrush desert, from south central Montana down to central Wyoming, along the edge of the Beartooth Mountains, Heart Mountain near Cody, through the Wind River Canyon, the steep rock faces there revealing thousands of years of geologic time in their strata.

The streams along the way bore names like Poison Creek, Dry Creek, Sulphur Creek, Skull Creek. Most of the tiny blue lines representing water on my USGS map were bone dry. The maps were printed in 1954, just as the Bureau of Reclamation became active in the area and by the ‘80s when I came along, their irrigation projects had dropped the water table by several yards. Digging a hole two feet deep in a dry streambed and waiting for it to fill with muddy water was fruitless.

Out there alone five or ten miles from the nearest road, surrounded by sagebrush and a vista that reveals nothing human, anxious for water and not knowing any nearby sources, the indifference of this desert land is not only apparent, but palpable. It is clear that nothing out there in that high plains sagebrush desert cares whether you live or die.

For some that experience sends a chill through the spirit. Rainer Maria Rilke, the German poet, was once taken, at his own request, out into the Swiss countryside for the day. Before noon he was frantic to get back to civilization. He could not tolerate the abyss of indifference he felt at the heart of Nature.

The chill he felt came from the fear that it is not just this landscape that is indifferent, but that the universe, all the universes, are also indifferent, that as far as we can extend our minds or souls, there is Nature, and it is thick, perhaps even dark with indifference.

Whatever we have felt of community, the pleasure and safety of neighbors we know will come to our aid if necessary, disappears.

Where are our neighbors? Who are our neighbors out here?

When we are at war, the enemy is clearly not a neighbor we can trust. And the enemy, knowing our murderous intent, cannot trust us. There is little room for us to become neighbors.

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Where are

our neighbors? Who are our neighbors out here?

o here is an ancient story that raises a question we all ought to ask of ourselves, and says some powerful things about neighbors.

A man came up to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to have eternal life. Jesus said, “You’re an attorney, what does the law require?” The man replied, “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”

Jesus said, “Do that and you will live.”

The man said, “But who is my neighbor?”

For answer, Jesus told this story: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves who stripped him and wounded him, and left him half dead. By chance a priest came that way and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, a guardian of the Temple’s working, when he was at the place, came and looked at him, and passed by on the other side.

But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him and went to him and bound his wounds, pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Next day when he departed, he took out funds and gave them to their host and said, “Take care of him, and whatever more it costs, when I come next time I’ll repay you.”

The story ends, and Jesus asks his inquisitor, “Who do you think was neighbor to the man who had fallen among thieves?”

Imagine the courage of the man who became a neighbor. The Jews and Samaritans were enemies. It was not just the thieves who might still be lurking along the roadside that the Samaritan had to fear. One of his greatest fears must have been about his Samaritan family and friends who would have asked, “What on earth are doing? You are aiding and abetting the enemy. You are a traitor to your people.”

In our country, in our day, the Samaritan could be arrested, perhaps put on the president’s kill list. At the least, his government’s officials would hound him.

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For Jesus to use a hated enemy as the hero of his story was audacious too.

Roman Catholic priest and scholar Ivan Illich says it is too easy an assumption to say that the story is about how one ought to act toward one’s neighbor, that it was an example of our ethical duty, as the story is generally interpreted. He insists that was just the opposite of what Jesus meant to point out.

Illich says, “He had not been asked, how should one behave towards one’s neighbor, but rather, Who is my neighbor?” And what Illich understood Jesus’ to say, was, “My neighbor is who I choose, not who I have to choose. There is no way of categorizing who my neighbor ought to be… the relationship Jesus came to announce as most completely human is not one that is expected, required, or owed. It can only be a free creation between two people, and one which cannot happen unless something comes to me through the other, by the other, in his bodily presence.”

It is not a relationship that exists because we are citizens of the same country, or the same religion, or the same race or the same gender, but because we have decided a relationship between us should exist, and we will create it so it comes to life. Illich says, “That is what Jesus calls behaving as a neighbor.”

In this view we grow into our best selves by establishing a relationship, one as Illich says, “I do as a response to a call and not a category; in this case the call of a beaten up Jew in a ditch.” Illich goes on, “This cannot be reduced to a norm. It has a telos, a purpose, an end in mind; it is aimed at somebody. Some body…” It is hard, he points out, “almost impossible for people who today deal with ethics or morality to think in terms of relationship instead of rules.” We live in a culture that wants everything codified and quantified and specified and systemized. We want to know the norms so we know how to apply them – to others. But I agree with Illich and the story. Go with the relationships, not the rules. Resist the system in favor of the person at every point.

I think Illich the priest, and Martin Buber, the rabbi, would have had a great time talking together about this, for Illich’s view is another way of getting at Buber’s concept of the I-Thou relationship, where we do not think of the other as an it – a category, an ethical demand – not an it but an I, a person present to us. Jesus would have been happy to join in that conversation.

I

Go with the

relationships, not the rules. Resist the system in favor of the person at every point.

suspect that compassion, for me, as it may be for you also, is most often instigated by direct contact with someone in difficult circumstances rather than by an abstract concept of social justice. That’s just a label without life, unless something, as Illich says, speaks through another or others that opens us and permits us to choose to create a relationship that is authentic to both, or all, of us. When that happens, not as an obligation, but as a free choice, we all grow closer to that best self we aspire to become.

We have learned some things since the First Century of Jesus’ day: that we also have to create relationships with other species, other creatures, other ecosystems than our human ones. We may come to know them as Buber says in I and Thou, “I encounter a tree, and the tree addresses me. By giving it my full attention I address the tree.” The tree then becomes not just tree, an “it,” but oak, red oak, yes – a red oak that was once struck by lightning and was made home to a woodpecker. To come full circle here, we have to open ourselves to hear what Nature – the tree, the hawk, the rock, the sky have to say. Then there is the possibility of becoming a neighbor.

So, come back to that ridge I was standing on in that high plains desert, and the indifference of Nature, the earth, the universe and the cosmos that contains it all. What I felt out there was far beyond desert, beyond earth or atmosphere. It came from that larger Nature that encompasses Earth’s natural systems, from behind that great façade of indifference. Rilke did not look hard enough. Within that indifference, beyond the landscape, beyond the stars and within them all too, there is also a kind of acceptance.

Great Nature exerts no pressure on us to conform to the expectations of others. There is nothing out there that wishes you were anything other than what you are. At the pulsing heart of the heart of the cosmos beats an acceptance of one’s whole nature, both the wolf and the dove inside one’s soul. Though Nature seems to exhibit no feeling toward us at all, it finally offers us the freedom to be whatever we are without excuse or cover, one of the deepest names we have for love. How can we respond except to take on the world, the whole of its conditions, in a freely created relationship. The universe accepts us; we accept the universe. In that acceptance we become neighbor to the cos-

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mos. Then we have to ask ourselves a second question, “What kind of neighbor are we to Nature, to the universe?”

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ere is a closing story about neighbors, another perspective on what it might mean to become a neighbor, and what it might take to become a neighbor; and a reason to think that establishing a relationship of neighbor to neighbor might be more important than it may seem at the moment.

In his book The Great Hunger (1916), Johann Boyer, the Norwegian novelist of the early twentieth century, tells the story of Per Troen.

Per rises to the heights of fame as an engineer.

He was invited to the palaces of kings and sought for all over the world as a great builder in steel and concrete. But at the height of his career, things began to go wrong: a mistake in calculations, workmen killed, the career began to decline, health began to fade, life fell apart.

Per Troen was forced to go back to his Norwegian homeland and settle in a tiny peasant village where he was surrounded by the uneducated and the illiterate and the poor. His next door neighbor was a suspicious man who hated everything he could not understand, and one of the things he could not understand was Per. The bitterness between the two men was climaxed when the neighbor’s dog attacked and killed Per’s little daughter.

One night after that tragedy Per sat looking out the window and he began a letter to a friend. He had come to realize, he wrote, “that great sorrow leads us farther and farther out on the promontory of existence.” He had come to the outermost point now – there was no more.

He wrote to his friend, I sat alone on the promontory of existence, with the sun and the stars gone out, ice-cold emptiness above me, about me, and in me, on every side. But then, my friend, by degrees it dawned upon me that there was still something left. There was one little indomitable spark in me, that began to glow all by itself – it was as if I were lifted back to the first day of existence, and an eternal will rose up in me and said, “Let there be light!” I began to feel an unspeakable compassion for all men upon earth, and yet in the last resort I was proud that I was one of them…

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There is nothing

out there in Great Nature that wishes you were anything other than what you are.

There was a drought then. When people finally dared to plant their grain, the frost came hard and late and the seed froze in the earth.

The neighbor had his patch sown with barley – but now it was gone and he had no more seed. Indeed there was no more seed to be had.

He went from farm to farm begging for some, but people hated the sight of him and his great dog; no one would lend him any, and the boys hooted after him on the road.

One night, as Per lay sleepless, he got up when the clock struck two. His wife rolled over and asked him where he was going. “I want to see if we haven’t a half-bushel of barley left,” Per said.

“Why? In the middle of the night?” his wife asked.

“I want to sow my neighbor’s plot with it,” Per replied, “and it is best to do it now so that no one will know it was me.” He went out into the soft night air. The farms were still asleep.

He took the grain in a basket, climbed over the fence between him and his neighbor, and began to sow. From the heart of sorrow, in that letter he wrote to his friend, Per had said, Mankind must take heed that the godlike does not die. The spark of eternity was once more aglow within me and said, “Let there be light!” Therefore I went out and sowed my grain in my enemy’s field that god might exist. And when the grain was sown and I went back, the sun was glancing over the shoulder of the hill.

There by the fence stood my wife, looking at me.

She had drawn a kerchief over her head in the fashion of the peasant women, so that her face was in shadow; but she smiled at me.

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e are grateful for one another and for every possible companion, neighbor, friend this world offers.

Gary Holthaus is a nationally recognized poet, essayist, and scholar. From 1972 to 2000 he was director of the Alaska Humanities Forum. He is also the former director of the Center for the American West in Colorado among other major humanities organizations. An ordained minister in the Methodist Church, Holthaus returned to Alaska earlier this year to become minister of the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

We take it all, everyone and everything, into our hearts and minds and commit ourselves to the renewal and regeneration of the lives of all about us, near and far, animate and inanimate.

So be it. Amen. ■

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Robert Service

A Lesser Poet

By Jonathon Lack

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hen he died in 1958, Robert Service’s obituary in the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph read, “A great poet died last week in Lancieux, France, at the age of 84. He was not a poet’s poet. Fancy-Dan dilettantes will dispute the description ‘great.’ He was a people’s poet. To the people he was great. They understood him, and knew that any verse carrying the by-line of Robert W. Service would be a lilting thing, clear, clean and power-packed, beating out a story with a dramatic intensity that made nerves tingle.”

I think Service would have been happy with this characterization of his work, though he never considered himself a poet. His autobiography, Ploughman of the Moon, is rife with references to his inadequacy not only as a writer, but frankly, in everything he endeavored to try. Instead of a poet, he preferred to be called a writer of verse. To Service, poets were a loftier lot, and this artificial distinction allowed him his own place in the literary world: Poets, I complained, cared more for the way of saying things than for the thing said. I was tired of ideals and abstractions. Flowery language, words musically arranged and coloured like a garden – no, I did not react to that any more. Poetry farewell! But I stuck to verse.

Though I turned from nectar I still liked beer. I could rhyme with the best and make verse with facility. But I practiced it less and less, and the time came when I confined my efforts to limericks, of which the least said the better.

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I share similar doubts about my own writing. Last June, I had the opportunity to attend the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference in Homer. The Alaska Humanities Forum has long been a contributing sponsor of the event, and the organizers asked if a board member would provide some short welcoming remarks.

As the incoming board chairman, the task fell on me.

It was a daunting one considering I would be seated between Alaska’s Poet Laureate, Peggy Shumaker, and Barry Lopez, a National Book Award winner for his book, Arctic Dreams.

Like many in the audience, I am an aspiring poet.

Writing little ditties about my day, short stories about something curious that happened at work, or sonnets about yet another of love’s labor’s lost. I have rarely had the opportunity, or self-confidence, to share these scribblings with family or friends. Similar to Service, I am filled with self doubt. What possibly could I share with the best and brightest of Alaskan writers?

My appreciation for poetry grew out of my father reciting, from memory, the words of Robert Service around the campfire on clear Alaska summer nights after a long day of fishing. As a preschooler, the words meant little to me. It was the rhythm and rhyme and the vigor with which my father would belt out the words to “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” that caught my attention.

It was the theater and the melody of the poetry, not the words that engrossed me. As I have grown older, I have come to realize that many of my Alaskan peers experienced a similar introduction to Service.

It’s the great, big broad land ’way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

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ervice actually spent very little time in Alaska.

He passed through Skagway a few times on the way to and from the Yukon and took one labored trip up the Yukon River to Dawson. Yet to many Alaskans his stories are even more familiar than those of Frost or Whitman. A Scotsman who wrote about Canada and the Yukon, he captured that sense of how and what we think of ourselves as Alaskans. Last summer I met a law student from Oregon interning in Anchorage for the summer. He joined a Meetup group for camping and hiking. He seemed confused as to why the Alaskans on these outings would recite Service poetry around the campfire. I assured him that when he figures it out, he will have become a true Alaskan.

It wasn’t until later in life, during college, that I came to appreciate the words of Service in a much different manner. As an Alaskan on the East Coast, I often turned to Service’s bawdy tales of the Yukon to let my friends know that those of us born and raised in the North are a special breed, just a bit hardier than those from the Lower 48. The mother of a law school classmate from Virginia was in a book club.

One month their selection was The End of the Road,

by Alaskan author Tom Bodett. She asked if I would

be willing to join the ladies of the Fredericksburg, Virginia Ladies Book Club for their monthly meeting and talk about Alaska.

A modern take on life in Alaska, the ladies found Bodett’s tales entertaining. Many thought a cruise to Alaska would be wonderful. Surely this would be a perfect group with which to share a Service poem or two. They rolled with laughter as I read the words of their fellow Southerner, Sam McGee. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said; “Please close that door.

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm – Since I left Plumbtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.

Then in 1994, almost a century removed from Service’s own experiences in the Klondike gold fields, I was sitting along the Yukon River, just outside of Eagle, watching the muddy water flow by. I opened my father’s well-worn copy of the Collected Poems of Rob-

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Library and Archives Canada / PA-110158

ert Service, skipped over the poems that he had recited weekend after weekend, and delved into another side of Service’s poetry.

It’s the great, big broad land ’way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

It was then I realized I was staring out across the inspiration for Service’s poetry, and I understood. His simple, accessible and lilting words described how I felt. After living for six years in Washington, DC, there I was dangling my legs over a cliff, high above the Yukon River, a small village of log cabins in the distance, mountains on the horizon, the midnight sun warming my face. I was home.

Like many writers, Service had substantial doubt about the quality of his work. While employed as a bank clerk in Glasgow, Service would regularly submit short poems for publication in the local newspapers.

His poems tended to reflect themes from the seedier side of life. His humorous submissions regularly made the front page. When he turned to a deeper more traditional form of prose, it was published, but on the last page and for the first time, he received no compensation. Service writes in Ploughman of the Moon, of the lesson of this event. “So I learned early in the game that verse may pay, but poetry is its own reward.”

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n his 14 books of poetry, six novels, two autobiographies, and a book on fitness, Service found great popular and financial success. He is attributed as a writer, or cowriter of 18 movies. The J.K. Rowling of his time, Service was the most commercially successful poet of the 20th century. Early readers of Service’s poems were drawn to the Yukon like 21st century pre-teens to the Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios,

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I have no doubt at all the Devil grins As seas of ink I spatter Ye gods, forgive my “literary” sins The other kind don’t matter These words first graced the inside jacket of Rhymes of a Rolling Stone in 1912, but have often been similarly included in his Collected Poems and other later published anthologies. In Bar-Room Ballads, Service pens a similar irreverent warning to the potential reader.

I’d rather be the Jester than the Minstrel of the King I’d rather jangle cap and bells than twang the stately harp; I’d rather make His royal ribs with bellylaughter ring; Than see him sitting in the suds and sulky as a carp.

I’d rather be the Court buffoon than its most hi-browed sage; So you who read, take heed, take heed,- Ere yet you turn my page.

Alaska State Library, P240-606

Robert Service, cicra 1905.

Orlando. Even with this immense success, Service was riddled with self-doubt. The literary world was not complementary of his rhyming, highly stanzaed writing style. Service was very aware of this, and in Ploughman of the Moon, he writes, “Rhyming has been my ruin. With less deftness I might have produced real poetry.”

Despite his insecurity about the quality of his work, he appeared satisfied with the results. “The happy man is he who knows his limitations, yet bows to no false gods. . . I am happy. My talent is proportioned to my ambition. The things I like to write are the things I like to read. I prefer the lesser poets to the greater, the cackle of the barnyard fowl to the scream of the eagle.

I lack the divinity of discontent.” In those words, I find solace for my own writing, and I think other amateur writers should as well. We should write because we enjoy the effort.

Service’s first book was a self-published collection of poems initially written on strips of wallpaper in a cold, candlelit log cabin after a long day of work at a bank.

Certainly, I thought, Service’s poetry would resonate with the aspiring writers attending the conference.

In almost all of his publications, Service offers up a short poem on the inside cover to essentially apologize or even maybe defend his style of writing.

And at night they gather round me, and I tell them of my roaming In the Country of the Crepuscule beside the Frozen Sea

George Parks, later territorial governor of Alaska,

came north in 1907, three years after Robert Service, to work as a mineral examiner for the U.S. Land Office. Parks returned to the Lower 48 for military service during World War I. This sketch of

Parks, drawn at Camp Lee in Virginia in 1918, is inscribed by the artist with lines from Service’s “The Man From Athabaska.” They evoke the exotic fascination of the north, and of those, like Parks and Service, conversant with it.

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arnings and doubts aside, Service had no need to apologize for his work. Service’s life proves that poetry and literature can and should be accessible. My message to the writers in Homer would be clear. Writing is its own reward.

Whether one writes a best-selling novel, or is content to write for one’s own pleasure, occasionally sharing a poem or short story with friends and family, literary

Inspired by his narrative poetry, I have often emulated Service in my own writing. I wrote “Manmade Monuments to God” after visiting Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in the summer of 2012. “The Ballad of the Barstool Boy” was penned while eating lunch at F Street Station, where as I child I played cribbage and drank Cherry Cokes with the bartender when dad was unable to find a sitter. ­— Jonathon Lack

success is in the effort. We all have the potential to be lesser poets, and that is a title that even Service would have been proud to wear, for the only failed writer is the one who never puts pen to paper. ■ Jonathon Lack is the chairman of the Alaska Humanities Forum board of directors.

The Ballad of the Barstool Boy “Ruthie’s 49er” was no place for a minor Not even a precocious boy age five It wasn’t a place for a kid, it was where husbands hid even the regulars considered it a dive My father would leave me there, and the patrons would stare and ask Ruthie about the boy at the end of the bar She would often say, she would end my stay if my father’s tab hadn’t gotten so far

Manmade Monuments to God

Ruthie taught me the cards, like they played in Spenard Cribbage was the game of the day Fifteen two, fifteen four, I would earn points galore and the unsuspecting patron was my prey

My faith was discovered, in the mountains snow covered The valleys and rivers below The burden I bear, is the cross I wear An undiscovered country is where my faith will grow

My little hands shuffled the deck, as Ruthie gave me a peck on the cheek for extra good luck I would state the rules, to the unsuspecting fools “If I skunk you it’s an extra buck”

My faith explored, all divinity ignored As I wandered through the trees The challenges of nature, caused my faith to mature It was God’s beauty that brought me to my knees

Though he died in ’86, Ruthie insisted his tab I would fix So each night after school, I would sit and act cool My winnings were tallied, as each night I rallied the challengers to join me at the empty stool

I have seen the manmade monuments to God Prayed at St. Peter and St. Paul Yet it is in the wilderness where I have trod St. Elias and St. Augustine are my great hall

A poet once said that “a promise made is a debt unpaid” and I promised Ruthie my winnings would cover Dad’s tab So for 10 years, I played to the cheers of locals supporting their precocious young lad

­— J. L.

Eventually the obligation was cured, and Ruthie demurred She handed me his tab down off the wall After all those years I still had, a connection with my Dad I guess my father left me with something after all

­— J. L.

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GRANT REPORT

Kenny Lake School Documentary Program R

ay Voley’s high-school students at Kenny Lake School near Copper Center have their own way of learning history. Rather than sitting at desks, faces buried in books, they’ve been living it.

Voley, Alaska’s 2008 Teacher of the Year, and a procession of students through the years, have produced a trilogy of 90-minute, award-winning documentary films that tell the stories of three major events that shaped the history and culture of the Copper Basin.

The first documentary, Bonanza! The Story of Kennecott, was released in 2007. The second, Stampede! The Story of the 1898 Valdez Gold Rush, came two years later. The third, Iron Rails: The Story of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, premiered last May and won the 2012 Alaska Society for Technology in Education documentary competition.

The Alaska Humanities Forum has supported these Kenny Lake film projects from the beginning, the first two with $4,000 grants, and the third with a $6,000 grant.

The idea for the filmmaking program hatched when Voley was showing the Ken Burns Civil War documentary series in class. Captivated by its storytelling, he thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do something like that with my students?” Such a project would motivate kids to learn history, while tying in technology, filmmaking, drama, and other disciplines and talents.

“I really like getting kids to work together, and this is a great way of doing it,” Voley told Forum. “It takes a lot of collaboration.”

He and his students got started in 2004 with “an old camcorder and a slightly dysfunctional video editing program.

“For a couple of years we fumbled

along, and then decided to take it to a new level with the Kennecott project.

Luckily I had some amazing, gifted, and dedicated students.”

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he final film of the trilogy, Iron Rails, tells the story of how between human ingenuity and bone-crunching labor, 196 miles of train tracks were built between 1907-1911 to carry copper ore from Kennecott to the ice-free port of Cordova. In addition to filming and editing, the students researched the story, interviewed locals and historians, collected historical photographs, wrote the script, acted as narrators, put costumes together, performed as key characters, created the soundtrack, and used animation to explain how, for example, the Million Dollar Bridge was built. In the case of the bridge, it had to withstand the Miles Glacier spitting out icebergs, some nearly two-stories high, and sending them its way in a sevenmile-per-hour current.

The project included a six-day, 80mile raft trip down the Copper River with Voley, 11 students, and rangers from Wrangell-St Elias National Park and the Bureau of Land Management.

Students filmed along the way and saw firsthand some of the country the engineers and work force of 6,000 were up against, country that threw everything it had at them — mudflats, gorges, cliffs, landslides, floods, avalanches, and restless glaciers.

Some 250 people from Glennallen to Valdez showed up for the Iron Rails premier in May. “It started out as a student project and turned into a community project,” Voley said. “A lot of people got involved.”

For DVD copies of the documentaries, go to www.Hawknews.org, and click on “store.” Or contact Voley at rvoley@crsd.us. ■

The project motivate d kids

to learn history, while tying in technology, filmmaking, drama, and other disciplines and talents.

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DONOR PROFILE

WHY I GIVE

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the Alaska Humanities Forum because of the important community building they are engaged in. support

Their leadership was the impetus in Alaska for valuable education programs like Best Beginnings, the early learning initiative (Ready to Read, Ready to Learn), and the Alaska History requirement for Alaska’s students. Additionally, the Alaska Humanities Forum is a convener for difficult and challenging dialogue opportunities so necessary in our very polarized society. They deserve our support to continue this important work.

— Carol Comeau

Carol Comeau AKHF donor since 1996

C

arol Comeau is best known throughout Alaska for her 38 years as a groundbreaking public educator with the Anchorage School District, including 12 years as district superintendent. She also served on the Alaska Humanities Forum board of directors from 1996 to 2005. Shortly after she retired from the ASD in June 2012, Carol sat for the following interview with Richard Goldstein, who taught at West High School in Anchorage for 11 years. Goldstein created the school’s International Baccalaureate pre-college program, which encourages creative inquiry and critical thinking.

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Richard Goldstein: Looking back on your time as superintendent of the Anchorage School District, what do you see as your best accomplishments?

C

arol Comeau: First of all, I’m really proud that we incrementally increased the graduation rate, kids getting high school diplomas. We have a very long way to go but I see the progress we made and I feel really good about that. [Ed. Note: Carol is a vocal proponent of the 90 percent by 2020 movement, which seeks to achieve a 90 percent high school

graduation rate in Anchorage by 2020; under Carol’s leadership, the ASD boosted graduation rates to 72 percent in 2011, up from 62 percent five years before.]

I’m also proud of helping to institute the Alaska Studies Program. I had been advocating for that since 1979. I never could understand why students in Alaska didn’t understand their history and what an incredible role Alaska Native history plays in the state. No matter where people live, they really need to understand the conflict between the owner state, if you will, and resource development. Alaska Studies passed in 2001, and it was very controversial. Our social studies teachers, for the most part, didn’t want it because it would encroach on other social studies classes. But we had a strong community group in support. It started with Governor Hickel, Katie Hurley [chief clerk to the Alaska Constitutional Convention], Arliss Sturgulewski, and Jay Hammond.

They all came to us from the community in support of Alaska Studies. Ira Perman was the director of the Humanities Forum at the time, and he brought this diverse group of people to come forward to the [Anchorage School] Board and make it [the AK Studies program] happen.

A

lso in 2001 and 2002, we heard from gay and lesbian students, who brought forth issues of student safety, the bullying. The Gay Straight Alliance requested that we add special language into our discrimination policy. We had a school board at the time that embraced that discussion and they approved it unanimously. I’m proud to have been a part of that.

The Jewish community came forward a couple years later. Some student athletes were tired of not being able to participate in the regions [region-wide competitions] for cross country running because they conflicted with Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, depending on the calendar. Well, I said, “We don’t make our Christian athletes choose between Christmas or Easter on athletic events. Why are we doing this to the Jewish kids?” The Interfaith Council worked with us and identified about 10 high holy days in the Christian religion, the Jewish religion and in the Islamic religion. It was very controversial. Many coaches were angry that I would dare to change the schedule so that kids couldn’t have regions on Saturdays. So I said, “OK, we’re going to

The discrepancy of kids coming in the door in kindergarten is huge. So many little kids never catch up.

have them on Friday. We are not going to exclude a Jewish athlete.” The first year, it was unbelievable, everybody screaming, “We won’t have volunteers to set up on Friday. People will have to miss work.”

I said, “If that’s the only way we’re going to accommodate these athletes, then that’s what we’re going to do.” There are still people who grumble, but I go back to what I said before. We are so diverse that we have to recognize that these (holidays) are important to other faiths and that all our children are part of the district. I feel really good about this.

On the flip side, what did you leave unfinished that you’re most unhappy about?

T

he biggest regret, I feel, is more of a statewide issue. We worked really hard over the last 12 years to get legislators and governors to understand how important preschool is, especially for kids who are in Title I schools. Families who are struggling just don’t have the money to send their kids to an excellent preschool. They don’t have a lot of books in their homes. So we have a large number of our kids who come to us very far behind in kindergarten compared to kids who come from, what I call, “enriched backgrounds.” The discrepancy of kids coming in the door in kindergarten is huge. So many little kids never catch up. So I was very sad when a number of preschool funding appropriations that were in the budget were vetoed. We have such a high poverty rate in Alaska and such a high mobility rate.

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Teachers must change. They need to see themselves as facilitators of learning rather than standing up front, pouring knowledge in and kids regurgitating it back.

So many of our families are impacted by substance abuse, domestic violence. I totally support the Governor’s Choose Respect [anti-domestic violence, sexual assault and child sex abuse] initiative, but when kids aren’t getting the nurturing and support they need, I do think that preschool education is part of the answer. That’s an area I will continue to be passionate about in my retirement just because I think it’s the right thing to do.

What advice do you have for your successor,

Dr. Jim Browder?

O

ne of the things I’m proudest of is I really worked hard in the last 12 years to bridge the urban–rural divide, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job at sending a message that Anchorage cares about the whole state. Every student in Alaska deserves a quality education. That’s one of the things I told Dr. Browder that is so important to remember: you are advocating for the whole state of Alaska in education. The Alaska Native Heritage Center put

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on an event thanking me and welcoming him. It was really a very meaningful evening, and I think it reinforced to him how important that piece is.

So that’s my advice to Jim Browder, coming in. It’s a lot more than focusing on test scores and academics. That’s important. I don’t want to diminish that.

But it really is about how do we surround our kids and families with support, so they can focus on learning and kids won’t get mired down in some of the social issues that are really troubling them.

I saw a lot of this play out first hand in 2008 when the high energy costs really escalated in the villages and hundreds of kids came to us [in Anchorage].

Some of them would go back for a while and then they’d come back in. I had to ask: “What can we do together to support these kids and families coming in from rural Alaska and going into these huge schools? Even our elementary schools are bigger than many of the villages. So how do we help and support them?” We’ve developed a number of programs, but we’ve got a long way to go. One of our biggest difficulties is trying to help our Alaska Native kids and families understand how important it is to come to school, on time, regularly, and focus on learning.

And yes, we’ve got to adapt some of our instruction, but at the same time they’ve got to learn to walk in both worlds, if you will. The most successful Alaska Native leaders have done that and they’re really helping reinforce that.

Are the classes we are now teaching relevant to our kids’ future?

O

ur college prep kids are well motivated.

Most of them are on a very successful track.

However, we have a huge number of kids that we’re not making education as rigorous for them as it could be. And that needs to change. Teachers must change. They need to see themselves as facilitators of learning rather than standing up front, pouring knowledge in and kids regurgitating it back. When I went to school, that model worked in the ‘50s, and that’s how it was in college, too. That doesn’t work anymore. I look at my grandkids. They are so much smarter than I ever was at that age. They are real problem solvers and they’re asking lots of good ques-

We just keep adding,

tions, and they need good teachers who are willing to probe and explore. We can’t continue to educate similarly to when I went to school. Kids are different now. Their brains are wired differently, technology has to be understood and incorporated. But we can’t lose the arts. We can’t lose the music. We can’t lose the humanities to build the whole child.

and adding, and adding more to the school day, without

Are we paying teachers enough?

expecting teachers to

N

o. And I guess this is heresy, but we cannot continue to pay teachers just based on experience or extra degrees. We have to figure out a way, beyond test scores, to find the most effective teachers, pay them well, and use them as role models. It’s not that I’m anti-union. I am not, but I know we cannot continue the stair step (pay scale) compensation method. And that’s totally contrary to what the unions believe. There has to be a way to really find the most successful teachers and honor them and pay them well, as they do in Finland. Every teacher in Finland has to have a master’s degree. Educators are revered there. They’re treated with respect, just like lawyers and doctors in this country, and they don’t teach all day, every day. They value time to collaborate, to plan, to be true professionals. We don’t do that here. We just keep adding, and adding, and adding more to the school day, without expecting people to have time to plan or think like you do in every other profession.

Under what circumstances should a stu-

dent be held back a grade?

T

hat’s a really difficult one for me, because as a teacher I held two students back — two sixth grade boys — with full parental support. I am probably more open to retaining students if things are done completely differently with their instruction. You don’t just repeat the same assignments, the same approach. I do worry, though, about the social ramifications of retention. And I saw it in my sixth graders, particularly the boys. You ask them about their schooling and the first thing they tell me is they flunked kindergarten. They saw it as a failure at age five and six. That is the piece that has to get turned around. If students need more time and they

have time to plan or think like you do in every other profession.

are not proficient, then we as educators need to work very closely with the students so they see it’s not punitive, but something that will help them at the end of the day. If kids are really floundering in the first four grades, kindergarten through three, I think we do a great disservice to the students to push them on. They have to get those basic skills under their belts.

How are disciplinary problems different

now than when you began teaching?

M

y first year of teaching I was right out of college at age 21. I had 38 to 40 third graders and it’s now what you’d call a Title I school. They didn’t have Title I then, before the War on Poverty.

I had kids whose parents were in jail, they were on welfare. But in every single case the kids respected the authority of the teacher and the principal. Even the poorest kids and even the ones who had very difficult home lives wanted to be in school. Their parents expected their children to behave. That was in 1963.

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The endless criticism of public education is hard to take. So, you’ve got to firmly believe in what you’re doing and you’ve got to enjoy it.

What’s your take on No Child Left Behind?

I

t has to be completely revised. The intent, I absolutely applauded. I have said that since the first day. Every child in America should be successful and proficient. However, it (NCLB) is a totally punitive piece of legislation that penalizes a whole school for three days of test scores. That is ridiculous! Anybody who knows about student achievement knows they can’t predict how well a kid will do on a standardized test. That should never be the only measure. There’s no growth built into the process. Measure growth, measure progress in growth. That’s what we’ve always supported. If schools are making progress, if kids are making progress, they’re successful. In NCLB, there are 31 ways to fail. You miss one category, even if you have the other 30, your whole school is deemed not to be making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). If you are a Title I school, there are huge sanctions that come along with that. Very punitive. Very accusatory.

Not at all realistic. AYP only measures proficiency. I would prefer to have everybody measured by NAEP, the National Assessment of Education Progress. It’s a national measure. I would like to know how Anchorage kids do as opposed to New York or Boston.

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I think it (NCLB) needs to be completely revised and refocused back on progress and growth. Here’s one of my favorite examples. The first year it came out, Government Hill Elementary School did not make AYP because three kids, who happened to be English language learners, did not come to school on the day of the test. They were barely learning English. And their parents kept them home because they knew they couldn’t pass the test. Because they didn’t show up for the test, the whole school missed the 95 percent mark and the whole school became non-proficient. That’s how ridiculous No Child Left Behind is. So, noble intent, but implementation a real problem and a challenge. Nobody is against accountability. No one is against the aim of all kids being proficient by the year 2014. But we know that 100 percent of the students in America will not be proficient by 2014. And we knew that back in 2001.

That’s what’s silly. Instead of involving educators in the whole development of the bill, (it was) a congressional compromise bill, telling us in each locale in the United States that one size fits all. It doesn’t. And it shouldn’t.

If a young person asked you today if you’d

recommend they go into public education as a career, would you?

G

uardedly! It’s been a wonderful profession for me. But if someone goes into the profession, they have to realize that it’s very hard work and just because the school year ends and you get three months “off,” you have to be continually learning and planning in order to be effective. You cannot get stuck in a rut of doing things the same way.

When I look back to when I started teaching in 1963 and now, there is absolutely no comparison to the challenges that teachers are facing. The discipline, the lack of parental respect, the lack of community support. In so many cases it’s about property tax payers instead of everybody assuming the obligation of educating the next generation. The endless criticism of public education is hard to take.

So, you’ve got to firmly believe in what you’re doing and you’ve got to enjoy it. If you’re not having a good time teaching kids, get out! You cannot do this work if you don’t like kids and if you don’t see the joy in making a difference in one kid’s life. That’s the joy in this business. ■

Your support makes all the difference

A

A laska Humanities Forum we tell the stories that define the culture, history and people of Alaska. t the

We disseminate knowledge and insight into what makes Alaska singular in the world. Through the humanities we reaffirm and celebrate what makes Alaskans unique.

We couldn’t do any of this without you.

Your annual contributions support programs like the Sister School Exchange that promotes cross-cultural understanding and appreciation between Alaska’s youth; and Take Wing Alaska, which provides direction and support for rural teens preparing for postsecondary pursuits. Your support allows Leadership Anchorage to develop our next generation of leaders at the community, state and even national level.

Your generosity also helps us fund humanities projects across the state, projects that help us to understand as Alaskans where we came from, who we are and what we want to become.

Portrait of Dr. Bob Johnson from “When Crab Was King: Faces of the Kodiak King Crab Fishery 1950–1982”, a popular touring exhibit of photography and oral history recordings documenting the storied heyday of the Kodiak King Crab fishery. “When Crab Was King” was supported by 2007 and 2011 grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum for $7,500 and $3,500, respectively.

In short, your contribution to the Alaska Humanities Forum is a contribution to the very essence of what defines Alaska – its people and its cultures.

Giving is easy

Go to www.akhf.org and click on the donation button.

Or, send a check to Alaska Humanities Forum, 161 E. 1st Ave., Door 15, Anchorage, AK 99501.

tHANK YOU, DONORS! Rasmuson Foundation Frances & David Rose Foundation TKC Development Inc. Individuals Corporations/Foundations

Afognak Native Corporation Alaska USA Trust Company BP Bean's Cafe, Inc. Bristol Bay Native Corporation Conoco/Phillips Filipino Community Club of Ketchikan KPMG Kuskokwim Corporation Muni Light & Power Nana Regional Corporation Northrim Bank

Sharon & Will Abbott Brian Barnes Joan Braddock Jeane Breinig George W. Brown Catkin M. Kilcher Burton Ryan Choron John H. Cloe Carol Comeau James Culp Marie H. Darlin Richard & Nora Dauenhauer Brenda and George Dickison Ann Fienup-Riordan Pauline Fredrickson

James and Rosalise Gordon Clifford J. Groh, Sr. Anne Hanley M E Hammes Arnold & Alberta Harder John E. Havelock Genevieve V Holubik Tim and Donna Hurley Charles Huss Marianne Inman Alice Johnstone Barbara Karl Nancy Kemp James G. King Tom Kizzia Lynndeen Knapp Carolyn Sue Kremers Kyle A. Lewis Shirley T. Lewis Nancy Lord

Mildred M. Martin Blythe Marston and Gordon Pospisil Janet and David McCabe Kathrin McCarthy Jane Meacham John F. Mouw Thomas Nelson Becky Patterson Nina E. Prockish David Ramseur Brian Rogers & Sherry Modrow Marilyn Russell Grace Schaible Linda Freed and Alan Schmitt Gary Stevens Carol Swartz William and Nancy Waterman Jetta Whittaker and Rob Steedle Robert Winchell Vicki Wisenbaugh

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GRANT REPORT

Prince William Sound Museum

World War II and Cold War Model Construction T

he Prince William Sound Museum in Whittier is housed in a former Army headquarters building that now is home to the Anchor Inn Hotel and a general store. The museum is open 365 days of the year. It depends on the honor system for admission fees and is readily accessible to the many tourists who frequent Whittier. Alaska magazine has listed the Prince William Sound Museum as one of the ten best museums in Alaska. It features 27 detailed exhibits beginning with the exploration of Prince William Sound by the Spanish Navy in 1790 and including early Army mapping expeditions, the saga of the U.S. Revenue Service cutter Bear, the Alaska Railroad and Alaska Steamship Co., and the building of the Army Port of Whittier and the Anton Anderson Tunnel during World War II. Scale models play an important role in Prince William Sound Museum exhibits. This includes a display on Senator Ted Stevens’ World War II service as a transport pilot in the China-Burma-India theater, flying “The Hump” over the Himalayas. The Stevens display features a model of the Curtis C-46 twin-engine transport that he flew.

In 2012 the museum received a $5,000 general grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum to fund the construction of state-of-theart scale models of military aircraft, warships and submarines related to the history of World War II and the Cold War in Alaska, 1941–1991.

One is a model of a Lockheed P-38G Lightning flown by John Geddies. Doctor Ian Jones, a biology professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s Newfoundland, built it to exacting detail. Doctor Jones spends his summers in the Aleutians studying the bird population. He is also an avid model builder and a proponent of preserving World War II artifacts in the Aleutians.

John Geddies enlisted in the Army Air Forc-

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es Cadet Training Program in 1942, trained as a fighter pilot and married. He saw combat in the Aleutians, and was shot down while attacking a formation of Japanese medium bombers during the May 1943 Battle of Attu. After the war, he returned to his home state of California and went to work for the City of Pasadena. He died on Father’s Day 2011 at the age of 91. He was a deeply religious man.

John Geddies’ P-38, named after his wife, Lorna, is featured in a display case showing his belongings during his service in the Aleutians.

The display is representative of the effort the museum places on blending original artifacts, models, photographs and interpretive labels to tell the story of Alaska’s past. ■ ­— By John Cloe

John Geddies with his P-38 in the Aleutians during World War II. Above, the Prince William Sound Museum’s model of Geddies’ aircraft, built by Dr. Ian Jones.

First Fridays at AKHF

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ast March the Alaska Humanities Forum began hosting monthly First Friday art openings in the AKHF gallery lobby. More than 600 gallery-goers have visited the Forum after hours, socializing in a festive atmosphere while taking in exhibits by Alaskan artists ranging from the street graffiti artist MENO to abstract painter Katherine Coons.

Other AKHF First Friday openings have included photos from two AKHF grant projects: “When Crab Was King,” featuring oversized portraits of former Bering Sea crab fishermen, and rare photographs of the 1912 Belmore Browne Expedition from Seward to Denali, presented by veteran Alaska Range mountaineer and AKHF grantee Brian Okonek (see Grant Report, page 16).

The Forum also hosted an exhibit by the seven members of Diaspora, a collective of Alaska Native contemporary visual and performance artists that opened at AKHF on the First Friday of April 2012.

Appearing on this page are three images from “Taking a Walk,” an exhibit of photographs by Brian and Ash Adams scheduled for a First Friday opening at the Forum on January 4, 2013.

The AKHF lobby gallery is located in the AKHF offices at 161 East 1st Avenue, Door 15.

First Friday openings begin at 5:30. For more information on individual shows and artists, visit the Alaska Humanities Forum blog, Door 15: http://akhfblog.typepad.com/door-15, or call (907) 272-5341.

AKHF First Friday Openings December 2012 – April 2013 December 2012 : “Murmurs,” a show of small-scale works

by Indra Arriaga that will invite the viewer to take a closer look and “eavesdrop” on the ongoing dialogue between the works, the artist and themselves.

January 2013 : “Taking a Walk,” photographs by Alaska-based photographers Brian and Ash Adams that highlight the differences in how each half of the married couple approaches the process of making photos.

February 2013 : “Snapshot:

The Great Land,” new drawings by fourth-generation

Alaskan Christina Barber exploring the themes of family, tradition, community, and location.

March 2013 : “Art Gone Vi-

ral,” a curated “virtual” group exhibit showcasing established as well as emerging and under-represented Alaskan artists. Viewers will access the pieces via computer-generated QR codes hanging in the gallery.

April 2013 : New works by

Oscar Avellaneda-Cruz, an Alaska-based photographer specializing in community storytelling and environmental portraiture.

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ALASKA HUMANITIES FORUM

Non Profit Organization U.S. POSTAGE PAID ANCHORAGE, ALASKA PERMIT NO. 519

161 East First Avenue, Door 15 Anchorage, AK 99501 (907) 272-5341 www.akhf.org

FORUM

George Attla True Dog Man

Robert Service The Lesser Poet

Gary Holthaus great nature

Angela Ramirez Life in Spenard

THE MAGAZINE OF THE AL ASK A HUMANITIES FORUM FALL 2012