There are a whole host of social issues in the villages, no one will deny that. The solution is not easy or palatable, but subsistence/traditional hunting and fishing is IMHO the most important part of healing and moving forward. Abuse of the resources is related to the social problems which to a large degree fall at the feet of the well intentioned government and social justice folks.
Not to be distracted by the wisdom of a certain wise elder among us and his proverbs.....
But I agree with you entire post, Paul.
I was in contact with a neighbor the day I came home, a fellow a few years more limber than me, a fellow who I’ve shared many miles of trail with, and one who would and has risked health and wealth for my own. I was wondering how the spring hunt had gone and of his freezer was full. (Waterfowl). He said, “oh, not much” and then proceeded to tell me how he had “probably” killed 30-50 geese... “not much” being what went in his freezer; the rest went to partners who don’t shoot so well and widows/elders in town. He’s the same guy who will ride 400/500 miles for caribou, at no small expense in fuel and equipment, give all or most of it away, and then want to do it all again. And that, among all the waste and abuse that is often more ‘newsworthy’, is not an unusual thing.
Kilkitarik,
Thanks for writing this post, this story.
I have read every word of this thread several times over. It is perhaps the most informative piece of literature I have come across in educating myself concerning the dynamics of survival, life, and lifestyle of today's Alaska, previously unknown to me.
I wouldn't mind if you folks continued the discussion. I'd like to learn more on the subject. If you've got little inspiration to pick it up, I understand. And if that is the case perhaps you folks could point me in a direction that would further educate me about subsistance, it's purpose, history, intent, it's successes and it's failures. I'd like to learn more about this life of $16.00 per gallon milk and scrap nets. As well as the motovaters and detractors within the remotes and villages. Too, I would like to learn about the culture, the Bush villages and mindset perspectives of the people shared therein.
I'm currently far removed from many of you and the places that you speak of where folks are living a life I know little to nothing about. I have it easy. I get up, go pound nails, collect a paycheck budget for my food, clothing, and shelter (heat, water, and power included), drive to wal mart, cabela's, or costco for necessities. And although I have worked hard and sacrificed a bit to be here, I realize I really don't have a clue what others are experiencing. There is a great chaism between myself and many of you... I'd like to cross over it, or at least take a few steps closer.
I'll preface this with I've never lived in a village, have only visited a few. Have had the good fortune to know quit a few elders mostly Aleut and Yupik.
Just as the land is vast in complex, so are the Native peoples of Alaska and so are the causes of the various social issues. I'll touch on my observations and what I've learned in my mere 20 odd years up here.
In the span of the past 70-80 years you have a generation that lived a mostly subsistence nomadic lifestyle. In that time frame you have had statehood, the creation of Native corporations, Anilca, Oil and Pipeline boom, introduction of narcotics to villages, industrialized commercial fishing, imposition of formal schooling and a host of other dramatic changes that have upended a way of life that had been in place for 5-10,000 years.
To my mind there were several major social injustices visited upon the Alaska Native people since the US purchased the territory in 1867
American missionaries took Alaskan children from their villages, put them in boarding schools, beat them for speaking their own language, and told them that they were not Christians, in spite of Russian Orthodox missionaries evangelizing many villages in the late 1700's. I have spoken with a few people who experienced this.
During WWII the U.S. military evacuated and interned over 800 Aleuts from several islands. Many of them died from disease or malnutrition while interred US forces looted their homes and desecrated their churches. I have known several survivors who where children that were interred.
https://www.apiai.org/product/aleut-evacuation-untold-war-story/Corporations/Pipeline/Anilca. I lump these together as I see their impact as linked. As I mentioned this was a mostly nomadic subsistence people, in order not to be screwed out of their traditional lands, what were formerly fishing or hunting camps became permanent dwelling places. Many villeages have no economic reason to exist, but now that they exist as permanent villages modern infrastructure has been built, schools have been built, etc., and we have to a degree all the appurtenances of a modern small rural town, but with no tax base to support that. Not to mention a K-12 school system that is geared towards college prop for a student body that will mostly never leave the village simultaneously teaches them skills they don't need while taking them away from the elders that aren't teaching them the skills they do need and continuing their cultur
Take a people that worked extremely hard to survive, replace that need to work hard with cable tv, internet and government "help" and it's no wonder there is an epidemic of substance abuse, violent crime, sexual abuse, suicide etc.,
As to solutions, the best suggestion I've heard is a two pronged approach. While the source of the problems have mostly been put upon them by outside sources, they need to own the injury as their own and develop the mindset they they are the drivers of their own healing. So long as they are stuck requesting (for all intents and purposes) the same group that inflicted their wounds to cure them by the same medicine that hurt them, they will not and cannot heal. The second major step would be to gear schooling towards their needs, not the needs of passing an arbitrary knowledge base for every child in the state.
