Alaska At 50 : The Past, Present, and Future of Alaska Statehood 9781602231085, 9781602230613

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a l a s ka a t 5 0

A l a s k a at 5 0 The Past, Present, and Next Fifty Years of Statehood

 Edited by G. W. Kimura

University of Alaska Press Fairbanks

© 2009 University of Alaska Press All rights reserved University of Alaska Press P.O. Box 756240 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240

ISBN 978-1-60223-081-1

The Library of Congress catalogued the clothbound edition of this book as: Alaska at fifty: the past, present, and next fifty years of Alaska statehood / ed. and with an introduction by G.W. Kimura. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-60223-061-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Alaska—History. 2. Alaska—Anniversaries, etc. 3. Alaska—Social conditions. 4. Alaska— Economic conditions. I. Kimura, G. W. F904.A477 2009 979.8—dc22 2009019415 Cover design by Lisa Devenish, Devenish Designs Cover art by Christopher Arend This publication was printed on acid-free paper that meets the minimum requirements for ANSI / NISO Z39.48–1992 (R2002) (Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials).

Contents

Acknowledgments About the Authors Introduction Dr. G. W. Kimura Timeline

vii ix 1 13

Section I: Art, Culture, and Humanities 1 Alaska Native Art: Past, Present, and Future 17 Carrie Irwin Brown 2 Literary Alaska 35 Ronald Spatz, Gary Holthaus, Nancy Lord, Nora Marks Dauenhauer, James Ruppert, Peggy Shumaker, Ann Dixon, John Straley, and Eric Heyne 3 Alaska at 50: Language, Tradition, and Art 69 Phyllis A. Fast 4 Sounds of Alaska 85 Jocelyn Collette Clark 5 An Empowered Future 129 Sven D. Haakanson Jr. Section II: Law, Economy, and Politics 6 Inherent in the People: How Alaskans Decide What’s Important, What’s Not, and What to Do About It Ken Osterkamp 7 Alaska’s Constitution Vic Fischer 8 Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Alaska Court System Chief Justice Dana Fabe 9 Alaska’s Generational Passage Charles Wohlforth 10 Natural Resources—Vital to Our Past; A Question for Our Future Tadd Owens and John Shively

137 147 159 171 191

Section III: Environment, People, and Place 11 The Future of Alaska’s Villages George J. Cannelos 12 A Journey to What Matters Susan A. Anderson 13 On the Importance of History, American and Alaskan Raymond Voley 14 The University of Alaska at 50: Past, Present, Future Mark Hamilton 15 In the Beginning: ANCSA and the Future of Alaska Native Corporations Dennis Metrokin and Jason Metrokin

209



271

Index

221 239 247

259

Acknowledgments

T

hank you to Robert Mandel, former director of the University of

Alaska Press for the vision to publish this book; Dr. Joan Braddock, current director; Amy Simpson, assistant; Elisabeth Dabney, editor; Sue Mitchell, production; and Chris Arend, for cover art and section divisions. Special thanks are due to Veldee Hall for work on the art; Laura Schue, regrant officer who oversaw the Alaska’s Statehood Experience grant program; Doris “Dede” Velasco, special project assistant for Alaska’s Statehood Experience; Maren Carey, Alaska Humanities Forum fiscal officer; and Stacy Haesaert Sowa, administrative assistant. This book is dedicated to all Alaskans, past and present, on the fiftieth anniversary of statehood, and to the generations of Alaskans to come.

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This book is a project of Alaska’s Statehood Experience (ASE) grant program, a partnership between the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Rasmuson Foundation.

ASE was made possible by funding from Rasmuson Foundation, the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Halcro Family Foundation, the Atwood Foundation, the Foraker Group, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) We the People program. The views expressed here are solely those of the contributors and do not reflect the views of the Alaska Humanities Forum, Rasmuson Foundation, NEH’s We the People program, or other ASE contributors.

About the Authors

Susan A. Anderson is Tlingit and a member of the eagle/wolf clan. She

was raised in Anchorage, Eagle River, Valdez, and Seward. She received a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and a master’s in adult education administration from Western Washington University. She also holds a postgraduate certificate in project management and was selected to attend the Stanford University Executive Program for Philanthropy Leaders. Since 2000, she has been president of the CIRI Foundation, whose goal is to provide programs that promote individual economic self-sufficiency and cultural pride through education among Cook Inlet region original enrollees and their descendants. She is a member of numerous boards, and is a former chair of the Alaska Humanities Forum. Carrie Irwin Brown is the founding executive director of the Alaska

Native Arts Foundation, whose mission is to promote the best contemporary Alaska artists and artworks both in Alaska and on the national and international level. She is of Athabascan and Iñupiaq descent and grew up in Nenana. She graduated from Alaska Pacific University with an MBA in management and international business. Since 2005, George Cannelos has been federal cochair of the Denali Commission, established by Congress to oversee the development of infrastructure in rural Alaska. He received a BA in economics from Lewis and Clark College and an MA in regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a graduate of the Air Command and Staff College, Air War College, and Naval War College in national security decision making, strategy, and policy. He capped a thirty-two-year military career as a brigadier general commanding the Alaska Air National Guard. He ix

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has also served as chief operating officer for Chugach Alaska, general manager for Bethel Native Corporation, president and chief operating officer of KPB Architects, and director of the Heritage Land Bank for the municipality of Anchorage. Jocelyn Clark grew up in Juneau playing a variety of instruments at the

Sitka Fine Arts Camp and with the Juneau Symphony. She has a BA from Wesleyan University and an AM and PhD from Harvard University in East Asian Languages and Civilizations. She is a recipient of Fulbright and Seonam Foundation fellowships. A specialist in the Japanese koto and Korean kayagum, she has premiered, played, and recorderd numerous works across the world, and is currently assistant professor of East Asian Arts and Culture, Appenzeller School for Global Business, Pai Chai University. She is founder, director, and producer of CrossSound, Inc. and cofounder of the touring East Asian zither group IIIZ+. She serves on the Alaska State Council for the Arts and the Juneau World Affairs Council. Nora Marks Dauenhauer was born in Juneau in 1927. She was raised in

Juneau and Hoonah, as well as on the family fishing boat and in seasonal subsistence sites around Icy Strait, Glacier Bay, and Cape Spencer. Her first language is Tlingit; she began learning English when she entered school at the age of eight. Her books include The Droning Shaman (Black Current Press, 1988), Life Woven with Song (University of Arizona Press, 2000), and, coedited with Richard Dauenhauer and Lydia Black, Anóoshi Lingít Aaní Ká, Russians in Tlingit America: The Battles of Sitka 1802 and 1804 (University of Washington Press, 2008). Her work has been widely anthologized and her Raven plays have been performed in several venues internationally, including the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In 1980 she was named Humanist of the Year by the Alaska Humanities Forum. In 1989 she received an Alaska Governor’s Award for the Arts, and in 1991 she was a winner of the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award. Ann Dixon’s published picture books for children include When Posey

Peeked at Christmas (Whitman, 2008); Big-Enough Anna: The Little Sled Dog Who Braved the Arctic (Alaska Northwest Books, 2003) written with Pam Flowers; Winter Is (Alaska Northwest Books, 2002); Alone Across the

About the Authors

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Arctic: One Woman’s Epic Journey by Dog Team (Alaska Northwest, 2001) written with Pam Flowers; Waiting for Noël: An Advent Story (Eerdmans, 2000); Blueberry Shoe (Alaska Northwest, 1999); Trick-or-Treat! (Scholastic/ Cartwheel, 1998); The Sleeping Lady (Alaska Northwest, 1994); and How Raven Brought Light to People (McElderry, 1992). Her poetry for children appears in the anthology Once upon Ice: And Other Frozen Poems (Boyd’s Mills, 1997), as well as Cricket and Ladybug magazines. Ms. Dixon was honored with the Contribution to Literacy in Alaska (CLIA) award in 2000. She is a school librarian in Willow, Alaska. Dana Fabe is chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court, the first and, as

of 2009, the only woman to hold that position, serving twice: 2000–2003 and 2006–2009. She earned a BA from Cornell University and JD from Northeastern University School of Law. She served as a staff attorney for the Alaska Public Defender Agency and in 1981 was appointed chief public defender of Alaska. Since appointment to the bench in 1988, she has held many leadership positions, including second vice president of the Conferences of Chief Justices of the United States. Phyllis Fast is of Athabascan heritage and a relative of Walter Harper, the

first person to reach the summit of Denali. She is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage and has taught at Harvard University, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Fort Yukon campus. For many years, she arranged the Alaska Native Dance Summer Series at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. She received a BA in English from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, an interdisciplinary MA in anthropology and English on Alaska Native literary forms from the University of Alaska Anchorage, and an AM and PhD in social anthropology from Harvard University. She is the author of Northern Athabascan Survival: Women, Community, and the Future (University of Nebraska Press, 2002). Vic Fischer was a delegate to the Alaska Constitutional Convention, held

in Fairbanks in 1956. He is a retired professor of government and former director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He holds a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MA in public administration from ­Harvard

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­ niversity. He continues to write and lecture across the state and was a U panelist for First Alaskans Institute’s Statehood Dialogue series in 2008– 2009, a project of Alaska’s Statehood Experience grant program. Sven Haakanson Jr. is a Sugpiaq from Old Harbor, Kodiak Island. He

earned a BA from University of Alaska Fairbanks and AM and PhD from Harvard University in archaeology. He is the director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak and a world-renowned expert in the repatriation of sacred indigenous artifacts. Through his work, the remains of more than seven hundred ancestors have been returned to the region. In 2006, he became Alaska’s second MacArthur Fellow (recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Award). Veldee Hall is of Iñupiaq heritage and grew up in Cordova, Juneau, and

Anchorage. She is a 2009 summa cum laude graduate of Alaska Pacific University, with a BA in liberal studies and minor in business administration. She is a journeyman-apprentice heavy equipment operator with International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 302. She interned with the CIRI Foundation, helping to produce the writing and art for Alaska Scrapbook: Moments in Alaska History 1812–1998 (CIRI Foundation, 2008), the sequel to Growing Up Native in Alaska (CIRI Foundation, 2000), and Na’eda: Our Friends, 3rd ed. (CIRI Foundation, 2008). Mark Hamilton is the twelfth president of the University of Alaska system, with sixteen campuses and more than thirty-two thousand students, appointed by the Board of Regents in 1998. He is a retired major general of the U.S. Army, and oversaw the Be All You Can Be recruitment campaign of the nineties. He is a recipient of both the U.S. Army’s Distinguished Service Medal, and the U.S. military’s highest peacetime award of the same name. He received a BS from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, an MA in English literature from Florida State University, and graduated from the Armed Forces Staff College and the US Army War College. Eric Heyne is professor of English at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,

where he has been teaching American literature and critical theory since 1986. He is the editor of Desert, Garden, Margin, Range: Literature on the American Frontier (Gale Group, 1992), and has published scholarly essays

About the Authors

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in journals, including Western American Literature, The Northern Review, Modern Fiction Studies, Extrapolation, Narrative, and River Teeth. Gary Holthaus is the author of From the Farm to the Table: What All Americans Need to Know About Agriculture (University Press of Kentucky, 2006), published as part of a new Culture of the Land series. His second book in that series, Learning Native Wisdom, was published in 2008. Holthaus is also the author of The Unauthorized Bible (BW Press, 2003) and Wide Skies: Finding a Home in the West (University of Arizona Press, 1997), a collection of essays about Western and Alaskan issues. He has written several books of poetry, including Circling Back (Peregrine Smith, 1984), a narrative poem about the history of the American West, and Unexpected Manna (Copper Canyon Press, 1978). If You Were Here I Would Have Hands (Brooding Heron Press, 1999) and An Archaeology of Home (Limberlost Press, 2008) were letterpress chapbooks. Holthaus received an individual fellowship for poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990, and had work cited as Notable Essays in 1994 and 1998. He was the first president/CEO of the Alaska Humanities Forum, serving from 1972 to 1989. G. W. (Greg) Kimura is a fourth-generation Alaskan from Chugiak-Eagle

River. He took a double BA in philosophy and theology from Marquette University, MDiv from Harvard University (thesis on Zen Buddhism), and PhD in philosophy of religion from Cambridge University, UK. He has published fiction and nonfiction in the United States and United Kingdom, including in the May Anthologies, edited by Zadie Smith and UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, and Carve Magazine. His book Neopragmatism and Theological Reason was published by Ashgate in 2007. An Episcopal priest, he was formerly university chaplain, assistant professor of religion and humanities, and chair of the Department of Liberal Studies at Alaska Pacific University. He is currently president/CEO of the Alaska Humanities Forum. Nancy Lord, Alaska’s writer laureate for 2008–2010, is the author of three

collections of short fiction, The Compass Inside Ourselves (Fireweed, 1984), Survival (Coffee House Press, 1991), and The Man Who Swam with Beavers (Coffee House Press, 2001). Her books of literary nonfiction include Fish-

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camp: Life on an Alaska Shore (Counterpoint, 2000), Green Alaska: Dreams from the Far Coast (Counterpoint, 2000), and Beluga Days: Tracking a White Whale’s Truths (Mountaineers, 2007). Her most recent book is a collection of essays in the memoir Rock, Water, Wild: An Alaskan Life (University of Nebraska Press, 2009). She lives in Homer and teaches at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Kachemak Bay Campus, and the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference. Dennis Metrokin grew up in Naknek and Kodiak with his family while

being influenced by their Alutiiq, Aleut, and Russian heritage. He was elected to Koniag Inc.’s board of directors in December 1988 and served as the board chairman until he was selected president and senior executive officer in December 1996. He retired from this position on July 31, 2006. He has served as a Salvation Army Advisory Board member and trustee on the University of Alaska Foundation Board. He was also vice president of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and director on the boards of the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and the Koniag Education Foundation. He served in the Alaska Army National Guard for thirty years. Jason Metrokin is of Aleut and Alutiiq descent and lives in Anchorage. He is

president and CEO of Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC), with almost $1 billion in revenue as of 2009. As a shareholder, he previously served as director of shareholder and corporate relations at BBNC and as a member of the board of directors since 2003. His professional background extends from commercial and community banking at National Bank of Alaska/ Wells Fargo as well as development work for First Alaskans Institute. He has served on a number of boards including United Way of Anchorage and the Alaska Native Professional Association. He also serves on several corporate boards for BBNC. Metrokin is finishing his MBA at Alaska Pacific University. He is a graduate of the Alaska Humanities Forum’s “Leadership Anchorage” program. Ken Ostercamp is a lifelong Alaskan from Fairbanks, where he attended

the University of Alaska, graduating with a BA in political science. He took a PhD in political science from the Center for Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University. He has worked as a consultant for

About the Authors

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businesses and nonprofit organizations and is currently state director for AARP, the largest membership organization in the state with more than ninety-seven thousand members. In 2002–2006, he was CEO for Alaska 20/20, a nonpartisan program founded by the Alaska Humanities Forum with a mission to promote civic engagement statewide. Tadd Owens grew up in South Anchorage, where he was a member of the

1991 Service High School state champion basketball team. After graduating from Carleton College with a BA in political science, he returned to operate an outdoor-adventure guiding company. For six years he was the executive director of the Resource Development Council for Alaska, Inc., a statewide business association. He is currently the director of external and governmental affairs for Pioneer Natural Resources, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company with operations on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet. He is a graduate of the Alaska Humanities Forum “Leadership Anchorage” program and served as board chair of the Alaska Humanities Forum 2006–2008. James Ruppert is a professor of English and chair of Alaska Native Studies

at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. His interests lie in northern studies, Native American literature, and cinema. Much of his work has explored the interface between Native American literature and mainstream American literature, as well as the emerging understanding of Native American oral and written literature. He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas and has held three Fulbright fellowships. His publications include Mediation in Contemporary Native American Fiction (University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), Nothing But the Truth: An Anthology of Native American Literature (Prentice Hall, 2000), and Our Voices: Native Stories of Alaska and the Yukon (Bison Books, 2009).  John Shively came to Alaska in 1965 as an AmeriCorps VISTA volun-

teer, after graduating from the University of North Carolina with a BA in political science. He has held a variety of positions working with the Alaska Native community, including as executive vice president of Alaska Federation of Natives and at NANA, where he was employed for seventeen years. He served as chief of staff for Governor Bill Sheffield and was commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources,

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1995–2000. He cofounded Jade North, LLC, an Alaska-based consulting firm specializing in resource development and Native issues. He was vice president of government and community relations for Holland America Line and is currently CEO for the Pebble Partnership. John has been a regent for the University of Alaska and has served on the boards of the Alaska Permanent Fund, Anchorage Symphony, Democratic Leadership Council, Junior Achievement of Alaska, and the Alaska Federation of Natives Legislative Committee. From 2003 to 2008 he was chair of the Resource Development Council for Alaska. In 1992 he received the Denali Award for his work with the Alaska Native community. Peggy Shumaker is professor emerita of English at the University of

Alaska Fairbanks. Her most recent book is Just Breathe Normally (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), a collection of brief lyrical nonfiction. Her most recent collection of poetry, Blaze (Red Hen Press, 2005), is a collaboration with Alaskan painter Kesler E. Woodward. Her other poetry collections include Underground Rivers (Red Hen Press, 2002), Wings Moist from the Other World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), The Circle of Totems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), and Esperanza’s Hair (University of Alabama Press, 1985). Her essays have appeared in Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction (W. W. Norton, 2005), A Road of Her Own (Fulcrum, 2002), A Year in Place (University of Utah Press, 2001), Under Northern Lights (University of Washington Press, 2000), and Prairie Schooner Ascent. She has won an individual fellowship for poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. Shumaker is a contributing editor to Alaska Quarterly Review. Ronald Spatz is a professor of creative writing and literary arts and the founding dean of the university honors college at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). He is also the executive editor and cofounder of Alaska Quarterly Review and the founding editor and director of UAA’s community outreach Web site, LitSite Alaska. He is the recipient of individual fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Alaska State Council on the Arts. His work as the editor of Alaska Quarterly Review has been recognized by a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, a Special Recognition Award from the Alaska Center for the Book, and a Governor’s Award for the Arts.

About the Authors

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John Straley was Alaska’s writer laureate for 2006–2008. He is a novelist,

poet, and criminal defense investigator who has lived in Sitka since 1977. His seventh novel, The Big Both Ways (Alaska Northwest Books), was released in May 2008. His sixth book, Cold Water Burning (Bantam, 2001), was nominated for best novel by the Private Eye Writers of America and his third book, The Music of What Happens (Bantam, 1997), won the Spotted Owl Award for the Best Northwest Mystery. His first book, The Woman Who Married a Bear (Soho Press, 1992), won the Shamus award for the Best First Mystery from the Private Eye Writers of America. His poems have appeared in various journals, including Runes, the Alaska Quarterly Review, the Sonora Review, and the Seattle Times. His essay “Wobblies in Alaska: Who Owns an Uncaught Fish?” was published in These United States: Leading American Writers on Their Place in the Union (Nation Books, 2003), edited by John Leonard. His first collection of poems, The Rising and the Rain, was published in 2008 by University of Alaska Press. Raymond Voley is a history teacher at Kenny Lake School in rural Alaska.

He holds degrees in history and political science from the University of Utah and an MA in teaching from the University of Alaska Anchorage. His classes have produced award-winning films, including a history of the Kennecott Mine, with funding from the Alaska Humanities Forum and National Endowment of the Humanities. In 2008 he was awarded Alaska Teacher of the Year by the Alaska State Department of Education and Early Development and Alaska State History Teacher of the Year by the Alaska Humanities Forum at the Governor’s Awards for the Arts and Humanities. He is a contributing teacher to the Alaska History and Culture Online Curriculum Summer Teacher Institutes. Charles Wohlforth is a second-generation Alaskan and a fourth-­generation

graduate of Princeton University. He is the author of Saving for the Future: My Life and the Permanent Fund (Epicenter Press, 2007), the authorized biography of Alaska Permanent Fund founder Dave Rose. He also wrote The Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change (Northpoint Press, 2005), which won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for nonfiction. He is currently writing a book on the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, to be published in late 2009. He is a former member of the Anchorage Assembly, representing West Anchorage and Downtown.

Dr. G. W. Kimura

Introduction

F

ifty years is a tiny, arbitrary number to mark a land whose past

extends to prehistory. Yet, the golden anniversary of statehood does provide a convenient symmetry. Fifty is half a century. It used to be the measure of the life of a generation, although, thankfully, that measure has considerably extended today. It is appropriate in another sense. Fifty years is a nice round number, with just enough distance to attain some historical perspective, yet close enough to reside within the living memory of many Alaskans. Alaska and Hawaii, the forty-ninth and fiftieth states admitted to the Union, respectively, are in a distinct position. Both have many citizens who recall what life was like before statehood, when we were territories of the U.S. and lived through that dramatic change. Alaska, fifty years on, even has members of the original Constitutional Convention who can share their insights on the creation of the state’s foundational governing document. Think about that: When questions arise regarding the ‘original intention of the drafters,’ Alaskans can ask those drafters what they meant. (Although in conversations I have observed between Democrat Vic Fischer, a contributor to this volume, and Republican Jack Coghill, another delegate, it is not clear that they would agree about meaning, complicating any simplistic appeal to the authority of ‘founding fathers’ for interpretation.) From an historical, rather than legal or legislative, standpoint, it is just as fascinating to hear the stories of Katie Hurley, secretary to the convention. During the day she took notes on the Constitutional proceedings, 1

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writing them up in the wee hours for review as minutes the next morning. She was truly the ears of the Convention and a repository of ‘inside’ information. Her memories of the personalities, disagreements, peccadilloes, compromises, and serendipitous accidents that went into creating Alaska’s foundational document are the real story behind the history. Details like these speak to the growing pains of a territory becoming a full-fledged state, with all the confusion, fallibility, hope, and, ultimately, courage of Alaska’s early politicians. 

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Most of the people that history records as the statesmen and -women who shaped Alaska into a state fifty years ago—such as Bill Egan, Ernest Gruening, and Bob Bartlett—have passed on. For those who remain, this anniversary has provided a good reason to record fading memories. The anniversary has also, for many, been a reason to celebrate. The fiftieth year of statehood has been marked by fireworks and gala dinners across the state. It even included an homage to the famous bonfire set on the Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage. On June 30, 1958, the Park Strip was the edge of town; today, it is the border of Downtown, surrounded by million-dollar homes in South Addition and Bootleggers Cove. The anniversary bonfire was removed to the more controlled, but less commonly accessible, environment of Elmendorf Air Force Base. Following a headline country-and-western concert (the Southern twangs and Lower Forty-Eight appeal seemed ridiculously out of place considering the character of the event), the bonfire was set by a missile fired into a tepee of wood from a jet fly-by. The lighting looked small on TV, but one could see and smell the smoke cloud from Chugiak-Eagle River. I have spoken to numerous people who recall that original bonfire. My grandparents kept a disintegrating copy of the Anchorage Times cover with its picture of the bonfire in a scrapbook. I fingered through it in 1991 after Grandfather William’s death. Statehood memories turned a living room full of whispering mourners into a talkative group. The bonfire—variously recalled as the largest ever, a Guinness World Record, visible from space (this was three years before the launch of Sputnik!)—was the biggest celebration the state had ever seen. It repre-

Introduction

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The Delaney Park Strip bonfire in Anchorage.

sented for the average citizens of Anchorage the first time they became “true” Americans. Although they were already U.S. citizens as residents of the Territory of Alaska, the transition to statehood marked the change from the feeling of being second-class citizens to full inclusion. Even for my grandparents, Japanese Americans who had been forcibly removed from Alaska and interned by their own country during World War II, statehood was a joyful time. The bonfire was a turning point. They now saw themselves integrated with the nation they had suffered for and loved. Not everyone felt this way. Statehood was met with everything from ambivalence to distrust to muscular opposition across the expansive land and cultures of Alaska. Although taken for granted now, the move to statehood was politically controversial on both the national and local levels. On the national scene, the concern was whether Alaska, with such an enormous geography

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and tiny population, could support itself, leading to issues of land and resource development. Statehood was also tied up in the midcentury version of red state– blue state politics. Alaska, which was Democratic at the time, would not have become the forty-ninth state if not for Hawai’i, which became the fiftieth a few months later. Hawai’i was then Republican. Fifty years on, the political landscape of both states is one hundred and eighty degrees opposite, with Alaska voting largely Republican and Hawai‘i democratic in national elections. On the Alaskan level, disagreements were typically Alaskan, meaning staked into fierce opposing ideological camps with little middle ground shared between them. Large swathes of the state were against the statehood movement, especially Southeast Alaska and other coastal communities whose prosperity was tied to the fishing industry. That industry was largely controlled at the time by three Lower Forty-Eight “American” processors. Statehood was seen as institutionalizing a form of economic colonialism over the fishing industry that would never go away. (If this sounds familiar, more than one historian has drawn the parallel to petroleum development today.) Opposition led to what seem like wild proposals to contemporary ears, including dividing Alaska into anywhere between two to five separate states, or a combination of states and territories, divided along geographical, cultural, and economic divisions that persist fifty years later. It is an entertaining exercise in alternate history, imagining how differently Alaska would look if it had taken this route. Yet even within so-called pro-statehood regions, such as Southcentral Alaska, opinions were split, turning neighbor against neighbor. As a young girl, Mary Hughes remembers walking with her sisters to the Anchorage bonfire celebration and being heckled along the way and back. Recall that as recently as 1990, Alaskans elected former Republican Governor Walter J. Hickel to a second term, this time on the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) ticket. Although he eschewed that party’s call to secede from the United States, it is the raison d’être for the AIP’s existence. The very fact that an anti-statehood party could rise to the governorship of Alaska speaks to the unresolved legacy of the changes that came about fifty years ago. One cannot imagine this happening in, say, Texas. It did here.1

Introduction

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Bridget, Patty Ann, and Mary K. Hughes on their way to the statehood bonfire.

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However, the main political division in the state then, as now, was not between pro- versus anti-statehood advocates. It was between the ersatz “urban” and “rural” Alaskans. In 2009, every political dispute Alaskans engage in can trace back to the difference in worldview that derives from these two vastly different ways of living in the Greatland. This division largely breaks down to the geographic, cultural, and economic split between urban and suburban non-Natives and Alaska Natives involved in subsistence living in the villages. The issue of rural Alaskan, or Alaska Native, views on statehood is complex. One of the most shameful, if not altogether shocking, facts is that of the fifty-five delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention, only one, Frank Peratrovich, was Alaska Native. This was at a time when ­somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of Alaska’s two hundred thousand plus residents were Alaska Native.2 The majority of Alaska Natives were effectively excluded from participation in the statehood decisions because they were not part of the politi-

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cal process, be it for reason of language, cultural tradition, or residual Jim Crow attitudes. Although statehood had a profound effect on rural and Alaska Native life, in many cases it was decisions made later as a consequence of statehood—surrounding the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971 and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980, for example—that had an even greater impact, and continue to reverberate today. Consider the symbols and trappings of Alaskan civic identity. The Alaska State seal, first designed in 1910, contains imagery of mountains, oceans, rivers, and even a farmer, but no Alaska Natives. The Alaska State song, the lyrics of which were written in 1925, refers to the land, sea, gold, the North Star, and sourdoughs, but does not mention Alaska Natives. Also known as “The Alaska Flag Song,” it is a paean, ironically, to the flag designed by Alaska Native Benny Benson. A second verse celebrating Alaska Native life was proposed for adoption by the state legislature in 2002, but it did not pass. The biggest challenge of the Alaska Statehood Experience grant project, of which this book is a culmination, was to ensure that the mistakes and exclusions of the past were not repeated in the fiftieth anniversary of statehood. A partnership between the Alaska Humanities Forum and Rasmuson Foundation, Alaska’s Statehood Experience provided $1 million for statehood legacy projects and activities to record the history and plot the future of our young state. It funded oral histories, books, films, conferences, plays, and art—basically everything except the gala dinners and fireworks that lasted only a day. From the beginning, Alaska’s Statehood Experience deliberately referred to the anniversary as a “commemoration” rather than “celebration,” as a commemoration can be about something good, bad, or indifferent. We knew that the legacy of statehood would be seen by different groups around the state in all these varied ways. Further, we actively sought out Alaska Natives and Alaska Native institutional applications for grants. In making those inquiries, Alaska Humanities Forum staff emphasized the fact that all perspectives and stories need to be heard, as the project is centered in history and the humanities—and history and the humanities are always rich and variegated and complex. Frequently we heard the message from Alaska Native and other minority groups, “Well, statehood was a white thing. It wasn’t

Introduction

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Plaque on the campus of Alaska Pacific University (originally Alaska Methodist University), where the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was signed.

for us, but we don’t want to rain on someone else’s parade by saying we were against it or that it hasn’t been that great for us.” This perception of the statehood movement, whether historically accurate or not, whether intentional or not, was, in the experience of Alaska’s Statehood Experience grant program, a widespread attitude in the Alaska Native communities and almost unremarked-upon in urban, non-Native environments. It is another example of the division in our urban-rural/non-Native-Native political culture that extends to a chasm in Alaskan self-understanding of its civic and national connection. It is a division over which Alaskans will no doubt continue to struggle for the next fifty years.

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As a project of Alaska’s Statehood Experience grant program this book is designed to be as inclusive of different perspectives as possible and to encompass those views in a thoughtful and reasoned way. It is not conscientiously ideological in one direction or another and so includes

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contributors across the political spectrum (and those who do not feel they fit neatly anywhere). It is meant to be thoughtful. Moreover, it is meant to provoke thought. As I put it in the invitation to contributors, Alaska at 50 is: designed to be the definitive publication on the past, present, and future possibilities for the state. Chapters will be written in intelligent but accessible prose. (Think feature-writing-style for The New Yorker or The Atlantic rather than an academic article.) Chapters will be part history, part snapshot of the present, but mainly a projection of the best estimate/hope/prescription for the state’s development in the next fifty years. Contributors are encouraged to be reflective, creative, and bold in their chapters.

Contributors were invited according to two other essential criteria, as well, which the reader may already surmise. It was clear that the fiftieth anniversary of statehood would produce a slew of articles, books, and other publications. Many of these would recycle familiar ideas by the same handful of historians, politicians, pundits, and now bloggers whose notions have already had their play. I asked myself a simple question: Amidst the cacophony of opinions, whom should Alaskans really be listening to when it comes to the past, present, and future of our state? In inviting contributors, I sought out first those who are either in a good position to make that projection, or those who it is clear will be actively shaping that future as it unfolds. Alaska at 50 includes chapters by Constitutional Convention delegate Vic Fischer; the first female chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court, Dana Fabe; federal cochair of the Denali Commission, George Cannelos; University of Alaska statewide president Mark Hamilton; Dennis Metrokin, the first-generation president of an Alaska Native Corporation; and John Shively, who has worked in resource development in government and the private sector across several administrations and for more than thirty years. By any measure, these folks are informed “movers and shakers” and all of Alaska owes a debt of gratitude for their contributions to our civic life.

Introduction

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However, on the whole, contributors to Alaska at 50 skew to the next generation. In this, I actively sought a lack of balance, emphasizing the future and those with the bona fides to influence it. I sought out the best-informed, best-educated, most communityengaged thinkers and leaders in Alaska. This book is meant to be learned, but also informed by real experience. I wanted participants, not commentators. I tapped what the philosopher Cornel West calls “organic intellectuals.” It includes many scholars and leaders, including MacArthur Fellow Dr. Sven Haakanson Jr.; Dr. Phyllis Fast of the University of Alaska Anchorage; Dr. Ken Ostercamp, formerly of Alaska 20/20; Charles Wohlforth, author of Los Angeles Times Book Award–winning The Whale and the Supercomputer; and Jason Metrokin, son of Dennis, who, in the fiftieth-anniversary year become the first “afterborn” president of one of the original thirteen Alaska Native corporations (that is, born after ANCSA, the very legislation that created them, in 1971).

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Contributors also were selected because they are longtime Alaskans. Most are multigenerational. Many are Alaska Natives whose ancestors have lived here for millennia. An informal question I asked as editor was, Are this contributor’s parents and grandparents, their extended families, from Alaska? Will their children and grandchildren and other relatives live here into and past the next fifty years? This long-term perspective is something that Alaska, as a young state, cannot take for granted. In fact, in the first fifty years of statehood the long-term perspective has been sorely lacking. As the reader will discover in the following chapters, many of the mistakes our state has made result from the problem of short-term thinking. This problem is inherent to a new state, compounded by Alaska’s history of entertaining such a transitory population. It should be remembered that a citizenry—and its leaders in the business, political, nonprofit, arts and culture, and educational worlds—without a long-term attachment to Alaska are not likely to make choices that shape the best long-term future for our state or for future generations. By all accounts, Alaska will grow more diverse in the next fifty years. Anchorage is sometimes called “Alaska’s largest village” because

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it ­contains more Alaska Natives than anywhere in the state. It is also sometimes referred to as “Los Anchorage,” and for good reason, too. In 2009, the Anchorage School District, with more than 40 percent of the K–12 students in the state, is “majority minority” with ninety-four languages spoken, many of them Alaska Native dialects.3 By this measure, it is the second most diverse school district in the United States after Honolulu, beating Los Angeles and New York City. Alaska has always enjoyed a diverse population, and every group who lives or has moved here has made its mark, embroidering its story into the Alaskan identity. It is a land that is so vast, so beautiful, so extraordinary in so many senses that it has and will continue to inspire people from elsewhere to come here seeking to make Alaska home. Understanding and appreciating this “diversity dynamic” will help us to take stock in the next fifty years and perhaps be a model for civic and cultural life for the rest of the United States. Sometimes, however, as Alaskans themselves will tell you, it feels as if we are ten years behind the Lower Forty-Eight. We laugh uncomfortably when our state is lampooned in the national media and console ourselves with the “other” state Alaska motto: “We don’t give a damn how they do it Outside.” We fancy ourselves as mavericks, but those “Outsiders” may just see us as end-of-the-roaders. Our real state motto, of course, is: North to the Future.4 When Alaska has been its best, when Alaska has truly been Alaska, is when it has lived out this ethos, when it sees itself as a place of possibility and opportunity leading the future of the United States. It is important for Alaskans also to remember when they have been the vanguard. Alaska’s Nondiscrimination Act of 1945, for example, was the first civilrights-style legislation in the country, beating the New York State Legislature by mere weeks and the U.S. Congress by two decades. This legislation was made possible by the brave acts of nonviolent resistance by Alaska Natives Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alberta Schenck, Alaska’s homegrown versions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, with Governor Ernest Gruening playing President Johnson. At the fiftieth anniversary of statehood, Alaskans celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on February 16 (Presidents Day) in commemoration of their sacrifices and accomplishments for all Alaskans.

Introduction

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Certainly, any ethos is also partly mythos. As much as Alaskans like to tout our distinctiveness, you can still get McDonald’s hamburgers and Starbucks lattes in midsized towns all over the state. We watch the same television shows as elsewhere beamed in by satellite. We listen to the same music on our iPods. Now, in 2009, with the Internet, we connect with the Lower Forty-Eight and the rest of the world in ways that have never been experienced before. And yet Alaska truly is different. Bigger, wilder, with the tallest mountains. Not only the farthest north, but also the farthest west—and east—state. We are a state of superlatives, which forges a different type of citizenry, culture, institutions, and spirit, which, in turn, feeds the myth. Some historians and critics seek to overthrow such myths. I believe exactly the opposite. I think of myth in the anthropological sense: myth as a story with power, a story with a kernel of truth or moral that survives the falsification of any particular facts that may constitute it. Demythologizing has its place. Alaska’s vastness has its downside, as at fifty years we lead the nation in many shameful categories, such as substance abuse, domestic violence, and rape. Demythologizing balances the romanticizing of Alaska that puts blinders on the serious problems our state must tackle. And yet, it seems that only myth has the imaginative power to explain the “Alaskan difference”: what makes Alaska “Alaska.” For this, we look to our artists, our novelists, and our poets rather than economists and politicians. Many of the best wordsmiths in the first fifty years are not only discussed but included as contributors in the second chapter of this book. They and future artists can inspire us with new expressions of the Alaskan mythos, or create new mythologies that express deeper truths about this land we live in, our spirit, and ourselves. Accounting for the “Alaskan difference,” such visionaries will situate our identity as part of the larger United States. They will show how the Alaskan story not only reflects the American story, but how it inflects it as well. Alaska, as a new state, still has much to learn from the Lower Forty-Eight. But Alaska also has a story to tell about what it means to be American in the Last Frontier and therefore has much to teach. With refreshed insight into this “Alaskan difference” we will better understand the “American difference.” We have much to share with America about what it means to be citizens of this great nation. And

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we have much to show our Lower Forty-Eight and Hawai‘ian brothers and sisters about the meaning of statehood and civic identity as Alaska enters its next fifty years, just as the United States moves through its third century.

Notes 1. In 2006, members of the Alaska Independence Party, amongst others, collected enough signatures to place an initiative on the ballot calling for Alaska’s secession from the United States. In Kohlhass v. State, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled secession to be unconstitutional and therefore the initiative did not appear on the ballot. 2. Alaska History and Cultural Studies Online Curriculum, www.akhistorycourse. org/articles/article.hp?artID=138, produced by the Alaska Humanities Forum. 3. See www.asdk12.org/aboutasd. 4. Adopted by the Alaska Legislature in 1967.

Timeline

20,000–15,000 bce  First Alaskans arrive from Asia crossing Bering land bridge. 20,0000–10,000 bce  First evidence of human occupation; development of Alaska Native cultures. 1725–1732  First Russian contact in Alaska. 1741  Bering and Chirikov voyage. 1778  Captain Cook explores coastal Alaska. 1784  First permanent settlement on Kodiak. 1825 Anglo-Russian treaty establishing Alaska’s borders. 1835  First mission school for Eskimos at Nushagak. 1867 Sale of Alaska by Russia to the United States. 1884  First Organic Act creating a judicial district as well as a civil one, with judges, clerks, marshals, and limited officials appointed by the U.S. government to run the territory. 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. 1898  Homestead Act extended to Alaska. 1899  Nome Gold Rush. 1912 Second Organic Act creating Alaska as a U.S. territory, including an elected legislature, although with the governor still appointed by the president. 1912 Alaska Native Brotherhood founded. 1913  Women in Alaska granted vote. 13

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1925  “Iditarod” diphtheria serum run to Nome. 1945 Alaska law ends legal segregation. 1956 Alaska Constitution written and approved. 1959 Alaska becomes forty-ninth state. 1966 Alaska Federation of Natives formed. 1968  Oil discovered at Prudhoe Bay. 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). 1976 Alaska Permanent Fund established. 1977 Trans-Alaska Pipeline begins transporting oil. 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) designates almost eighty million acres as wilderness. 1989  Exxon Valdez oil spill. 2008–2009  Fiftieth-anniversary year of Alaska statehood.

Art, Culture, and Humanities

chap t e r 1  Carrie Irwin Brown

Alaska Native Art Past, Present, and Future

A

s I turned the corner and crossed the cobblestone street onto Mercer

Street in SoHo, a trendy, high-end shopping and residential district in New York City, I saw it—hanging above the sidewalk jam-packed with pedestrians—a light blue and brown flag gently drifting back and forth in the light September breeze. The Alaska House. So simple, and yet so all-encompassing. Despite the warm fall weather I got goose bumps and my steps quickened. As I approached the gallery I was greeted by familiar “faces”—a large white marble sculpture of a polar bear by Iñupiaq artist Larry Ahvakana; Alutiiq duck masks by Perry Eaton; an ivory fox mask by King Island artist Sylvester Ayek. Little pieces of home, of Alaska, thousands of miles away. I felt some of what I envisioned our fellow Alaskans felt when they opened their front doors on June 30, 1958, to pick up the Anchorage Daily News and read the headline in big, bold, black type: we’re in! In that sense it felt that we—we Alaskans, we Alaska Natives—had finally “arrived.” Arrived in the public consciousness of America, arrived on the global stage . . . arrived. Here we are, and we are Alaskans. We are Alaska Natives. We are Americans. We belong in this place, at this time. Come celebrate with us and learn about the rich and diverse cultures we represent. New York is definitely a global center when it comes to art and art markets. And to have Alaska Native artists represented in a venue all of our own, so to speak, is simply, well, nothing short of amazing. While 17

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Gov. Mike Stepovich of Alaska holds an Anchorage Daily Times newspaper bearing a big headline as he stands between President Eisenhower and Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton in the President’s White House office. Candace Waugaman Collection, UAF-2006-154-8, Archive University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Alaska Native artists are no strangers to museums, galleries, and exhibits across America and worldwide, fifty years ago Alaska was still known as Seward’s Icebox and it was hard for most to fathom just what America would want with such a place. It was difficult to comprehend Alaska ever being a part of mainstream American culture in any sense, and Alaska has long remained in the shadows of our nation’s workings in many ways. But here, at last, a place for Alaskan ideas, for Alaskan art and culture—all Alaska, all the time. As a state, Alaska has had a long-term presence in national affairs through our long-term representatives to the U.S. Congress, and we have a particular fondness for and love affair with Washington, DC—but little elsewhere in the nation. When I travel I am still astounded to hear some of the same questions that I was presented as a child. You know the usual Alaskan stereotypes: Do you live in igloos? Do you ride a dogsled to school? How high is Denali?

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Our role as Alaskans and as Alaska Natives “We are all innately creative going out into the larger world is to educate peobeings.” —Susie Bevinsple about Alaska—that we are Americans, that Ericsen, Iñupiaq (Barrow) we represent many different cultures, language groups, and tribes, that we are indigenous people who still exist on our ancestral lands. That we “All artists were once amahave much to contribute to America and the teurs.” —Vincent Van Gogh world. And not just energy as in oil and gas, but also the energy of our people through the creativity and ingenuity that has allowed the First Alaskans to live and thrive here in this land since time immemorial. Due to our geographic distance from the rest of the nation we need to constantly remind the rest of the States that we’re a part of this country, too. Remember us, up here? No, we’re not that little box on the map, below Hawai’i off the coast of California. The year 2008 was an historic year that catapulted Alaska into national and international spotlights, due in large part to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s run for vice president with presidential candidate Senator John McCain of Arizona. That has brought a bright spotlight to shine on our great state, which all Alaskans can be happy for, regardless of political persuasion. It has called attention to our people, our land, and our resources. Also, Alaska’s Arctic is widely agreed to be the “canary in the coal­ mine” on the issue of global warming, as many of our remote villages are affected most directly and immediately by changing sea levels and raging storms. More than ever, scientists are watching the Alaska Arctic and its people for new ways to adapt to changing ecosystems. And, there is great interest in the resources of Alaska lands, particularly oil and gas, as has been the case since prior to statehood. But with increased consumption and decreased supply from within the United States, energy is as hot an issue as it ever was. All of these various factors coming together have meant that Alaska is even more rapidly becoming a critically integrated part of the rest of the United States, in a way we’ve not seen in the past. It is an exciting time to be an Alaskan, and to be an American. And, inevitably, in the next fifty years, Alaska will continue to become an increasingly integrated part of the larger global world. It is inescapable. As so simply said by my good

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friend Trina Landlord (Yup’ik, Mountain Village), “The world is our backyard.” fastening on concepts such As a young girl growing up in the Interior, as ‘preservation’ and ‘tradiI would read and dream about all the places I tion,’ which can smother creativity.” —Alvin Amason, wanted to go around the world. I was one of the Alutiiq (Old Harbor) lucky few who had relatives “outside” and would visit the exotic land of Texas and come home with all of the coolest, hottest trends, clothes, and music. I pursued a degree in international business and studied in Hawai‘i and abroad in Japan. I have traveled often within the United States as well as to other countries. All of these experiences have helped me to form a more complete worldview, and, in turn, to better understand and appreciate my own background and culture. Having lived in another country, it was revealed to me early on that as Alaskans we could ill afford to ignore the people and countries that surround us. In Alaska we are truly located at the crossroads to the world and the study and knowledge of foreign affairs and global issues is increasingly critical. As is the case across the globe, we can safely say we are undergoing the process of globalization—which can be described as a process by which the people of the world are more aligned and unified as a single society and function together. Globalization is technological, it is cultural, it is ecological, and it is social. Generally, the ideas of free trade, capitalism, and democracy are widely believed to facilitate globalization. And even after fifty years of statehood, these are still concepts and ideals that we as Alaskans, and particularly Alaska Natives, strive to understand and embrace. We see the effects of globalization in all facets of our everyday lives: more optic communications, satellites, and increased availability of telephone and Internet services than ever before. We see the growth of cross-cultural contacts and the willingness to adopt new technologies and practices, and to participate in a “world culture.” We see global environmental challenges that can only be solved with international cooperation, such as climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution, overfishing of the oceans, spread of invasive species, increasing pollution, melting sea ice, disappearing species. We see the increased circulation of people from all nations, with fewer restrictions than ever before. We see greater exposure to cultural diversity, along with disappearing languages “I caution students against

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Context and contrast in rural Alaska: sod-roofed cabins with satellite television.

and cultures. We see greater access and ability for travel and tourism. We see more immigration and emigration. We see an increase and spread of consumer products to and from other countries. We see worldwide fads, pop culture, and sporting events. And we see the creation of international criminal court and justice movements. This “flattening of the globe” has a real and impactful effect on us as we venture out into the world. The year I attended college in Nagoya, Japan, my younger sister completed her senior year of high school in Paris, France. Keeping track of three time zones was difficult and communication sporadic. Between myself, my sister, and my parents, we spent (literally) hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on international phone calls. Cellular phones, e-mail, and the Internet were not yet invented. I think of how much more connected we could be now in the same situation. How much easier that year might have been for all of us—to be able to connect whenever the thought moved us. As Alaska Natives, we need to adjust rapidly not only to the norms and confines of Western civilization, but to world civilization. The challenge for Alaska and Alaska Natives in particular will be to adapt to this rapid globalization while protecting and sustaining our uniqueness, individuality, and identity. In 1912, when Alaska became a U.S. territory, the U.S. Census listed a statewide population of 29,500 Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts; 4,300 “Caucasian Alaskans” and 26,000 “Cheechakos” (newcomers). Current census population figures from 2000 show a total state population now of a little

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more than 625,000, of which Alaska Natives Eskimo mythology, Alaska comprise about 19 percent. While overall, Natives are a people undergoing Alaska Natives are now greatly outnumbered a transformation from insulated, by non-Native residents, the majority of the isolated, subsistence-based Alaska Native population (58 percent) still cultures into ‘new’ Natives. lives in rural and remote Alaska. The urban They are a people whom their Alaska Native population is increasing (now grandfathers and grandmothers 42 percent), especially this year as energy would hardly recognize were costs rise and we are seeing an influx of they to see them today, a people people moving out of the villages. We have speaking a foreign language, a an extremely young population in the Native people living as aliens in their community, with more than 50 percent under own lands.” —Harold Napoleon, the age of eighteen. Both rural and urban Yup’ik (Hooper Bay) Native populations are young, living longer, and experiencing a changing household composition. The issues and challenges that the changing demographics have on the Native community and on Native artists remain to be seen. In addition, Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, is also seeing rapid changes and an explosion in population. People from very different backgrounds and from many different countries have come and are coming to Alaska. There are now there more than two hundred languages spoken by the children and parents in the Anchorage School District. These are things that no one could have predicted fifty years ago. And the composition of the Alaska Native artists’ community is quickly changing. Of the thousands of Alaska Native artists who have been identified statewide by various arts organizations and efforts, many are Elders. The number of knowledge- and wisdom-bearers, who may be the last ones who continue a particular trade or craft, is decreasing each and every year. Each year, we all look forward to the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention and of course the annual arts-and-crafts fair. We are eager to see old friends from across the state, smiling faces sitting behind the tables, chatting with those who are there to take home a small piece of the artists’ lives. Little did we know that when we visited with Rosalie and Ursula Paniyak from Chevak at the AFN Convention in Fairbanks last year, it would be for the last time. Rosalie, a revered Elder and master artist—a dollmaker of whimsical, wonderful dolls—was dying of cancer. I will wonder each year if there is an artist there who we may not see again. “In seeming fulfillment of old

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Each time I am saddened by the thought that their craft—their beautiful art and life’s work—may die with them. Have they taught others? Did the carver who passed away unexpectedly this summer teach anyone how to make those special earrings that were like no other? Were they his father’s design? His grandfather’s design? Has that been lost? All of these changes have of course had complex impacts on the everyday lives of all Alaskans, and particularly Alaska Natives. Global warming is impacting Alaska Natives in many, many ways, as so many villages are at the forefront of these global changes. Will villages exist, as we know them, in the future? For some, perhaps not in their current form, or current locations. All of these issues impact the creations by Alaska Native artists. It is impossible to reflect on any time period in Alaska Native art history, or to contemplate the future, without contemplating the varied cultures of Alaska Native people at the same time. They are inextricably linked, braided together like the waters of our Alaskan rivers. It is impossible to reflect on Alaska Native art at any place in time without thinking about the larger Native community—the makeup of people and places, and their relation to the larger Alaskan, American, and global world. Even as an Alaska Native, I have much to learn. A whole new world has been opened up to me about the histories and cultures of Alaska Native people, through art. Through the energy of the carvers, sculptors, painters, jewelry makers, seamstresses, beadwork artists, mask makers, contemporary artists, writers, actors, musicians, performing artists and dance groups, and through the many, many other kinds of art that Alaska Natives use to express themselves. In many profound ways, Alaska Native art, or at least the creation of Alaska Native art, is not greatly affected by Alaska being a state or not being a state. Alaska Native arts and cultures exist outside of that realm, in a way. It—they—have existed for thousands of years—for us, since time immemorial. “You don’t buy African art because you feel pity for poor There is no word for art in any of our African people. You buy it Native languages, since Alaska Natives have because it is beautiful. They are always used the bounty from the land and beautiful. And in that way, it sea that surrounds us to create and express is a direct reflection of them.” ourselves—from the Tlingit in the southeast —Maria Williams, Tlingit with their dramatic and striking red, white,

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Interior of tent on sandspit, Nome, Alaska, with man carving ivory cribbage board. 1908. O. D. Goetze, O. D. Goetze Collection, AMRC-b01-41-02, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.

and black motifs, to the Athabascan in the north, with beadwork and basketry that are beyond compare. As with many indigenous peoples without a written language, for Alaska Natives art has served, together with oral traditions, as a means of transmitting stories, history, and wisdom from generation to generation. It provides us with a tie to the land, and depicts our histories. All of life is intertwined and expressed through art. As with all artists, Alaska Native artists remain motivated primarily by our own need to create. To express ourselves and to tap our limitless imaginations. It is a way to share our cultures and spirituality with the world. Native artists are positioned to work with a variety of unique materials, such as walrus ivory, whale bone, baleen, furs, hides, and other uniquely Alaskan materials. Federal laws allow for Alaska Natives to use these materials as by-products of subsistence lifestyles. When an animal is harvested to feed a family in rural Alaska, every single part of it is used, down to the whiskers on a walrus.

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Charlie Ayapana, a Little Diomede man married to a Point Hope woman, was by far the most skilled ivory carver in town. A small child is peeking around the corner, watching the work. Mary Cox Photographs, 1953–1958, UAF-2001-129-56 Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Non-Natives learn who we are through ivory carving, whale-bone sculpture, beadwork, weaving and baskets, dolls that are miniature replicas of somebody’s grandmother or granddaughter. Alaska Native art is a collection of images of the people who are reflected in each creation. You can see our fears and worries. You can see awe in the nature and beauty that surround us. You can see it and feel it in the paintings of bright scenes of village life and community celebrations, the distribution of the whale after a successful hunt, nature, sea mammals—bright colored seals, bears, sea lions, birds— reflected in the imagery of an ivory tusk or carved in whale bone. The stories are about shaman, about the many revered creatures, about transformation—from man to animal, animal to man, transformation of our lives and our people. They are about the land and the sea, and the many bounties they provide that sustain us. They are about the creatures of that land and sea—the birds, whales, walruses, otters, moose, and the plants and flowers.

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Art speaks to those who view it. We are Yup’ik, we are Iñupiaq, we are Athabascan, you are, how you dress, what you we are Tlingit, we are Sugpiaq. We are Alaska think, where you fit in, and how Natives. We are Alaskans, we are Americans, you see yourself in the world—has and we are citizens of the world. We belong been shaped by language, place, community membership, social in this world, at this place, at this time. It and political consciousness, and is a continuation of culture, for another ten customs and beliefs. But Native thousand years. identity has also been influenced Native artists carry with them fragments of by a legacy of legal policies that our cultures and are bringing those elements have sought to determine who is into the much broader scope of world civiliIndian and who is not. The issue zation. We cannot return to the old ways, but of Native identity continues to we must retain the old ways and reflect them resonate today, as Native people in our attitudes and in our art. And while it across the Americas seek to claim can be assumed that contemporary Alaska the future on their own terms.” Native artists draw on their cultures’ stories —Our Lives: Contemporary Lives and traditions in their creations, many conand Identities exhibit, National temporary Native artists do not restrict their Museum of the American Indian, explorations of Native traditions to a single Washington, DC, September 2008 group or media. This is not necessarily an indication of the loss of tribal identity so much as a celebration—celebration of the stories each culture has to offer and the respect each holds for its place and traditions. Like many artists, Alaska Native artists explore many different paths in their lifetimes as artists—some creating work part-time just for the desire to create; some creating small works occasionally to supplement their income; and increasingly, those who are working and supporting themselves and/or their families as full-time artists. Not the typical “starving artists.” They are fishermen, hunters, pilots, taxi drivers, teachers, postmasters, businesspeople, Elders. The stories they draw upon in creating artwork have been passed down from generation to generation, over many centuries, and play a major role in the continuation of cultures. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, long before Alaska was a state, and long before the Constitutional Convention was convened in Fairbanks, there were many, many successful efforts to support and promote the arts. Alaska Native artists have been catapulted into a global “For Native people, identity—who

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Interior of Albert Berry’s Alaska Artisans shop in the Horseshoe Building on Main Street, Juneau, Alaska, ca. 1922. Alaska State Library, Winter and Pond Photographs, 1893–1943, ASL-P87-0976.

“market” largely as a result of their economic efforts and those many hands that guided them along the way. In 1937, twenty-two years before statehood, one of the first organized efforts to support Alaska Native artists—the Alaska Native Arts and Crafts Clearinghouse—was established through the auspices of the U.S. Indian Arts and Crafts Board. As early as the 1940s, Alaska Native artists were traveling to faraway foreign lands to exchange ideas and training opportunities with other First Nations peoples. And shortly after statehood, in 1962, the first group of eighteen Alaska Natives enrolled in the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shortly thereafter, in 1965, the Native Arts Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was established, and since that time has supported the art education of hundreds of Alaska Native students. Looking at the various events and celebrations that highlight Alaska Native art, whether they be visual artists, performing artists, literary artists, or any others, you notice that every decade has held momentous

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Portrait of a Yup’ik dancer on stage at the Festival of Native Arts. She is wearing a traditional headdress and using Yup’ik dancing paddles. 1994 Fairbanks. TT.00053, Tuzzy Library.

occasions, from the first World Eskimo Indian Olympics in Fairbanks in 1961 to the first Alaska Festival of Native Arts in 1966 and the first Camai Festival in Bethel, the first Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, and the countless other festivals, celebrations, and gatherings that allow our people to express themselves, and to gain some income and opportunity. Since statehood in 1959, and importantly, since the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971, Alaska Natives have continued, as they have since time immemorial, to retain traditions and unique cultures, despite and because of all of the unique pressures and opportunities that statehood has presented. In more recent times, the State of Alaska’s Council for the Arts, Alaska Native Heritage Center, Alaska Native Arts Foundation, the brand-new Alaska House in New York, and dozens of other organizations such as museums and cultural centers support Native arts through technical assistance and training, funding opportunities, regional and statewide gatherings of artists, and more. Issues that are discussed on a consistent basis include: the commodification of

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Alaska Native art; copyright and intel“My culture and idea of home is lectual property; export restrictions and tied to Alaska, and I think it is these origins—a lineage that I was born into, U.S. and international laws that regulate and a land I was removed from, my materials used by Native artists such cultural limbo and precarious balas ivory, whale bone, baleen, hides, and ances—these have molded my identity furs; complex tax and legal matters; and and fueled my art. . . . It is through art marketing and sales. Many, many other or ritual that I discover ways to find a issues such as rising energy costs and the root and affirm my position as a shiftrapid influx of people from villages to citing self, understanding that in order ies and regional hubs and climate change to survive identity and culture cannot affect the creation and production of be static.” —Erica Lord Alaska Native art, even if indirectly, in a very real way. Lifestyle and culture are difficult to uphold when hunters have to go farther and farther to find walrus to eat, since the by-products of that food, such as ivory tusks, create works of art and generate some money for families. What about when artists move into Anchorage and then have a difficult time getting the materials that they might normally work with, such as baleen? Whereas Alaska Native regional corporations have had more than thirtyfive years to learn about business, economics, and the global marketplace, Alaskan entrepreneurs—including Alaska Native artists—have not had the luxury of that time. They are entering an increasingly complex global marketplace where laws and regulations abound. Art can be a tool for Alaska Native people toward self-determination. Art allows for the expression of the interrelationship of issues, such as the circularity of life. Instead of a continued unhealthy dependence on outside decision makers and service providers, we can seize opportunities that allow for Alaska Native artists to participate in the market economy and express our humanity at the same time. It is an obligation and a right to solve our own problems—a necessary, albeit at times difficult, prerequisite for communal and familial well-being. It needs to be more fully integrated into the Alaskan education system in a more robust and meaningful way. It can be used to heal, and to teach the beauty and ingenuity of Alaska Native people. Since long before statehood, when the influx of Westerners to Alaska began hundreds of years ago, Alaska Natives have been challenged to adapt to rapid changes and new ways of thinking and being. Our identi-

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ties as Alaska Native people have been constantly nothing remains without explored and redefined. In fact, “identity” is a change.” —Buddhist common theme and issue that indigenous people quote from across the globe gravitate toward again and again. But then for that matter, isn’t it a human issue, exploring self and identity? Particularly in “It is an exciting time America? to be an artist.” —Perry Since 1971, with the passage of the Alaska Native Eaton, Alutiiq (Ouzinkie) Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), guidelines have been imposed on Alaska Natives as to who was “Native” or not. Although set up as business corporations, the regional ANCSA corporations serve as much more than “just” corporations for their shareholders, with each holding pride for their region as fiercely as one might for their village basketball team. The issue of Native identity has been addressed by the newly forming Native corporations themselves at village, regional, and statewide levels. Some have recognized membership in an ANCSA regional corporation— being a shareholder—as defining “status” for Alaska Natives. In response, some have enrolled “New” Natives, as they are called in the corporations, since Natives born after 1971 were not members of the corporations. Is it a Bureau of Indian Affairs card that determines that you’re Native? Even if they do not have the blood quantum to be shareholders in a corporation, my children are not still Native by virtue of the fact that they are descendants of their Athabascan and Iñupiaq grandfather? Since contact with Westerners, there have been questions imposed on Alaska Natives, both internally and by others who ask, What does it really mean to be Alaska Native? Who is Alaska Native? How is that defined, and who defines it? As Alaska Natives move around the globe, how will that affect art and cultural expressions? And when it comes to Native art, what is Native art? As someone of mixed race myself, it is something I have questioned my entire life. Am I Native, am I white, am I something else? I call myself a Native and identify as being Native, but there are times when neither the Native community nor the non-Native community would entirely agree with me. The Silver Hand program was established in 1961, to “promote authentic Alaska Native handicrafts” but it ran into early difficulties. A “Everything changes;

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complete overhaul of the program was successful in 2008, thanks to the insistence of a handful of artists and arts advocates. It now includes revised eligibility requirements and now allows for descendants and contemporary artists who may not use traditional materials such as ivory and whalebone. Will this program be necessary Silver Hand Program in the future? More important, less important? Alaska State Council of the Arts Is it important to tag certain art as “authentic”? In the next fifty years will there be a point at which Alaska Native artists are just, well, artists? I imagine that in the future there will always be Native art—art based on traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation. There will always be grass baskets woven in the Hooper Bay style; there will always be ivory carvings in the St. Lawrence Island style, Point Hope drums. And there will be new realms. Ones that we can’t yet conceive of. Boundaries imposed on Native artists will be shattered—obliterated—and we will see artists working with new materials and new media that we don’t yet even know about. We will draw from the strength of our cultures, based on the respect and wisdom of the Elders who led the way before us, and expand upon that vision to express who we are, as indigenous people living in the twenty-first century. What characterizes their work, as distinguished from the work of previous generations, is a freedom to choose, manipulate, and reinvent different kinds of languages and issues, whether formal, conceptual, or political. They have the right to defy a definitive conception of “Alaska Native” and should be able to challenge and extend the category of Alaska Native art. Suggesting that there has never been a formulaic way of making or seeing art, either in the past or now, a new set of conversations should be initiated that highlight the multidimensional ways of conceptualizing and producing art today. In the past, “rules” for art have been clearly defined for Alaska Native artists, even so far as who (men) could carve and who (women) could sew. Those boundaries are being redefined, as I can think of many men who now sew and many women who carve. All of those old boundaries and ideas will shift and transform, as we do, in response to the changing world around us.

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Imagine that it is the year 2059. Alaska is celebrating one hundred years of statehood. We have experienced a renaissance in the Native community, a revival of art and learning, and expressions of the renewal of the life and vigor that has sustained us for centuries. Alaska Native art and artists are well known throughout the world for the beauty, quality, and unique functionality of their creative expressions. The indigenous people of Alaska continue traditions that have been passed down from their great-great-great-grandparents and since time immemorial. However, artistic traditions are now also woven with change—traditional art forms melding with contemporary styles, materials, and media. Yet underneath you can always see its roots. You can always find its source. Alaska Native art is inextricably woven with our cultures and traditions. It has a grace that transcends the boundaries of this specific time and place.

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Timeline 1847 Fort Yukon is established. 1860 The Sitka Times, Alaska’s first newspaper, is published. 1867 Russia sells Alaska to the United States. 1884 Congress passes the Organic Act and $15,000 is appropriated to educate Indian children. 1897 Klondike Gold Rush begins. 1898 Nome Gold Rush begins. 1912 Alaska becomes a U.S. Territory. The Census lists Alaska’s population at 29,500 Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts; 4,300 “Caucasian Alaskans”; and 26,000 “Cheechakos” (newcomers). 1915 Alaska Native Sisterhood holds its first convention in Sitka. President Woodrow Wilson selects the railroad’s route from Seward to Fairbanks. 1936 The Indian Reorganization Act of 1935 is amended to include Alaska. 1937 The Alaska Native Arts and Crafts Clearinghouse is established through the auspices of the U.S. Indian Arts and Crafts Board. 1955 Constitutional Convention opens at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. 1956 The Alaska Native Arts and Crafts Clearinghouse (ANAC) is reorganized as Alaska Native Arts and Crafts (ANAF), with one of the first boards of directors that is comprised largely of Natives. First retail shop opens shortly thereafter in Juneau. 1959 Alaska’s statehood is proclaimed. 1961 The first World Eskimo Indian Olympics is held. 1962 The first group of eighteen Alaska Natives enroll in the Institute for American Indian Arts in Sante Fe, New Mexico. 1965 The Native Arts Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is established. 1966 The first Alaska Festival of Natives Arts is held.

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1966 The Alaska Federation of Natives is created to enhance and promote the cultural, economic, and political voice of the entire Alaska Native community. 1968 The Anchorage Historical and Fine Art Museum opens. 1969 Beginnings of Musk Ox Producers Coop. 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is signed into law by President Nixon. 1971 Development of the “silver hand” emblem by Alaska Division of Economic Enterprise to denote Native-made products. 1973

The First Festival of Native Arts is held in Fairbanks.

1973 ANAC store opens in Anchorage. 1975 Artist-in-residence program in Alaska schools is begun by the State Council on the Arts. 1975 State Percent for Art Program is initiated. 1976 Institute of Alaska Native Arts is founded in Fairbanks. 1983 First Athabascan Fiddling Festival held in Fairbanks. 1986 First Southeast Alaska Native juried art show is hosted in Sitka. 1986 First annual Howard Rock Poetry Competition, for Alaska Natives. 1989 The Alaska Native Heritage Center is incorporated as a nonprofit educational and cultural organization 1997 Koahnic Broadcast Corporation is formed as a nonprofit, Alaska Native governed and operated media center in Anchorage. 2002 The Alaska Native Arts Foundation is founded to celebrate and promote Alaska Native art and artists. 2004 The Ford Foundation awards a grant for a statewide survey of Alaska Native artists. 2008 The Alaska House opens in New York.

chap t e r 2  Ronald Spatz

Literary Alaska

Preface I was packing for my move to Alaska and listening to the public radio station in St. Joseph, Missouri. Alaska’s Governor Jay Hammond was the featured guest at the National Press Club. It was June 1980 and Missouri was sweltering under a record-breaking heat wave. I didn’t know much about Alaska save the powerful images of cold in the John Haines poems I had read and the beautiful Alaskan glaciers I’d seen in books. Also kicking around in my head were the disparate images of the 1964 earthquake, Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, and the short story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. I still remember, as I filled boxes, that Missouri day seemed to get hotter and more humid and the air conditioner in the house mostly rattled and made a grinding sound. The move to Alaska certainly promised relief from the heat but I was apprehensive about my new job as an assistant professor of English at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I had an idea about starting a literary magazine once I got there. Could that idea possibly thrive in the Alaskan literary landscape? And then I realized Governor Hammond was reading a poem at the Alaska Press Club—one of his own poems. Now that was a cool, promising sign! The rich diversity of Alaska’s people is an integral part of the fabric of this new state and is reflected in its written literatures and in its oral traditions. The Alaska that welcomed me had many vibrant cultures, some tracing roots back before there was a United States, well before the 35

Senator Gruening, author of The Public Pays, shares a copy of his book with Senator Lee Metcalf, author of Overcharge. 1976 Ernest H. Gruening Papers, 1914–[1959–1969] 1974, UAF-1976-21-609, Archives ­University of Alaska Fairbanks.

A sizable group of people from the Alaska Press Club are seen here holding a sign that reads “Farthest Northers [sic], Welcome to the Club.” The words “Alaska” and “Golden Nugget Services” are visible on the side of the aircraft. 1967. University of Alaska General File Vertical File—University of Alaska—Individuals, UAF-1967123, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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concept of statehood or owning land. Actively supporting the literary arts and fostering its connections across the geographic and cultural divides were two important state agencies: the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Humanities Forum. But just under the surface there was a disquieting silence. Some Alaska Native languages were dying out and others were in danger of doing so. Alaska’s indigenous literatures and cultures were in peril. Much has been lost, but thankfully, as Alaska commemorates its fiftieth anniversary, we are progressively preserving and rebuilding the cultures. There is still much work to do. Yet more than ever, Alaska’s literary arts and its many diverse voices, collectively and singly, are celebrated in communities across the state and in a growing body of books and other media. The task of this chapter is to find a way to represent Alaska’s literary arts—past, present, and future—on the state’s fiftieth birthday. The subject would be a daunting task for an entire book, let alone compressed into a single chapter. I decided that rather than employ one person’s perspective, there were distinct advantages to a multifaceted approach. I asked eight notable Alaska literary practitioners and scholars: Gary Holthaus, Nancy Lord, Nora Marks Dauenhauer, James Ruppert, Peggy Shumaker, Ann Dixon, John Straley, and Eric Heyne. Each presents the literary territory he or she knows best. Although not definitive—it was not possible to include all of Alaska’s writers, poets, and editors in these short essays— the chapter conveys an essence of literary Alaska, its development, and a few educated guesses about the voices in Alaska’s future.

Setting the Literary Stage  by Gary Holthaus Northway, Alaska, first dawned on my consciousness in June 1964, the morning after we had camped out at some now-forgotten milepost along the Alcan. The roadhouse, or garage, nearest the turnoff to Northway was on a little rise. A man was on his back on the ground under a row of nine or ten camper trailers. He was welding one of those veterans of the

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Alcan that had a broken frame. When he finished he scooted under the next. They all had broken frames. Northway seemed like an appropriate name for a town at the entrance to Alaska, too far at the end of a dirt road to venture down—just as a bead of molten metal born of blue flame and showering sparks, the scale chipped off with a hammer holding together the frame, seemed an appropriate souvenir for an Alaska-bound trailer. Two winters later I had become familiar with Northway’s cold temperatures, but I was not prepared for the Winter News from poet John Haines. “They say the wells are freezing / at Northway where the cold begins.” A whole new literature opened up for me. To me, still a cheechako, Winter News was both symbol and sign: symbol of an Alaska that automatically turned tongues toward metaphor, and a sign that a powerful Alaska literary art was not only possible but already at hand if only I knew where to look. Soon Robert Hedin, a student of John’s, would write, “Up on Verstovia the snow country is silent tonight  .  .  .  / This is where the animals must go— / The old foxes, the bears too slow to catch / The fall run of salmon, even the salmon themselves/” I found Dave McElroy writing about the Alcan and bush flights, clarifying and expanding my experience of these in his poems. Here was poetry of place so beautifully rendered that anyone could catch a view of this brooding country and sense the grand scale and mystery lurking behind it. In 1970, Mary Hale, grand supporter of all the arts in Alaska, brought word from Washington that a National Endowment for the Humanities was to be created, matching the already established National Endowment for the Arts. For writers the advent of these two new agencies were among the most important events following statehood. Those federal endowments brought to life the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Humanities Forum, statewide organizations that supported workshops and conferences, that provided inspiration for budding writers and artists, and brought some of the finest writers from the Lower Forty-Eight to Alaska. On Alaska’s literary front both critics and the general public were moved by the stories that came to light. By 1972, the Alaska Humanities Forum (AKHF) was a reality and I was working for them to find ways the humanities could serve the whole state. The board of the Alaska Humanities Forum wanted to create ways that the humanities could deal with “issues of broad public concern,”

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and use them to explore the border between the arts and humanities. The Alaska State Council on the Arts had similar interests for their varied disciplines. During ensuing years the two organizations funded a number of joint projects for writers. The arts council also awarded AKHF a series of grants to bring writers and thinkers from the Lower Forty-Eight to the state. An amazing succession of literary artists came northward to Kodiak, Bethel, Fairbanks, Kotzebue, Sitka, Ketchikan, Juneau, Dillingham, Anchorage, Aleknagik, Homer, and elsewhere to meet our writers and share their craft. In the coming decade, with the support of both the AKHF and the state arts council, both the University of Alaska Fairbanks Midnight Sun Writers’ Conference and the Island Institute’s Summer Symposium in Sitka were launched and they attracted many of the major writers and poets in North America. At the same time, Alaska writers were inspired by the readings and workshops; publishers old and new began to provide them with outlets for publication. Fireweed Press got its start, publishing Alaskan writers writing on Alaskan themes. Alaska Methodist University (AMU) Press began publishing books on Alaska, and the University of Alaska Press took new interest in the state’s writers. Permafrost: A Literary Journal was an early publication run by student editors at the University of Alaska Fairbanks providing an outlet for Alaskan poets and fiction writers to share their work with other Alaskans; today it publishes an annual edition including a wide range of writers. With the support of the state arts council, Alaska Quarterly Review (AQR) was begun in 1982 by Ronald Spatz and James Liszka, both of the University of Alaska Anchorage. AQR quickly became an important journal recognized across America as a source not only of fine Alaskan writing, but of other new and recognized writers from across the country and abroad. The Washington Post Book World deemed it “one of the nation’s best literary magazines.” After more than twenty-five years, it is still greatly appreciated by people who love good writing. This was a time of growth and prosperity for Alaska, and Alaskan authors in all the genres began to flourish. From his homestead along the Richardson Highway, John Haines captured the images and the ineffable mystery of wild Alaska so that all of us could recognize its vastness and its subtleties. With his first book, Winter News, he had become an Alaskan writer of national stature. His second book, The Stone Harp, would also

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Clark James Mishler. Alaska Quarterly Review.

reveal his profound sense of involvement in the critical issues of his time. Our national indifference to the environment, war, social justice all came under his scrutiny in poems that some dismissed as “topical” while others of us saw him fulfilling the true artists’ role as interpreter and spokesperson for everything unvoiced in the world. In his early work and in every later book, including his lush, insightful books of prose, Haines gave us all a new view of our place in the North and our larger world. Dena’ina writer Peter Kalifornsky was one of the first Alaska Native writers to create original stories in his own language. He translated some of those himself, some in collaboration with James Kari, linguist at the University of Alaska’s Alaska Native Language Center, or with Alan Boraas, anthropologist at Kenai Community College. His Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga: The Kenai People’s Language, was published by the Alaska Native Language Center in 1977. Kalifornsky is perhaps best known for A Dena’ina Legacy: K’tl’egh’I Sukdu: The Collected Writings of Peter Kalifornsky, published by the Alaska Native Language Center in 1991. That volume won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1992, and has drawn accolades from many sources since. Kalifornsky was awarded the Honoring Alaska’s Indigenous Literature (HAIL) Award in 2002, the posthumous award being given for his language work and teaching, as well as his writing. In Sitka, anthropologist Richard Nelson, who had always written well in his academic books on village life in Alaska, began to see a wider pos-

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sibility in becoming “a writer.” His concerns for the environment and for what we might learn from traditional cultures, not just about them, led to a book important to the whole American genre of nature writing. The Island Within, published in 1998 by Northpoint Press, won the Burroughs Award for the most outstanding nature writing in America. One critic called it “richly evocative, beautifully written, moving, wonderful.” Also deep in Southeast Alaska the possibility of language maintenance and the later development of a literate rendition of Tlingit rhetoric came alive. In 1982, Andrew Hope III edited the first Raven’s Bones, pulling together Tlingit traditional stories, historic documents, anthropological reports, linguistic notes, and poems—some of that material becoming available to Tlingit readers, and the rest of us, for the first time. Nora Marks Dauenhauer and her husband, Richard, began capturing the dignity and power of Tlingit oratory in written form. Beginning in the late 1960s, their work culminated in a wondrous series of volumes with a context for the oral tradition published by the University of Washington Press starting in 1987. Haa Shuká, Our Ancestors: Tlingit Oral Narratives was the first. Haa Tuwunáagu Yis, For Healing Our Spirit: Tlingit Oratory followed in 1990, and their work has continued into the present. Alaska Native writers made possible a contemporary literature that displays a Native sensibility and tradition, sometimes in combination with careful use of contemporary English poetic forms and practices. The combination of these elements shows in The Droning Shaman, a book of Nora Marks Dauenhauer’s own poems, which appeared from Black Current Press in Haines in 1991. In Life Woven with Song, an anthology of her works published by the University of Arizona Press in 2000, Dauenhauer re-creates in written language the oral tradition of her people and her own works. Her poems, stories, and plays reveal several aspects of indigenous literature: the wonder and naturalness of the place she inhabits, the real magnitude and significance of small events, and the phrasing of the oral tradition along with the economy of contemporary poetry. Nora

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Marks Dauenhauer was among the first to be acknowledged by the Alaska Native Knowledge Network’s Honoring Alaska’s Indigenous Literature program, receiving the award in 2001, and again in 2004. Writer and sculptor Robert Davis, of Kake, says, “My ideas come from the ones who came before me; a culture that has been here for thousands of years, an art form evolving for centuries, to which I connect when I create.” As an artist Davis keeps trying “to connect my present with my past.” In his poem “Saginaw Bay,” he writes, “I keep going back . . . I try to keep trying to see myself against all this history.” His goal is achieved, “When I create new forms out of the old, using non-traditional materials and styles, I bridge the past and the present.” This seems to be the work of all his art. In Homer, Nancy Lord began her career in fiction with a collection of short stories, The Compass Inside Ourselves. Written for an Alaska State Council on the Arts contest judged by Stanley Elkin, Compass was selected as the outstanding fiction. More short stories were collected in Survival and The Man Who Swam with Beavers, published by Coffee House Press in 1991 and 2001, respectively. Lord has also won acclaim for her nonfiction books, and has become recognized as helping create a “new kind of nature writing,” for her work in Fishcamp: Life on an Alaskan Shore. Jon Krakauer said of it, “These pages teem with provocative ideas about wild country . . . Nancy Lord is a wonderful writer and this is a terrific book.” Her Green Alaska: Dreams from the Far Coast and Beluga Days: Tracking a White Whale’s Truths, both published by Counterpoint in 2000 and 2003, also won plaudits from readers and critics. Joe Senungetuk, well known as a visual artist and sculptor, wrote Give or Take a Century: An Eskimo Chronicle, published in 1971 by Indian Historian Press. As a child, Mary Tallmountain had been adopted by a white couple who moved with her to the Lower Forty-Eight. In San Francisco she grew to love books and writing, nourishing her art with a circle of noted American Indian writers there. In the 1980s she came back to Alaska’s Koyukon country to renew and acknowledge her connections to her original people and their place, as well as to Lakota leader Black Elk; Wounded Knee, South Dakota; and the great Blue Whale. Iñupiaq Edgar Anawrok wrote a “Letter Home” from his prison cell. It begins, “Slowly the night comes to life / In the corner of my bed / The picture of you smiles at me— / I do not know if you are thinking of me.” And

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Sister Goodwin, also Iñupiaq, wrote, “Sacrifice: A Dream / A Vision,” in which a young man kills his grandfather, Owl. Rather than responding with anger or recrimination, Owl passes on his wisdom to his grandson, who takes his name, “Ukpik/Owl,” and “in this way / he will keep the memory alive / with the tales and adventures / told by his owl grandfather.” Traditional stories, whether prose or poetry, still incorporate a whole system of values and include everything that one might need to know to live and survive. Authenticity is still one of the characteristics Alaskan readers look for in their literature, whether it springs from indigenous roots or from among our more recent arrivals. We can be grateful, for their work enriches us all whatever our tradition.

Alaska Writers of Fact and Fiction  by Nancy Lord I might fairly say that Alaska’s statehood made me an Alaskan. I was a child of impressionable age then, living in New Hampshire—a place that to me, even at age seven, seemed small and used up. When I saw pictures and read about “our new state,” I wanted to take personal ownership of it. I wanted all the possibility that was suggested to me by its “newness,” its space and wildness and frontier spirit. A dozen years later my feet were on that ground. I can also say with some certainty that Alaska made me a writer. In Alaska I met a million questions, and I found that the way to think and to learn was to write my way into those questions—not necessarily to find answers but to wonder about place and time and people and how everything might fit together into some kind of meaning. Every place has its distinctive art, which grows out of that place just as its flora and fauna and languages do. Every place needs its stories, for the most basic purpose of telling us who and where and perhaps why we are. Alaska, of course, has been storied for as long as it’s been peopled, but because Alaska’s was an oral tradition, its literature was not readily recognized by those of us who came from elsewhere and were Nancy Lord looking for words on paper.

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In the years after statehood and in my early Alaska years, it was a “known fact” that Alaska had little literature of any importance. If you asked in those years (as I did) for recommendations of “Alaska literature,” you might have found yourself reading (as I did) Jack London (who barely passed through Alaska), Robert Service (a Canadian), and Rex Beach (a Midwesterner). You might have thought, reading those writers, that Alaska had been nothing but rock before the gold rush and nothing but gold rush mythology after. You might also have read (as I did) Edna Ferber’s Ice Palace, published in 1958. That best-selling novel of Alaska’s statehood quest was praised for contributing to the fight for statehood, but as literature it was shallow and propagandistic. And although Ferber spent her first decades in the Midwest, she was largely regarded as a New Yorker. Writers always stand upon the shoulders of those who came before them. As an aspiring writer, I looked for my elders and mostly failed to find them. To be sure, Alaska held plenty of historical and personal accounts, inspiring in their own ways, but literary artfulness—the kind that strikes with both beauty and intellect—was hard to find. When John McPhee produced Coming into the Country in 1977, I envied that book’s craft and brilliance—while lamenting that, again, an Outsider instead of an Alaskan was telling our story. In those years, there was one Alaskan writer I looked to above all others. In Winter News (1966) and subsequent books of poetry, John Haines brought news I could use. Unquestionably, Haines was a writer of his place—someone who knew the cold, the owl, the bloody carcass, someone who made art from experience and a deeper vision. I learned from his work—prose as well as poetry—to recognize a northern landscape and sensibility and to understand something of what shapes Alaskan lives. In my copy of his essay “The Writer as Alaskan” (1979), I underlined, and ponder still, his questions: “How long might it take a people living here to be at home in their landscape, and to produce from that experience things that could be recognized anywhere as literature of the first rank? Several hundred years? A few generations?” Fifty years after Edna Ferber and thirty years from Haines’s provocative challenge, we have many more Alaskans, many more Alaskan writers, and many Alaskan writers of longish, if not generational, residence. As I’ve struggled to write both fiction and nonfiction that might be worthy

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of being called “literature,” I’ve delighted in watching the development of what I think can be fairly called an Alaskan literature—a literature rooted in place and that transcends place to bring meaning to lives anywhere. And I think that, in the richness of Alaska’s landscape, history, and cultures, there is much “news” to bring to the rest of the world. I think we’re doing just that. In my opinion, the most noteworthy development in Alaskan writing is the proliferation of literary nonfiction. It’s perhaps not surprising that Alaska, where the reality is so often extraordinary, should favor nonfiction over fiction, should compel our writers to turn their imaginative minds not to invented “truths” but to the astonishing and meaningful “truths” of their actual lives and experiences. At the risk of neglecting many other fine writers and books, these several nonfiction works have been among my favorites in recent years and have, in my opinion, contributed in important ways to the world of ideas: Road Song by Natalie Kusz, The Wake of the Unseen Object by Tom Kizzia, The Island Within by Richard Nelson, The Whale and the Supercomputer by Charles Wohlforth, A Land Gone Lonesome by Dan O’Neil, The Accidental Explorer by Sherry Simpson, Leaving Resurrection by Eva Saulitis. When I look at that list, I see how closely all those titles are tied to the place that is Alaska, and that all of them—really—are about what it is to be human. It may just be that, in this place—where you can get your face ripped off by a dog or look in the eyes of whales or wonder about the ease with which life can be lost—so much is yet so primal. Fiction, it seems, has been slower to develop in Alaska. (To be sure, the mystery genre is well represented—perhaps making the case that all the strangeness we know to be our Alaskan reality feeds well into the work of detectives.) Two recent and outstanding works of literary fiction have received national attention and awards—Seth Kantner’s Ordinary Wolves and Marjorie Kowalski Cole’s Correcting the Landscape. The first presents village Alaska in a starkly realistic way, and the second addresses environmental issues. Neither novel could have taken place anywhere but in Alaska, and both transcend their places to address universal human concerns. Both authors are, perhaps not coincidentally, lifelong Alaskans. The hole in the fabric of Alaskan writing is, of course, the perspective of Alaska’s Native people, those with the longest connection to this land but who are much underrepresented in our “canon.” It’s perhaps not

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s­ urprising that the Athabascan writer Velma Wallis chose for her first book the retelling of a traditional story she’d heard from her mother. (Two Old Women, published in 1993, was translated into several European languages and became an international best seller.) After a second book of “legend,” Wallis crossed the bridge she’d built between the oral tradition and literary writing and told her own story in Raising Ourselves, a powerful memoir. More recently, Tlingit writer Ernestine Hayes has given us Blonde Indian, an award-winning memoir of creative vivacity and cultural worth. What will the next fifty years bring for Alaska’s literature of fact and fiction? I know better than to predict, since predictions rarely do more than extend current trend lines. I can say what I’d like to see develop. I’d like to see Alaskan writers become sufficiently at home in their place to depart more from the wonders and tragedies of our realities and take more flights into imaginative fiction. I’d like to see Alaska Native writers extend themselves into every form of literary writing, to bring us some of the great richness of their lives and understandings. And I believe that Alaska is still and will remain a special place—with connections to land and spirit that allow us a clear-sightedness uncommon in the rest of the world. Our closeness to the physical environment and our intact Native cultures position us for a meaningful response to the environmental and social change that the next half century will surely bring, not just to Alaska but to the world. Literature, we know, thrives on social tension. The great writers of the South arose when that region confronted the nation’s legacy of shame. America’s industrialization brought us writers from the cities, modern ennui found its writers in suburbia, and our national story of immigration and diversity comes now from many corners of the land. Here in the north, we know something about rapid change, adaptation, and resilience; I would not be surprised to see us build a great literature from the challenges of the next half century.

Alaska Native Literatures: Part 1  by Nora Marks Dauenhauer At the time of statehood in 1959, Alaska Native writing was sparse to nonexistent. Many languages had no orthographies, and while fragments of several had been written by outsiders, most languages had no tradition of

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widespread popular literacy. The strongest tradition of indigenous language literacy was probably Aleut, which was written using the Cyrillic alphabet. The writing of Tlingit, with which I am most familiar, dates from Ioann Veniaminov’s work of the 1840s. Various things in Tlingit were written by Europeans and Americans in a variety of spelling systems. The first major writing by a Tlingit was by Louis Shotridge, who worked with Franz Boas. In the 1910s and 1920s Shotridge transcribed traditional texts in Tlingit, using Boas’s technical orthography. He wrote essays in English for the University of Pennsylvania Museum journal about Tlingit culture and he also retold Tlingit stories in very elegant Victorian English. To say that there was little or no Alaska Native writing at the time of Alaska statehood is not to say that there was no Alaska Native literature. The intellectual culture of each Alaska Native group had always been sustained by a rich heritage of oral tradition. These oral traditions are now endangered because of the endangered status of most Alaska Native languages, but at the time of statehood the oldest generation of traditionally raised elders was largely still alive. Before television, storytelling took place in the evening, after dinner was completed. Children would be in bed by the time the storytelling session was in full swing, with the elders discussing each story. Stories were very important because we lived by them. When we made mistakes, we were corrected by being told a story. Instead of being told explicitly how our mistake would affect an individual or our relatives, or the entire people, we were told a story. About 1959 the missionary and linguistic team of Constance Naish and Gillian Story of the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Wycliffe Bible Translators settled in Angoon, with the project of translating Scripture into Tlingit and undertaking linguistic work required to do so. They confirmed the accuracy of the Boas-Shotridge analysis of Tlingit phonology and grammar, and, working with a team of elders, produced a wealth of linguistic material and translations. Among their most significant contribution was the popular writing system we use today. I first met Connie and Gillian in the late 1960s, and was inspired by their writing system and the possibility of writing my first language, Tlingit. For most Alaska Native people, literacy was seen as a forced and foreign thing, an imposition used for writing English language in school settings

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that were hostile to Alaska Native language and culture, places where we were punished and humiliated for speaking our own languages. Looking back, I see how the concept of writing my Native language was similar to the exciting junction of innovative literacy and a highly established oral tradition that resulted in the writing down and historic preservation of such literary monuments as Gilgamesh, the Homeric epics, parts of the Hebrew Old Testament, Beowulf, and the sagas of medieval Iceland. In 1972 the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was created by the Alaska legislature. When I was asked by Dr. Michael Krauss, the founding director, if I would like to go among my people and collect stories, I said, “Yes.” When he asked me who I would like to go with me, I pointed to Richard Dauenhauer, then of Alaska Methodist University, because I had been working on directed studies in Tlingit with him. I instantly agreed because I have listened to storytelling by Tlingit tradition bearers as I was growing up. Still, I was a beginner at fieldwork and collecting. I hadn’t thought any further than collecting from my family and relatives. As I learned the protocols of asking for clan stories, I expanded my range to other clans and communities. I was impressed with the generosity of the elders and their support of my work. The tradition bearers supported one another. When I asked them about a certain subject, if they didn’t know, they would send me to someone who did, and whose opinions they respected. Word spread among the elders that I was collecting narratives. At least one of them sent for me when he knew he was dying, so I could record what he was thinking about. I think what the elders liked about my work was that I transcribed their own words in Tlingit. I would always try to transcribe something from a session and read it back to them as soon as possible. They recognized their own words, their own story content and organization. I had read a lot of books about the Tlingit, and most didn’t seem right. They were written by outsiders who didn’t know the language, who had different sets of rules for composition and different points of view. I felt strongly that my work should represent the Tlingit point of view, from the inside, and not even in my own words, but in the words of the elders. I felt that our work should not be English retellings or paraphrases of Tlingit stories, but the Tlingit versions themselves, with facing English translation. Our collection of ceremonial oratory is the first set of speeches recorded in

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performance, and transcribed, translated, and annotated by a fluent speaker within the community. I knew the traditional narratives were valuable because they were used to train our people. These were stories to grow with and live by. Now that traditional Tlingit training is greatly diminished or even lost to television, movies, and other Western entertainments, and now that storytelling sessions are abandoned, it is increasingly important to feed the imagination of our people by documenting the traditional oral literature. Each clan kept their stories going. The stories explain ownership of sites where historical events happened and the gifts that accompany them, such as names, clan crests, and songs. These are all clan owned in Tlingit culture. The stories are not secret, but rights of transmission are traditionally restricted to qualified clan members. It is true that each of the storytellers I worked with did tell stories belonging to other clans, but only so that each person in each clan would know to which clan the stories belong. In traditional Tlingit education, this allows a person to function in ceremonial settings by interacting with persons of other clans. There is increasing interest among the young people, and excitement about learning their Tlingit identity and names. They are devouring this more rapidly than we can supply it. I have great hope that our youth will read and take from the stories, oratory, and historical narratives that my husband and I have edited and published. To repeat the words of one tradition bearer, “I will be gone, but my words will be heard.” Let us listen to these stories to live by. Let us take from them the strong sense of honor, courage, honesty, and humor with which they were told, with pride in themselves and others, with dignity and respect. All over Alaska, two new generations of writers have emerged that did not exist fifty years ago. I have written mostly about my own work and language, but I am not alone. I should mention the similar work of my colleagues of the older generation in Tlingit (Ruth Demmert and the late

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Vesta Dominicks) and other areas such as Eliza Jones, Catherine Attla, Katherine Peters, Peter Kalifornsky, Elsie Mather, Marie Meade, Lela Oman, Emily Ivanoff Brown, Peter John, Howard Luke, and Sidney Huntington. All Alaska Native languages are endangered. Yupik is the strongest. As languages weaken and die, it is unlikely that new oral and written literature will emerge in them. We do our best to document the tradition by recording the master performers and publishing their work in bilingual editions in our Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature series with the University of Washington Press, so that these will be models for the future. I am not optimistic that Tlingit storytelling will survive in the Tlingit language, because the language itself is endangered. However, other genres may survive. Younger people are learning traditional songs in Tlingit, and some, such as Hans Chester and Harold Jacobs, are composing new songs in Tlingit. Others are learning to make speeches in Tlingit. But, as the indigenous oral traditions weaken, we see promise in the new literate traditions emerging in English. My own creative writing is an example of this. I have published poetry, essays, short stories, and plays in English. Among Tlingit writers publishing in English we have Ernestine Hayes, Robert Davis Hoffmann, and the late Andrew Hope III, whose son, Ishmael Hope, is a gifted up-and-coming storyteller, actor, and playwright. Among the master storytellers in English are Bob Sam and Gene Tagaban. There are younger writers from other Native groups, such as the late Iñupiaq poet Elizabeth Goodwin Hope; Deg Hinag; actor, director, and songwriter George Holly; and writers Velma Wallis, Renee Singh, and Loretta Outwater Cox.

Alaska Native Literatures: Part 2  by James Ruppert Alaska Native writers have recognized the stress placed on their lifestyles and cultures over the last century. This insight has been reflected in the literature produced by Alaska Native writers since statehood, but most important, they propose that the changes have an impact on more than just human culture. The stress is perceived in the context of a larger sense of community, one that includes the animal and spiritual worlds and their connections to human life. With massive social change sweeping the vil-

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lages over the last fifty years and with a renewed contemporary emphasis on cultural continuity, Alaska Native writers face the somewhat paradoxical task of crying warnings and singing celebrations at the same time. While the signs of change are all around, the land, the animals, and the spirit of Alaska remain the same. Many of these writers see that it is man’s perception, man’s imagination of his role, that has changed and continues to change; and it is this change that leads to the political, economic, and social changes. Perceptions of the dynamic between the human world and natural world continue to provide a source for social commentary, cultural continuance, personal renewal, and spiritual redefinition. When Velma Wallis started writing down the stories her mother told her, she decided to preserve the stories she heard because “they validated who I am,” but she also believed in their revitalizing effect for cultural continuity. She felt Gwich’in culture had been overpowered. She thought the stories would remind her community that “We were once a strong people. We actually have a history.” Such concerns with continuity motivated the efforts of Native writers. As early as the 1950s, Emily Ivanoff Brown (Ticasuk) had collected legends and family histories from northwest Alaska and published them locally. In 1981, larger publishers brought out The Roots of Ticasuk: An Eskimo Woman’s Family Story and The Longest Story Ever Told: Qayaq, the Magical Man. Later she published Tales of Ticasuk: Eskimo Legends and Stories. Ticasuk was a much beloved writer and educator whose work inspired other Native writers. In the 1950s, Lela Oman was also collecting oral narratives, and in 1956 the Nome Publishing Company printed her collection Eskimo Legends: Authentic Tales of Suspense and Excitement. In 1975, it was republished by Alaska Methodist University Press. In 1967, she published The Ghost of Kingikty and other Other Eskimo Legends and in 1995, The Epic of Qayaq: The Longest Story Ever James Ruppert. UAF faculty photo. Told by My People was issued.

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Both Ticasuk and Oman helped demonstrate that there was an interest in Alaska Native voices and that there was a place for successful authors. Alaska Native writing and publication grew as the Native American Renaissance began to influence writers here. Public visits and workshops by Native American writers such as Joy Harjo, Geary Hobson, Wendy Rose, Joseph Bruchac, and others encouraged Alaska Native writers. Leslie Silko even briefly lived in Ketchikan. In the 1970s, as the nation’s interest grew in all things Indian, publishers, editors, and writers sensed a rising interest in the voices of Alaska Natives. In 1971, the Indian Historian Press published Joseph Senungetuk’s Give or Take a Century: An Eskimo Chronicle. Senungetuk’s personal memoir of life in the Nome area resonates with larger questions of historical witness and cross-cultural contemplations. In 1974, Fred Bigjim collected a series of letters he wrote about ANCSA for the Tundra Times and published them in a book, Letters to Howard: An Interpretation of the Alaska Native Land Claims. Bigjim’s fusion of humor and political commentary placed him squarely in the tradition of American dialectical humor. Later in 1983, Bigjim began a long and fruitful publishing career with the publication of a book of poems entitled Sinrock. Much of his poetry contrasted traditional life with contemporary experience. He continued with We Talk, You Yawn: A Discourse on Education in Alaska (1985), Walk the Wind (1988), Plants: A Novel (2000), and Echoes from the Tundra (2000). The 1980s saw much interest in writing coming from southeast Alaska. Andrew Hope began editing and publishing, and his volume Raven’s Bones came out in 1982. Later, his Raven’s Bones Press published a powerful book of poems by Robert Davis entitled Soulcatcher (1986). Davis merged Tlingit life and myth with poems about change and growth. Moreover, in 1982, Sister Goodwin published a book of poems with I. Reed Press in California. Nora Marks Dauenhauer has worked for years with her husband, Richard, to collect, document, and archive Tlingit narratives and language. Her publications are many, but she has authored two literary books. A book of poetry, The Droning Shaman came out in 1988; and in 2000, she published Life Woven with Song, a collection of poetry, fiction, and plays that present her cultural heritage and unique vision. One of the few novels published by Native writers is When Raven Cries: A Novel (1994) written by Kadashan, later republished in 1997.

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Mary Tallmountain was one of the best-known Alaska Native writers. She lived in Nulato as a child before she was adopted and spent most of her life outside Alaska. In 1981, she published There Is No Word for Goodbye. This began the publication of a series of chapbooks that centered on her connections to Alaska: Green March Moons (1987), Continuum: Poems (1988), Matrilineal Cycle (1990), The Light on the Tent Wall: A Bridging (1990), A Quick Brush of Wings (1991), and Listen to the Night: Poems for the Animal Spirits of Mother Earth (1995). Her papers are archived at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Poldine Carlo also wrote a book about her experience in interior Alaska. Nulato: An Indian Life on the Yukon was published in 1978. Interestingly, in one of the few works of fiction written in an Alaska Native language, Anna Jacobson published a novel in Yup’ik, Elnguq (1990). Perhaps the best-known contemporary Alaska Native writer is Velma Wallis. Her first two books were oral narratives that she heard from her mother. She fleshed out the characters to create a form of fiction somewhere between documenting oral narratives and Western notions of fiction. Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival (1993) was an international hit. She followed with Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun: An Athabascan Indian Legend from Alaska (1996) and Raising Ourselves: A Gwich’in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River (2002). The new century promises a growth in Native writing. In 2000, Jan Harper-Haines brought out Cold River Spirits: The Legacy of an Athabaskan-Irish Family from Alaska’s Yukon River. Well-known writer, actor, and activist Diane E. Benson published a book of poetry, Witness to the Stolen (2002). And recently, Loretta Outwater Cox reworked stories she heard into a fictional format and published two books, The Winter Walk: A Century-Old Survival Story from the Arctic (2003) and The Storytellers’ Club: The Picture-Writing Women of the Arctic (2005). Mary Tony, under the pen name Aurora Hardy, published the thriller Terror at Black Rapids (2004). There have been a few anthologies that surveyed the field. In 1986, the Alaska Quarterly Review published a special issue titled Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers, and Orators. It was later expanded and reprinted in 1999. Joe Bruchac from Greenfield Review Press collected material from Alaska Native Writers for his 1991 anthology Raven Tells Stories: A Collection of Alaskan Native Writing. Later that decade, Susan B. Andrews

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and John Creed from Kotzebue published a collection of student writing called Authentic Alaska: Voices of Its Native Writers (1998). There are many Alaska Native writers I have not mentioned here. Many have written autobiographical, historical, or scholarly works. Many writers have published literature in periodicals and newspapers. I wish I could list them all. With the development of an audience, both Native and non-Native, and a small group of dedicated publishers, Alaska Native literature has grown into a vibrant and exciting body of work. Alaska Native writers are vital contributors to Alaska’s literary history and its literary future. But more important, they help mold our society. Fred Bigjim once explained, “By making vivid what is at stake to both Native and non-Native, our common American culture will be enriched, our sense of Nativeness will be enhanced, and the values of our society will be reshaped to accommodate positive action and change.”

Poetry in Alaska: Then, Now, Tomorrow  by Peggy Shumaker How it felt to be a poet in Alaska fifty years ago I can only guess. I picture a young wife and mother in the coal camp at Suntrana composing lines in her head while she chopped wood and shoveled snow, then stole a few minutes before bed to write neatly in the back of a ledger book. I picture the homesteader child Linda Schandelmeier helping to butcher a moose, then warming her hands in soapy dishwater before writing secret poems in her lesson book. I see children gathering berries, plucking ducks and geese, skinning furbearers—and writing their lives. At fish camp or on fishing boats, at placer sites or missile sites or village sites, Alaskans find their way to poetry. We don’t suffer the usual distractions of poe-biz. We’re too far away to get invited to the endless cocktail parties. Instead, what we can do in our writing depends on what’s going on inside us and what’s going on outdoors. An Alaskan poet’s motto might be, “You’d better pay attention, because if you don’t it can kill you.” The it in that sentence might be winter’s deep cold. Or a rising river choked with ice floes. Or a grizzly bear. Or a moose. Or a road slicked with black ice. The it could be darkness, drunkenness, tamped-down sorrow. All these can knock a poet down.

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But when we pay attention, we get to witness twice a year the great migrations of thousands of ducks, geese, sand hill cranes, jostling and calling from ragged vees. We watch all summer the beavers waddling on hind legs, their arms mounded with mud. Their tails tamp seven towers, supports for a new lodge. And then the rains come, the river rises, and who knows if any of their work survives. That’s how it is to be a poet. Peggy Shumaker. Photo by Barry McWayne. We chew down the alders and hope for the best. For thousands of years, voices passed along stories and poems and songs at potlatches, at dances, at gatherings in mourning and in celebration. Oral traditions continue, though many Alaskan languages suffer now. Written poetry from the Great Land is much younger, less than one hundred years old. It’s very exciting to see how written languages have shaped our perceptions of Alaska and how Alaska has shaped our words. Most of the earliest poems exist now in archives or old boxes. Only a few have made it into the wider world. At the time of statehood, John Haines had been homesteading for more than a decade out near Richardson, reading the unending books of the stars, the snow, the fire. His poems brought Alaska alive for many readers, and continue to shape people’s notions of our place. Mary Tallmountain’s adoptive parents had taken her from Nulato to the Lower Forty-Eight, where she felt deeply misplaced. She fought hard to return to the land of Doyon, the wolverine, and to write her poems of praise for the heritage she nearly lost. Sister Goodwin’s family taught her the ways of the land, how to hunt and gather, how to move with the seasons. Nora and Richard Dauenhauer have for decades collected Tlingit stories, songs, wisdom, and poems, writing them down, recording them, translating them. At the time of Russian contact in 1867, there were fortytwo distinct Native languages spoken in Alaska. Now there are six that may survive outside of archives. Tlingit has a chance of survival largely because of the translations, the teaching, and the unending efforts of the

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Dauenhauers. Their own poems in both Tlingit and English are irreplaceable parts of Alaskan literature. Sheila Nickerson traced the paths of early explorers, and eulogized the disappeared. Her poems chart coastlines that continue to intrigue. Joe Enzweiler turned from stargazing, stonemasonry, and woodworking to put by cordwood and to put by poems. Not until the 1970s did Alaskan universities offer students the chance to study creative writing. That brought many writers to Alaska—as visitors, as students, as teachers. Tom Sexton shared his spare and melodious stanzas. John Morgan brought his formal, meditative vision. David Stark added his note of wildness. Linda McCarriston wrote her spirited political poems for a while in Anchorage, a while in Fairbanks. Anne Caston taught, quilted, made homemade soaps—and wrote poems, adding warmth and aromas to Alaskan winters. Amber Flora Thomas combines the big city and the small town, her language surprising as a magic show. Derick Burleson writes of moose hunting and berry picking, and of raising a daughter in the Alaskan Interior. In the mid-1980s, I showed up, new to winter, new to Alaska, new. I brought with me knowledge of the desert—its extremes parallel to Alaska’s extremes. My work draws on both landscapes, and I add my two steps to poetry’s ongoing dance. It has been my privilege to work with writers like Kodiak’s Sven Haakanson, whose life’s work involves repatriation of art objects, revitalization of the Alutiiq language, and forming bonds between the ancient past, the recent past, today, and the future. Jerah Chadwick for three decades wrote forceful, often historical poems based in the Aleutian Islands, dealing with the Japanese occupation during World War II. He also wrote about bentwood hats, intricate grass baskets, and the nature of human love. Carolyn Kremers’s poems advocate and entrance, calling us to action, calling us to awareness of what we leave in our wakes. Eva Saulitis, between her duties as a marine biologist studying killer whales in Prince William Sound, crafts poems of great emotion and resonance. Many new poets stretch the boundaries of what it means to be an Alaskan poet. Arlitia Jones counts on her Alaskan upbringing and her experiences in a wholesale butcher shop to bring alive her bold and vivid poems. Cathy Rexford, Iñupiat of Kaktovik, writes of the devastation of

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oil development and the resilience of culture. Molly Lou Freeman grew up in Homer, lives now in Paris, and blends marvelous images from rural and urban lives. Erin Hollowell bravely teaches the next generation in Cordova, and writes poems of her town in this moment. Jill Osier evokes January like nobody else. Her poems huddle in a dry cabin, or sometimes take a run in alpenglow under northern lights. Olena Kalytiak Davis may be simultaneously the most experimental and the most traditional of Alaskan poets, “covering” ancient poems by Ovid, or Homer, or Virgil. Elizabeth Bradfield, a naturalist and guide, helps us all find our way in dangerous physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual terrain. No one can say for sure what the future holds for Alaskan poetry. Here are my guesses: We’ll hear more about upheavals, cultural and environmental. We’ll read more about the inner lives of people who want ways of life that no longer exist as they once did. Our poets will come from all income brackets and all cultures, from families that have been in Alaska since the long-ago times and from families that got here yesterday. Some will arrive alone and bewildered and know, yes, this is the place. Some will have a great thirst for poetry. Others will have poetry thrust upon them. Alaskan poetry will grow as our languages grow—full of invention, power, loss, humor, serious work, and serious play.

Once Upon a Time in Alaska: Children’s Literature  by Ann Dixon “Once there was a family who loved to pick blueberries. Every summer they picked their way up Ptarmigan Mountain . . .” Thus begins Blueberry Shoe, a children’s story I wrote nearly twenty years ago after a family outing. Something about being outdoors that day, in wild Alaska with children, triggered my imagination and led to a story. Such inspiration is hardly unique to me. As a writer and a librarian, looking back from the present to the 1950s at books for children—those by Alaskans, about or set in Alaska, and produced by national or regional publishers—I can spot a trail through the literary wilderness. The path is marked with two recurring themes: appreciation for the power of the Alaskan landscape and awareness of children’s need for books that accurately reflect their lives within that landscape.

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Thinking back to the 1950s, the adventurous stories written by a handful of Alaskan children’s authors must have seemed exotic, even unbelievable, to Outsiders. Margaret Bell, born in Thorne Bay in Southeast Alaska, penned romantic novels for girls with titles like Ride Out the Storm (1951) and Daughter of Wolf House (1957). Sara Machetanz came north, authoring a pair of novels and a picture book illustrated by her husband, Fred, which centered around dog mushing and gold mining. With Victory at Bear Cove (1959), Elsa Pedersen began writing fiction about the rustic homesteading life she encountered on the Kenai Peninsula. Ethel Ross Oliver’s Aleutian Boy (1959) arose from her experience as the first teacher in the village of Atka during resettlement after World War II. At a time when the wartime evacuation of Aleuts was largely ignored and civil rights were in dispute, she wrote about friendship between boys of two cultures—a theme with which she must have been acquainted as a white woman married to a Native man. During the 1960s, with fresh attention focused on the new forty-ninth state, wildlife artist William D. Berry wrote and illustrated what would become an Alaskan classic, Deneki: An Alaskan Moose (1965). Elsa Pedersen authored a string of novels, as well as a nonfiction book, simply titled Alaska (1968). In it she declared, with all the gusto of a pioneer, “The people who come to live in Alaska now want a free, full life unhampered by the increasing pressures of civilization.” Building on her repertoire of outdoor adventures, she segued into the liberated seventies with an Alaskan rubberbooted version of female independence in Petticoat Fisherman (1969). Even in the 1970s, when federal funding for school and library books dried up, a handful of Alaskan titles made their way into print, perhaps in part because construction of the oil pipeline renewed interest in Alaska. The lone picture book of note from that era, On Mother’s Lap (1972), was made “Alaskan” by its illustrator, Glo Coalson. Having spent two years in Kotzebue, she depicted an Eskimo mother, brother, and baby rocking “back and forth, back and forth” in their rustic cabin. Culturally specific yet universal in theme, the story stands as one of the most tenderly told tales in American children’s literature of the love between mother, child, and baby sibling. Nearly all the memorable books of the 1970s featured Alaska Native characters and settings, a fact that surely reflected growing multicultural awareness throughout the United States. In Alaska, an increasing number

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of talented Outsiders were coming to work as teachers, often in Native communities. Noticing the lack of books that reflected their students’ lives, some educators became motivated to write. Arnold Griese penned two historical novels, At the Mouth of the Luckiest River (1973) and The Way of Our People (1975), featuring Athabascan children and a third, The Wind Is Not a River (1978), set in the Aleutians. As Frances Lackey Paul explained in her preface to Kahtahah (1976), her book was an answer to the student who asked “why no one ever wrote a story about the Tlingit.” The number of Alaskan books remained quite small, however, and limited to familiar subjects: wildlife, outdoor adventure, and Native life and culture. Interest in picture books surged in the 1980s, as the baby-boom generation reached parenthood and new technology made full-color printing more affordable. At the same time, the “whole language” movement in education encouraged teachers to exchange textbooks for picture books. In Alaska, tourism brought more and more visitors, eager to purchase Alaskan children’s books to take back home. For the first time, picture books outnumbered novels. Juneau authors were especially prolific: Jean Rogers wrote both picture and chapter books, showcasing the artwork of Alaskan artists Rie Muñoz and Jim Fowler; Dale DeArmond wrote and illustrated her own picture books; and Nancy Ferrell began her threedecade career writing nonfiction for both youth and adults. Journalist and Iditarod musher Shelley Gill broke entrepreneurial trails with Paws IV Publishing. Beginning with Kiana’s Iditarod (1984), she and illustrator Shannon Cartwright created a line of picture books that accurately reflected the Alaskan environment to children. The authenticity and colorful design of the stories attracted tourists and educators, as well. If the 1980s brought a boom in Alaskan children’s books, the 1990s erupted into a bonanza, with more than fifty books by more than twenty authors, ranging from picture books to novels and nonfiction. Outside editors and readers still craved the same range of Alaskan topics but approaches to those subjects were expanding. Although still dependent on Outside audiences, the market for authentic children’s books within Alaska continued to develop. I and authors such as Tricia Brown, Nancy White Carlstrom, Mindy Dwyer, Nancy Gregg Fowler, Kirkpatrick Hill, Debbie Miller, Claire Rudolf Murphy, Teri Sloat, and Deb Vanasse began writing for children in this decade. Alaska Northwest Books, a long-established press for adult books, became a primary publisher of

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­ igh-quality Alaska-themed picture books in 1992 with Baby Animals of h the North by Katy Main. Currently, children’s books continue to thrive in Alaska with contributions from new writers, such as teachers Michael Bania and Chérie Stihler, Barrow resident Debbie Edwardson, Arctic adventurer Pam Flowers, and others. One exciting development—and, I hope, trend—is bilingualism. Edwardson’s Whale Snow (2003) was published by Charlesbridge in an Iñupiaq edition, while four books from Alaska Northwest— Bania’s Kumak’s Fish (2004), Sloat’s Berry Magic (2004) and Hungry Giant of the Tundra (1993), and my Big-Enough Anna (2003)—were translated into Yup’ik. The need for books that truthfully reflect life in Alaska still exists today. Children both within and without the forty-ninth state deserve books free from igloos, penguins, and other stereotyped misconceptions. Outside publishers, especially New York presses, continue to pose challenges for Alaskan authors trying to write accurately about Alaska. Writers also grapple with issues raised during the 1990s by Alaska Natives about cultural authenticity and ownership of traditional stories, a tangle that in many ways winds through the history of Native and Western interaction. A cultural gap still exists between Alaska and mainstream publishing, based not only on race and ethnicity, but also on relationship with the natural world. Even when our topics are not wildlife or outdoor adventure, the Alaskan environment is often integral to our writing, just as it is to our lives. In Alaskan stories, nature may take on a persona of its own, akin to another character—like the plants and animals in my Blueberry Shoe, the seasons in Berry’s Deneki, or the spirit of the whale in Edwardson’s Whale Snow. What can we anticipate for Alaskan children’s literature in the future? With Alaska Studies now a mandatory course in public schools statewide, quality educational materials are needed to support the curriculum. I’d like to see more bilingual books, in all the many languages spoken by children in our state. I hope for further contributions from Native writers and new collaborations between Native and non-Native writers, storytellers, and educators. As much as I love the written word, I’m hoping for more extension of Alaskan stories into audio, video, and online formats—to reach children wherever they are.

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In terms of the industry, unless funding improves for children’s books in schools and libraries, we can expect continued emphasis on picture books for the retail market. The good news is that despite economic downturns, decreasing attention spans, and competition from video games and the Internet, children need and read books. Here in the community of Willow, my home for twenty-six years, Alaska still influences and inspires my writing. Although not all my stories are as “Alaskan” as Blueberry Shoe, living amid our remarkable landscape, people, wildlife—and yes, blueberries—infuses my choice of topics, themes, characters, and plots. After looking at authors and titles from these past fifty-some years, I feel both humbled and privileged to find my books among the mile markers along this creative trail. Alaska’s wild nature has indeed proven to be a strong muse. It is an environment that demands respect, requires attention, and evokes wonder. At the end of each new adventure, I may, like the family in my picture book, be “berry-stained, smiling, and tired.” But most of all, I’m excited to be sharing life in Alaska with children through story.

Alaska and the Popular Imagination  by John Straley The investigator’s office at the Public Defender Agency in Sitka is part storage closet and part break room where I meet clients and interview witnesses. There are no windows. To get air I stand in the front office and open the window facing the cathedral and the bridge. This summer from that window I saw a young woman with blond dreadlocks squatting under the dripping eaves of the bank; she appeared to be writing in a journal, and I imagined that she was stuck here waiting for a plane or a boat, then I tried to imagine what she was putting in her book. My own journals of Alaska in the late seventies were filled with florid images of mountains floating above the fog and mournful poems about the salmon returning to their natal rivers to die. But I was a cowboy transplanted in this damp country pouting about not having a job. I really don’t know what the dreadlocked girl was writing. In 1870 Lady Jane Franklin was waylaid here on a trip to Kodiak in hopes of finding the diary of Sir John Franklin, her missing husband. In the world of 1870 Lady Franklin was a celebrity on the order of England’s Princess Diana. Her relentless hunt for her husband, whose ship

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had gone missing in the Arctic had become the stuff of lore. The world’s newspapers carried profiles of her noble steadfastness, and her offers of reward launched dozens of expeditions in hopes of reuniting her with her life’s love. At that time, Sitka was the European capital of the West Coast. Lady Franklin and her niece were feted by Sitka’s aristocracy of bureaucrats and military men. Before the beginning of one such party a soldier came to offer the visitors some gifts. Like most Alaskan travelers, the niece kept a detailed diary: Just after we sat down to dinner . . . a little bouquet of wild flowers was brought in with a note stating that the writer was the author of various effusions which he enumerated (such as “Gos and I” with other still stranger titles—signed “Prince Thoreau—author & Poet.” Lawrence said he was a soldier & that he wished for the honor of paying his respects to Lady F. We thought he must be half crazy (but Americans are so odd!)

Prince Thoreau was sent packing only to come back the next day when he explained that, while he was not an actual “prince” as an American, he could assume any title he pleased and he considered himself “Nature’s Nobleman.” He pressed some of his poems on the English noblewoman as well as “a little box of Alaska moss and shells.” In return Lady Jane Franklin gave him a small knife, and apparently kept the moss and shells but not the poetry. Before leaving, Lady Franklin’s niece noted seeing Prince Thoreau being punished for walking off from guard duty to look for more moss and flowers. He was carrying a large log on his shoulders while he marched on the parade grounds. What I like about this snippet of Alaska history is that it captures the John Straley two elements of Alaska’s place in

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popular culture: the suffering of the aristocrat come to the wilderness, and the difficulty of trying to speak for nature itself. I also like it because Prince Thoreau reminds me of many of the men who have come into my office at the Public Defender. Alaskans have a love-hate relationship with the myths surrounding the region. We like to be projected as rugged frontier individualists in tune to the wild currents of the nonhuman world. By living here we feel entitled to speak for nature. And although we hate having clichés thrust upon us, once in place we will milk the cliché for our benefit. For example, we claim to be fiercely independent frontier people who reject the interference of government when in fact, pound for pound, we may be the most heavily subsidized population in North America. Often too, our familiarity with the place dulls our observational skills, so that it takes an outsider to see our world with fresh eyes. Robert Service, Jack London, Louis L’Amour, James Michener, John McPhee, Joe McGinnis, Ken Kesey, and Jon Krakauer all have had their shot at the north country and many of them captured details that we may have grown numb to, but even so, each of these outside writers largely stuck to the mythological elements laid out in the interaction between Lady Franklin and Prince Thoreau. Take Chris McCandless, from Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. Here was a young man on a spiritual quest who starved to death in an abandoned bus some thirty miles from the highway to Fairbanks. Most Alaskans still bristle at his notoriety. What was this ill-fated boy but another incarnation of Prince Thoreau, a self-anointed Nobleman of Nature? Against the success of the outside writers, the lesser-known writers of Alaska make the case for a different kind of country to come into; not a blank spot on the map where people come to disappear but a home. Russell Banks has said that American literature has been shaped by two great forces: race and space. Huckleberry Finn went west. Nick Carraway too. They both were looking for room to further incubate the great American popular story. If this is true, then what better place than Alaska for them to be written? The first popular stories originated with the first people here. Sidney Huntington’s Shadows on the Koyukuk, Velma Wallis’s Two Old Women, and Seth Kantner’s Ordinary Wolves and Shopping for Porcupine remind us that this place has been occupied for a very long time, and that the lessons

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learned here, the skills for survival, raise questions that are ­substantial and profound. These writers are not Nature’s Noblemen but are practitioners of ordinary survival in a world more vastly complex than was imagined by Robert Service. Yet all the contemporary writers of popular stories owe something to the myths. Service and London set the table, whet our readers’ appetites, and the new batch of popular writers honor the traditions of their genre while at the same time reclaim Alaska as their home ground. Dana Stabenow, who grew up in Seldovia, writes both science fiction and mystery, and she is fiercely loyal, almost nationalistic about Alaska. Rugged, wise, witty, and committed to this modern Alaska, her characters dance the dance of the antimythological myth. Sue Henry has captured the spectacle of the Iditarod in her crime fiction and reminds her readers that this is a country for older, adventurous women. Mike Doogan brings a journalist’s wit and sense of irony to the circus that is contemporary Alaska politics, while Kim Rich and Cindy Dyson fill in the blanks of the North’s hybridized underworld caught as it is between the wild and the settled. If these aren’t American stories then what are they? There are other fine mystery writers both native born and immigrants alike: Meghan Rust, Stan Jones, Bridget Smith, all have made a case for Alaska as home, and I have done the same. I’ve drawn from every source I’ve come across, either written in our rich literature, or witnessed around the bars and campfires in the North. Like the others, I soak up this place in an effort to give form to my waking dream of Alaska. The dreadlocked girl is done writing; she stands up and walks down the same streets that Lady Franklin walked to her ship. The lady never found her husband’s journal but the world is full of accounts of this place, and I have to say that I’m grateful for all of them. After thirty-one years I am an Alaskan now. My son was born here and I envy him that. He sees this place through his own eyes as familiar and safe. He longs for adventure in other places but I still see Alaska through the eyes of the outsider, fresh and sometimes frightening. I turn back to my work where people accused of crime come to tell me their stories. These stories run the gamut from the pathetic to the heroic, and after work I will go down to the bar, ready to buy a drink for the next Prince Thoreau or Chris McCandless and perhaps find the noblewoman at the end of the bar, dreaming of her husband lost in the wild. More than

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oil, more than furs and gold, I think that this is the richness of Alaska: a place where there is room enough, where there is still time enough, a place naturally suited for a great American story.

The Once and Future Place  by Eric Heyne Alaskan writers are members of a small club with a short history. Literature arrived with the first Europeans, in the form of exploration notes and scientific observations by Spaniards, Russians, Englishmen, and finally Americans. But for a century or so Europeans were too busy getting out furs, timber, coal, salmon, whales, and gold to make much time for writing. As the great age of European empire building drew to a close, and nostalgia for those good old days of exploration began to set in, Jack London exploited that nostalgia with stories built around turn-of-thecentury gold rushes in Alaska and most famously in the Klondike— which, many Americans would be surprised to discover, is actually in Canada. As Robert Service put it, the gold rush north at the turn of the twentieth century is “the last of the lands, and the first”: one of the last places on earth to be colonized by Europe, and therefore a rare chance to experience a “primeval” state of nature like something from the youth of our species. London’s characters are drawn to the North from all over the world, thrown into conflict with the Native inhabitants, but more importantly thrown into conflict with their own natures, like rats in an enormous laboratory. From the beginning, then, Alaskan literature was part of a broader literature of the North, a sharp right turn in the American westward migration certainly, but also an opportunity for people of many cultures all over the world to test themselves against a particular set of trying circumstances. London called it “the White Silence,” letting that term stand for the long slow seasons and vast empty spaces most haunting in winter. For London and readers all over the world whom he influenced, the North loomed mythically large, and latitude came to mean history, tragedy, and destiny. Eric Heyne. UAF faculty photo.

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But is there anything that finally makes Alaska different? Lots of people in New England (and old England as well) understand long winter nights and long summer days. Plenty of people in the intermountain West know all about wide-open spaces stamped by resource-extraction economies. Writers all over the United States (except in New York and Los Angeles) understand the frustrations of being patronized as “regionalists.” It’s true that Alaska has more coastline, more volcanoes, more grizzly bears, and fewer people per square mile than most other places, but all that is a matter of scale rather than essence (except for those who believe that the essence is in the scale). In fact, there may be nothing unique about the Alaskan experience except the mystique itself, that aura of strenuous-age romance, the human effects of which can range from relatively benign (gold-panning tourism) to fatal (for Christopher McCandless, among others). But even if what distinguishes the Alaskan experience is a combination of physical fact (terrain, climate, biota) and mythical culture, what does that mean for Alaskan writers? All good writing embodies universal experiences in the particulars of time and place. Alaska’s particulars at this time are fascinating. Consider, for instance, the tensions between traditional Native subsistence lifestyles and mainstream urban attitudes about the killing of charismatic megafauna like wolves and whales. Or the competition between fishermen and miners, currently playing out in Bristol Bay, over whose resource is more economically and traditionally important. Global warming will eventually make a big difference in a lot of places, but it’s already making its presence felt here in the North, like the spooky soundtrack in the peaceful opening shot of a horror movie. And just what impact will Big Oil have on the North in the coming decades, as it thrashes about in its post-peak death throes? Those people who see themselves as living out the mystique of the North—as actors in some eternal frontier adventure of Alaskan life—are among the most fascinating particulars of this time and this place. Our myths structure our lives, and the fantasy of “The Last Frontier” is a tremendously powerful episode of that long-running saga, the American adventure story. Love it, hate it, or just live with it, there’s no avoiding the drama of armed men and women who feel themselves to be simultaneously preserving a key moment of the past and developing the natural bounty God gave them. (The twin contradictory mottoes of Alaska are

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“The Last Frontier” and “North to the Future.”) And not all such folks imagine themselves in the cowboy and cowgirl roles—Alaska Natives are also fighting their own version of the battle between preservation and change, and are also looking to traditional stories for their models. So does this mean that to be an Alaskan writer one has to write about Alaska? Ah, there’s the rub. Good writing is good writing. People are ultimately the same everywhere, and a writer should be free to take on any subject matter. The notion that to be a real Alaskan writer one has to write about Alaska is a bit silly and a bit scary. Place always matters, but how exactly it matters is the question. Writers have been having tremendous fun with that question in the wave of Alaskan writing that has surged up over the last twenty years. The small club of Alaskan writers is growing rapidly, updating its history, expanding its range, flexing its muscles. Too much of that wave of writing consists of silly, sentimental books by authors who remind me of new parents, unable to talk about anything except baby Alaska, and in cloying terms that only a besotted grandparent could appreciate. But the challenge of seeing beyond the clichés still attracts the best writers, as it always has. I might have said that fifty years of statehood seems like nothing measured in glacial terms, except that the glaciers are melting incredibly quickly. Who’s going to describe what it means to live in a North that is less like itself every year? It’s a fine time to be an Alaskan reader.

chapter 3  Phyllis A. Fast

Language, Tradition, and Art

Introduction Ever since Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir developed their famous hypothesis linking language and culture during the early twentieth century, Alaskans have been wielding the concept like a weapon to prove or disprove individual Native identity, as well as to provide a measure of value for Native art. Issues of language can seem as innocent as the problematic love affair turned sour as described in “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off ” sung by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in 1937. Likewise, lyrics like “Eight stars of gold in a field of blue” (Alaska’s state anthem) represent a straightforward combination of language, tradition, and art. Over time they also come to represent key shared memories of the relatively few life events at which we actually mumble the words while others more proficient than ourselves manage the high notes and know which notes go with which phrases. Singing Alaska’s state song takes conscious cultural effort. Unlike air, food, and water, we can live without culture, but generally don’t. Language, tradition, and appreciation of beauty, otherwise known as art, infiltrate our every thought and action, usually with as little consciousness as breathing. A baby, for instance, learns to love the smell and taste of a perfectly boiled egg with a well-developed seagull fetus floating in the gelatinous albumen—or not, depending on parental cultural orientation. From infancy caregivers provide language lessons and other lessons in how to know what we know. Besides simple experience, we learn traditional metaphors to guide our awareness and structure patterns of thought, cognition, body skills; 69

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to receive and catalog sensory input, and to develop emotional skills. All of that takes language—silent, kinesic, visual, auditory, and olfactory language. Each sense develops its own language and each culture gives order and shape to language through traditions such as patterned learning centers (such as schools), performance, and visual arts. We learn to express bodily knowledge, such as evincing disgust of eating worms by gagging or, by cultural contrast, demonstrating knowledge of how good a seagull chick tastes by salivating in advance. If enough people learn the same responses to the same triggers, the shared result is deemed cultural, and can acquire the status of tradition. A tradition, however, is anything that can last a few hours or a century. Few traditions have lasted more than a single person’s lifetime, as it takes a large investment in creating easily recognized visual patterns and visual actions along with easily communicated emotional tropes to convey an enduring tradition. Moreover, each generation or region tests traditions for veracity, especially when crossing cultural boundaries. Who, after all, is going to hunt for seagull eggs on the bare face of a rocky cliff if there is a way to avoid it? On the other hand, who wouldn’t? When faced with cross-cultural traditions, such as raven symbolism, we learn that some have overt rights to protest the truth or falsity of any usage of symbols, while others give themselves the right to construct new versions of the same symbols. In Alaska, age, ethnicity, symbolic mysticism, and truth often go together. Failure is constructed and employed culturally, so a non-Native teenager who hops around in a raven fashion may get a chuckle or two, but there’s always a sense of waiting for an elder to condone the behavior as socially acceptable or not. Beauty takes its cues from culture.

Language The fiftieth anniversary of the State of Alaska marked the end of an indigenous Alaska Native language. Eyak became the first language to lose all of its speakers when Chief Marie Smith Jones died in January 2008. Typical of colonial attitudes throughout time, neither the Russian nor the American invaders adopted any of the twenty Alaska Native languages. Nonetheless, indigenous languages remained viable throughout the first centuries of occupation, despite oppressive techniques to destroy Alaska Native political strength. The English-only policies used throughout North America

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in the nineteenth century reflect the unproven notion that domination and verbal communication go hand in hand. Most semiotic or linguistic commentaries about Alaska search for clues to prove that colonialism has succeeded in wiping out indigenous cultures in the same way that genetic reminders have been diluted with newcomers to the region. Why, then, did so many mourn the passing of a tiny, eighty-nine-year-old woman they had never met? Language in Alaska should be regarded through the dialogic lens made popular by the early twentieth-century Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, who suggested that when dominators take political authority over another people, often the suppressed will resist through covert verbal expressions. The dominators may become aware of the linguistic resistance, but ignore it as long as their power holds. Such was not the case for the Eyak language, which simply went out of usage during the colonial era in Prince William Sound and never regained prominence. Writer Gerald Vizenor suggested a way to examine social systems that refuse to die. He toys with the term survivance. Usually survivance means “capable of surviving.” Vizenor expanded its ordinary usage as survivability by emphasizing the element of process, hence survivance. In so doing, he suggests that Native Americans have survived more than five hundred years of domination through processes that should be examined closely. Simply observing that many tribes have survived does little to explain the consequences of and reasons for such resilience. In Alaska, people had anticipated the passing of Chief Marie Smith Jones for quite a while. In non-Native circles such speculation usually took on cheerless tones of guilt, as if the speaker herself was to blame for the disappearing language. The attitude in many Native circles was completely different: Chief Marie had been honored in many events for decades as a symbol of Alaska Native survivance. By promoting her ability to speak, teach, and advocate for the continuing usage of Alaska Native languages, Chief Marie continuously brought attention to language as the key element in understanding any culture’s strengths and opportunities for beauty. Thanks to the hours of effort by linguists such as Michael Krauss of the Alaska Native Language Center and advances in technology, we will all be able to hear Chief Marie speak Eyak, learn to read Eyak, and, if so motivated, learn the language itself. Survivance, hence, is not bound by fabricated rules of cultural affiliation, but rather follows patterns that urge us toward deeper understanding.

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This is the standard map showing Alaska Native linguistic and linguistic distribution. Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska 1974 map, revised 1982. Alaska State Library, Map Case, asl_G4371_E3_1975_K7_map_case.jpg.

Koyukon, as an example of yet another indigenous Alaskan language, emphasizes the value and importance of secrecy by requiring substitution of safe words or avoidance of direct reference to powerful people or entities from the natural and sacred realms. For instance, only lazy, incautious, or stupid people would use the real Koyukon word for grizzly bears, because doing so would draw the bear’s powerful spiritual awareness toward the speaker. Instead, Koyukon Athabascans employ euphemisms, such as k’oodelghune (“that which growls”) or huneye tlaage’ (translated by Eliza Jones as “no-good animal” or “dear animal”). Others, hearing those words, know to become vigilant and to look for imminent danger of bear attack. Likewise, in the religious traditions, Koyukon children of a century ago were taught to avoid saying the name of the dead to avoid attracting malevolent spirits to the living. Thus, by cultural customs, Koyukons, like so many Alaska Native peoples, link danger to language, and silence to safety, especially spiritual safety. No matter how safe they may feel in linguistic avoidance of the powerful, some form of continuity of old traditions must be consciously applied to know what used to happen. What about the Alaska Native regions

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where languages are effectively dead because of lack of use or prohibition? Since statehood, the numbers of Koyukon speakers have diminished dramatically as have many other Native speakers. Linguists offer a variety of explanations, and efforts in education made after statehood, particularly after the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), have attempted to correct this. Provisions in ANCSA allowed the new Alaska Natives (i.e., newly minted ANCSA shareholders) to create new goals and strategies for education, social welfare, and the arts. Learning to conduct American business and affiliated vocational skills has taken precedence over learning old languages. ANCSA opened the way toward new traditions and new uses of language that brought generations of families together, where once they had been separated by indigenous languages spoken on one side, English on the other. At the same time, national sources of grant money opened the way to revive languages, creating at once a new symbolic value to place on Native languages as well as a new way to cause familial divisiveness (imagine dialogues such as “You don’t speak the language. I do”). Following a national trend toward multicultural awareness, some Alaskan educators developed new curricula to incorporate Alaska Native languages and customs into their school programs, and emerging state standards have been expanded to enforce their usage across the state. Most students now acquire a little information about Alaska Natives by the time they graduate, far more than occurred prior to statehood. However, learning about a language or culture does not enculturate the learner in the style of bygone eras, leaving the question open as to what is still available to the future generations regarding language and tradition. Language is important in understanding the details of any given culture, but few of the people who celebrated Chief Marie during her lifetime or after her passing were interested in the details of Eyak culture and language. Rather, the fascination rests in the triumph she came to represent to Alaska Natives and other Native Americans. She became the embodiment of Alaska Native survivance. In the twenty-first century Alaska Native languages represent a symbolic continuum of indigenous culture, but so do many other languages that we can hear spoken in the state. One such language is Hmong, shared by thousands of people who have immigrated to the United States and found homes in Alaska at the turn of the new millennium. Their story is also one of social

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and cultural survivance. They were not here in 1959. What brought the Hmong to Alaska away from their subtropical homeland in Southeast Asia? That history begins centuries ago in Asia with the forebears of the present populations being forced out of one refuge after another until finally only three nations now offer succor: France, Australia, and the United States. In that amazing story, one would expect the language to be the first to go, but it hasn’t. The Hmong, a multiethnic group believed to originate in the Yellow Basin, China, have been under constant removal. Their dominators from one generation to another have changed, each with one final motive, to expunge the Hmong people rather than the Hmong language. Therefore, unlike the Alaska Natives, who were forced to stop speaking their cultural languages, it didn’t matter to the Hmong’s Asian enemies what language was spoken as long as it wasn’t in China, then Korea, and eventually Vietnam or Thailand. Alaska is one of the several states in the United States where the Hmong have been offered assistance: information, help, and money to survive. The Permanent Fund Dividends (PFD) allow Hmong families to live in physically demanding country. Among the nearly one hundred other world languages heard once again in Alaska is one that dominated the lives of Alaska Natives until 1867: Russian. Unlike the Americans who came afterward, the Russians did not require Alaska Natives to speak Russian, although many did. Rather, their mission was primarily economic and enforced through physical means, such as enslavement, murder, and forced relocation. At that time, language was not as important as either a mode of communication or as a symbolic element of covert survival. Now that Alaska has been a state for fifty years, the new Russian immigrants are present not to dominate but to make new lives, away from oppression and poverty. Ironically, many of them have settled in areas where Russian is still remembered and favored by local Alaska Natives, such as in the Alutiiq language of the Kenai Peninsula. There they can openly practice their old religion where the Alutiit have been devout practitioners of the Russian Orthodox faith for centuries. The two groups of Russian Orthodox followers do not share the same customs, traditions, or languages, and therefore don’t tend to hang out together. Religion may be a powerful opiate to blind political minds, but when it comes to ordinary life choices, it takes much more than religion to bring people together. Language, by contrast, forms a continuous binder that simplifies and demystifies liturgical speeches so that ordinary people can relate the

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canon of their faith to the daily intimacies of life and all of its many parts. Likewise, language can educate its speakers by its very existence and usage at the precise moments when it is needed most. For instance, the Koyukon word for grief, ts’eebaa (literal meaning “sadness holds me”), is a close cognate of ts’ebaa, which refers to white spruce (Picea glauca), a life-giving tree in the Koyukon world. The pitch of Picea glauca is an air and water purifier, an antiseptic for minor wounds, a tonic, and an agent for dental hygiene. Shamans have used spruce in their healing rituals. To say, therefore, that “sadness holds me” (ts’eebaa), the speaker includes the notion that the healing spirit of the powerful white spruce lends its strength and other gifts to the griever. Sadness, thus, is not a negative, but a positive, even reviving, element in Koyukon semiotics. It is not surprising, therefore, that funerary rituals, like the memorial potlatch, form a central paradigm of Koyukon culture. Since Koyukon is among the Alaska Native languages for whom there are very few youthful speakers, the comfort of the spiritual nuances of ts’eebaa no longer fill the void left by the deceased. In its place we appreciate the scholarship of Jules Jetté and Eliza Jones who, nearly a century after Jetté’s death, developed the Koyukon dictionary (2000). Instead of ritual songs and sweetly whispered words between loved ones, we have recordings of and words written by relatives who could do such things. Will these efforts benefit those who follow during the next fifty years? Ts’eebaa—sadness holds me and yet offers hope. Words are but symbols. The symbols Chief Marie Smith Jones held in her mind in Eyak were communicated to the rest of us in English. During the several years before her death, she had no other Eyak speakers with whom to share her thoughts. Her views on the subject of language and tradition held significant power over others, but had to be uttered in a foreign language. In English and Eyak, she knew how to tell the rest of us to hang on to the life-giving properties of language.

Tradition In some languages there is no separable word for tradition. Koyukon Athabascan is such a language where k, if used as a repetitive-customary suffix, informs all and sundry that the topic being discussed is customary,

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as usual, and something to be expected to continue. In a semiotic system such as Koyukon, that which is customary is clearly action-based since it affixes to verbs. Moreover, doing something more than once describes a pattern, makes no commitment on behalf of others, and relies on consensus or perhaps some form of common motivation as to whether the speaker or others might continue the practice into the future. The Koyukon, like many other Alaska Native peoples, didn’t gather moss (that is, hold still) except as an expedient for the moment. Moss, incidentally, was once very useful for sopping up blood and urine, two problems that have been resolved by contemporary technologies. In other words, practicality is usually favored over time-wasting traditions in Koyukon households. This cultural logic, so inextricably tied to language, fits precolonial nomadic Alaskan lifestyles as well. Like the Russians and Americans who arrived in the eighteenth century, Alaska’s indigenous nations hunted and fished to make a living. Such a lifestyle requires continuous movement to find the game. Fixating on permanent dwellings and heavy objects poses life-threatening problems that Alaska’s ancestral populations avoided. Russian, European, and American cultures, all dominated by acquisitive tendencies, confused Alaska Natives in more ways than mere cultural attitude toward objects. Alien legal systems, first from czarist Russia and a century later from the United States, forced an end to traditions surrounding relocation from place to place in the constant search for food, use of resource territories, and more than anything else, completely splintered centuries-old diplomatic protocols between indigenous nations. The trading partner network that connected the Northwest coast nations (Tlingit, Haida, and others) to the interior of Canada and Alaska, and its Arctic counterparts among the Yupiit and Iñupiat, depended on explicit measures to prove intention, value, and honesty when spoken languages failed. The interloping Russians and Americans dismissed the customary demands for reciprocity of their hosts and took whatever they saw. In general, Alaska Natives recognized that reciprocity necessarily included other humans as well as the spiritual forces that guided the hunters and traders safely toward one another and back again. Russians and Americans entered with their long histories of reciprocal international policies, and by that era in worldwide colonialism found it expedient to deal at the international level rather than to figure out what local hunters might

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expect. Traditions, in that sense, and for all parties concerned, fell prey to the growing forces of globalization. By the time Russia sold Alaska to the United States, Native peoples in Alaska were regarded as domestic dependent nations without treaties. Traditions, however short-lived they were during the treaty era of the United States, didn’t enter Alaska in the same way they entered Oklahoma, Montana, or other states with high populations of displaced American Indians. Instead of fry bread, Wild West shows, and Indian wars, Alaska Natives entered directly into the traditions of poverty, tiny villages with Native slums built in ghettoes away from the wellconstructed administrative houses of teachers and territorial officials. In time, other traditions entered Alaska: welfare, the Nelson Act of 1905 that created separate schools for Native children, and alcoholic behaviors. A sullen tradition of racism without war entered Alaska in 1867, replacing the passionate Russian love of orthodoxy and ferocious punishment of insubordinate Natives. But perhaps it wasn’t so bad. After all, the Alaskan territorial government did pass the 1945 Antidiscrimination Act to encourage merchants and landlords to take down signs reading no dogs or natives allowed. A lot of traditions grew with the American occupation of Alaska: Robert Service and mining saloon melodramas continue to entertain residents and tourists alike at state fairs and other celebrations. In Alaska, Native communities with quieter traditions have held sway. While ordinary life cycle events, such as coming-of-age celebrations of manhood for making a first hunting kill, have been squelched by missionaries and federal fish and wildlife officials, the rituals of death have survived. In Southeast Alaska and the Athabascan interior, bush wholesalers and travel services make money on potlatches and funerals. Settlement of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, followed nearly a decade later by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, provided formality to some of the innovations in protocol that came with statehood, especially regarding life cycle. There are expectations of potlatch needs that subsistence policies accommodate in the statehood era. There is knowledge and understanding that dead animal parts are usually not heading for a taxidermist when shipped by an Alaska Native, but rather held apart to appease the demands of grandparents, other elders, and perhaps even a spirit or two.

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Statehood’s traditions have also included calendars that give a nod to more than one kind of religious holiday and more than one way to count the passage of time. Russian Orthodoxy celebrates its winter holidays at a different pace than does Western Christianity. Moreover, almost nowhere in Alaska do people schedule important meetings in the sumAlaska Native Knowledge Network. mer, since many people go fishing, University of Alaska Fairbanks. whaling, or berry picking and gather in time-honored ways with people in rural Alaska. On the other hand, the traditions surrounding school have imposed numerous conditions upon Alaska Natives, the most important of which is staying in one place from September through May so that the children can get an education. Former cycles of trapping, winter fishing, and hunting have subsided in some areas as more evenly funded and legislated compulsory education laws have been enacted in Alaska. Since 1958 when the notion of statehood first happened, other traditions have sprung into being in Alaska. The occasional apartheid aspect of these many traditions is linked economically to various areas in the state. For instance, Nalukataq, marking the end of the spring whaling season in Barrow, is by necessity a geographically fixed event celebrated by Iñupiat of the Arctic Slope region. Traditionally, this series of whaling-­crew-based festivities is primarily for the people who actually landed a whale that season and their dependents. The field of dependents grows when there is a lot to share, giving Nalukataq a sense of being for the entire community and for all who want a little muktuk or to take part in the blanket toss. On occasion, relatives in other communities receive whale meat or muktuk and host their own celebrations. At no time, however, does Nalukataq relinquish its original purpose, which is to recognize the annual success and prowess of each umialik, or whaling crew captain. In other words, Nalukataq is a celebration that maintains a strong tie to the local region. But by virtue of extended families, powerful transportation technologies, and the privileges of the International Whaling Commission, as well as numerous environ-

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mental agencies that supervise whaling harvests, key political traditions have grown up alongside the traditions of making and maintaining the sealskin blankets for the blanket toss. The Iñupiat traditions of Nalukataq have always reflected the process of survival inherent in sharing. Sharing is crucial to an isolated region such as the Arctic Ocean. Now the survival of the Iñupiat is maintained through acknowledging the international forces at work around them and surpassing the authority of any given nation-state. Nalukataq as it has become is a key example of survivance, the process of surviving in a changing world. Another example of an Alaskan tradition that maintains some apartheid conditions is the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race that began in 1973, fifteen years after statehood. While a few Alaska Native men and women have entered the race, it’s a race for people who have wealthy sponsors and plenty of time to devote to the rigors of training themselves and their dogs. While earlier races were once enjoyed and occasionally won by Alaska Native mushers such as George Attla, such races do not achieve the world notoriety enjoyed by the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Nonetheless, dogs and dog sledding still hold prominence in most northern Alaskan villages. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) has become an important field of study in the past few decades with the hope that indigenous peoples around the world will offer new insights into global environmental changes that Western science has neglected or doesn’t perceive. Alaska takes its place as an arena for the study of TEK. Globalization, at once part of the cause as well as a potential resolution to catastrophic climate changes, brings attention to the tribal wisdom keepers in Alaska and elsewhere. In the old days, shamans were the acknowledged knowledge specialists, and their styles of gaining and disseminating information varied by personality and cultural approval. By definition, such knowledge seems to go beyond ordinary ways of knowing. Christian missionaries forcibly disallowed shamanism throughout the world, and such wisdom and methods of sharing knowledge have disappeared or gone underground. Fear of condemnation still exists, making it difficult to encourage genuine knowledge specialists to come forward to make their gifts known. Nonetheless, funding has become available to bring traditional knowledge specialists out of hiding. It has started with soft knowledge of weather, animal behavior and health, and navigation

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techniques. Perhaps the next fifty years will be marked by a return of shamanic wisdom, hopefully without the famed theatrics and nasty outcomes of earlier eras. Traditions in Alaska are still in formation and continue to manifest apartheid. Many non-Native people avoid Native events such as Quyana Night at the Alaska Federation of Natives in Anchorage or the Festival of Native Arts in Fairbanks. When assigned extra-credit points, students will go with a buddy to such Native events, often testifying that it is their first time. No matter what the reason for early-twenty-first-century reluctance to participate in multicultural Native events, it’s better than nineteenth- and twentieth-century oppression. Perhaps the future will continue in this positive direction.

The Arts in Alaska The trajectories of language and tradition in Alaska have followed patterns of colonialism and globalization to the extent that indigenous languages and many spiritual traditions were forcibly suppressed during the height of the colonial era. Statehood, perhaps a consequence of globalization itself, has witnessed a reversal of some such trends and a tightening of oppression in others. The spectrum of arts in Alaska is a steadfastly non–Alaska Native construct in its specific connotations, but there are many overlapping ideas with other cultures. Koyukon gives us the term taadle’o, meaning something really beautiful, esteemed, or valued. Taadle’o is an infix word usually used as an integral part of another word. In other words, taadle’o is not a stand-alone concept for Athabascans. It decorates, it displays wealth; taadle’o takes its place in honoring someone or something. Taadle’o, unlike Western art, is not made for art’s sake alone. Other Alaska Native cultures and languages usually have their own means of describing and valuing aesthetic performance, moments, and objects, like taadle’o, as part of a larger framework. During the past few centuries the dominant societies surrounding Alaska have witnessed the aesthetic features of Alaska with an almost invariable eye toward acquisition. Not all that was once valued aesthetically among Alaska’s first peoples has survived the gutting brought about by commercial tourism and the various markets dealing in antiquities. Moreover, that which found its saleable niche in the global arena generally became fossilized in the colors, shapes,

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sizes, and to a certain extent, materials used in the nineteenth century to please a putative tourist palate for authenticity. The constant guessing of what visitors mean by “authentic” as opposed to what one’s ancestors practiced as a beautiful moment in their lives has led to aesthetic angst and uneven ideas about what Alaska Native arts might be. On the one hand, we have careful replication of patterns in wood, stone, bone, and antler from the past. On the other we have artists of all backgrounds reaching out for fresh ideas and materials with contemporary media to express issues of personal, social, and artistic relevance to themselves. Notions of primitive art move constantly in association with Alaska Native arts and artists. Until that factor is explicitly addressed and no longer exploited as a marketing strategy, we will be stuck with it, possibly for the next fifty years. Primitiveness has been associated with any artist whose work doesn’t fit into mainstream canons of “real” art. By this reckoning Grandma Moses and most Alaska Native artists are equally primitive. On the other hand, inside the confines of Alaska’s small arts circle, there are quite a few Alaska Natives who have been welcomed as great artists. Susie Bevins, John Hoover, and Nathan Jackson are among those so honored. Primitiveness has also been associated with spirituality, a trait shared with world-renowned artists, such as El Greco, whose works are not termed primitive, at least not by the majority population of art connoisseurs. The narrow views that lead to relegating some work as primitive and that of non-Natives as “great” has been consecrated into Alaska’s history, as evinced by the appearance of early-twentieth-century artists such as Sydney Laurence. Late-twentieth-century, or more specifically, post-statehood Alaska exhibits a new attitude toward art. Since statehood there has been a concentrated effort to recognize the world-class qualities of our in-state great artists, no matter what their ethnic background. Despite the differences in cultural perception or artistic intention, Alaska Native arts in their recent forms have numerous elements in common. More than anything else one sees a sense of communication about the natural elements, whether in a replication of ancient shapes or executing a contemporary work. Each visual or performance artist embodies an Alaskan sense of land, light, and shape, no matter what they produce. Embodiment theories, while relatively new, are not new in art. Mask makers and users, for instance, are limited to the materials at hand and the performance patterns of others sharing the staging area and what

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they are taught to see and feel from birth. Like artists throughout the world, Alaska Native mask makers seek the spirit of the mask whether as a ritualized aspect of the creation or as a private effort. Some rules of artistic endeavor stem from nature: Nudity, while common in some Alaska Native visual expression, has been suppressed through acts of colonialism in common with all other outward expressions of Alaska Native sensuality. Modesty for the majority of our Alaska Native peoples is a carefully cultivated construct often channeled as a spiritual need. As a visual result, even when nudity is part of the display, the resulting body shows few tantalizing or erotic features except in performative gesture. Other technical artistic skills are needed to communicate deep human emotion, such as facial expression or overall shape. Susie Silook’s sculptures exemplify this quality of Alaska Native aesthetic achievement with extraordinary grace. The essential creature embodied by Silook or other Alaska Native artists is a nonhuman entity seeking sensual anonymity while simultaneously making a key point. Younger Alaska Native artists are using both contemporary themes and media to express current social issues. Tlingit artist Nick Galanin, for example, has incorporated performance, visual media, and electronics into his work to evoke thought about identity and meaning, asking, “What have we become?” All of these fit Gerald Vizenor’s theme of cultural survivance. The artists are using nonverbal media to shape their thoughts into terms that can be interpreted by many, seeking input from all. At a time when issues of Alaskan statehood were being debated in the United States, French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu introduced notions of symbolic capital to his analysis of art. In his view, objects of art are created as part of ongoing class conflicts between dominators and resistors. In another era or another place, we might term the latter patriots, but not when referring to Alaska Natives. The idea doesn’t seem to fit the artist who creates hundreds of pairs of earrings or other innocent objects for a quick sale in a tourist shop. Nonetheless, in the interest of addressing Galanin’s query of what we have become, each pair of beaded earrings should be observed as a work of symbolic capital. If so, for whom does it serve in that capacity: the artist or the person who ultimately wears it? The artist may conceive the earrings as symbolic capital because they embody the Alaska Native nation from which he or she emerges. In

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such a case, the artist may hope to increase the visibility and importance of her or his ancestral nation and perhaps hope that more tourists will return to buy more products from there. Perhaps the imagined artist is even more ambitious and secretly hopes that by increasing the notoriety of his or her homeland, s/he can instigate a revolution and conquer the world on behalf of the ancestors. On the other hand, the purchaser may deem the earrings to be symbolic capital to prove his or her economic and class power over the impoverished craftsperson from the primitive, lower classes. In neither case is the idea of the earrings denoting political domination so outlandish as to be inconceivable. If there is a revolution in progress being revealed through Alaska Native artworks, perhaps young Tlingit writer Ishmael Hope and his associate, Athabascan artist Dimi Macheras, forecast the nature of the fight. In 2007 Hope released Strong Man, a comic book stemming from a Tlingit story about Dukt’ootl’ and a fictitious Alaskan high school student (Duke) who worries about passing the qualifying exams. Themes of domination in Strong Man lend credence to Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic capital as a key aspect of social struggles. However, Hope’s comic is not about class struggles or an unfair and widely uneven economic plane, but rather expresses the need to keep trying rather than to give up. Revolution might fit into Hope’s background, but in fact, revolution rarely surfaces in Alaska Native mythology or contemporary literature. Humor, self-deprecation, and the sort of stoicism displayed in Strong Man typify Alaska Native literary arts, as does gnawing awareness of emotional and physical pain. Whatever it takes to create another Tecumseh is lacking in Alaska—at least so far. Maybe someone during the next fifty years will fight the urge to play a trickster joke, and avoid downplaying her or himself long enough to fill the void. Historically speaking, Iñupiat artist Susie Bevins in 1988 responded to a statewide cry for Native sobriety, the theme of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) convention in 1987. Bevins mounted a major exhibit in the Anchorage Museum of History and Art to display her responses to alcoholism and its physical outcomes (fetal alcohol disorders) in her metalwork. She asked other contemporary Alaska Native artists to do the same. Since then Bevins and others have used art to protest against related social issues in an effort to bring about change if not revolution in Alaska Native society. Change in the form of open discussion in Alaska

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Native circles has remained active and resilient. Unfortunately, so has alcohol, now aided and abetted by drugs of many lethal sorts.

Conclusion Language, tradition, and arts in Alaska, here portrayed as starting and ending with Alaska Natives, have taken a prominent position in Alaska during the past fifty years. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, set into motion by the Alaska State Constitution, brought numerous changes to Alaska’s economy and political structure. Among those changes have been attitudes toward language and education. With nearly one hundred active languages present in Alaska fifty years after statehood, there is no option but to find innovative methods to educate all residents. Alaska Native languages, once violently suppressed, now form part of the overall economic action plan to educate Alaskans in their own languages as well as about their own cultures. Alaskan traditions, however, have developed in complex patterns in tandem with the state’s underlying racial tensions. Traditional forms of apartheid are evident in many areas of the state, such as in the ghettoes of Native villages and towns. The positive work with languages over the past few decades gives rise to hope that by fifty years from now Alaska could lead the nation in creating new avenues for allowing and benefitting diversity. The arts, some verbal, others not, always reveal the cracks in social systems. There is potential for violent resistance in Alaska, something we can avoid peacefully with effort. We can learn from Alaska Native cultures, where violence is rejected in favor of humor and self-deprecation. Finally, Gerald Vizenor’s use of the term survivance is useful to explain and examine why Alaska Native cultures, languages, and arts have survived despite open enmity throughout the colonial era. Survivance, with its emphasis on process, opens the analytical frame to study the entirety of transition and continuity over the life of any given cultural element.

chapter 4  Jocelyn Collette Clark

Sounds of Alaska

There are silences so deep you can hear the journeys of the soul, enormous footsteps downward in a freezing earth. —John Haines, “Listening in October”

S

ince the arrival of Western European music—carried up the far-flung

beaches of the world and deposited on the land by military bands, missionaries, educators, entertainers, and seekers of yellow and black gold—the traditional sounds of the non-Western world have been increasingly relegated to subcategories of music, like “traditional music,” “world music,” “ethnic music,” or “national music.” In the developed regions of our twenty-first  century, technology has made it easier than ever to access the sounds of cultures both distant and familiar. Yet, today, when the word music stands alone, as in “Music Appreciation,” it stands for the musical traditions of Western Europe. Musicology is the study of this “music.” Ethnomusicology is the study of everything else.1 Many of the dynamics shaping the musical landscape of the Alaska we inhabit today parallel the dynamics that orchestrated the histories of so many other places on Earth visited or settled by outsiders. Looking out over common terrain from different vantage points, the insider and 85

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the outsider see one place and many places, actual and imagined. And, on occasion, they see each other. But place itself can never be static, as it perpetually undergoes processes of redefinition by both insider and outsider—in response to the land and in response to each other. The overlaying of foreign words and music onto Alaska’s indigenous soundscape started about three hundred years ago with the arrival of fur traders and missionaries who began the process of papering over centuries-old oral media with script and Scripture—what Michel de Certeau calls “the frontier (and a front) of Western culture. . . . Thus one can read above the portals of modernity,” he continues, “such inscriptions as . . . ‘Here only what is written is understood.’ ”2 As Sven Haakanson Jr. notes in his piece in this volume, with rare exception, this later history— the history—is the only history that has been allowed to “count.” But, unlike the plastic arts, or even the ancient tools and shelters of everyday life, sound cannot be preserved in an archeological site and excavated. Exhumation and repatriation  of  intangible musical artifacts forgotten long ago is almost impossible, for these are contained within people—the people who have lived in Alaska for ten thousand years, and the people who have come here from other places. The history of music in Alaska the state, then, is the history of the musical encounters of and between Alaska’s peoples.

Ringing the Church Bell The earliest importers of music began arriving in Alaska when the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Alaska came ashore on Kodiak Island in 1794 with eight missionaries, including Saint Herman. According to an 1894 text, St. Herman of Alaska, Orthodox Sobor, “Father Herman was concerned in particular for the moral growth of the Aleuts [the Russian word for the Unangan people]. With this end in mind, a school was built for the children . . . He himself taught them the Law of God and church music . . . His students sang, and they sang very well.”3 By 1840, four Russian Orthodox churches had been established in Alaska, including at Kodiak, Unalaska, Atka, and the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, at New Archangel, today’s Sitka. A Russian Orthodox catechism became the Aleuts’ “first book,” after Russian Orthodox priests adapted four previously oral-only Alaskan languages—“Aleut,”

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Pacific Gulf Yupik, Central Alaskan Yupik, and Tlingit—to the Cyrillic alphabet for use in the mission school system run by Ioann Veniaminov. Vernacular literacy soon became a part of “Aleut” culture, and, to a lesser extent, that of people in the Pacific Gulf and Central Alaska.4 The writing down of Unangan songs during the period of Veniaminov allows us today to glimpse these songs in early, albeit translated, form. In 1990, Knut Bergsland and Moses L. Dirks published Aleut Tales and Narratives Collected 1909–1910 by W. Jochelson, which includes this love song: My breath, I have it here My bones, I have them here My flesh, I have it here With it I seek you, With it I find you, But speak to me Say something nice to me. Ánˆging anˆgixtakúqingáan wáya! Qagnáning qagnaxtakúqingáan wáya Úlung úluxtakúqingáan wáya Ímin ilgáasadang, ímin ukúusadang. Táˆga núng tunúda, iˆgamánan núng hída!

During the nineteenth century, the Russian-American Company settled Unanga on the Commander and Pribilof islands, where the northern fur seal bred. Thereafter, some Unangan hunters were relocated to Sitka and to the company’s post at Fort Ross on the California coast. In the following song, an Unangan hunter entering a two-hatch baidarka, “apparently as a worker (taking orders) away from home,”5 expresses his longing for his islands. Oh, what is it going to be? What is he going to say? Not expecting to be like this, I entered again the end of it.

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My islands, my dear islands there east! Above them the clouds will be light in the morning. Over there it will be like that, too, in the morning. If I live on like this, endless, unceasing. This boredom, this grief! Ánang, alqúuˆgan aˆgíkuˆx? álqun hidáaˆgan aˆgíkuˆx? Wáya umaaqilánang atálakan ágtan hangaaˆgutalaaˆganang. Tanáning, tanáasaning qagáya! qúsan iníngin uˆglaˆxtálix qilaaˆgin áˆxsix qagaya. Ikáya káyux matálix qiláaˆgan âˆxix ikáya. Wáya umatálix anˆgaˆgiidalîgung uˆganaˆgúlux uˆganaaˆgnaˆgúlux. Wán an’gilax, quliilaˆx wâya.

While the Orthodox Church officially excluded musical instruments in its ceremonies, Russian fur traders did not arrive without them and a desire to pass on their secular musical heritage. According to a diary entry of an American soldier who attended a dance on Spruce Island near Kodiak in 1867, “Creoles used the Russian balalaika to provide music both for traditional Russian and common dances.”6 Outside the Russian churches, bells rang parishioners in to worship. The bell played an important role in the church culture of Presbyterian missionaries in Southeast Alaska, as well. The Presbyterian ministry first arrived in the Chilkat Valley in 1879, and Alaska’s first Presbyterian bell, ordered by Sheldon Jackson, arrived at the Chilkat Mission in 1881 from Troy, New York. “Its tone was described by Caroline Willard, the first pastor’s wife and quite a musician, as ‘a perfect Presbyterian tone.’ ”7 What exactly was a perfect Presbyterian tone? The primary Presbyterian hymnal in use at the time, Church Psalmist; Or Psalms and Hymns Designed for the Public, Social and Private Use of Evangelical Christians Together with: The Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America by Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. was published, without score, in New York in 1849. Its introduction speaks of the importance Presbyterians ascribed to the English language and “proper” music in service to the propagation of their faith through hymn. As the introduction to the Church Psalmist advised:

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Bell ringer at work in belfry, Belkofsky Greek Catholic Church. Alaska State Library, Evelyn Butler and George Dale. Photographs, 1934–1982, George Allen Dale, ASL-P306-0021.

The subjects of LYRIC POETRY and PSALMODY are intimately and inseparably connected and it is in vain to expect one to exist in a high state of perfection without the other or for either to attain distinguished excellence without cultivation. [In lyric poetry, from] four to six stanzas of the grave and ordinary metres may be considered a suitable length for a song of social praise. In metres of a brisker movement the addition of one or two stanzas more may not be improper. The same indulgence may be conceded to some Hymns of a peculiar character and to those, which are to be used only on special occasions. But it is a great practical principle, which every minister and every leader of a choir should understand, THAT SINGING in ORDER TO BE EFFECTIVE MUST NOT BE TOO LONG . . . In relation to the Psalms, it may be said in the language of another, “That the harp of David yet hangs upon the willow, disdaining the touch of any hand less skilful than his own.” [Emphasis in original.]

The symbiosis among poetry, song, and religious conversion could be found at work in many Presbyterian hymns, including “Missionary Meeting”:

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ASSEMBLED at thy great command, Before thy face dread King! we stand: The voice, that marshaled every star, Has called thy people from afar. We meet, through distant lands, to spread The truth for which the martyrs bled; Along the line, to either pole, The thunder of thy praise to roll. Our prayers assist, accept our praise, Our hopes revive, our courage raise, Our counsels aid, to each impart The single eye, the faithful heart. Forth with thy chosen heralds come, Recall the wandering spirits home; From Zion’s mount send forth the sound To spread the spacious earth around.

With church hymnals and choirs came the church organ. The first pipe organ in Alaska, and likely on the Pacific coast north of Mexico, arrived in Sitka soon after the Finns and Baltic Germans employed in the Russian American Company established the first Lutheran Church in Alaska. This five-stop, one-manual Kessler pipe organ, built in Tartu (Dorpat), Estonia, in 1844 by the “master of Tartu,” arrived in Sitka by ship in the mid-1840s, replacing the harmonium that had apparently been used up until then. It was around the same time that “music” was added to the Sitka school curriculum, presumably to produce young musicians to feed the orchestra established at Sitka in 1839.8 A traveler to Sitka in the early 1860s described a Saint Nicholas Day dance at the chief manager’s residence at which an orchestra of two violins, a cello, and a flute played Polish music while officials and their wives danced.9

“It Sounds Confusedly” While the proliferation of the sounds of their homelands made by organs and other European instruments may have helped newcomers to feel at home on the “northern frontier,” the music they brought with them undoubtedly struck those who already lived here as more than a little

This image shows the interior of a log church, which appears to be decorated for Christmas. A choir in robes is sitting to the side of the pews. This might be the interior of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Fairbanks. Albert Johnson Photograph Collection, 1905–1917, UAF-1989-166-196-Print, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The church organist, Mary’s Igloo, Alaska. Alaska State Library, Wickersham State Historic Site. Photographs, 1882–1930s, ASL-P277-009-107.

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Carol Beery Davis’s Soundtrack Nearly one hundred years later, it was an organ that would bring Carol Beery Davis, one of the writers of the “Alaska’s Flag” song, to Alaska. In 1920, Miss Beery was offered a temporary position as silent movie organist in Juneau through the Wurlitzer Company, whose people were installing organs in many theaters, including the one in Seattle in which she was practicing. Her temporary job ended up lasting seven years, ending only when the era of silent films ended. She would end up spending the next sixty-three years in Alaska. With the end of the theater job, she began teaching piano and organ in Juneau, while at the same time working with state museum curator Rev. Andrew P. Kashevaroff transcribing motifs of Tlingit songs, in an effort to help preserve them. Her collection, initially titled Songs of the Totem, was later changed to Totem Echoes. She also authored a volume of her own songs, called Aurora Images.10 The theater organ Carol once played is now installed in the State Office Building and is played in concerts on Friday afternoons by Allen McKinnon, the music director of the Northern Light Church, where Carol played organ for many years.11

peculiar. E. W. Nelson reports that “at St. Michael the men were invited into the Fur Company house where there was a small organ . . . An old man said that he did not understand what the noise says . . . ‘It sounds confusedly in my ears and is strange to them. I like better to beat the drum and singing in the kashim,12 for I understand it.’ ”13 In 1885, Sheldon Jackson, general agent for education in Alaska, proposed a plan to allocate mission responsibilities across the territory. Jackson assigned a specific region to each church group that wanted to work in Alaska. The Episcopal Church was assigned the Yukon River region, for instance. He invited Protestant churches to undertake the “educating and doctoring” of Alaska Native peoples.14 Denominations neglected in Jackson’s partitioning continued their missionary work undeterred. Roman Catholics traveled throughout the central Yukon area by boat to recruit “Native youths” for their school at Holy Cross, while Episcopalians sought students for their boarding school at Anvik. The government contracted there and throughout Alaska with church groups to provide “proper” education for Native children.15 From the mid-1880s on, most of the many religious denominations that took the “education” of Alaska Natives upon themselves held that

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Solomon class singing with organist Ruth Curran Sellers. Singer wearing bracelet is Maggie Curran Olsson. Alaska State Library, Evelyn Butler and George Dale. Photographs, 1934–1982, George Allen Dale, ASL-P306-0654.

the most efficient way to educate Native children was to remove them from their households. Under this policy, daughters were removed from their homes until the age of eighteen and sons until the age of twenty-one. Children in the mission schools, supported in part by the U.S. Bureau of Education, were required to speak English and punished for doing otherwise. The subsequent fostering of negative self-image in language, religion, and music eventually led to the decline of all three. The ramifications of this policy continue to touch Alaskans today. Last summer, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Sitka poet Robert Davis Hoffmann (Tlingit name Xaashuch’eet), who was working with Boston composer Martin Brody on a musical interpretation of his poem “We Come Out of the Fog,” commissioned for CrossSound’s 2008 project “Maroon Settings.” Hoffmann, whose family is from the Southeast Alaska village of Kake, wrote the poem “At the Door of the Native Studies Director,” alluding to the experiences of his father, Henry Davis Sr., in Sitka, first at Sheldon Jackson Industrial School, from which he graduated in 1932, and later, as Native Studies director at Sheldon Jackson College,

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where the movement to revive and sustain the Tlingit language took root in the early 1970s. In this place years ago they educated old language out of you, put you in line, in uniform, on your own two feet. They pointed you in the right direction but still you squint to that other place, that country hidden within a country. You chase bear, deer. You hunt seal. You fish. This is what you know. This is how you move, leaving only a trace of yourself. Each time you come back you have no way to tell about this. Years later you meet their qualifications— native scholar. They give you a job, a corner office. Now you’re instructed to remember old language, bring back faded legend, anything that’s left. They keep looking in on you, sideways. You don’t fit here, you no longer fit there. You got sick. They still talk of it, the cheap wine on your breath as you utter in restless sleep what I sketch at your bedside. Tonight, father, I wrap you in a different blanket, the dances come easier, I carve them for you. This way you move through me. I come to tell now, the moving men are emptying your office. Everyone thought I would take your place but as I turn in your dark chair I recall a night you tossed in a dream on breath-waves that break

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pebbly snores of canes, where fog people move in old Tlingit village among your smoky clanhouse and an emerging totem, a woman I remember as Grandmother gesturing, talking words almost familiar. Your sleep-speech grows guttural and I feel something pull that when you wake I want to ask you about16

Missionaries by and large saw Alaska Native music and dance as inextricably tied to shamanic paganism. As the work of the Devil, indigenous music, along with its ceremonial dress and dances, stood as a stubborn barrier to religious conversion and cultural assimilation. In 1890, the missionary Edith Kilbuck wrote, “We have condemned the

For twenty-four hours prior to launching the first whale boat, all members of the whaling crews fasted, danced, and sang of former deeds of bravery at sea. Gertrude Lusk Whaling Album, ca. 1905, UAF-1959-875-9, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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masquerades and seek to suppress them.” A few years later, in 1894, he went on to boast, “This has given us more heart and courage than anything else: there was no masquerade this year from Bethel to Ougavig, that is, in six prominent villages. A custom that has existed for generations, and one about which these people have clung most tenaciously, has been put aside.”17 This policy continued well into the twentieth century. At Kobuk, Noorvik, and Selawik, “Eskimo dancing,” and the drumming and singing that accompanied it, were banned from 1926 to 1976 by a Californian sect called “The Friends” (not to be confused with the Quakers).

Beating the Church Drum The Salvation Army took a different approach to music and culture. Its missionaries arrived with the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898 under the auspices of the Canadian branch of the movement, a little more than thirty years after it was first established in England by Methodist minister “General” William Booth. In Alaska, the army failed to recruit many followers among European Americans, many of whom arrived in the north with their Victorian values intact, particularly when it came to church-related activities. However, the Salvation Army proved very successful particularly among Southeast Alaska Natives. Tlingit Salvationists Charles Newton and his wife carried the gospel and the army’s “carefree style of worship” throughout Tlingit country before settling down to command the thriving church in Kake. By World War II, fifteen Salvation Army “corps” dotted the Alaskan territory—all but the church in Anchorage “principally of Native identity.” In 1945, Newton was awarded the Second Class Award by the Salvation Army International Heritage Center. “Field-Adjutant Charles Newton: for over forty years, has rendered outstanding service among Indians in Alaska, shepherding and leading them in salvation warfare, at considerable personal sacrifice erecting an Army hall at Kake; and has given valuable aid, officially recognized, to governmental authorities in the solving of problems concerning the spiritual and social welfare of Alaskans.”18 By 1990, the army corps had grown to thirty-two units.19 The Salvation Army’s conversion of many Alaska Natives may not only have had to do with the church’s “carefree style of worship.” (Meet-

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ings don’t have a set order of service. They usually include plenty of hymns and songs, and there may be group or individual music items. Dance or drama may be used to help with the worship. Prayers are not formal or liturgical, but more often spontaneous and “from the heart.”) It can be argued that the army’s initial “in” had to do with the fact that the Salvationists’ primary instrument in their “war against sin and social evil” was the drum. Ignoring cries of sacrilege, William Booth claimed it was just as proper to “beat” the people into a Salvation meeting as to “ring” them into church—a decree that certainly resonated with Tlingits and Haidas who had been dancing and chanting to drums for thousands of years. For the Salvation Army, the drum was the “church bell.” In In Sisterhood: The History of Camp 2 of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, Juneau Tlingit elder Elizabeth Martin recalls, “Oh, how I loved to beat that drum. The Major used to tell me, ‘Okay, it’s time to go to beat the drum.’ I’d go and beat it. I wasn’t a good drummer. I used to sit up on the platform, and my dad came to church with me at Salvation Army . . . Oh, I’d be so proud . . . I liked the Salvation Army band; women were in it, too.”20 In his history of the Salvation Army, A Century of Service in Alaska, Henry Gariepy quotes Capt. Joseph Thomas, corps officer of Saxman (near Ketchikan): “The Salvation Army fitted into our Native culture in the singing of our songs. We may sing a chorus eight or nine times. That is when the Holy Spirit takes over.”21 The Salvation Army’s technique of taking well-known tunes and putting them to use in the service of God would eventually expand to the community brass band. In the 1920s, the village of Kake was known for having “one of the best brass bands, one of the best Salvation Army bands of all time.” Gariepy quotes Clarence Jackson of Kake, whose great-grandfather was Envoy Johnny C. Johnson of Skagway: “What was so attractive to me was the music. You could feel the building vibrating! . . . Every moment in that church was a special time. Ninety per cent of the bandsmen could not read, yet they were proficient musicians.” Jackson continued, “One of the strongest points of the Army has been that it gave expression to the Native Alaskans’ culture of music, which helped make the Army what it was in Southeastern Alaska.”22

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Brass and Dance Bands Ensembles built around brass started to show up in other Southeast Alaska towns, incorporating Filipino musicians who worked in the mines and the canneries by day and played by night. Nora Marks Dauenhauer remembers as a teenager going to dances “where the Hoonah guys played trumpet, saxophones, guitars and pianos. They were so good. They played ‘Moonlight Serenade’ during the war when Glenn Miller was popular— they played his tunes. It was so neat.”23

Williams Family Legacy Petersburg clarinetist Jesse Williams’s great-grandfather Walter Williams Sr. played trombone and euphonium and conducted the Kake band. Williams Sr. studied music at the Chemewa Indian School, a Northwest regional boarding school for Native Americans that is still in operation. He went into the navy during World War I and was stationed in California. Following the war, Williams returned to Kake to direct the Salvation

A Native band at Hydaburg, circa 1900, with the old Hydaburg church building in background. Alaska State Library, Alaska State Library Place File. Photographs, ASL-Kasaan-13Monograph ASL-P01-4137.

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Army band, which, under his leadership, in the 1920s and ’30s grew into a twenty-five-to-thirty-piece band that performed in Kake and up and down the Pacific Coast. In 1923, Walter Williams’s band was selected to perform in the welcome parade for President Warren G. Harding.24 His great-grandson Jesse remembers: Growing up, I had heard stories of my great-grandfather and his band from my grandparents and relatives from their generation and my mother’s generation—those who remember his performances. From what I hear, he had great attention to detail, in music and in his everyday life in general, and expected and tolerated no less than the absolute best from himself and his band members. He was strict as a conductor and a teacher, and the band was the better for it. The band, mostly Tlingit, while struggling with English as a written and spoken language, was fluent in the musical language and notation.25

Walter Williams Sr. passed on his talent and discipline to his greatgrandson. Jesse grew up in Petersburg and played with the Juneau Symphony before enrolling in music school as a clarinetist in 2000. He

Walter Williams Sr.

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started his work at the University of Idaho Lionel Hampton School of Music and is now one semester away from completing a degree in Instrumental Performance at Western Michigan University. “I have been afforded many professional performance opportunities that I am incredibly grateful for,” he writes. “Aside from performing with the university bands and orchestras, I have also performed in pit orchestras with the university theater company; performed with a neighboring college orchestra and band, and an area professional orchestra as third bass clarinet. This past year I have been focusing on my technique as a solo and chamber musician. I have also been composing and arranging music for myself and my woodwind quintet. I find it much easier to arrange and orchestrate than to compose original ideas. I enjoy playing with the different colors that different combinations of instruments have to offer.”26

Jagtime Following the establishment of Christianity in Alaska came the gold rush. With its stampeders, who arrived in Southeast en masse in 1897 and 1898, came music and instruments from other parts of the world, including the piano. Where besides Paris is the image of the can-can girl and the ragtime-jagtime saloon player more prominent than in gold rush Alaska?

Athabascan Old-Time Fiddling Perhaps nowhere in Alaska did European folk music (French and Scottish jigs) take root more deeply than among the Athabascan of the Alaska Interior—after traditional drum dancing had been all but wiped out. Initially, traders of the Hudson Bay Company, who came from the Orkney Islands, Scotland, Ireland, and French Canada, brought fiddle music to the Interior. Later, during the gold rush, popular waltzes, jigs, and two steps were quickly adopted and played at dances. All these old tunes were modified to produce a unique musical style, appropriately called “Athabascan Old-Time Fiddling.” Craig Mishler, in his 1993 book The Crooked Stovepipe: Athapaskan Fiddle Music and Square Dancing in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada, notes

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Killisnoo musicians in a three-piece orchestra. Willie Larianoff and two other white men outside of house in 1902. Two other men hold a gun and a hatchet at the musicians. Alaska State Library, Vincent Soboleff. Photographs, ca. 1896–1920, Vincent I. Soboleff, asl_p001_184.

that little of the Athabascan fiddle music is pure and stable; rather it is a meeting and fusing of indigenous and exotic (i.e., Western) forms.27 Outsiders may simply look at Athapascan fiddlers as Indians playing the white man’s music, but they couldn’t be further from the mark. Although initially learned from whites, Athapascan fiddle music has been cultivated in relative isolation from main-stream American country music. Playing strictly by ear and within a strong conservative tradition that is over 140 years old, Athapascan men have developed a powerful, beautiful sound and a repertoire that is different from any other style of fiddle music . . . squeaking and scraping is . . . a conscious attempt to replicate the traditional sound of elder fiddlers, a sound aesthetically marked as being Indian.28

Fiddler and cofounder of the Alaska Folk Festival Bob Banghart has observed one of the main differences between “original” fiddling styles and Athabascan styles to be connected to the Athabascan language:

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The Orchestra at St. Paul’s Island, Alaska. Alaska State Library, Gray and Hereford Photograph Collection, ca. 1880. Gray & Hereford, ASL-P185-18.

I have played with a number of the guys over the years and find that the more extended bars are present [in the music] the stronger the presence of Athabascan as a first language [among the players]. A tune that in Anglo culture follows an AABB format in 4/4 time will be modified to fit the [Athabascan] language—for example the tune will have the first A be 4, the second A be 5, and first B be 4 or 5 or 6 with it squaring up again on the last B. I believe that it has to do with the vocal structure [of the language]— with the music needing to be bent to the Athabascan tongue—something I have experienced with old style Cajun music as well.29

Fed by an influx of young musicians in the 1970s, Athabascan fiddling came to incorporate gospel and country-and-western music. While Craig Mishler has noted among Gwich’in fiddlers “a decidedly greater reverence for tradition than for innovation,” Bob Banghart found: [a]daptation and modification of a tune to make it part of the local repertory [to be] an impressive element of the players I have worked with—strong ear players who are adept at taking good tunes from any source to make it part of their play book. Like any player, they all have their favorite tunes

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and every village with a contingent of players will be noted for one tune or another. I played an invitational in Whitehorse twenty-five years ago where seven fiddle players from across the Arctic and northern regions of North America were brought together for a week. We discovered we had five tunes in common from all the regions. Most all the tunes were French or English, brought across, east to west, by trappers and traders. There was one tune that appeared to have come in with the whalers from the west side. Ornamentation and downbeat placement were the major modifiers between the variations. I think that was dependent on if the tune was used as a dance tune or singing tune.30

Crossing Musical Fronts: The War Years By 1939, Alaska’s racial composition had rearranged itself to 54 percent White, 45 percent Native, and 1 percent other. With World War II came the arrival of many non-Natives—and in-migration that would continue into the booming postwar years. The population of Alaska thus went from 72,524 in 1937 to 128,643 by 1950, most of that increase composed of newcomers of European and European American descent. By 1960, Natives made up less than 19 percent of Alaska’s population.31 Juneau’s Filipino community undoubtedly contributed significantly to the “Other” category, as the early twentieth century saw the arrival of large numbers of “Alaskeros” brought to Southeast Alaska from the Philippines to work in salmon canneries and others brought in to work at the mines. The Filipino Community Center in Juneau, fund-raising for which was led by Tlingit women, was built in 1929 so that Juneau Filipinos would have a place to host community events in the face of racial discrimination.32 During the war years, soldiers and cannery workers danced with local women to the Filipino jazz bands at the Filipino Hall. Many Tlingit and Haida women married Filipino men they met there.33 The hall remains a center for community life, Friday night hosting “family night,” featuring karaoke. All of Juneau looks forward to the colorful Filipino Ali Tap Tap percussion and dance troupe, which performs annually in the local Fourth of July parade. While the first commercial flight in Alaska, from Fairbanks to Nome, occurred two years after the dedication of the Alaska Railroad in 1925,

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and charter plane companies like Wien Alaska Airlines had certainly penetrated the isolation of remote communities once accessible only by boat in summer or by dog team in winter, it was World War II that changed these communities forever. With the threat of a Japanese attack on the Aleutians (the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor on Unalaska on June 4, 1942, while on June 18 the U.S. forces attacked the Japanese at Kiska Harbor, which had been occupied on June 6 by the Japanese, followed by Attu the following day), the U.S. military set up operations on the islands and whole villages of Unangans found themselves “evacuated” to abandoned canneries in Kasaan, Killisnoo, and Ward Lake “refugee” camps far away in Southeast Alaska. Japanese citizens, who had been in Alaska since the turn of the century, were suspected of using secret shortwave radios to beam traitorous messages to the enemy and were shipped off to internment camps in the Lower Forty-Eight.34 Meanwhile, the Alaska Territorial Guard, commonly called the “Eskimo scouts”—the “eyes and ears of the north”—patrolled five thousand miles of Aleutian coastline and two hundred thousand miles of tundra, bringing together Aleut, Athabascan, European American, Iñupiat, Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, and Yup’ik people. And with them traveled music—suddenly large populations of Alaskans found themselves exposed to new sounds and new instruments.

Touring on the “Alaska Music Trail” In the late 1940s, Alaska found itself on the international touring circuit map, exposing the state’s residents to globally renowned musicians. After visiting Alaska, Russian pianist Maxim Shapiro was so favorably impressed he suggested an annual Alaska Music Trail concert series, to feature performances by four touring artists or groups yearly. Carol Beery Davis, who had herself toured throughout Alaska’s towns and villages with well-known musicians, agreed to cofound the organization. According to her daughter, Juneau resident Constance Davis, “There were stories to tell of out-of-tune pianos and broken keys but with the most appreciative audiences in the world!”35 Fairbanks professor and singer Dr. Suzanne Summerville writes that through the trail, “musicians from all over the world contracted concerts in eighteen towns  .  .  .  including Anchorage, Cordova, Fairbanks, Juneau-Douglas,

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Ketchikan, Petersburg, Seward, Sitka, Wrangell, and the Canadian communities of Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Grande Prairies, Kitimat, Prince George, Prince Rupert, and Whitehorse. Shapiro hoped that the ‘Music Trail’ would last at least ten years, but he died in the ninth year.”36 His wife, Jane Shapiro, and many others in Juneau like Jane Stewart and Carol Beery Davis carried his project through twenty-five years. While the majority of the musicians that participated on the Alaska Music Trail were classical performers, jazz players, minstrels, and performers in other popular genres participated over its many years. In the end, as still proves the case for many prospective touring groups wanting to visit Alaska today, long distances, often unroaded, and relatively small audiences made an Alaska tour, particularly for many jazz and big bands, too costly.37

Rockefeller Center Comes to St. Paul Island In addition to the physical deployment of Alaska’s villagers in support of the war effort, the American defense policy also brought telecommunications—overland communications links between Alaska and the Lower Forty-Eight states, the postwar effects of which would alter forever the cultural boundaries once surrounding Alaska’s remote villages. Marv Weatherly, a communications technician and policy maker who played a key role in getting satellite communications stations set up in Alaska, recalled to Hilary Hilscher his memories of St. Paul villagers’ first encounter with television in the early 1970s: The first regular (TV) station to be installed was at St. Paul. St. Paul, and then Unalaska and I carried the equipment out to St. Paul and installed the station there. Now these are people who—many of them—had never seen television in their life. Their whole economy, of course, revolved around the seals and the Native corporation, etc. I went out there and I installed the station, and I had in my baggage a couple weeks’ worth of tapes and Reeve (Aleutian Airways) lost the bags. I had one tape, one tape from PBS. It was ice skating at Rockefeller Center. I installed that station at St. Paul and put that tape on. They had in the community hall . . . they had a television set set up and the kids and the old people and everyone sat around that and kept playing the tape over and over and over. But

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A group of unidentified young adults watching television laughing, 1980s. TT.03101, Tuzzy Library.

what was interesting about it [were] these young kids: they had never seen buildings like, you say, Rockefeller Center. The opulence, the whole scene, the golden statue of the horse—or whatever it is there at the ice skating rink—just absolutely blew their minds.38

Local Symphonies: “Like-minded Musicians Looking for a Musical Outlet” While a few small orchestras and choruses had been established in Alaska early on, the war brought in enough classical musicians and symphony patrons to support the formation of orchestras in almost every major Alaskan community. In 1946, a consortium of “like-minded musicians looking for a musical outlet” founded the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. The Fairbanks Symphony Association, today with more than seventy musicians, came together in 1958.

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In Juneau, an optometrist named Roy Box was instrumental in founding what he called “a funny little symphony,’’ which he originally envisioned to be a small ensemble of local musicians. He told the Juneau Empire that after realizing the amount of musical talent in town he decided to recruit high school music teacher Cliff Berge to conduct. In 1962, the group became the Juneau Symphony. As Juneau flautist Sally Schlichting points out, “in a small town you have to be creative with what you have. You have limited resources and always have to substitute.” Before moving to Juneau, Box was a hard-rock miner in Idaho and logged on Mount St. Helens in Washington. His favorite summer job was working as a logger on Prince of Wales Island for Ketchikan Pulp Company and other smaller outfits. Majoring in music and woodwinds in college, he “drove freight trucks, cleaned chicken houses and cooked for 250 students three times a day” to make a living. When he saw that even better clarinet and saxophone players than he were barely scraping out a living, he changed career paths and took up the study of science. In Dr. Box’s words, after he “failed as a professional musician,” he “took the easy way out”—founding the Juneau Symphony.39 Other Alaska orchestras that came into being around that time included the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra, which grew out of pit orchestras that had gathered in winter for Pier One Theatre musicals in Homer since 1973, and the Southeast Symphony in Ketchikan, now disbanded. In Fairbanks, composer-conductor Gordon Wright directed the highly accomplished Arctic Chamber Orchestra.

Gordon Wright’s Adventurous Experiment Wright’s groundbreaking orchestra not only brought an array of classical and contemporary music to listening audiences in Fairbanks, but, between 1969 and 1989, toured all over the state, including to bush Alaska. The Arctic Chamber Orchestra’s repertoire ranged from classical compositions to important twentieth-century works, like concertos by Alban Berg and Lennox Berkeley,40 works by Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and Tohru Takemitsu,41 as well as original works by Alaskans like John Luther Adams, for which it received the national ASCAP–Chamber Music America award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. The only other Alaska music organization in the state’s history to receive the prestigious award was CrossSound in 2001.

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Eleanor R. (Ellie) Smith, who was “born in a 1949 Studebaker in the parking lot of a bar near Mission Bay, San Diego” and is now a massage artist in Missouri, remembers traveling with the Arctic Chamber Orchestra in the 1970s, as a college student in Fairbanks: One of the things I learned very early on while touring with the Arctic Chamber Orchestra was to be flexible . . .  First of all, we had to be able to get there, which usually meant there had to be a place for our airplane to land . . . More than once during the years I traveled with [the ACO], the orchestra transferred from the “Big Airplane,” a WWII surplus C-46, to a flotilla of float planes or a flock of Cessnas. One time we were loaded on a fishing boat, and when we passed by the Coast Guard station we were asked to get off the deck. They were not authorized to carry passengers, so we were contraband cargo. On occasion we were transported on dog sleds. Sometimes we had to walk to town. One of the rules on ACO tours was we presented ourselves as a Real Orchestra, no matter how small [or remotely located] our audience was. This meant that when we performed, the women [mostly] wore long black formals, and the men wore tuxedos or black suits . . .  One year we were doing a bush tour. . . . We flew off from Ft. Yukon and made a quick stop in Hughes for a school lunch and short concert. It turned out that it was not possible to fit the tympani through the doorway of the school, so we performed our Haydn symphony without percussion. Then, it was back on the plane for the hop up to Kobuk. . . .  Our pilot located Kobuk and flew over at a fairly low altitude.  .  .  . An excited  group of people waving and jumping up and down in the middle of the tiny cluster of cabins indicated that they knew we had arrived.  At the time  I am reminiscing about, the population of the village was  79 people. The major, or rather only, industry there was fishing and hunting. . . .  We deplaned into the raw afternoon. . . . There was an expanse of tundra to the south of us. If you ventured off the landing strip, it didn’t take very long to get wet feet in the muskeg. There was no road to speak of, just some scars in the muskeg where some large vehicle had passed. After a half an hour or so, we began to wonder just exactly how we were supposed to get to town. Gordon maintained faith. Transport had been promised, transport would arrive. . . .  [A]s we watched the sun sink slowly towards the horizon and the wind began to cut a little more deeply, we finally heard a low diesel mutter from the south. . . . With a roar of  diesel and  crashing gears, our ride  arrived.  We all stood, staring in  astonishment. Even  our conductor, who was seldom at a loss  for  words, was silent. The driver of the aged mobile crane that had just arrived jumped out of the cab and yelled, “Sorry it took

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so long to get here! Battery was dead! Can’t turn it off, I’m afraid it won’t start again if I do.” The crane was the biggest vehicle in Kobuk, and so it functioned as their version of mass transit.  Surrounded by diesel fumes and confused by the roaring engine, we hurriedly loaded up on the crane’s flat bed. The driver scrounged some ropes from the mess of greasy rags and tools in the cab, and the tympani, music stands, and the string bass were securely tied to the base of the crane. . . . Once we were all aboard, the gears crashed again, the driver yelled “Hold on!” and off he drove across the tundra. The 30 members of the Arctic Chamber Orchestra held on for dear life as we jolted through the tussocks. . . .  We played the concert we had prepared. . . . Every soul who lived in the village was present, and many people had traveled miles in from the bush to attend as well. There was a contingent from the town of Shungnak, which was about twenty miles down the river from Kobuk. In addition, all the folks who were out at the fishing camps near by were there too. . . .  There was no audience seating. Only the orchestra had chairs. We sat in the middle of the room, and the listeners lined up around the sides of the room. They were three and four deep.  It was amazing. None of the children had ever seen a violin or an oboe in the flesh before. Many of the adults had not, either. Nowadays it is hard to visualize a life without satellites, computers, or TV. That’s the way it was. Radio reception was iffy too.  We were performing Haydn and Bach and Mozart for people who garnered a subsistence from the fish and moose and caribou. . . . For many of them, this was the first time they had ever heard classical music. It was truly amazing to see just how universal a language music is first hand. They ate it up. After the performance, we orchestra members were swarmed with children who wanted to touch and try our instruments.  I watched Leslie Salisbury, one of our violin players, give an impromptu violin lesson to a kid who looked to be about 10 years old. The truly amazing thing was that within five minutes he was getting quite a good sound out of the instrument. Anybody who has ever tried to play a violin will know just how rare that is. . . . The dancers of the village had left during supper, and returned in full regalia.  The ethnomusicology professor was our timpanist. He was in his element as he taped the drumming and chanting. After a while, there was a “social” dance and our hosts taught us the steps and made us join in. . . . The next morning, we were all loaded into river boats and transported down to Shungnak. . . . Our plane joined us there, and we continued on to our next concert, at Point Hope. But that’s another story.42

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Members of the Arctic Chamber Orchestra perform in a village. Cellist in center right front is Peggy Swartz. TT.02299, Tuzzy Library.

Oil Leases and Land Claims In 1968, the Atlantic Richfield Company tapped the ten-billion-barrel Prudhoe Bay oil reservoir, and a year later the state sold oil and gas leases in the area for $900 million. Two years after that, Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which settled the claims that were holding up construction of the pipeline. These nodal events reshaped the economic and cultural realities for everyone in the state. With the long-awaited settlement of land claims, which included institution of regional, urban, and village Native corporations, came a linguistic and cultural revival—a movement that gained further momentum after 1977, when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System became operable and education funding rose to a level sufficient to pay for both schools in the villages and traditional Native arts and culture courses in urban classrooms. In my own grade school in Juneau, Harborview School, we were taught beading, carving, storytelling, edible plants, and outdoor survival

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from elders during regular class and “Eskimo Olympics” in gym class. But we were never taught any music other than Western music, which was also well funded during this time.

Arts Organizations and Festivals The Alaska State Council on the Arts, established by Governor Jay Hammond’s executive order in 1966 “to ensure that the role for the arts in the life of our communities will continue to grow and will play an ever more significant part in the welfare and educational experience of our citizens,”43 the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council (1973), and numerous other local arts councils around the state would enjoy a fair amount of government support over the ensuing decades. Annual music festivals sprung up in the 1970s, too, including the Sitka Summer Music Festival, which started in 1972 “when violinist Paul Rosenthal decided, during an early visit to Sitka, that the town would be the perfect place to hold an informal reunion with fellow protégés from the Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky master classes.” The Alaska Folk Festival was “born on a cold winter evening in 1975 when a half dozen Juneau folk musicians decided to put on a performance in the Alaska State Museum  .  .  . musicians and an audience of several hundred friends had so much fun that evening that it was obvious there would be more such festivals.”44 After 1977, the Alaska Folk Festival raised enough money to start bringing in guest musicians from Outside. As Bob Banghart, one of the Alaska Folk Festival’s founders, noted above, this was the time period in which the Athabascan fiddlers also experienced a revival. He talks about his own arrival in Alaska: There is ample evidence that each wave of explorers, exploiters, evangelicals, and those seeking elements of enlightenment or escape have brought a body of music with them to Alaska. I am part of the surge in the late 1960s and early 1970s that came together in Fairbanks and formed up many of the bonds that are present today in the hundreds of [folk] players in the state. In 1970 you could count the number of fiddle players in the interior on two hands. Now it would take a small crowd and then some to keep track. What is important to me is the strength of the interest, increasing quality, and the ever slowly developing definable style.

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The style thing is quite fugitive, but an important element that moves to ­distinguish the music in Alaska from that of other places . . . the difference between being a primary source and or a derivative product . . . originality, something we all strive for.

Pamyua No one would dispute the ensemble Pamyua’s achievement of the originality we all strive for. Ossie Kairaiuak, a Yup’ik drummer, singer, and dancer, who worked with CrossSound in 2005, grew up in the village of Chefornak, a little south of Bethel. In the late 1990s, he helped start the group Pamyua, or “Encore” in English, fulfilling a dream he shared with his cousins, Stephen and Phillip Blanchett, of both Yup’ik and African American descent, to “share the ancient stories of their people through music and dance.” In 1996, Pamyua met Karina Møller, a Greenlandic Inuit singer, and began performing with her in a quartet that mixed gospel, R&B, funk, and other sounds with Yup’ik and Greenlandic music. The group has traveled internationally in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. According to Stephen Blanchett, the group’s music, which arose out of the Alaska tundra, is fed by a variety of influences: We, except for Karina Møller, were born and raised in the Yukon­Kuskokwim Delta. This is where the Yup’ik people originate. We live off the land and have a strong connection to it and our environment. We have adapted to it, and all that it has thrown at us, both physically and metaphysically. You can see this adaptation in many ways. Our music is a perfect example of this. Phillip and I grew up not only in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, but in “America” too. Our father is an African American minister from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and we spent part of our time growing up traveling back and forth between Philly and Bethel. These two places couldn’t be any more different, yet both were very much a part of us. I think there was a sense of confusion with our identity while growing up, and the way that we overcame this confusion was with the creation of Pamyua. We fused all our beautiful backgrounds to create a balance artistically within the group, and in doing so, balanc-

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ing ourselves. We wanted to share this newfound pride that we had in our diversity to everyone. This was the main reason we started the group. Quickly after this was the realization that we wanted to become famous rocks stars, living the rock star dream.45

Stephen and Phillip’s rock star dream quickly expanded to encompass a wide range of genres, styles, and instruments, out of which they continue to build a hybrid world sound. As Stephen explains, Pamyua’s music takes many forms, including a cappella  .  .  .  in which traditional Inuit songs are mixed into a unique classification of sound. To experience the fullness, you must hear and see us perform with the various styles and arrangements of the ultimate new world-groove. The well-mixed sound re-interrupts what cultural music is all about. We’re creating a sound that has its own culture—it’s African; it’s Inuit. We have created a sound that will make you believe that there is an actual musical tradition for our mixed heritage. . . . Pamyua mixes traditions from across all boundaries while still holding on to our Native roots. . . . We call it Tribal Funk.46

Using instruments like the Australian didgeridoo and the West African djembe, Pamyua takes songs from the tundra villages of the YukonKuskokwim Delta—songs that “promote maintaining the invaluable traditions of the Yup’ik people”—and rearranges them into an upbeat world-music jam that speaks to the young people of today’s Alaska (and elsewhere for that matter). “It’s important to perform for children, [for them] to see the performance and learn about Native culture. We don’t just perform, we represent ourselves as people and as individuals,” Karina Møller said. “Our performance is very diverse. It affects younger Native people that we sing in Yup’ik. They’re like, ‘Maybe it is beautiful and it’s important to learn our language.’ ”47 Pamyua began with the two brothers, Stephen and Phillip, playing around with some songs they knew from childhood from their father and their mother, who is Yup’ik from Nunapitchuk.48 Later, Pamyua learned songs and dances working with Kicaput, an Anchorage dance group led by Ben Snowball. In “Uivarranga” (“Goose Hunt”), a Yup’ik song by the late elder Teddy Sundown, they sing “it is circling me,

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it is constantly circling me, so I pull out my lever action rifle and, they’re coming this way and that way, so I shoot them down.” The two verses mention two different kinds of geese, the emperor goose and the Canada goose, birds well known to the elder “biologists” of the Yukon­Kuskoquim region. In “Cauyaqa Nauwa?” (“Where’s my drum?”), a cousin teases then comforts the singer, who has lost his drum. Stephen Blanchett writes, “This song is about never losing our heart beat, never losing our drum.”49 In other words, “even removed from our culture, we can carry its strengths within us.”50 Cauyaqa Nauwa

Where’s my drum?

mumqa-llu tamariayugaqa

My drumstick, I keep losing it

ililiranga ilurarluma wii, kinguarqarlua

My family and my cousins, who are at home

Yugyaqa waniwa, apalluma nunaniryugaqa

My people, who are here, my song, it makes me happy

ililiranga ilurarluma wii, kinguarqarlua

My family and my cousins, who are at home

Yugyaqa waniwa, apalluma tamariayugaqa

My people, who are here, my song, I long for it

ililiranga ilurarluma wii, kinguarqarlua

My family and my cousins, who are at home

(Courtesy Stephen Blanchett, personal correspondence, June, 2009.) At the 2003 Grammy Awards, Pamyua was chosen to represent Native American music at Times Square Studios, in New York. The concert was held just prior to the release of Pamyua’s eagerly anticipated third album, Caught in the Act, which won Record of the Year at the 2003 Native American Music Awards.

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The Avant-Garde’s “Totem Ancestor” Gordon Wright’s Arctic Chamber Orchestra and Pamyua weren’t the first groups to bring twentieth-century experimental sounds to Alaska. John Cage, a leading figure in the postwar avant‑garde art music scene in America, showed up in the state in the 1930s accompanied by his wife Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff,51 the youngest daughter of the Russian Orthodox priest Andrew P. Kashevaroff (1863–1940), who served as curator of the Alaska State Library and Museum in Juneau beginning in 1920. Prior to coming to Juneau, Kashevaroff had overseen congregations at Sitka, Nutchek, Kodiak, Killisnoo, and Unalaska. Sitka composer Paul Cox is currently writing a doctoral dissertation in musicology on the dance-drama, “Credo in US,” created in 1942 by John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and Jean Erdman. Cox, who was born and raised in Sitka, traces his interest in Cage’s years in Alaska to his experience of returning to Alaska to work with CrossSound as a composer and percussionist from 2000 through 2003. “The time I spent at this remarkable festival reignited my interest in Tlingit mythology and Alaskan territorial history. These issues have come to play an important role in my current scholarship.” Cox writes: Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff ’s relationship with mythologist Joseph Campbell, which began in Sitka and continued in Juneau, Alaska, during the summer of 1932, led to the commission of “Credo in US” and, in part, to Cage’s intellectual relationship with Campbell. Campbell exposed Cage to a world of myths and philosophy [in Alaska], which, I suggest, led to his embrace of East Asian and Zen philosophy. At the same time, Merce Cunningham and his circle, which included the dancer/anthropologist Franziska Boas, was fascinated by Northwest American and Southeast Alaskan Native dancing. 1942 marked the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition of Native American Art and composers like Aaron Copland and Cage and choreographers like Cunningham (“Totem Ancestor”) and Martha Graham were including Native “tropes” into their works. The surrealist Max Ernst, with whom Cage and Xenia lived in 1942, became obsessed with collecting totem poles and Jackson Pollock began his own investigation into Tlingit and Haida art. Though New York at the time was filled with European expatriates and young American artists, their focus was turned to the

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Pacific Northwest and Alaska, perhaps toward an imagined “primitivism” that served as an escape from the trials of WWII.52

Cage built his most famous contribution to the world of Western art music on the idea of silence. “I want to keep from interrupting the silence that’s already there,” he once wrote.53 In his 1952 composition 4’33” three movements are “performed” on the piano without a single note played. By applying silence to the concert hall space, Cage demarcated for concertgoers an ambient soundscape that stretched beyond the room, out into the far reaches of the city or town that surrounded the hall. The piece became one of the most controversial “compositions” of the twentieth century. While the work of Alaskan composers today is heavily influenced by the state’s landscapes and peoples—for example, Philip Munger of Palmer (CrossSound 2006, 2007), whose often witty works tend to comment on Alaskan political issues, or Anchorage “classical” composer Craig Cory, who has spent some time transcribing Dena’ina songs recorded by his father in 1954 in Dena’ina, Yupik, Iñupiaq, Slavonic Russian, and a rare dialect of Upper Kuskokwim Deg Hit’an spoken by only a few people in the Stony River area—those composing from Outside and new arrivals still tend to view Alaska romantically, preferring to imagine its nature as uninhabited. In 1979, an environmentalist movement gathering in support of passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), brought preservationist composer John Luther Adams, who later worked with CrossSound in 2001, and his wife, Cindy, to Alaska from Southern California. ANILCA, which passed in late 1980, directed the Secretary of the Interior to set aside millions of acres of Alaska’s land for national parks, preserves, and other public uses. Like many who had come before them and continue to arrive to this day, John and Cindy set up household in a primitive remote cabin—theirs in the woods outside of Fairbanks. “It was my Thoreau fantasy—cutting wood and carrying water,” he told The New Yorker magazine in 2008. That Thoreau-based idealism is in evidence in Adams’s early compositions, as he himself describes them: “free translations of those marvelous languages that we humans may never really understand” (songbirdsongs, 1974–79)54; “bird songs amid broad, slowly changing textures of sustained tones I

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hoped would echo something of the expansive Alaskan landscapes” (A Northern Suite, 1979–81); “sublime landscape” (Far Country of Sleep, 1988). With his 1982–84 Forest Without Leaves, however, Adams’s “obsessive, delusional idea that I could somehow be outside culture” started to slip, as he came to understand that “to become more complete, my music must somehow encompass not only an idyllic vision of the natural world, but the complexity and chaos of contemporary life as well.”55 In Resonance of Place: Confessions of an Out-of-Town Composer, Adams contemplates the ways in which the sounds and rhythms of a specific place influence the birth and growth of certain traditions; how where we live influences the music we make; and how closer listening to the music of place contributes to a renewal of human music and cultures.56 Adams recalls driving into the Alaska Range with Gordon Wright, his “fellow Fairbanks friend, environmental activist, conductor and composer,” listening to Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8—“music that has the weight of mountains.” “This may be where our musical worlds meet,” he remembers saying to Wright.57 Adams’s current work, Inuksuit, a piece for 9 to 111 percussionists, which will premiere at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada, on the 2009 summer solstice, moves him into the thick of a natural world inhabited by people. The word inuksuk (singular) means “something which acts for or performs the function of a person.”58 Through Inuksuit, the rehearsal and performance of which “may require topographic maps, GPS units, two-way radios, cellular telephones, backpacks, tents and camping gear, off-road vehicles and other such tools,” Adams asks, among other questions, “How does where we are define what we do and, ultimately, who we are?”59 While Adams, now fifty-seven, moved to Alaska as a young man and has embraced it as his home, creating music inspired by his environment filtered through his native Mississippian and later Californian training in the American experimental and European classical traditions, thirty-eight‑year‑old composer Matthew Burtner, who composed for and performed with CrossSound in 2005 and 2006, grew up in Alaska on the North Slope and on the shores of Bristol Bay. Burtner has built an international reputation for his compositions in electronic media. He starts to answer Adams’s question by explaining how his work flows from a childhood spent in villages where electricity had not yet arrived:

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New technology arises from the presence of harsh environments because as humans we need it to survive. Clothing, shelter, and tools such as snowshoes, sunglasses, or shovels, are all technologies we need to live in the Arctic, for example. As these technologies improve, our life in that environment can improve and we can get closer to nature, enjoying it even more. This is how technology embraces environmentalism: it allows a more symbiotic relationship to evolve between the human and the environment. My computer music work stems from these two inspirations from nature: the power of pure sound and the ability to work with it closely at the micro level. Both of these things I see coming from my close experiences with nature in Alaska.60

Matthew Burtner’s Ecoacoustics In contrast to Adams’s early take on the Alaskan environment, Burtner’s work draws inspiration not only from the landscape that surrounded him growing up, but from his interactions, and the interactions he observed in the villagers around him, with that landscape. As Burtner says, “Beyond the naturalist meta-art lies the realm of cultural memory and spirituality.”61 His earliest musical memories are of Inuit drumming at the school gymnasium where villagers would dance and tell stories, and women would throat sing, imitating seals with rough, growly sorts of sounds that one can sometimes hear today in Karina Møller’s throat singing performances with Pamyua. From “techno-shamanic interfaces” that evoke the mythic powers of traditional rituals, to ecoacoustic and immersive audio environments, Burtner’s pieces, instead of borrowing from Alaska’s traditional musics, create, through compositional processes and modes of performance, a new Alaskan music. Inuit art, costume, and sounds inspire multimedia works by Burtner that, in his words, “take advantage of expressive interfaces to construct virtual reality worlds, evoking the transformative rituals of shamanic exploration.”62 In his 1995 work for soprano, marimba, bass clarinet, percussion, polyrhythmicon (electronics), movement artist, and projected images, Taruyamaarutet (“Twisted Faces in Wood”), the controllers themselves “create a real-time interface between the artist and the media, analogous to the shamanic ritual object’s interface with the spiritual world.”63

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In another work, Kuik, which examines the multicultural state of the Kvichak River,64 Burtner employs new technologies in a “hand controller” inspired by his “contact with a pair of wooden hands in southwest Alaska . . . in use approximately one hundred years ago.” He explains how the hands, “heavy, dramatically oversized, and visually striking . . . with magical properties, including healing and traveling powers,” inspired him to use them as a model for a multimedia controller interface.65 Burtner’s current piece, Auksulaq, which he calls his “final large multimedia opera for Alaska,” addresses issues of distance and empathy: In the piece, a person living abroad looks back to his childhood home in the Arctic and observes catastrophic change. The local crisis is set in an international context but it tells the story from an Alaskan perspective. Auksulaq will be performed simultaneously in locations around the world using distance technology such that sound and video are linked in all performance venues.66

Alaska’s contemporary musical works, as composed, played, and presented by Cage, Pamyua, Adams, Burtner, Williams, Wright, and CrossSound, among others too numerous to mention here, share a deep connection to place—place in terms of landscape, place in terms of the traditions, cultures, and spirituality in the place, and place in terms of the politics and injustices of the place—along with an awareness that, increasingly, we are “in it together.” This awareness grows as the people who came to it since statehood become rooted in it over generations, embedding, for example, the traditional songs and stories of Walter Williams (the Juneau storyteller—no relation to Jesse’s great-grandfather) in the soundtrack to the girlhood of a non‑Native child of Alaska like myself. As Jesse Williams writes, I’m sure that growing up in Alaska has had some influence on me as a musician. I am constantly learning how it has been an influence . . . I have an appreciation for music that represents certain moods, or spaces. Alaska has an expanse that can be represented in very sparse orchestrations. It also has a beauty that can be translated into very lush, lyrical and majestic melodies and harmonies. Sunrises and sunsets in Southeast Alaska have a special mood and color . . . Living in Alaska I translate the scenery—the

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mountains, water, and the many colors that the Alaskan landscape provides—into orchestral colors. Mountains have their own brassy, majestic state; dawn and twilight have a sparse, very thin yet harmonically complex color to match the blue, green, orange, and yellow hues in the sky. Winter has its own playful character. Growing up in such a setting made it easy to convey emotion through music, by relating it to a time and place within the Alaskan setting.67

Exploring Alaska’s Musical Intertidal Zones As musicians and audiences, what do we Alaskans hear when we listen to one another? We hear music that is more and more from here— regardless of tradition. We hear drums, banjos, and fiddles, and we hear the works of composers trying to make sense of where we live. This notion of place consists of three dimensions—space, time, and experience—each of which we structure through our personal relationships with culture and environment. As Stephen Blanchett observes, [s]o much is changing in our environment. Climate change deals a hard blow to our way of life. The economy is making it ever harder to survive in rural Alaska. The Yup’ik people are migrating out of our traditional homeland in numbers never seen before. We are starting to lose a hold of our language. If we lose that we lose so much more. Alaska to me in the twenty-first century is a battle to stay connected to our past and adapting to the ever-changing world around us.68

“Creolization,” a term originally associated with racial and cultural patterns in the Caribbean, has been expanded over time to describe a more general geographical dynamic in which the commodities flowing into a place come to be assigned meanings and uses by the receiving culture. Looking at these dynamics of inflow, we can see how it is that hybrid media, like the music of Pamyua or CrossSound’s 2008 original compositions on Tlingit and Russian Orthodox texts, come to be constructed. Cultures become creolized, or one could say “hybridized,” as a consequence of the eventual fusion of disparate elements.69

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Blanchett writes, “We’ve collaborated with the likes of the Anchorage Opera, Alaska Dance Theatre, Anchorage Symphony, and countless traditional dance groups across the state. I believe one of the aspects that drew them to us was our ability to reinterpret what was considered traditional.”70 Unangam writer Barbara Švarny´ Carlson writes that the links that Alaska’s original people are rebuilding to their traditional cultures today provide: validation of our origins, touchstones to our self- and group identities. It is an awesome responsibility that pairs us with various types of scholars and researchers [and artists] as partners as we search for culturally appropriate ways to document traditional knowledge and skills. We are not just an exploitable resource, but an equal partner in this compilation of our world knowledge bank. The more any of us can know about who we are and where we come from, the more sensitive and confident we can be in our interactions among culturally diverse societies.71

Historically, the inundation of Alaska’s indigenous terrain by foreign music has been for the most part unidirectional. For well over two hundred years, suppression of local musics and languages slowly reoriented Alaska’s indigenous players and listeners to imported genres, leading to their participation in hybrid music making framed by Western forms. Athabascan fiddlers and Tlingit Salvation Army bands provide two good examples of how this hybridization occurs, and, interestingly, how the resulting new musical form ends up being no less Athabascan or Tlingit than it is Irish or British. Today, faced with a resurgence of indigenous musical and linguistic expression that began in the mid-twentieth century, composers writing in, for, of, and about Alaska, whether they be European, Alaska Native, Asian, or American, or composing for orchestra or zither, increasingly find themselves turning away from the model of the inundating river, preferring to explore the more dynamic intertidal zone of cultural exchange. As Matthew Burtner observes, [t]he transplant looks at the place with fresh eyes, and fascinates at the surface of the place. Everything is interesting . . . as he discovers the richness of that environment. The native operates from a worldview rooted in that

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place, but like a bird she works to expand out from the nest. She broadens her perspective through travel, study, and [often] relocation, where she will become a transplant into another place. But the native home remains, even after relocation. At a profound level, although we may move to new places and wonder over their beauty, our core values and aesthetics are connected to our birthplace and the place of our childhoods.72

The words and music of the above contemporary composers make clear that our state’s sounds and the artists creating those sounds have changed a great deal in the last couple of decades. Over the next couple, perhaps Alaska will find a way to accommodate and support its coming generation of composers and performers in ways that will enable us to enjoy international exposure and training while living in the place that inspires and sustains us.

The Place We Come to Listen As I prepare to e-mail this article from across the Pacific, in Taechôn, Korea, where I am in rehearsals for an upcoming kayagûm concert, the Korean word han comes to mind. Often said to be a word that can only be fully understood by Koreans, it is thought to hold “the sentiment that one develops when one cannot or is not allowed to express feelings of oppression, alienation, or exploitation because one is trapped in an unequal power relationship.” Han stands not only for that condition, though, but for the complex personal and cultural processes that lead to the “untying” of those feelings. I think many in Alaska understand the feelings contained within han. Naalagiagvik, or the “Place Where You Go to Listen,” marks the site on the North Slope near today’s Prudhoe Bay where, in Iñupiaq legend, a woman went to hear the voices of unseen things around her—a place to hear the music of the environment.73 Looking back over the three hundred years surveyed in this chapter, my hope for not only my own “hybridized” music and the new music I commission every year for CrossSound, but for all of Alaska’s musics and musicians, is that we continue to find provocative ways to translate our distinct and interwoven histories into an ever-widening tapestry of sound that reflects the contours and complexities of the inner and outer terrains of this place where we listen.

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The author would like to thank her editor, Liz Dodd, for her contributions to this article.

Notes 1. The definition of ethnomusicology, which is in constant flux and has held different meanings in Europe and America, has in recent years come to include Western music within the parameters of its discipline. According to the American Society for Ethnomusicology, “[e]thnomusicology explores human music-making activities all over the world, in all styles, from the immediate present to the distant past.” Ethnomusicologists are interested in processes and contexts through and within which music is imagined, discussed, and made, not just sounds. According to the University of Sheffield in England, “[s]tudying individuals and societies all around the world, including the West, we aim to discover what music means to particular groups of people.” 2. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 134. 3. “The Life of St. Herman, American Missionary,” originally published in 1894 by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (http://www.sthermans. ca/stherman2.asp). 4. Michael E. Krauss, “Many Tongues—Ancient Tales,” in William W. Fitzhugh and Aron Crowell, Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988), pp. 144–50. http:// www.alaskool.org/Language/manytongues/ManyTongues.html#families. 5. Knut Bergsland and Moses L. Dirks, eds., Unangam Ungiikangin Kayux Tunusangin—Unangam Unikangis Ama Tunuzangis—Aleut Tales and Narratives, Collected 1909–1910 by Waldemar Jocelson (Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, 1990), p. 696. 6. “Alaska’s Heritage: Art, Culture, Education, Recreation, and Religion,” Alaska: History and Cultural Studies (Anchorage: Alaska Humanities Forum, 2009). http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=162. 7. The bell is the only part of the original mission still in existence. “125 Years of Ministry in the Chilkat Valley,” Haines Presbyterian Church, 2006. http:// www.haineschurch.org/anniversary.html. 8. David Dahl, “Alaska’s Oldest Organ Plays Again After Half a Century,” The Tracker (1996). http://www.pasiorgans.com/instruments/opus6art.html.

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9. Ibid. Also, Alaska: History and Cultural Studies. http://www.akhistorycourse. org/articles/article.php?artID=162. 10. Constance Davis, “Carol Beery Davis,” Juneau–Douglas City Museum. http://www.juneau.org/parkrec/museum/forms/GCM/readarticle.php?UID= 1043&newxtkey=. In 1922, Carol Beery married the famous Juneau photographer Trevor Davis, whose mother Frances Caroline Brooks (b. 1855, London, England) was choir director, soloist, and organist for Episcopalian services in the Log Cabin Church on Front Street in Juneau in the late 1890s, and later helped found the Holy Trinity Church with her husband. Beery Davis was also the founder and president of the Alaska Poetry Society and the Juneau Creative Writers, and charter member and president of the National League of Pen Women, Juneau branch. She published and receiving many awards in poetry and was honored as state poet laureate in 1967–69. 11. “Celebrating 30 Years of the Kimball Organ in the State Office Building,” Capital City Weekly, June 20, 2007. http://capitalcityweekly.com/stories/062007/ ae_20070620022.shtml. 12. Particularly on the lower Yukon and upper Kuskokwim rivers, “men’s houses” provided a venue for sweat baths, council meetings, entertainment, funerals, and shamanic rituals. 13. E. W. Nelson, The Eskimo About Bering Strait, 18th Report (American Bureau of Ethnology, 1899). 14. “Interior Alaska: 1869–1896 Stars and Stripes Up the River,” Alaska: History and Cultural Studies. http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=58. 15. “Interior Alaska: 1896–1910 Changing Lifestyles, Different Values,” Alaska: History and Cultural Studies. http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article. php?artID=59. 16. Robert H. Davis, Soul Catcher (Sitka: Raven Bone’s Press, 1986), pp. 27–28. 17. E. Kilbuck, Letter cited by Wendell Oswalt in Mission of Change in Alaska (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1963), p. 81. 18. http://www1.salvationarmy.org.uk/uki/www_uki_ihc.nsf/vw-sublinks/ 2CA69F6C0ECDD5C580257552004EDDBB?openDocument#Newton. 19. Edward H. McKinley, Marching to Glory: The History of the Salvation Army in the United States of America, 1880–1980 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 180. 20. Kimberly L. Metcalfe, ed. In Sisterhood: The History of Camp 2 of the Alaska Native Sisterhood (Juneau: Hazy Island Books, 2008), p. 205.

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21. “Tlingit Music Shows Salvation Army Impact,” Juneau Empire, January 16, 2000. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/011600/Ins_salvat.shtml. 22. bid. 23. Kimberly L. Metcalfe, ed. In Sisterhood, p. 193. 24. Jesse Williams, personal correspondence, April, 2009. 25. Op. cit. 26. Ibid. 27. Fusion implying syncretism or invention; forms mutually distorted in the way they are joined. 28. Craig Mishler, The Crooked Stovepipe: Athapaskan Fiddle Music and Square Dancing in Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), pp. 5, 58. 29. Robert Banghart, personal correspondence, March 27, 2009. 30. Ibid. 31. Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick, Alaska: A History of the 49th State (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 306. 32. Kimberly L. Metcalfe, ed. In Sisterhood, pp. 126, 201–202. 33. Ibid., p. 201. 34. June Allen, “The Forgotten War: June 3, 1942–Aug. 1943,” Sitnews: Stories in the News, June 3, 2002. “Ketchikan’s detained people numbered 42, according to a Ketchikan Chronicle story—nine businessmen, eight other adults, and 25 children.” The Japanese met no resistance from the small group of Unangan and a missionary family at Attu. This group was sent to prisoner of war camps in Japan for the remainder of the war. The forced resettlement followed these events. http://www.sitnews.us/1203news/120703/JuneAllen/ PearlHarbor/120703_pearl_harbor.html. 35. Ibid. 36 Suzanne Summerville, personal correspondence, April 3, 2009. 37. Ibid. 38. Hilary Hilscher, interview with Marv Weatherly, December 26, 2000. Alaska Telecommunications History Project, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage, p. 11. http://consortiumlibrary.org/ archives/Transcripts/HMC-0859/MarvWeatherly12-26-2000.pdf. 39. Mary Lou Gerbi, “Optometrist to Focus on Retirement,” Juneau Empire, February 26, 1999. http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/022699/Loc_color.shtml. 40. Eleanor (Ellie) R. Smith, The Havens, February 16, 2007. http://healing magichands.wordpress.com.

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41. Mike Dunham, “Gordon Wright Inspires Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra,” Kenai Peninsula Clarion, December  18, 2000. http://www.peninsulaclarion. com/stories/121800/ala_121800ala0030001.shtml. 42. Eleanor (Ellie) R. Smith, The Havens. 43. “About Us,” Alaska State Council on the Arts. http://www.eed.state.ak.us/ Aksca/about.htm. 44. “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Alaska Folk Festival (and Maybe a Little More).” http://akfolkfest.org/info.php. 45. Stephen Blanchett, personal correspondence, April 9, 2009. 46. “Pamyua: Biography.” http://tribalfunk.wordpress.com/biography. 47. Sally Carraher, “Pamyua Brings Old Music to New Media: Traditional Song and Dance Group Is Diverse and Well-Traveled,” The Northern Light, November 5, 2002. http://media.www.thenorthernlight.org/media/storage/paper960/news/ 2002/11/05/Features/Pamyua.Brings.Old.Music.To.New.Media-2541245.shtml. 48. Nunapicuaq is a little village of about three hundred on the tundra between Kuskokwim River and the Bering Sea, southwest region of Alaska. Marie Meade’s late father, Upayuilnguq, and his family are from the Kuskokwim River Bay area, and her late mother, Narullgiar, was from Nelson Island. Marie states, “I am a modern Yup’ik woman living a contemporary life in Anchorage, the biggest city in Alaska, while remaining connected to a long lifeline of Yup’ik women who were strong and determined in their ways.” http://www.aianea.com/elder/Marie%20Meade.pdf. 49. Stephen Blanchett, personal correspondence. 50. Mike Dunham, “CD Transplants Native Music to World Setting,” Anchorage Daily News, April 1998. http://www.surrealstudios.com/Reviews/Pamyua.html. 51. Xenia was an artist in her own right. In addition to commissioned work, she worked on the construction of the Marcel Duchamp valises and on window screens for Philip Goodwin and for Julien Levy. Her own mobile sculptures were exhibited at the Julien Levy Gallery and her work was included in several museum exhibitions as well. From 1964 to 1980, she worked as a conservator in the Drawings and Prints Department at the Cooper Hewitt Museum. http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/edward-weston-1-c-1auwqetr5y. 52. Paul Cox, personal correspondence, March 2009. 53. “Opus 20 Modern Masterworks: John Cage—Part 2,” March 20, 2007. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaVHOIN0sqI. 54. Alex Ross, “Letter from Alaska: Song of the Earth: A Composer Takes Inspiration from the Arctic,” The New Yorker, May 12, 2008, p. 4. This was

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Adams’s first attempt at “nature music.” It was written during his time in Southern California, during which he was concerned with the plight of the condor and was spending time in the Los Padres National Forest where the last wild condors lived. Adams mentions that he went out of his way to avoid Messiaen’s “Catalogue of Birds” influence in this piece. http://www. newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_ross?currentPage=all. 55. John Luther Adams, “Resonance of Place: Confessions of an Out-of-Town Composer,” pp. 3–4. http://www.johnlutheradams.com/writings/resonance.html. 56. Ibid. 57. Alex Ross, “Letter from Alaska,” p. 5. 58. “Athropolis: Cold, Icy, and Arctic.” http://www.athropolis.com/arctic-facts/ fact-inuksuk.htm. 59. John Luther Adams, personal correspondence, April 2009. 60. Dave Werner, “Matthew Burtner: An Exclusive okaysamurai.com Interview.” http://okaysamurai.com/matthewburtner.html. 61. Matthew Burtner, Ecoacoustic and Shamanic Technologies for Multimedia Composition and Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 18. 62. Ibid., p. 5. 63. Op. cit. 64. Matthew Burtner, personal correspondence, March 2009. 65. Matthew Burtner, Ecoacoustic and Shamanic Technologies, p. 6. 66. Matthew Burtner, personal correspondence, March 2009. 67. Jesse Williams, personal correspondence. 68. Stephen Blanchett, personal correspondence. 69. See, e.g., Raquel Romber, “Revisiting Creolization,” Swarthmore College. http:// www.sas.upenn.edu/folklore/center/ConferenceArchive/voiceover/creolization. html. 70. Stephen Blanchett, personal correspondence. 71. Barbara Švarný Carlson, “There Is No Such Thing As An Aleut” (Qawalangixˆ originally from Iluulaxˆ, Unalaska). A version of this essay was printed in the Arctic Studies Center’s publication of Crossroads Alaska: Native Cultures of Alaska and Siberia (1995) and Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers and Orators: The Expanded Edition, Alaska Quarterly Review (1999), Ronald Spatz, executive editor. http://www.alaskool.org/LANGUAGE/Aleut/No_Such1.html. 72. Matthew Burtner, personal correspondence, March 2009. 73. “The Place Where You Go to Listen” in search of an ecology of music is also the name of an installation work by Fairbanks composer John Luther Adams

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at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in which raw data from seismological, meteorological, and geomagnetic stations in various parts of Alaska is translated into music, or “intricate, vibrantly colored fields of electronic sounds,” as The New Yorker put it. It is in regard to this work that Adams said, “My music is going inexorably from being about place to becoming place.” One is reminded of John Cage’s statement, “The function of art is not to communicate one’s personal ideas or feelings, but rather to imitate nature.”

chapter 5  Sven D. Haakanson Jr.

An Empowered Future

A

s twenty-first-century people, our understanding of history often

depends on what we read. From schoolbooks, to newspapers, and even the Internet, written materials teach us about the past. If we read it, or hear others read it, it’s the truth. But is it? When stories are written they are transformed. They become part of society’s official record—a source held in esteem above others. When a story is told, it is narration, opinion, idea, but not necessarily fact. When a story is written—it becomes history. Why is the written record the legend bearer, a more intrinsic truth than spoken history, the information preserved in an archeological site, or the details displayed in a museum object? As an anthropologist and a museum professional, I don’t believe it really is. I start here because I want you, the reader, to think about how histories form and how information is transformed into an understanding of the past. As people schooled in the Western tradition, we tend to forget that history is ever-changing, dependent on the observer, current politics, and myriad factors of which the future may not be aware. Those in charge write history. When I was asked to consider the anniversary of Alaska statehood, I decided to focus on the opportunity that Alaska Native peoples have to revisit and reconsider their history over the next fifty years—to tell their own stories. As we look to the future, we must understand where we have come from and where we are now. Without this foundation we will only continue to move without changing. Without a firm knowledge of our 129

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history—not just the one told in history books, but the one preserved in our people and their objects—we cannot effectively address the issues that plague our society today. To build a better future we must tell our own stories and embrace the messages they hold. To many Alaska Natives statehood is another example of Western hegemony; of the efforts of outsiders to assert control over peoples and territories that were once unquestionably sovereign. I recently asked a Kodiak Elder about statehood, and that person replied, “Never heard of it.” When statehood came in 1959, most Native peoples were not aware of what this meant for them or their future. They were struggling to survive. This struggle continues. The last fifty years in Alaska have not been great for Native peoples. Yes, we now have corporations, land holdings, financial trusts, and health care, but these are small concessions for what we lost—tens of thousands of our people, more than three quarters of our land, access to resources, selfgovernance, culture, language, physical and mental health, and pride. When you open a history book, Alaska’s past begins most often with Vitus Bering “discovering” the region in 1741. He is followed by Grigorii Shelikov, who “conquers” it in 1784, and then the Russians, who sold it to the United States in 1867. Finally in 1959, the United States government grants Alaska permission to join the union of states. What happened to the last ten thousand years of human occupation, development, and understanding of its vast environment? Why is this part of Alaska’s history so quickly forgotten? Is it because it wasn’t written down? Without the written record it really doesn’t exist for most people. Only in the last generation have Native people started to have a say in state government, and this has happened only because Natives now have a significant role in Alaska’s economy. When I was asked to write about the celebration of the fifty years of statehood and what the next fifty years will bring, I wondered how Native people could celebrate the next fifty years if we don’t yet understand what the last fifty has meant for original peoples, let alone understand our history as it is intrinsically linked to Alaska. For the last fifty years Natives have been forced into boarding schools, to learn English only, and to become civilized into the European way of living and seeing the world. We have never been given a chance to share our worldviews in the schools, and when we finally were able to

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The Alutiiq Center, home of Kodiak’s Alutiiq Museum.

make inroads into this institution, the rules were changed so that they undermined and forced out such thoughts. It is no wonder Alaska Native history does not exist in our schools, history books, or even within our communities. At times it is easy to give up and say enough, but then again our people have lived on Kodiak for more than 7,500 years without writing, without outside governance, and without exploiting our resources to the point of destruction. For the past decade I have had the privilege to work with communities around Kodiak Island in trying to bring an understanding to our rich history through archeological, ethnographic, historic, and oral accounts. This has not been easy, because at every turn I have run into skepticism, negativism, and downright denial of what once was, often because it wasn’t written down. Through the Alutiiq Museum we have taken archeological, historical, and ethnographic collections and combined their clues to the past with both Elders’ knowledge and written information to start telling the Alutiiq story in a broader way. This story is a better reflection of who we once were and who we can be again—humans with dignity. We can’t change the past but we can change our future by giving our children a better knowledge of who they are, a knowledge that has nearly been forgotten, so they can then tell our history. I know this works. It worked for me. When I started researching into ethnographic collections from Kodiak Island, I did not understand how much my own views of myself and my ancestors would change. From historical accounts by governors, doctors, teachers, and ethnographers to the oral histories shared by our Elders, all of this knowledge has become

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Dr. Sven Haakanson Jr., MacArthur Foundation fellowship award winner, cataloging artifacts. The mask to the left is from the Pinart Collection at the Château-Musée, Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

essential to the understanding of where the Alutiiq people are today and where they may go into the future. Through the Alutiiq Museum’s heritage education programs, we are reawakening this knowledge and passing it onto youth. By giving young people a clear sense of their remarkable past, we put Native culture back into a living context. Young Alutiiqs may not be hunting seals by qayaq or stitching puffin-skin parkas for their family members, but they are using the wisdom of the ancestors to see themselves in a better light, to understand the resourcefulness, intelligence, and spirituality from which they come, and to make healthier choices in their lives. Cultural exploration empowers youth to know themselves and to reach beyond the choking grasp of poverty, substance abuse, and depression that trap so many. If Alaska Natives decide to really know their history and allow it to change themselves, I see a future filled with self-reliance, respect, and the ability to continue adapting to our ever-changing world. To get there, however, we need to start thinking in generations, not in single life spans. We need to start looking at our children’s children’s future now. We live in a very different world than ours once was. We live in a world where we

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can communicate with people on the other side of the globe at any time. We need to change our mentality from surviving in the moment to using our incredible knowledge to plan and build a foundation that will span generations. This will allow us to carry our worldview forward, and to share our knowledge with Alaska so it can inform and brighten the entire Great Land.

Law, Economy, and Politics

chapter 6  Ken Osterkamp

Inherent in the People How Alaskans Decide What’s Important, What’s Not, and What to Do About It

All political power is inherent in the people. All government originates with the people, is founded on their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the people as a whole. —Alaska Constitution, Article 1, Section 2

A

s I write this in my downtown Anchorage home, history is all around

me. The house itself was built in 1952, three years before the fifty-five delegates to Alaska’s Constitutional Convention were gaveled into order at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I am the second owner of this house. The original owner was the family of state representative Russ Meekins, active participants over multiple generations in the civic life of the Last Frontier. They have wonderful, yellowed photographs of then Senator Ernest Gruening at a barbexue in the backyard. The camera was snapping to immortalize his triumphant return earlier that day from Washington, DC, where he had just secured Alaska’s statehood. As territorial residents Alaskans lacked the ability to determine their own destiny, but statehood gave us that leverage. Alaskans passionately sought statehood, as the preamble to our constitution reminds us, “to secure and transmit to succeeding generations our heritage of political, civil, and religious liberty.” 137

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Yet those liberties are not static things, to be won once and put on a shelf and passed down with the crystal and the china. Surely the men and women who collectively authored those words would agree with the early twentieth-century philosopher, psychologist, and educator John Dewey, who argued that this heritage is constantly contemporary: [E]very generation has to accomplish democracy over again for itself; . . . its very nature, its essence, is something that cannot be handed on from one person or one generation to another, but has to be worked out in terms of needs, problems, and conditions . . .1

In our relatively brief fifty years of statehood we Alaskans have established a rich history of democracy. We have come together and pulled apart in dialogue, deliberation, and debate. We have voted and volunteered our time and our treasures. We are educated, employed, and engaged in our communities. Were these efforts successful it would necessarily follow that our trust in public institutions is high, political leaders are respected, and such partisanship as exists is focused on legitimate differences in value-based approaches to solving public problems. I think it fair to say that we live in an altogether different environment. This is not due simply to the recent spate of indictments and convictions of public officials. The data we have show that trust in public institutions and political leaders is near an all-time low nationwide, and there is no reason to suspect Alaskans view things any differently. Much ink could be expended on the causes of the current situation. Leave that aside for the moment. The stakeholder theory of government maintains that an engaged public is a satisfied public. If we accept that civic engagement is a powerful antidote for lack of trust in public institutions and political leaders, and we recognize that public trust to be at a very low tide, then the question is raised: How meaningful and pervasive have efforts at civic engagement actually been? The pervasive part is easy to answer. Alaska has a small population confronted with climate extremes that reinforce our frontier status. Part of the frontier mentality is the sense of possibility, of being able to influence our destiny, not just individually but collectively. This outlook may account for our fecundity of civic engagement, which is a matter of

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record. The efficacy of these efforts is another question, but let’s start with what we know.

Civic Engagement in Alaska 1959–1979 The Constitutional Convention (1955–56) provided a solid foundation of civic dialogue, but our citizens did not stand still. Immediately following statehood in 1959 there arose serious concerns, at least among some Alaskans, that our state was on shaky financial ground. In the 1960s Alaskans slowly woke from the exciting dream of statehood to the daily tedium of governance. Budgets had to be balanced, and

The signatures of the original delegates as well as ordinance No. 1 which ratified the proposition to adopt the constitution. Constitution of the State of Alaska, UAF-2004-25-4-13, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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Group portrait of the Alaska Constitutional Conventioneers with signatures. Historical Photograph Collection, UAF-1966-9-28. Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

it was not clear by any means that the new state’s narrow economic base could support much in the way of public expenditures. By the end of the first full decade of statehood the situation had reversed itself with the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay. The September 1969 Prudhoe Bay lease sale brought in more than $900 million to the state, and the questions being asked were about how to manage the newfound wealth and the attendant opportunities for economic growth. As it turned out, the models of civic engagement established in the decade 1969 to 1979 were repeated to a great extent in the ensuing years. To answer the many questions “A Conference on the Future of Alaska” was convened in November 1969. The conference was sponsored by the Legislative Council of the State of Alaska in association with the Brookings Institution of Washington, DC. The roster of 157 participants reads like a Who’s Who of Alaskans. The goal was grand: “a comprehensive policies plan to guide the direction of development of Alaska for the next decade.” The resulting findings covered seventeen topics ranging from creative arts and education to government and industry, and pretty much everything in between. Ultimately, however, the promise did not deliver, and an informal history of the conference by the Alaska Humanities Forum concluded, “Unfortunately few of the recommendations were followed and the legacy of the Brookings seminars is more of idea than of substance or policy.”

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The $900 million fueled galloping growth in the state budget during the early 1970s, essentially unchecked as Alaskans anticipated new revenues issuing forth from our new genie lamp, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. But completion was delayed and boom turned into bust in the mid-1970s as the windfall evaporated and the fiscal gap between revenues and expenditures ballooned. This is not to say there weren’t some notable successes along the way. Alaska Natives in particular made good use of the black gold rush to form effective advocacy groups, such as the Alaska Federation of Natives in 1966. The historic Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 positioned Alaska Natives as powerful actors in the evolution of the Alaska political economy. In the non-Native community traction was harder to find. An early effort was the Alaska Growth Policy Council, an eleven-member citizens’ advisory group established by Governor Jay Hammond in 1975. Hammond intended the group to act as a public lobby, as a counterweight to other special interests. Accordingly the council’s portfolio spanned the entire social, economic, and environmental policy spectrum. This reflected Hammond’s preference for and promotion of citizen-led governance, capped off by his creation in 1976 of the Alaska Permanent Fund. The council’s charter to solicit public preferences on these broad topics was supported by the state legislature, which in 1976 appropriated funds to create the Alaska Public Forum. From 1976 through 1978 the forum embarked on an ambitious program of public engagement, convening more than seventy public forums around the state involving more than six thousand Alaskans. The Alaska Growth Policy Council and the Alaska Public Forum divorced in 1978. The council focused on policy analysis and in 1982 was transmogrified into the Governor’s Council on Economic Policy, its component parts eventually absorbed into the cells of various executive branch organs. The forum was likewise assimilated into the Division of Policy Development and Planning. It transitioned away from civic engagement to a mission of education, no less important but certainly much more constrained. The Alaska Public Forum played an important part in the NANA Project from 1978 to 1979, when it attempted to give voice to the desires of the people of northwest Alaska and use that voice to inform state and federal

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activities in the region. In 1979 the forum conducted an innovative series of televised and teleconferenced programs to inform and solicit public opinion on important topics of the day. Communities across Alaska were able to weigh in on such issues as offshore oil and gas leases and the allocation of state capital funds. In 1979, ten years after the Conference on Alaska’s Future, the Legislative Council convened a sequel: the Conference on Alaska’s Future Frontiers, led by Senator George Hohman Jr. and Representative Russ Meekins. Roughly 150 Alaskans met for three days in Anchorage, reading dozens of policy papers and producing, if not consensus, strong themes in the areas of respecting diversity and local control in all areas of public policy.

Civic Engagement in Alaska 1979–2009 Alaskans seemingly took a brief respite from civic engagement during the 1980s to adjust to a new reality. High government spending, annual permanent fund dividend checks, and the revocation of the state income tax were some of the more salient features of the times. There was still an awareness of the need to manage our newfound wealth, and the role of civic engagement in Alaska was picked up by public interest groups as like-minded citizens banded together. One such still-extant entity is Commonwealth North, founded in 1979 by former governors Wally Hickel and Bill Egan, which is focused primarily on economic issues. For thirty years Commonwealth North has been convening study groups and producing reports on topics like the permanent fund and the need for a long-term fiscal plan. After the economic setbacks of the late 1980s, these topics took on more urgency and a new phrase entered the public conversation: the “fiscal gap,” referring to the inability of the state to sustain the current high levels of spending in the face of inevitably declining oil production, which was the engine of state spending. In the 1990s new groups like Alaska Common Ground, Alaskans for a Plan, and the Fiscal Policy Council of Alaska joined the fray to promote the need for a long-term fiscal plan for Alaska. The movement gathered a certain momentum but never seemed to reach critical mass, perhaps due to the rebound of the economy in the 1990s. Starting in 1988 the state added jobs every year through the current year, 2009. It’s hard to

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cry wolf about a fiscal gap when people are enjoying the benefits of a strong labor market. Interest in the permanent fund was high, however, and study groups abounded. This interest coalesced in the Principles and Interests Project, a statewide conference and series of more than one hundred public meetings convened by the Alaska Humanities Forum and conducted in forty-one communities in 1997 and 1998 to discuss the role of the fund in Alaska’s future. What emerged was termed in the final report as the “paradoxes of public wealth,” as perceived by the Alaskans who participated. These paradoxes were the tensions between the oil wealth in hand, the uncertainty of the post-oil landscape, and a general lack of confidence in the ability of public institutions and leaders to adequately plan for the future. The tension still exists and has yet to be resolved. A Conference of Alaskans in 2004 on the topic failed to produce consensus or meaningful change, despite much publicity and effort by the fifty-five participants chosen from around the state in an echo of the original Constitutional Convention. By the end of the 1990s there seemed to be an active core of individuals who were strongly invested in citizen-led civic engagement. These individuals from academia, government, and business believed in the ability of, and the need for, Alaskans to establish priorities for their government. These “usual suspects” came together in 1999 for yet another effort, the grandest yet: Alaska 20/20, a multiyear process of public meetings to develop not only a collective vision for the future of Alaska, but also a set of concrete benchmarks by which to measure our progress. Alaska 20/20 was based on the Oregon Progress Board, at that point considered a successful model for civic engagement in that state. Alaska 20/20 was incubated as a project of the Alaska Humanities Forum with the support of various other stakeholder groups. In the fall of 2001 a statewide Alaska Values Survey of one thousand households was conducted to identify issues important to Alaskans. Focus group meetings in communities around the state followed the survey. The results were presented in November 2001 at the Conference on Alaska’s Future. More than five hundred Alaskans met in Anchorage for two days. They raised what University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton called “a chorus of strong voices,” to develop visions and goals that would become the focus of a statewide conversation. Throughout

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2002 more than a hundred meetings were held statewide to gather the thoughts and opinions of Alaskans, and, to ensure the voices of Alaska Natives were heard, a separate survey of five hundred Native households was conducted. In January 2003 I was hired as the executive director of the project, and later that year I oversaw the transition of Alaska 20/20 into its own nonprofit entity. Five public workgroups in the areas of education, economy, environment, communities, and government worked through the year and presented their recommendations for benchmarks in December 2003. A draft progress report for Alaska was released at the February 2004 State of the State Conference. There, 180 participants from around the state discussed priorities among the various issues and the strategies for making progress on them. The first Alaska Progress Report was published in October 2004; more than ten thousand print copies were distributed and thousands more accessed online. More reports followed, but by 2006 I was wondering what the point of it all was. Every year we produced a report card; every year we got a modest media bump. In the interim I devoted my time and energy to public presentations and raising my own salary. An enormous quantity of time and money had been expended to develop the measures of progress in the annual report. It even had a catchy title: “49 Measures for the 49th State.” And yet we didn’t seem to be making a difference. No organizations, public or private, seemed willing to adopt the benchmarks. The citizens of our supposed owner state were still on the outside looking in, clamoring to be heard. Part of this is simple organizational culture: Why would an organization put itself at the mercy of externally imposed measures of success, no matter how well thought out and intentioned? Another dynamic is that organizations, governmental and otherwise, are becoming more sophisticated in managing and reporting their own performance. About the same time Alaska 20/20 was established the state of Alaska was taking baby steps toward its own accountability effort. With Missions and Measures the goal was to attach concrete indicators to all budgeted activities of government. As of 2009, ten years later, implementation is spotty at best. And so in 2006 I recommended to the Alaska 20/20 board of directors that if we could not find a way to make our objectives and indicators a

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meaningful part of how government and nonprofit groups in Alaska measured their success in translating public money into public good, we ought to close our doors. After some difficult conversations the board approved, and by the end of the year Alaska 20/20 was no more. I had successfully lobbied myself out of a job, in the process driving a stake through the heart of the most ambitious civic engagement effort in Alaska’s history.

The Challenge of the Future When thinking about civic engagement I frequently return to the “first principles” of public policy enumerated by Robert Reich in his book The Power of Public Ideas. Reich saw three questions that any public policy should answer implicitly: how people behave as citizens, why society is better off in one state than another, and the appropriate role of government in defining and solving public problems. These questions do indeed need to be answered anew by each generation, but that doesn’t mean that the process itself should change. The trajectory of civic engagement in Alaska has run from the populism of the 1960s and 1970s to the formalized groups of the 1980s and 1990s to the grand experiment of Alaska 20/20 in the past decade. Tremendous energy has been expended since statehood attempting to establish a process for civic engagement that can operate in the wide gaps between elections, which in any case are only the crudest mechanism for translating public preferences into public policies. We can take pride in the energy we have expended, but we should also take caution from such frequent reinvention. Just as election strategies and tactics evolve while the basic electoral process stays constant, we need a new model for civic engagement that allows us to focus on the content and not the format. Current models of civic engagement have much to offer, particularly those that focus on community-level change where public institutions are most responsive to citizen input. A useful exploration of the dynamics at that level is the book Results That Matter: Improving Communities by Engaging Citizens, Measuring Performance and Getting Things Done. The successful communities the authors hold forth as examples have established cyclical, multiyear processes that connect citizen preferences with the work being done by public institutions, and vice versa. If I had to give

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a simple explanation for why Alaska 20/20 ultimately fell short, it would be that we never successfully closed that loop. Fifty years after statehood there are already experiments like this underway in Alaska’s communities. In Anchorage the local United Way has partnered with community organizations and municipal government to “turn the curve” on a carefully selected portfolio of social, economic, and environmental trends. Alaskans have never hesitated to absorb what is useful; the creation of a state constitution that is widely recognized as a model of best practice was only the beginning. This is the process of “accomplishing democracy” of which John Dewey wrote. Fundamentally it’s about change, the evolution of public policies and institutions, guided by civic engagement and for the benefit of not just ourselves but succeeding generations. Our reasons to be concerned about “succeeding generations” are as numerous as the names of our children. My three-year-old son, Sam, is sleeping in the next room. Sam was born in 2005, fifty years after fiftyfive eminent Alaskans put pen to paper in a great act of deliberative democracy. His own heritage reflects the diversity of Alaskans today, with Alaska Native, American Indian, and Caucasian blood running through his veins. In fifteen years, ready or not, he will assume his own mantle of civic responsibility. Parts of that mantle he will need to construct himself. Parts of it, I hope, we will be able to give to him. .

Note 1. John Dewey, Democracy and Education (Sioux Falls, SD: NuVision), p. 39.

chapter 7  Vic Fischer

Alaska’s Constitution

T

he fifty-five delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention were

an idealistic and yet very practical bunch. We did not try to foresee the future or create a specific design for Alaska. Rather, we focused on building the best possible foundation and framework to serve the state into the unknowable future. And it was a unique set of circumstances that allowed us to craft a constitution that has functioned well for five decades and can do so for many more. As one of those fortunate to spend those seventy-five cold winter days in Fairbanks in 1955 and 1956, I recall the interlude as the most creative, challenging, and important working period of my life. As a professional planner, I might have been expected to have ideas about what the future might bring. But neither I nor other delegates focused on that, and wisely so. None of us could anticipate the scale of oil development that has occurred, nor the financial wealth that has come. And while we knew that upon statehood two U.S. senators would make a big difference for Alaska, the scale of the resulting benefits was unimaginable. The constitution has survived and helped the state prosper because we accepted our ignorance of what would happen later and made no effort to tailor our words to fit any predictions. We committed ourselves to establish a governmental structure strong and flexible enough to serve Alaskans not yet born and to deal with the unknowable circumstances they would face in the decades and centuries ahead. 147

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Delegates rise for the invocation to start a day of business at the convention. Steve McCutcheon Collection, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.

In any instruction manual for making a state, the first chapter would surely include the rule that a constitution should be general, simple, and direct. The government’s most basic law, as broad and solid as a foundation, delineates a fundamental shape for the edifice of the state, not its interior decoration. The proper role of each generation of state makers through time is implicit in this metaphor: Those who come first should lay only large stones, trusting to the contemporaries of each later age to arrange the rooms. In political life, however, such reasonable instructions rarely have been followed. State constitutions have often become complex and cluttered as the powerful of each historical period impose their solutions for all time. For example, a constitution might direct funds to dedicated purposes, or divide the authority of the executive branch with election of various minor officers. Voters might burden the constitution with detailed statutory law as a way of taking certain decisions out of the hands of a temporarily untrustworthy legislature. Later, such solutions often become new problems, because their presence in the constitutional document denies

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power. They may take the form of appropriations or authority, to address the always new and unanticipated challenges of governing. To complete the building metaphor, the efforts to remodel the state for the needs of the present run into constitutional brick walls. Writing a constitution poses a temptation for the present to interfere with the future. The story of creating Alaska’s constitution, therefore, was less about political science, with its easily understood dictum to keep the basic law simple, and more about the personality of a unique moment in our history when Alaskans were able to follow that advice. In this essay I aim to analyze the character of that special moment, both to record my own memories and to offer a lens for seeing our limitations and capabilities in today’s Alaska. The next fifty years remain as opaque to me as ever, but I believe we can learn from the statehood era how to prepare for them. The statehood generation was accustomed to violent, unpredictable change. I had chosen Alaska while examining alternative futures for myself in the library of a troop ship bound for Europe during World War II. When I settled in Anchorage in 1950, like many other war veterans, I found a dusty railroad town growing with feverish rapidity. The city’s population expanded from less than five thousand to around eighty-two thousand in the twenty years prior to statehood. My house at Sixteenth Avenue and F Street, about a mile from city hall, stood like an outpost at the edge of town. That area is now part of the downtown in a municipality whose urban area spans more than fifteen miles. The energetic, optimistic spirit of the time reflected the newness and opportunity we young migrants found in this dynamic economic and social scene. Besides, the decision to move to Alaska, a dramatic leap in those days, likely screened for optimistic personalities. Certainly, I’ve always tended to have a positive outlook. Rather than young newcomers like me, statehood’s principal advocates were powerful figures in Alaska’s establishment, both Democrats and Republicans, including the territory’s appointed Governor Ernest Gruening, elected delegate to Congress E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, Anchorage Times publisher and chair of the official Alaska Statehood Committee Bob Atwood, Mildred Hermann, Frank Peratrovich, Percy Ipalook, and others. In the U.S. Congress, raw politics prevailed in thwarting them and statehood. Republicans and Southern Democrats opposed admission of Alaska because of the perception we would be a pro-civil-rights

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Democratic state. Prospects for statehood dimmed further after the Republican election victory of 1952, in Congress and of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That election brought anti-statehood officials as territorial governor, as secretary of the interior, and as chairman of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee (Hugh A. Butler of Nebraska). In the spring of 1953, with a statehood bill in his committee, Senator Butler announced hearings that summer in Alaska to hear “the reaction of the little people—not just a few aspiring politicians who want to be Senators and Representatives.” As a presumably little person, not yet thirty years old, I was indignant about Alaska’s political status. The problem had first become personal to me when I arrived in Alaska from Pennsylvania to realize I could no longer vote for president and U.S. senators. As a town planner with the federal Bureau of Land Management, I had traveled around the territory and come to understand the feelings of many other little people as well. Alaskans of all walks of life were fed up with indifferent and inept government by federal agencies, which controlled economic and civic life, including the territory’s land, minerals and fish, transportation, schools, social services, and jobs—since the military was the largest employer. Federal bureaucracies all answered to separate departments in Washington, meaning they did not coordinate their actions, and they were strongly influenced by outside economic interests able to exert political power through lobbyists and their home-state elected representatives. Within the territory, our elected legislature took every step available to weaken and divide the power of the federally appointed governor, creating numerous elected positions and boards with narrow responsibilities, including the attorney general, the auditor, and the highway and mining engineers. The alcohol control board had four elected members. No single person or agency had authority or accountability for effective, coordinated administration. Consequently, the government of Alaska was not only inadequate, but notably bad. Until Butler’s hearings, I took no part in the statehood campaign, but his quest for how “the little people” felt provoked a popular movement for statehood. Anchorage attorney Roger Cremo started it when he brought together a group of young friends in his Reed Building office on Fourth Avenue, across from the Anchorage federal building: attorney Cliff Groh, businessman Barrie M. White, Times reporter Gloria Fischer (my wife),

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and several others; Molly Tryck became the official secretary of the group. Some of them were Republicans, some Democrats, but that made no difference in our friendships, and it certainly was never a factor in our support of statehood. We organized a rally to meet Butler’s train when it arrived from Fairbanks, including painting placards that said, i’m a little man for statehood. That phrase also became our name, Little Men for Statehood, as we marshaled public interest in the newspapers, through a phone bank, and by word of mouth. When Butler arrived on a cold, rainy August evening, we didn’t know whether to expect five people or fifty at our rally, but the turnout was huge and enthusiastic, hundreds of people. Many also testified during the two-day Butler committee hearings in the Carpenters’ Hall downtown. Juneau and Fairbanks saw similar public outpouring. We had energized a popular movement. We felt euphoric about our success and decided to continue an active role in the fight for statehood. Our group organized itself officially as Operation Statehood, broadening out its membership in Anchorage and other communities. A board of directors met regularly, keeping on top of congressional activities and media coverage, staying in touch with Delegate Bartlett and the official Statehood Committee. Cliff Groh was Operation Statehood’s first president, succeeded by Barrie White; I became vice president; secretary was Helen Fischer (no relation). Thus began my lifelong involvement in politics. Our press releases made news, and our phone tree could mobilize large numbers of supporters. Ordinary neighbors who had been passive observers of the drive for statehood became active participants, writing letters to families, newspapers, and congresspeople in other states. One of our committees devised gimmicks to promote our cause, such as sending bouquets of hand-sewn forget-me-nots to senators and congressmen whenever an Alaska statehood bill was coming up for a vote with a message not to forget us. In 1954, Operation Statehood organized an Alaska Airlines DC-4 charter flight to Washington, DC, for some fifty Alaskans to walk the halls of Congress and lobby for Alaska’s admission as a state, and a small group actually went to the White House and laid out the case for statehood to President Eisenhower. The group’s enthusiasm seemed so aggressive to some that when Interior Secretary Douglas McKay later met with Operation Statehood in Anchorage, he chastised us and demanded

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that we come to Washington “hat in hand” and “behave like ladies and gentlemen.” That, of course, just incensed us and other Alaskans, renewing our lobbying efforts. It became clear by the end of 1954 that Congress would not enact a statehood bill, even though we came closer than ever. After being elected that fall, a new Democratic majority in the territorial legislature took the audacious action of calling a constitutional convention as a way of drawing national attention to the statehood cause and demonstrating to Congress our political maturity. Most Alaskans originally conceived of constitution writing primarily as a means to obtain statehood, but Juneau Representative Tom Stewart realized there was much more to this process and oversaw arrangements for the convention with great seriousness and earnest study, intending to produce an ideal document for a new state. Guided by academics who had observed constitutional conventions in other states, several of his decisions proved critical to our success. Its location at the University of Alaska campus near Fairbanks placed the convention away from the traditional center of partisan politics in Juneau. Besides, Fairbanks offered delegates few distractions, with its limited attractions and dark winter days as cold as fifty degrees below zero. The convention also benefited from a new system of voter apportionment. Legislative seats in those days represented massive at-large districts, which favored the election of candidates from the urban centers and shut out many less populated areas. The convention’s ingenious electoral system instead produced a uniquely representative roster of fifty-five delegates, all elected on a nonpartisan basis, that included political novices from the small towns as well as many of the territory’s best-known leaders. None of us had written a constitution before, but Stewart hired a team of professors and public policy experts to produce background material, and lined up consultants to be available to assist convention delegates as necessary. Like many others, I won my seat with a simple campaign of support for statehood and assurance that I had no political ax to grind. As did most other delegates, I studied preparatory material and got myself as ready as I could for the task ahead. But it was mainly upon coming together with other delegates in Fairbanks, and after hearing the stirring and thoughtful keynote speeches delivered at the opening of the convention

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by Bob Bartlett and former Governor Gruening, that we all fully realized the potential magnitude of our role in history, which was far larger than merely influencing Congress to admit Alaska as a state. We would provide basic law that could bind generations of Alaskans in a distant future, a future about which we knew only that its specific needs and opportunities were unknowable. Moreover, this golden opportunity we possessed to do the job right was unlikely ever to be repeated. In Fairbanks, we occupied a unique political space: We gathered in a nonpartisan body, outside the day-to-day political process, freed from attention by contemporary interests and lobbyists, and thoroughly immersed in history and public policy. Every member could stand for statesmanship. And, remarkably, virtually all did. As the convention worked on creating the foundation for the future state of Alaska, delegates wrote on a blank slate. We started with a shared base of knowledge from having lived through the misgovernment of territorial Alaska. The frustrations of the federal system traced their causes to divided authority, institutional rigidity, lack of accountability, and a disempowered electorate. These problems pointed toward a state governmental structure that would be their opposite. Although we couldn’t see the future, our common experience taught us the timeless political values that would permit Alaskans of goodwill to solve their problems together in changing circumstances. The constitution would maximize citizens’ political power by focusing it in a strong governor and legislature, leaving as many of the details of government to them without interference from other elected officials or from the preferences of the past. For example, with its prohibition on the dedication of funds, Alaska’s constitution put the entirety of the state’s revenues at the disposal of the legislature every time it met, subject to the governor’s line-item veto power. The corollary of unified authority would be accountability. Endowed with unprecedented power, no Alaska governor would be able to shirk responsibility for failures. In its deliberations, Alaska’s convention also had the benefit of the experience of the Lower Forty-Eight states and of contemporary political thought. To a large extent, we saw what had not worked well, what we should not write into our constitution, how we should not structure the future state. An example is designing the judiciary system. Delegates quickly agreed judges should not be elected, as is the pattern in most

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states, for that frequently leads to politicizing and corrupting the courts. Instead, the convention provided for a merit system of selecting judges, including a nonpartisan vote on retaining judges. That, together with integrated administration of courts, rather than one based on disparate jurisdictions, has given Alaska a model judicial system. This system has functioned extremely well and has been emulated by other states. Two articles presented the special difficulty of being written without models from other state constitutions. No other state had a resources article, and we agreed that no other state’s local government system would be appropriate to Alaska’s diverse population and geography. The Resources Committee drafted its article from scratch, beginning with a brainstorming session that recorded the essential ideas on a blackboard of a university classroom. The article enacted the belief that Alaska’s resources belonged to all of her people, to be developed for their maximum benefit, but left the meaning of that benefit, whether financial, recreational, or spiritual, for each new generation to define. It provided for management of renewable resources on the sustained yield principle, and laid the basis for dealing with public lands, minerals, and other responsibilities. The words of this article saw Alaska through the mostly successful development of the richest natural resources in the nation, including the North Slope oil fields. As a community planner, my attention focused on the local government article. The American experience included numerous examples of confusing and duplicative local government units that failed to reflect changing populations. Alaska then did not have an area-wide jurisdiction between cities and the territory, so we were able to design one. We decided not to replicate the rigid county system of other states. Instead, we created a new one for Alaska, designed to be adaptable to diverse areas and conditions, with local areas able to choose the amount and level of government they would prefer. Such a legal entity did not yet exist, with the flexibility to include our variety of alternative powers and taxing authorities. Most delegates wanted it to be different from the traditional county, but what should that be? District? Division? Canton? Something totally different, such as aerie? We considered dozens of names, even creating new ones such as ruripality and munipuk, building on the Iñupiaq word for “area.” Ultimately, we chose an old word, borough, and through homerule authority endowed it with extraordinary flexibility to function for

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a huge region, as in the North Slope Borough, which is the largest local government in the world, or as the unified, home rule urban government in cities such as Anchorage, Juneau, and Sitka. The system has worked well, but our article, like that written by the resources committee, was not perfect; we anticipated all of Alaska coming within boroughs, but that has not been accomplished. These and other articles of the constitution were based on faith in the wisdom and goodwill of the people. As Constitutional Convention delegates, we trusted those who would follow us to act thoughtfully in the interests of our new state. We invested them with power in the optimistic belief they would use it well. To the extent that our work seems prescient, that belief has been largely vindicated. The fundamental values of the Alaska Constitution are easily explained, and the document’s clear, simple prose make them evident in the reading as well. They were never in real doubt during the seventy-five days in Fairbanks. But to embody those ideas in the words of constitutional law proved an enormous challenge in so short a time. Thanks to the brilliant leadership of convention president Bill Egan, the delegates kept to the task and rarely diverted into acrimony or irrelevancy. Under his fair, impartial leadership, the disparate delegates worked together effectively, with every idea and phase given thorough consideration. Some proposals did not lead to success, though they were thoroughly discussed. Thus, the convention did not accept Muktuk Marston’s eloquent call for state land grants to Alaska Natives. In the longest debate on any delegate proposal, members argued that the idea ran counter to the fundamental principle, stated in section 1 of article 1 of the constitution, that all persons are equal and entitled to equal rights. Additional discussion emphasized that dealing with Native property rights was a federal responsibility and that state action could undermine a federal claims settlement. As a whole, the constitution writing process worked. Each substantive committee presented its own draft article to the full convention plenary body for debate, amendment, and approval. The committee on style and drafting reviewed each article, conforming all articles to one another, and assuring correct and consistent use of terminology, spelling, and punctuation. The intensity of work grew as our deadline neared, and by the end, the style and drafting group was meeting nearly around the clock.

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Judge Thomas B. Stewart signing the Alaska Constitution, February 1956. Alaska State Library, Alaska State Library Vertical File, Alaska200.0010VF.

The committee eventually brought together all articles into the final constitution for approval by the convention. The convention adjourned on February 6 and the constitution was ratified by Alaska voters on April 24, 1956. My youthful involvements in Alaska’s Constitution Convention, and my long life since, have allowed me to see our territory become a state and to grow in ways that I never could have imagined possible. We’ve been through good and bad times. Sometimes our leaders have disappointed us. The constitution has been amended a number of times, sometimes skillfully, as when voters added a new guarantee of privacy and when we allowed limited entry to fisheries; and sometimes less thoughtfully, as with a terribly drafted spending limitation added in 1982, and with the poor rewrite of the legislative apportionment. Beyond these is the 1998 amendment that, unlike the rest of the Declaration of Rights, is designed to bar individual rights, rather than protect them, in the prohibition on same-sex marriage. Beyond that, however, the essential values of the constitution have remained through the fifty years of statehood, entrusting power to contemporary citizens to meet their current challenges. Ironically, the constitution’s greatest vulnerability comes in its mechanism for revision, which extends the document’s flexibility to the ulti-

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mate degree. The framers provided not only for individual amendments to be initiated by the legislature and voted upon by the people, but they also called for an automatic public vote every ten years on whether to hold a new constitutional convention. If a convention were held, every provision and every word of the document would be open to revision; in fact, the entire constitution could be totally rewritten. I’ve spoken against that vote when it has come up in each decade since statehood. The special moment that allowed the birth of the Alaska Constitution is gone and cannot be re-created. Today we live within the push and pull of political and social forces in a living state, forces that could not be set aside by delegates to a new convention in some remote academic hall. We would no longer have the luxury of looking beyond ourselves to repose our trust in unborn generations. A new constitution would inevitably take on then current issues, such as resource taxation or detailed rules for provision of education, focusing on legislative rather than fundamental, constitutional matter. That could be a tragedy. Our best hope lies, instead, in fulfilling the trust placed in us by Alaska’s founders. The constitution, as written, contains all that is needed for an educated electorate to turn the state toward greatness. We need not foresee the future to grasp that responsibility, nor to recover the spirit of optimism and endeavor that can open up its opportunities.

chapter 8  Chief Justice Dana Fabe

Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Alaska Court System

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he fiftieth anniversary of statehood presents a great opportunity

to remember where we’ve been as a judicial system and to imagine where we’re going. To understand just how far we’ve come in fifty years, one need only hear what courts were like in the waning days of the territory, before the new state court system was established. As Justice Jay Rabinowitz, who became the longest-serving jurist in the Alaska Court System, reported, “the Territorial system was terribly lacking from the point of view of an ideal judiciary. . . . There were only 4 judges in all of the Territory . . . The Alaskan citizen had . . . essentially no say in who got appointed and there was no way of evaluating these . . . judges. They were just subject to the political whims [and] would take off for 4 months a year. . . . The calendar would languish, and the cases wouldn’t move. . . . Compared to today’s system, it was . . . rock-bottom.” And when, according to Justice Rabinowitz, did this state of affairs change? “When we obtained statehood,” he said. Territorial attorney and former attorney general Charlie Cole also remembers that “civil cases, once you filed them, sort of disappeared . . . [lawyers] would simply say, ‘Don’t pay attention to the complaints of the plaintiff . . . because your case will never come to trial anyway.’ And that was . . . the way it was,” Cole says, “until statehood.” Adapted from the State of the Judiciary Address, Alaska Legislature, February 11, 2009. 159

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So what was it about statehood that changed our judicial system so dramatically? First and foremost, Alaska’s new constitution included a judiciary article drawn from the highest recommendations of the day for what fair, impartial, and effective courts should look like. Instead of the tired and unresponsive courts of the territory, authors of the judiciary article envisioned a model system of justice based on the best court systems in the country. According to Thomas B. Stewart, who coordinated Alaska’s Constitutional Convention and served as its secretary, convention delegates “sought to apply principles proposed and backed by the American Bar Association, the American Judicature Society, the Institute of Judicial Administration, and other professional and civic groups dedicated to improvement in the administration of justice.” First, the article prescribed a method for selecting judges based on merit, not political influence or position. Applicants are evaluated based on their legal abilities, fairness, and temperament, and only the most highly qualified candidates are nominated to the governor, who then makes the appointments. This approach was designed to ensure that courts were free from political pressures that might interfere with a judge’s duty to decide cases strictly on the facts and the law. Our state’s founders were well familiar with the inadequacies of a system where judges are selected based on political credentials instead of judicial aptitude, having just emerged from such a system in the territory. For example, at the turn of the century Judge Arthur H. Noyes had been appointed to the territorial bench in Nome through political connections, only to be forced off almost immediately because of his involvement in an infamous corruption scandal that involved the same politically powerful people who had secured him the job. Our state’s founders were also familiar with the miscarriage of justice that occurs when courts are allowed to be intimidated by fear and pressure, as they were in many countries of the world. The swastikas that appeared on the robes of German judges during the Nazi era still may have been fresh in mind. Our founders also knew that they didn’t want the judicial branch of government—the branch charged with upholding the constitution’s protections of individual rights and liberties—to be subject to direct popular elections. A judge whose selection depends on a majority vote might be less likely to protect the rights of a minority— rights that may be unpopular but are the hallmark of a free society. The

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At the dedication of the first courthouse at Fairbanks, July 4, 1904, Judge Wickersham delivers the Fourth of July address. Alaska State Library, Wickersham State Historic Site. Photographs, 1882–1930s, ASL-P277-011-060.

American Judicature Society, a world leader in justice administration, recognizes that merit selection is “the best way to choose the best judges,” and we are very lucky to have it. Second, the judiciary article required that judges, once appointed, stand before voters periodically for retention. This provision was viewed as an important measure of accountability and a way to ensure a high level of public trust and confidence in the judiciary. A system of merit appointment combined with voter retention was a balanced compromise that ensured the highest quality judges, yet preserved a mechanism for citizen oversight. According to George McLaughlin, chair of the Committee on the Judiciary during Alaska’s Constitutional Convention, this “combination of the appointive and the elective” was the system adopted most recently in the modern constitutions of other states, most notably Missouri and New Jersey. Third, the judiciary article created the independent Alaska Judicial Council, whose role in the strength and growth of our judiciary cannot be overestimated. The council performs extensive investigations and evaluations of all applicants for judgeships and judges standing for retention.

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As a result, Alaskans receive more information about their judges than any other citizens in the country—or the world. This open and continuous assessment of sitting judges has guarded against insulating our courts from the people they serve. The judicial council was also charged with another major role that has led to steady improvements in our legal system: “conduct[ing] studies for the improvement of the administration of justice, and mak[ing] reports and recommendations to the supreme court and to the legislature.” Since 1960, the council has issued a significant body of vital reports and recommendations—many at the legislature’s request—on topics ranging from misdemeanor sentencing and plea bargaining to rural justice and alternative dispute resolution. These reports, and the information and analysis they offer, have often helped the legislature and the courts respond to challenges we’ve faced and have contributed to the steady improvement of our justice system. Finally, the judiciary article established a unified statewide structure for the court system, to ensure that delivery of justice would be centrally organized, consistent, and efficient statewide. As a result, Alaska was free from the confusion and expense experienced under the territorial system, where “[e]ach court had its own bookkeeping system, such as it was. Each court had its own system of keeping records and files and each established to a certain extent its own judicial procedures.” The absence of a centralized system sometimes led to accounting nightmares. For example, when probate cases from across the territory were consolidated after statehood, twenty-five cases filed between 1905 and 1915 remained unresolved, and some old case files contained loose currency and checks payable to the deceased that had never been cashed. The centralized administration established at statehood fostered greater accountability in such cases, and ensured that all courts in the state would be “an integral part of one state system,” functioning together with common purpose. On our fiftieth anniversary, it’s important to recognize that when it comes to Alaska’s judiciary, our state’s founders got it right. The system they designed is working, and working well. To me, looking back, the most valuable legacy of our judicial structure is the fair and impartial justice system Alaskans enjoy today. Competent and diligent judges ensure that cases are handled with intelligence and skill by those with both the talent and the patience to render the most thoughtful decisions. Unbiased

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judges ensure that everyone who enters our courtrooms is treated equally, regardless of their station in life, and that decisions are based on the law and the facts of each case, not improper pressures or influences. And finally, judges who are accountable to rigorous and ongoing evaluation do not become detached from those we serve or complacent about the work we do. In government, scrutiny is a good thing, and I think we can all be proud that in the past fifty years our justice system has welcomed it, and has grown from it. A few examples of familiar challenges illustrate the value of a constitutional structure that fosters ongoing exchange between the public, the judiciary, and the legislative and executive branches. Since well before statehood, the use and abuse of alcohol has been a persistent problem for our justice system, and its effects on the people of our state have been nothing short of tragic. Yet fifty years ago we confronted the problem very differently. Alcohol abuse was perceived predominantly as a vice, not as the product of a debilitating addiction with major public health consequences. It was illegal to drive while intoxicated, but penalties were minimal and the entire governing statute was only a paragraph long. Beginning in the 1970s, these views began to change. The deaths and devastation from drunk driving, the growing medical consensus that alcoholism is a disease requiring treatment, and the rising public awareness about the problem led to a shift in our collective thinking. Following national trends, the Alaska Legislature increased significantly the criminal penalties for driving under the influence, requiring mandatory jail sentences for first offenses and mandatory license revocations. Yet despite the success of such reforms, including declining death rates from alcohol-related traffic accidents, too many offenders cycled in and out of our justice system with their underlying alcohol addictions unchecked. In the 1990s, therapeutic models for handling cases involving alcohol and drug addiction began to emerge. These models were based on the premise that treatment is a necessary component of any effort to achieve lasting modification of criminal behavior. With the essential support of the legislature and the executive branch, therapeutic courts with rigorous treatment programs have now been established statewide, resulting in reduced recidivism, safer streets, and a return to sober, law-abiding lives for hundreds of Alaskans. Certainly, therapeutic courts provide an excellent example of how a justice system can evolve and improve when

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the institutions responsible stand accountable to the public and work together to implement needed change. Family law is another area that has seen considerable change over the last fifty years. At one time, a couple could obtain a divorce only by proving that one of them had done something wrong. Recognizing the damage that intense conflict causes families in transition, the judicial and legislative branches have tried over the years to shift family conflict away from courtrooms toward more peaceful alternatives for dispute resolution. Together we have implemented successful mediation programs for child custody and visitation disputes, and have even implemented mediation for families involved in difficult child in need of aid cases. Hundreds of families have resolved their conflicts through mediation in the last decade, which has not only spared them the unnecessary strife of a contested trial, but has saved the court considerable expense and judicial resources. Together, we have also responded to the rising number of self­represented litigants in family cases by creating the Family Law SelfHelp Center, which continues to evolve and expand. Last year, the center received more than seventy thousand hits on its Web site, and fielded more than seven thousand direct calls on its helpline. Thousands of Alaskans have received instructions, forms, and vital information to help them navigate and resolve their family cases since the center’s inception in 2001. Examples range from the woman in Northwest Alaska who had been separated from her husband for more than ten years and finally was able to obtain a divorce without ever leaving her village, to the serviceman in Afghanistan who was able to resolve a custody dispute while on active duty thousands of miles from home. Today we’re exploring reforms to ensure that family cases are heard quickly, as soon as the parties are ready, to avoid the anxiety and hardship of unnecessary delay. We’re also implementing educational programs for divorcing parents to help them understand the effects of divorce on their children, and to teach them ways to help their children cope. The breakup of a family is always a sad and often a traumatic event for those affected, but we’re doing what we can to ensure that our justice system itself does not add salt to the wound. We’re also making progress with emerging technology. At the time of statehood, Chief Justice Buell Nesbett pioneered the audio recording of court proceedings, using a huge but portable machine called the Sound-

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Scriber that he’d seen on ships during World War II. Most states at the time used court stenographers, but there were too few stenographers here to meet the new demand. Over the years, the SoundScriber yielded to reel-to-reel tapes, then cassettes, and finally the current digital recording system. From the beginning, Alaska’s courts have been able to change and adapt as technology has changed. Yet few would have imagined fifty years ago the incredible technological leaps of recent years, or the promise and challenge they pose to our justice system today. The computerized case management system CourtView tracks case information at most locations statewide and makes it accessible online almost immediately. Court-imposed fines and fees can now be paid online, saving members of the public countless trips to the courthouse. Video arraignments are showing promise in several communities as a way to increase public safety and court security and allow the time and expense of transporting prisoners to be put to better use. Collaborative efforts now underway in the criminal justice arena promise even more positive technological changes. Under the leadership of Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell and Justice Walter Carpeneti, the Criminal Justice Working Group is identifying the causes of delay in criminal felony cases. One problem often cited is the difficulty prosecutors and defense attorneys encounter making discovery available to one another in a timely way. Discovery is information about their respective cases that parties are required to disclose, and without it, a case is at a standstill. With the Alaska Judicial Council’s help, the working group is exploring the possibility of making discovery materials available electronically, through a central repository of case information known as a “digital evidence locker.” Such a system would not only ease the clerical burden on the agencies and attorneys involved, but also help alleviate the tremendous costs that case delays pose to the court system, witnesses, jurors, and victims. Similarly, the Multi-Agency Justice Integration Consortium (MAJIC) has continued to make progress toward better information sharing between state agencies and the courts, thanks to the legislature’s generous support. Recently, the MAJIC group embarked on an exciting project to improve access to bail information. Currently, officers on the street have no way to find out what bail conditions may apply to someone they have stopped. They can check immediately for outstanding warrants or

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Juneau Courthouse, 1900s. Alaska State Library, Louise Carey McConnel photograph collection, ca. 1908–1912, LASL-P104-004.

­ omestic violence restraining orders, but officers can’t check for bail cond ditions such as restrictions on drinking and driving. The MAJIC group is working to develop a protocol that would turn the current paper-based system for issuing and distributing bail orders into a computerized one that could be accessed on the scene. I’m confident that by continuing to work together, we can increase public safety by ensuring that defendants out on bail are held responsible for their court-ordered conditions of release. The fourth and final example of change and improvement that I would like to touch on concerns a topic that is very much on all of our minds today: fiscal responsibility. Since statehood, the court system has prided itself on being frugal and innovative. From the early days when our caseload hovered around 5,000 to today, when we handle more than 150,000 cases a year, we have operated on a very small percent of the state’s operating budget—only about 1 percent. Throughout, we have worked hard to ensure that we take advantage of cost savings whenever we can. We were using phone cards long before other state agencies were encouraged to do so, which has saved the court up to $100,000

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each year in long-distance services. We also signed up for the Alaska Airlines “EasyBiz” mileage program when it first started, which saves us thousands each year in travel costs. We maintain a thirty-day hiring freeze before position vacancies can be filled to reduce our annual personnel costs. We have conducted energy reviews of all older buildings and installed energy management devices where appropriate. And in the entire statewide system, we own or lease only six vehicles—including one twenty-year-old car. Economizing in these ways might seem to have minimal impact, but it adds up to real savings. In addition to adopting wise business practices of our own, the court system has contributed to great cost savings for other agencies by sharing data electronically whenever possible. For example, expanding the electronic data provided to the Department of Law and municipalities has facilitated their collection efforts for fines, costs of appointed counsel, Department of Corrections surcharges, and other outstanding debts. As we all know, our state and nation face a financial crisis of historic proportions in this fiftieth anniversary year of statehood, and the future is uncertain for all of us. We recognize that the court must tighten its belt now more than ever before. But we also recognize that troubled times can lead to even greater demands on the court’s resources, as foreclosures, domestic violence filings, and criminal caseloads all tend to increase. At the court system, we have a long track record of surviving difficult challenges, and we will do so again. Over the past fifty years, the evolution of our justice system’s approaches to alcohol-related crimes, family breakup, emerging technologies, and fiscal constraints illustrates how well we are situated to respond to changing knowledge and changing times. Our system’s ability to change smoothly and positively owes much to the judicial structure we were given by our state’s founders. But our founders’ vision would have gained no traction without the dedication and determination of those who brought it to life. In our years of statehood, many talented people have applied their energy, creativity, and intelligence to the establishment and growth of the Alaska Court System. Today we stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us, and we reap the benefit of their efforts every day. Buell Nesbett, our first chief justice, had formidable take-charge skills and a legendary work ethic, and he knew how to get things done. The Statehood Act anticipated a three-year transition period between the

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territorial courts and the new state court system, but Chief Justice Nesbett completed the task in six months. Justice John Dimond of Juneau was a quiet voice of conscience on the early court, urging humility and respect for fellow Alaskans as the new court system found its way: “There is no place in the judiciary for tyranny, which is the antithesis of law,” he reminded the first superior court judges at their swearing in. “There is room only for a humane and proper recognition of the dignity of man, regardless of his creed, his color or his race, or his position in life.” In Justice Jay Rabinowitz’s three decades on the supreme court in Fairbanks, he set high standards for intellectual integrity and professionalism. By his example and leadership, he expelled any notion that the rough-and-tumble reputation of the territorial courts would carry over to the state’s new judiciary. Under his influence, Alaska’s jurisprudence would be well reasoned, thorough, and of the highest caliber. Chief Justice George Boney served only briefly in the 1970s before a tragic accident took his life, but his enthusiasm for improving rural justice delivery helped lay the foundation for expansion of court facilities and staff statewide. Justice Boney also presented the first State of the Judiciary address before this body in 1972, fostering closer ties between the judicial and legislative branches, which have continued to keep a clear focus on issues of mutual concern. Judge James Fitzgerald and Judge James von der Heydt of Anchorage are two other legends of the Alaska judiciary. Both were among the first eight judges appointed to the superior court bench in November 1959. Judge Fitzgerald also served on the Alaska Supreme Court, and both judges were appointed to the United States District Court for Alaska, where they remain senior judges to this day. Between them, Judge Fitzgerald and Judge von der Heydt have served the people of Alaska for one hundred years. Certainly we owe them both a great debt. Others have left their mark on our court system in important ways that are perhaps less familiar. Aniak Magistrate Arlene Clay identified some of the tension and challenge that resulted from serving remote communities with little or no local law enforcement in the early days of statehood. She remembers being called out to domestic violence disputes with no backup. “[T]he husband would be standing by the door with the wife . . . hollering [to] anybody that came in that door [that] he was going to shoot. But I just kept on walking towards the door, said a little

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prayer . . . and it was fine.” Magistrate Clay served Aniak and surrounding communities for more than seventeen years, and continues to live in Aniak today, well into her nineties. The late Magistrate Craig McMahon served the Bethel region for nearly thirty years, where he made a point of visiting outlying villages whenever possible for arraignments and sentencings. “I would just tote a little tape recorder with me,” he once explained, “and set up [court] in the bingo hall or city office.” McMahon went to the extra trouble because he felt it was good for both the court and villages for people to see the judicial process that affected them. Magistrate Sadie Neakok of Barrow, District Court Judge Nora Guinn of Bethel, and Superior Court Judge Roy Madsen of Kodiak were all early Alaska Native luminaries in the court system, and each played a major role in raising our awareness of local culture, customs, and concerns. Without the courage and commitment of Alaskans such as these, the Alaska Court System could not have become the strong institution we know today. In conclusion, looking back over fifty years, we can see that many of the challenges faced by the judicial branch at statehood have been resolved. Courts have been established across the state, and a solid justice system has long been in place. Of course, over the years we’ve faced new challenges that our state’s founders could hardly have imagined. In 1959, who could have envisioned the scourge of methamphetamine or the permanent effects of fetal alcohol syndrome on too many of our citizens? As we all know, many of the problems that now affect our justice system are not problems that laws alone can solve. Yet throughout the journey from statehood, our justice system has responded to the best of its ability to the changing social and legal landscape. And what will the next fifty years hold in store? Of course it’s impossible to know, but several patterns are emerging. First, technology will continue to have a tremendous impact on our justice system. Paperless courts, where all documents and files are maintained electronically, are on the horizon. Increasingly transparent courts, where the public has access to all court proceedings and information almost immediately, are inevitable. In more substantive areas, we are likely to see a more individualized approach to justice delivery that focuses on the root causes of the problems we confront, not simply the symptoms and effects. As therapeutic courts have demonstrated, a justice model that recognizes an individual

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offender’s unique situation can be more successful than a one-size-fits-all approach. Whatever problems the next fifty years may bring, I’m confident that our justice system will continue to respond with creativity and dedication to the needs of the people of Alaska. Today, in honor of our fiftieth anniversary, and on behalf of the Alaska Court System, I would like to express our gratitude to the drafters of our constitution and its brilliant judiciary article. They laid a strong foundation for our justice system. I would also like to thank the many judicial officers and members of the court’s staff who have labored hard, and often in lonely ways, in the name of justice. They have built the sturdy walls. Finally, I would like to thank the members of the legislature—both past and present—for their dedication to making our justice system one of the finest in the world. Legislative support has truly put the roof over our heads. The continued joint commitment of the legislative and judicial branches will help keep Alaska’s house of justice strong for another fifty years—and beyond.

chapter 9  Charles Wohlforth

Alaska’s Generational Passage

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he generation after great parents often grows in shadows. Not only do

the children suffer from comparison, but, worse, too many formative challenges are smoothed over by the gifts of their predecessors, leaving the spirit for achievement weak and uncertain. Trust fund dependents and heirs to illustrious names often possess magnificent self-esteem and magisterial presence—wealth-seeking sycophants assure that—but others take their places in history, the vigorous new risk takers. A forest’s succession of trees produces only one generation of thriving alders before the spruce trees overtake them. As individuals, many people escape this generalization as counter­ examples to the pattern. For example, I recently interviewed two sets of political fathers and sons who can discuss their careers as near equals, although the sons still have decades of leadership left: Jack Coghill, a member of the Alaska Constitutional Convention, and his son John, a six-term member of the State House and member of its leadership, both Republicans; and Chancy Croft, a former Senate president and Democratic nominee for governor, and his son, Eric, a five-term House member and gubernatorial candidate, also a Democrat. But Alaska’s political culture as a whole did not escape the shadow of its founders’ greatness. As the Coghills and Crofts agreed, the second half of Alaska’s time as a state didn’t measure up to its first. Eric Croft said, “We tackled elephants, and we’ve been nibbled apart by mice since then. 171

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We haven’t been able to solve big problems. We don’t even seem to be addressing them.” A pair of lists establishes the point. The first generation created the state; designed its political, legal, and economic structures; laid the pattern of its transportation and communication network; provided for scientific management of its fish and game and limited entry for harvesting salmon; and added protection to millions of acres of state park lands. State residents paid some of the nation’s highest personal taxes and established a first-class educational system with some of the nation’s highest paid teachers. The early state acquired the most promising oil lands within its boundaries, located the continent’s largest oil field there, and brought the oil to market. Legislators and governors established a strong oil tax regime and an arm’s-length relationship with the industry to manage the new resource wealth, and set up the permanent fund savings account to avoid the waste of oil income. Alaska Native land claims were resolved with the fairest agreement indigenous people had yet received anywhere in the world. Racism against first peoples began to wash away with new attention to rural health, education, communication, and transportation. Finally, statehood’s first generation completed the century-long project of drawing Alaska’s map, marking out the boundaries between conservation lands, state lands, Native lands, and private lands. And what about the next quarter century, after huge oil wealth arrived in the early 1980s? The state government got drunk on money and failed to manage its increase or the financial impact of its loss, creating the worst economic depression Alaska had ever seen. The state became complacent in protecting its own land and water and failed to prevent or prepare for the nation’s worst oil spill, which happened in Prince William Sound. Relations between rural Natives and urban whites deteriorated. After innumerable failed summits and special legislative sessions, the federal government had to step in to take over management of fish and game on its lands to protect Native subsistence rights. While Alaskans collected dividends from their permanent fund and paid no taxes, their shared institutions withered for lack of funds and the schools declined into second-rate systems unable to pay teachers competitively and reporting disgraceful dropout rates. The political system tried repeatedly, and failed, to adopt a sustainable plan for Alaska’s fiscal future, instead riding oil prices up and down like a rich heir whose income depends entirely on

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the changing value of an investment account. Meanwhile, the oil industry established its control in the Capitol like the dominant economic power in a company town, until federal investigators blew the whistle and a long list of powerful men went to jail for corruption. The fiftieth anniversary of statehood must be a moment to diagnose what ails our political culture and, as the last of the old generation retires from the scene, to reclaim the spirit of purpose and connectedness that once made Alaska great. I’m a member of the second generation myself. My father, Eric, served in Governor Bill Egan’s cabinet and helped in the formation of Alaska’s system of public finance. As I’ve talked to my elders and contemporaries on the right and left, I’ve found we do agree this is a special moment of change—whether the metaphor is of an alcoholic hitting bottom or of the fresh sprouts of green that rise after a forest fire. And I’ve heard, hopefully, of the emergence of a new consensus, although one that is less clear or determined than that of the early statehood years. We are ready to let go of the old antagonisms and to rebuild our investments in social relationships, ready to remake Alaska as a community in common cause. 

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Revolutionaries have the benefit of knowing what they are fighting against. The fifty-five elected delegates to the Alaska Constitutional Convention, including their second-youngest member, thirty-year-old Jack Coghill, were sent to Fairbanks to write a charter for a purpose: to convince the rest of the United States that Alaska deserved to join their number. Territorial legislative voting districts drawn without proportion to population had helped outside economic interests control Alaska politics, and denied a seat in Juneau to Coghill, a second-generation Alaskan from the interior town of Nenana. The small, proportional districts for the election of Constitutional Convention delegates instead gave small towns their own representation, and allowed a homegrown leader like Coghill to win a seat. Arriving at the University of Alaska campus in 1955, delegates had plenty of disagreements among themselves, but their shared interest and grassroots connection to Alaskan communities overrode their differences. “When we were doing that debating, I was a very staunch conservative, and I would argue with the liberals, and the Democrats, and yet I didn’t

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take it, and nor did they, down to a personal level,” Jack Coghill said. “They were Alaskans first.” In particular, Jack recalled Convention President Bill Egan calling on him to chair the administrative committee, because he relied on Coghill’s experience running a trading post to carefully watch after the body’s money. When Jack served as a State Senator in Juneau in the early 1960s, Egan made sure he was invited to social functions organized by Democrats. John Coghill remembers sitting in the lobby of the Nordale Hotel in Fairbanks as a boy and listening to his father and his political adversaries argue in voices that grew loud and profane; a few minutes later they adjourned to the bar, laughing and slapping one another on the back. John said politicians can’t do that anymore—they have to think about how a boisterous discussion will look on camera if later brought up during a campaign. Electronic media make every intemperate remark permanent. In our more anonymous society, a recorded gaffe could form a voter’s first impression of a politician. That change affects how politicians relate to one another—but it results from the more impersonal way the public relates to politics. “We’re in a different age,” the younger Coghill said. “Everybody knew everybody. It was a much smaller world. And they had more of a common cause. We wanted a state, we have to build a state. How are we going to do it? Even though they disagreed on many things, the common cause was central.” Social circumstances helped create the shared cause. Although the nonNative population was growing rapidly, its members shared a worldview. The fifty-five Constitutional Convention delegates averaged forty-nine years old. Only the lone Native member, Frank Peratrovich, had lived in the territory before the Klondike Gold Rush, and just seven others were born in Alaska at all. Seven delegates had lived in Alaska less than ten years. Their pioneer outlook, partly bequeathed by the gold seekers, envisioned Alaska as a field of opportunity and newness. For those who preceded the gold rush, Alaska looked quite different. But Alaska Natives had little role in the statehood movement. Indeed, the threat that the new state would appropriate their traditional lands became, in the 1960s, the primary motivator for Native political organization and the land claims movement.

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Miners await their turn to register claims in Dawson, 1900s. Alaska State Library, P. E. Larss Photograph Collection, 1898–1904, Eric A. Hegg, ASL-P41-215.

“I think that’s a big difference,” Jack Coghill said, recalling his own perception of the role of Natives from half a century ago. “You were still in segregation. We didn’t diminish them or anything, we didn’t look at them as second-class citizens, it’s just that they were not part of the policy-making structure.” During the new state’s first decade its elected leaders also shared the challenge of poverty. Chancy Croft said it freed them to dream, knowing their shared efforts were the only avenue to success. He so categorized Egan’s daring use of debt to construct the Alaska Marine Highway System, and the creation of the major state parks, including Chugach State Park in Anchorage—actions that the Crofts thought would be impossible today. “In that atmosphere, we can do something unique,” Chancy said. “ ‘We are going to write the best constitution that any state ever had’—and a lot of people concede they did it. [With] that attitude, that we are going to have the best educational system, or legal services, or health care.” John Coghill said, “We’ve probably grown into the idea that we deserve, rather than in the early statehood days we were so poor, we were willing to sacrifice and work to make it better. And the sacrifice that’s needed now is only beginning to dawn on us.”

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The shared outlook of politically enfranchised Alaskans made consensus relatively easy in 1950s and 1960s, but that unity disintegrated in the 1970s, the state’s most extreme decade of change. Big Oil transformed the economy, government finance, and the population. And yet, through the decade, the political culture still functioned as a reflection of popular will capable of resolving great issues. The transience of Alaska’s population during the first century after the Klondike Gold Rush had assured that its political values mostly reflected where people originally came from and why. The first wave, of the gold rush stampeders, established the territory as a setting for independent striving for quick riches, boom-and-bust economic cycles, and a provisional, scam-infected vision of the future. The men coming in the next wave, after World War II, more often arrived with family in tow, planning to stay, many of them veterans who had seen enough of the world to want to strike out for the opportunities of a fast-growing northern frontier. Although their economic ambitions may have resembled those of the gold rush generation, their desire to make permanent homes added more will to improve Alaska, with the glimmerings of respect for its Native people. As Muktuk Marston observed at the Constitutional Convention, “After the war a new group are coming—not to get rich and get out—but they are coming to raise families and make their homes in Alaska. They want to do right by the people that are here.” The influx of people and the urbanization of the 1970s equaled those earlier waves, and exceeded them in absolute numbers. In a single year inmigration added 10 percent to the population. The average resident’s age fell below twenty-three years. Economically, as well, the oil pipeline boom exceeded the gold rush in scale and longevity, and rivaled it in decadence as well. But the presence of a previously rooted and politically empowered Alaskan culture made a critical difference. Alaska Natives had found their voice and some postwar pioneers had come of age with a desire to preserve the qualities of the state they had come to love, and felt threatened by the Wild West invasion of newcomers during the oil pipeline boom. Moreover, a fraction of the new arrivals brought with them countercultural values against materialism and for environmental protection. In the person of Jay Hammond, this new coalition found a conservationist champion and

Edwin H. Brown (left) and Major L. H. French display nuggets from Anvil Creek at Nome, August, 1900. Alaska State Library, Alaska Purchase Centennial Collection, ca. 1764–1967, ASL-P20-041.

“His Silent Partners.” This color drawing shows a large man towering over a mining site while digging and seemingly filling up a box with gold. The label “Klondike” is visible on the side of the box. He is surrounded by vultures with human faces; various political catchphrases are inscribed on their wings, reading “Dive Keeper,” “Opium Joint,” “Gambling Den,” “Gin Mill Keeper,” “Dance House Keeper,” “Card Sharp.” Puck Cartoon Collection, UAF-1975-35-1, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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Portrait of Alaska Senate Presidents, June 8, 1978: John Rader (1977–78), Chancy Croft (1975–76), Terry Miller (1973–74), John Butrovich (1967–68), James Nolan (1955–56 Territorial Senate), and Frank Peratrovich (1961–62 and 1963–64). Alaska State Library, Alaska State Library Portrait File. Photographs, ASL_cPo_Groups_AlaskaSenatePresidents.

symbol to counter the old pro-development consensus. His election over Bill Egan in 1974 marked the first time a politician skeptical of growth took one of the state’s top offices. In the legislature, Chancy Croft became Senate President with the support of Alaska Native members and young Democrats from the insurgent “Ad Hoc” movement. He helped push through a tough tax on the oil industry by agreeing with Native leaders to spend much of the new money on rural schools. The long-term decisions that established Alaska’s map, social relations, and economy were made during this ten-year period when two welldefined political camps fought in equipoise: in 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; in 1974, the Alaska Pipeline authorization; in 1976, the Alaska Permanent Fund; and in 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which finally closed the Alaska frontier by setting down permanent purposes for most remaining federal lands. These dynamic political struggles found their emblematic battleground in the dramatic Republican gubernatorial primary of 1978 between Hammond, up for re-election, and Walter Hickel, the former governor who had returned from a stint as U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Hammond’s

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backwoods philosophy revolved around his conservationism—the wish to slow change and to save what was good about Alaska, including saving money and developing sustainable nonextractive industries, with investments in fish hatcheries and a disastrous experiment in subsidized Alaskan agriculture. Hickel, who had made his fortune during the explosive urban growth of the 1950s and 1960s, stood for the pioneer dream of the frontier, for big projects, newness, and the dream of continuing to build on the richness of Alaska’s nonrenewable resources by spending money as it came in. The election was essentially a tie (the Alaska Supreme Court ultimately gave it to Hammond), but that doesn’t diminish the accomplishment it represented for Alaska’s political culture: two competing grand visions of the future stood face to face, personified by men who grew to giant size thanks to their symbolism, with every voter certain in casting a ballot for whatever side he or she was taking in a fight for the soul of the state. Likewise, in the legislative battles of the era, decisions followed endless hearings, professional studies, economic analyses, and reports. For a historian those documents are gold, but on the floor, actual debate sometimes degenerated into raucous arguing and attempts to flee the Capitol and hide out to avoid voting. Each twist in the juicy conflicts was covered in detail by competing daily newspapers. Sitting over lunch with Chancy and Eric Croft I heard a bit of longing in the younger legislator’s voice for the public policy wrestling arena that was the legislature in his father’s time. During Eric’s terms in the House the majority always used a “chit sheet” to record signed commitments from members before allowing any bill on the floor, so a real debate could never occur except in closed-door caucuses. And Eric wondered, as well, why statewide candidates so rarely represent big ideas anymore—elections might be close and hard-fought, but have never matched Hammond and Hickel trading broadsides, flags waving, battling for different visions of Alaska. “It was competing visions. Dramatically different visions,” Eric said. Neither Republicans nor Democrats do that much anymore. “You no longer had people arguing on either side about where they were going particularly. It was who was the best manager, or more experienced, that kind of stuff.” Croft tried to talk of big issues in his 2006 Democratic primary run against Tony Knowles, but won only 23 percent of the vote. I asked if he had felt free to speak out because of the expectation he wouldn’t win.

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He said, “I wonder about the chicken and egg: You’re not going to win, so you can be visionary; or you’re visionary, so you’re not going to win.” 

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It can’t be coincidental that the arrival of Alaska’s biggest economic boom—the state oil revenue spike of the early 1980s—also marked the end of the post-statehood era of political accomplishment. Historians and political elders I spoke to said that moment seemed to be an ending, after which Alaskans no longer responded to problems as an effective community. Most pointed to the money itself as the toxin that infected the state’s body politic. Many regretted the cancellation of the income tax in those years, which once gave the public a stake in their government. The Permanent Fund Dividend also received blame as, at least, a symbol of Alaskans’ selfishness. As I’ll explore later, the full diagnosis must be more complicated. Money alone doesn’t kill community, nor does its absence assure that a diverse people can unify. But it certainly matters. As economist Scott Goldsmith has documented, the early 1980s combination of high oil prices and high production briefly allowed the state government to indulge in massive excess spending that induced an unsustainable economic boom, rapid in-migration, and a real estate market bubble. When oil prices fell, the state suddenly turned off the money spigot powering the economy—indeed, an enormous additional deposit in the Permanent Fund at the time made fiscal cold turkey more precipitous—and Alaskans experienced their worst depression ever, with all but a few banks failing and many of the new migrants going south again with the money they had earned. Hangover from that governmentcreated economic catastrophe lasted until a government-permitted environmental catastrophe at the end of the decade, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which brought clean-up expenditures that stimulated an economic recovery. Slow, steady growth begun in that recovery continued for twenty years more, to the present. Our two-decade breather in the cycle of rapid change allowed Alaska’s economy and population to mature, becoming more diverse and less transient. State government, after its destructive role in the 1980s, became a largely mechanistic presence in Alaskans’ lives: State services rose and fell with oil prices, Permanent Fund dividends paid out according to

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stock market earnings, and elections came and went based on ephemera, affected as much by the technicalities of voter apportionment plans as by the influence of ideas. The legislature functioned primarily as a system for allocating oil wealth. To mark the dividing line between new and old, no event stands out more dramatically than the House coup of 1981, when a legislature drunk on spending came apart at the seams over how to distribute the wealth. A new majority formed and voted itself in, barring the doors of the House chambers and breaking off keys in the locks of leadership offices to keep out its opponents. But the arrival of political corruption also marked the change: Powerful Democratic Senator George Hohman Jr. went to prison for bribery; Republican Senator Ed Dankworth beat criminal charges of self-dealing thanks to legislative immunity (but returned as a powerful lobbyist); Democratic Governor Bill Sheffield, referred for impeachment by a grand jury for bid rigging, held onto office after Watergate-style hearings in the legislature. The oil industry built overwhelming power and received friendly tax laws and regulation through campaign contributions and image advertising, and with the assistance of the corrupt influence of Bill Allen, CEO of VECO Corporation, who was first caught making illegal campaign contributions in 1984. Allen’s role was never a secret. Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Strohmeyer reported in a widely read 1993 book that Allen controlled the legislature on behalf of the oil industry. In researching Extreme Conditions, Strohmeyer later recalled, “I was shocked to see how primitive was the political culture that reigned in Juneau. The real business of the Legislature was done in the corridors, which were lined with lobbyists. Anyone could see the selling of Alaska firsthand. Not only were private interests instructing their legislative pigeons, but school districts, municipalities and even nonprofits among others seeking favors posted lobbyists to buttonhole the lawmakers greased with campaign money or promises of support. Once sessions were under way, I was astounded to see legislators actually look to the gallery for signals from their lobbyists on how to vote.” For more than twenty years, Alaska’s law enforcement establishment and political parties failed to meaningfully police the corruption, despite periodic exposure of questionable practices in the media or in campaign finance complaints. Voters turned a blind eye as well, despite increasingly flagrant graft, such as VECO’s publicly reported payment of phony

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consulting fees to sitting legislators. Only when the FBI caught Allen on video giving cash for votes did the rotten structure finally topple, taking with it legislators, a governor’s chief of staff, and U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, a towering political figure from statehood to the present. It’s easy to analyze why corruption happened—power and money often combine badly—but it is more difficult and more important to ask why Alaska’s civic immune system failed to reject the contagion. Perhaps corruption represents only the most extreme manifestation of a broader sickness. The crassest analysis would suggest that citizens who pay nothing for government may not care about its health so long as they are satisfied that benefits are distributed fairly. But the evidence suggests VECO’s influence held down oil revenues, which even a selfish, benefit-seeking voter would presumably have opposed. Instead, the inability of Alaskans to solve this problem and many others points to a deeper malady: a loss of a mutual connectedness that had existed during statehood’s earliest days of consensus, and survived during the 1970s’ days of struggle. But now that disconnectedness manifested itself in the inability of communities of interest to form, to express themselves through representative government, and to counteract and accommodate one another to create political meaning. Such community capacities, which Alexis de Tocqueville first identified in America’s citizen democracy of the 1830s, can be called social capital—the deep human faculty to lead, to join, and to make common cause. Within it lies, as well, the emotional tie to a place and its people that yields the ability to care and, indeed, to be a whole person. Alaska’s population became more mature, more permanent, more stable economically, and more diverse and inclusive racially and culturally. We were better connected by communications and more capable technologically and financially. We were related more solidly to the other states, more influential in the federal government, and more integrated into national life. Wherefore did we lose the ability to join hands and work together? 

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I came back from college in 1986 and worked for six years as a newspaper reporter, keeping up my long friendship with Tom Begich, son of the late

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Congressman Nick Begich and older brother of Mark, who eventually became Anchorage mayor and Stevens’s successor in the Senate. Tom had his own political ambitions. A lifetime of campaigns had made him a master of opinion research and strategy, which he practiced working as a consultant for candidates. Recently he reminded me of an incident we shared that I barely remember. I had visited his office as a political reporter to learn how he analyzed voter preferences to target campaign messages. In Tom’s back office workers were coloring taxi maps with felt-tip pens, each residence assigned a color for its party and other characteristics that would allow “narrowcasting” of campaign material to particular interests. What surprised me, however, were the large white spaces on the maps. These, Tom explained, were nonvoters, who would receive no attention at all. That large, ghostly void stood for silent voices and deaf ears in the community’s conversation with government. My shocked reaction got Tom thinking about those white spaces. Ultimately, he realized, coloring them into the political process mattered more than picking out ever finer shades of persuasion for the consistent voters. And from that, by a circuitous route, he ended up not as a politician, but as a community organizer. I also delved deeper, unsatisfied as a political reporter with the routine stories we were writing about campaigns as “races” and our focus on candidates’ superficial messages, which seemed to me unlikely to persuade anyone of intelligence. With the encouragement of Stan Jones, then city editor at the Anchorage Daily News, I began a project of in-depth interviews of large numbers of voters whom I selected with a systematically random process to represent the average characteristics of Alaskans, meeting them by going door-to-door, making cold calls on the phone, and standing outside polling places. I learned that many made their decision as soon as they knew the candidates’ names: It was common for community members to have met personally even those running for statewide office. If they didn’t know which way to vote, they asked friends and neighbors they trusted. Only a fraction seemed likely to be influenced by shallow blandishments from campaigns and media, and those who did tended to be people without much sense of place, who didn’t know their neighbors, or otherwise lacked community involvement relevant to forming shared goals. The aging and decreasing transience of Alaska’s population would seem to support community-based democracy, but those I spoke to in ­preparing this article pointed out changes in the other direction (and

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Alaska remains the second most transient state, after Nevada). Population growth has come primarily in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, urban and suburban areas where community ties tend to be weaker than in rural areas and isolated towns. Law for apportioning voters into districts doesn’t even acknowledge the validity of neighborhood boundaries within Anchorage, so natural groupings are often split. Alaska became more diverse ethnically and Native communities came into their own, but these groups didn’t integrate across racial and geographic boundaries. As John Coghill pointed out, Alaska Natives split along their own new fault lines, between village Natives favoring traditional government and more assimilated Natives aligned with regional corporations. The crosscutting slices get ever smaller: the regional differences, the urban versus rural divide, the rural versus remote divide, and the white rural versus Native divide; and, overlaying the other divisions, the lifestyle and value divides—the cross-country skiers versus the snowmachiners, the wildlife viewers versus the hunters, the social libertarians versus the religious conservatives. Besides, there’s the national trend. Every time a family spends an evening in front of the television or shops at a big-box store a little more social capital dissipates, because they’re doing that instead of visiting with friends or supporting Main Street businesspeople who belong to the Rotary Club and buy advertising in the high school yearbook. Electronic entertainment and national retail chains spread even into Alaska’s small towns in the 1980s and 1990s. Everyone got too busy watching those images and earning money to buy the products they pushed. The anonymity and overwork common in contemporary, digitally connected life can produce a sense of fatigue and passivity that narrows and impoverishes human connections. A growing scientific literature measures the economic and political benefits of pro-social preferences—the natural willingness of people to contribute to the common good and to ostracize free riders—and demonstrates that in many situations communities of altruists optimize outcomes for all compared to people locked in competitive self-interest. A pioneer in this field, Elinor Ostrom of the University of Indiana, is the spouse and research partner of Vincent Ostrom, a consultant to the Alaska Constitutional Convention who facilitated the writing of its resources article. In guiding the work of 1955, Vincent relied in part on

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his faith in authentic self-government. He believes people solve problems best face-to-face, cooperating at the lowest, personal level of mutual trust and responsibility. Elinor Ostrom and many others have used laboratory experiments and field studies to analyze the conditions in which such communities successfully manage common resources. Perhaps counterintuitively, these scientists found that the involvement of central government, even when benign, can wash out natural, pro-social sentiment, and often produces less productive outcomes. (For example, paying people to give blood lowers the total amount donated.) Incentives, whether positive rewards or negative fines, decrease citizens’ contributions to the level of their government’s expectations; in the most successful organizations, emotions of belonging, teamwork, trust, generosity, and gratitude bring out far higher performance than can the threat of sanctions or the promise of awards. We are not selfish automatons, and policies that treat us like we are often don’t work well. But beyond verifying our better nature, the Ostroms’ research also provides a framework to analyze how government squandered Alaska’s social capital. The premier and symbolic example is the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. Many leaders contributed to its creation, but few major programs have ever enacted the values and philosophy of one man as clearly as the fund did for Jay Hammond. His slow-growth conservatism envisioned oil wealth as a threat to Alaskan lifestyles, and his first purpose for the fund was sop up excess revenue to prevent its expenditure on big capital projects or unsustainable state services (an endeavor one can only wish had been even more successful). Hammond’s populism and identification with ordinary Alaskans helped motivate his support for the dividend, which he saw as a way of both returning oil wealth he believed belonged to the people—and again dissipating its power for government—and providing an incentive for citizens to protect the fund from political invasion. In hindsight, events have often justified Hammond’s fear of the negative use of oil money, but that doesn’t mitigate the extreme pessimism of his expectations in believing Alaskans needed a personal financial incentive to protect their pool of common wealth. And, true to the Ostroms’ general predictions, the incentive of the dividend did reduce the Alaskan community to the level of those expectations. It became the be-all-end-all of Alaska politics, as voters handsomely fulfilled their paid-for duty to protect the fund, but

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did little more. By buying political support, the Permanent Fund dividend devalued citizens’ gift of political involvement. More loosely, the same idea can be extended to other outsized benefits we’ve been given by the state and federal government. We received enormous rewards for disengagement and resistance to change. We learned the lesson our government taught us, a negative lesson that our civic contributions don’t matter and our social energies are best directed close to home. It was a central government trap similar to the concentration of power that takes away rights, but more insidious, because it took away capabilities. Alaska’s founders cautioned against this. The Alaska Constitution was designed to keep power in the hands of the present. It enacted the optimistic belief that citizens at any moment in time know what is best for themselves and their communities. The Statehood Act made it clear that Alaska’s petroleum and mineral resources belonged to its people only collectively, never individually—indeed, state lands revert to the federal government if subsurface resources are ever privatized. In 1976, when voters amended the constitution to create the Permanent Fund dividend, a few voices cautioned against the realigned power structure it would represent, including constitutional delegate Katherine Nordale and State Senator John Rader—he warned the fund would separate Alaskans from their responsibilities. By 1986, Walter Hickel declared, “We used to say, ‘Let’s go.’ Now we say, ‘Give me.’ We used to say, ‘North to the Future.’ Now we ask, ‘Do we have a future?’ We’ve been so busy counting our money, we’ve lost our guts.” But in 2004, Alaskans proved they could still rally to leadership. Governor Frank Murkowski once again called a convention of fifty-five Alaskans to Fairbanks, like the original convention, and asked them to debate the future of the fund. The solution the delegates agreed upon, in wideranging and well-publicized debates, would have split its earnings equally between dividends and government services. A poll showed 60 percent of Alaskans were ready for such a plan. But Murkowski gave the proposal weak support and the legislature turned it down, led by some members who would shortly be implicated in the VECO corruption scandal. The burden of change would require a new generation of leaders. 

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“What happened?” Eric Croft asked. “Did the new generation fail, or did the old? I guess it was a little of both. The old generation got stuck in the old fights and couldn’t get out, and the new generation didn’t replace it with anything, or couldn’t, in some cases, get the old out of the way.” Somehow, the old generation stuck fast in 1978, the year President Jimmy Carter set aside fifty-six million acres of Alaska as national monuments on the way to the 1980 victory for conservationists in ANILCA, the 104-million-acre lands act. The old generation never moved beyond the unresolved details of that epochal event, the closing of the Alaskan frontier. During his 2008 Senate campaign Ted Stevens still chewed on an ANILCA-era deal to allow for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a deal he’d made with Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, by then dead for twenty-five years. Older Democrats remained fixated as well: In 2000, Governor Tony Knowles snubbed and publicly denounced Carter during a visit to Alaska for remarks advocating protection of ANWR. For many Alaskans my age, however, the ANWR fight long ago became a tiresome ritual, as each side, environmentalist and developer, demonized opponents and exaggerated arguments and the importance of the issue to the point of absurdity, apparently interested more in defeating adversaries than the true meaning of the land or resources. ANWR became cultural poison. When asked what I thought about drilling, I would say I didn’t care. The generational change started quite literally in 2002, when Frank Murkowski became governor and named his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, to his seat in the U.S. Senate. It continued in 2003 when Mark Begich beat his elders, an incumbent mayor and a former mayor, to become the first Alaska-born mayor of Anchorage. It continued in 2006, when Alaska-grown Sarah Palin beat an incumbent governor and a former governor to become Alaska’s youngest and only female governor. Two years later she also became Alaska’s first national candidate, as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, and cut loose the last two old lions of Alaska politics—Don Young, whose reelection to the U.S. House she opposed, and Ted Stevens, whom she called on to resign from the Senate after a Washington, DC, jury declared him guilty of illegally concealing gifts from Bill Allen. Around that time I visited Chancy Croft’s house in Anchorage for Ethan Berkowitz’s last fund-raiser in his campaign to unseat Young, where many of the congressman’s unsuccessful Democratic

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foes from thirty-six years of biennial elections listened respectfully, hopefully, as Berkowitz paid them tribute, well-aged faces filled with the complex emotions of the passing of the torch. The work of this new era had already begun. Palin’s first two years in office saw accomplishments on oil and gas policy and ethics as large as any in the previous two decades, legislation passed with careful study and public debate and support from members of both parties. A new language had begun to be spoken, as well. Each of the new-generation politicians used words, images, and attitudes to convey they would be more inclusive, more flexible, less liable to call names or draw up sides. Everyone wanted to talk about the future, about alternative energy and long-term solutions to economic and social problems. Representative John Coghill of North Pole likes to call himself little Johnny Coghill from Nenana to remind himself he is his father’s son and that he comes from that base in conservative philosophy and old Alaskan values. But John speaks the new language, too. He said, “ANWR would be a good cash customer, but not one to build your business on.” Instead, he said Alaskans need to focus on their own lands—Native and stateowned—and to do that, they need to rebuild their relationships, between races, within the Native world, between urban and rural and even bridging environmentalists and developers. Coghill said, “We need to step up and show the federal government that we can be as good or better stewards as they are of wilderness lands. And that means we have to step up and put some of our own resources in our parks.” John Coghill and Eric Croft had a lot of the same things to say. Both understood that the challenge of recovering Alaska’s promise would require uniting communities and renewing citizens’ sense of responsibility for the state’s problems and opportunities. The job would take patience—decades—and it would take the courage to speak in visionary terms. Alaskans would need once again to hear and answer the call to sacrifice in common cause with their neighbors and with the many others, however unlike themselves, who share the state. They would need to love Alaska and resolve to protect and improve her. “That’s going to take some leadership,” Coghill said. “That will take somebody who has the vision that the constitutional conventioneers had. The same thing has to happen. How do you build Alaska? How do you

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recognize the richness of your culture, the richness of your resources, the richness of your state? “The challenge won’t come until we learn how to work together, because the challenge doesn’t even become clear until you’re working together.”

chapter 10  Tadd Owens and John Shively

Natural Resources Vital to Our Past; A Question for Our Future

Introduction For Alaska, natural resources and the statehood experience have been inextricably bound. Over the course of the last fifty years, Alaska’s economy and politics have been dominated by natural resource issues—a dynamic unlikely to change during the next fifty years. What may change, however, are the types of resources at the center of future debates, the makeup of the coalitions that form to promote and oppose resource development, and the complexity and nuance of the issues. These issues will be affected as global market forces, conservation concerns, policy directives, and judicial decisions play a growing role in shaping the opportunities and challenges related to developing the state’s resources. To comprehend Alaska’s resource wealth, one must understand the state’s size. Alaska is one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States, with more coastline and, therefore, more coastal waters than the rest of the country combined. Thus, it is not surprising that Alaska is blessed with world-class oil, gas, coal, mineral, fisheries, and wildlife resources. In addition, large river systems and huge lakes add to the natural wonders of its multiple mountain ranges, vast expanses of tundra, and striking glaciers. Nevertheless, development of these resources, either for extraction or tourism, is far from a foregone conclusion. From an economic and 191

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­ perational standpoint, Alaska is challenged by its harsh natural condio tions, distance from markets, complicated land ownership, and relative lack of infrastructure. From a social and political perspective, the prospective community and economic benefits of resource development must be weighed against other competing interests, such as subsistence and a view by some—many of whom do not live in the state—that Alaska should remain what they consider to be “pristine.” These same folks may neither understand nor fully appreciate that indigenous peoples have used and developed much of Alaska and its various natural resources for thousands of years, or that much of Alaska is already protected by stringent state and federal laws for conservation purposes. When it comes to natural resource management decisions in Alaska, the stakes are high. Emotion, rightly or wrongly, can play a decisive role in how these decisions are made. Over the past fifty years, many momentous battles have been fought over the development of Alaska’s resources. Their collective outcomes have created a state radically different than when it was a territory, creating enormous economic opportunities and providing livelihoods for Alaskans and the rest of the United States. They have not, however, necessarily assured the next fifty years will be another half century of growth and prosperity.

Pre-Statehood The story of natural resources and Alaska begins long before statehood. Alaska’s first peoples sustained themselves and their communities on subsistence and sharing. Alaska’s abundance of fish and wildlife, coupled with the ingenuity and perseverance of its indigenous peoples, allowed Native cultures to develop in even the most severe natural environments. Western land ownership rules and the cash economy—among many other factors—have put tremendous pressure on subsistence-based cultures and economies. These issues relating to Native culture and subsistence remain critical factors in today’s debates over resource policy. From the middle of the eighteenth century until the sale of Russia’s interests in Alaska to the United States in 1867, Russian explorers and commercial interests dominated the trade in sea otter, fox, and fur seal pelts. The fur trade was a lucrative international business and it brought

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the Russians in direct contact, and often conflict, with Alaska Natives and their way of life. The importance of sustainability, inherent to a subsistence culture, was not a concern shared by the Russian commercial interests and, as a result, overharvesting and resource exploitation occurred on a grand scale. Shortly following the United States’ purchase of Alaska, gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1897. This set off a rush of exploration that lasted into the early portion of the twentieth century. From Juneau to Nome, prospectors and other businessmen chased the dream of striking it rich in the mining business. Juneau, Nome, and Fairbanks, three of Alaska’s major communities, owe much of their histories to the discovery of gold. Commercial fishing interests—largely based out of Seattle—dominated the harvest of Alaska fisheries resources during the early twentieth century. The use of the despised fish traps, which threatened the long-term viability of many of the state’s richest fisheries, angered many Alaskans and played an important role in the discussion of fisheries management during the state’s constitutional convention.

Best trap maker in the village, Kalskag, Alaska, 1940, stands with his family and one of his traps. Alaska State Library, Evelyn Butler and George Dale. Photographs, 1934–1982, George Allan Dale, ASL-P306-0407.

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These historic experiences ensured that Alaskans, once given control of their own lands and resources, would place a premium on sustainability, environmental protection, and public value. It also ensured that Alaskans would want to seize control of their own destiny, free of outside interests.

Statehood Debate and Constitutional Convention After World War II and continuing through the 1950s, the U.S. Congress debated the possibility of adding Alaska to the Union. Perhaps the dominant question throughout the statehood debate was whether the new state would ever be financially self-sufficient, with such a vast land yet a tiny population. For this reason Congress contemplated an unprecedented land grant—on the order of one hundred million acres—to provide revenue to run a state. Responsible development of the resources on state land was considered critical to the new state’s viability. In 1955, Alaskans determined to hold a Constitutional Convention in the hopes of jump-starting the debates in Washington, DC, regarding

Alaska’s vast wilderness includes timber, minerals, fish, and other resources.

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statehood. Natural resource policy played a central role in the convention’s proceedings the next year. Alaska’s territorial delegate to Congress, E. L. “Bob” Bartlett, made natural resource policy the central theme of his address to the convention. Bartlett warned the delegates to be attentive to two different forms of resource exploitation: The first, and most obvious, danger is that of exploitation under the thin disguise of development. The taking of Alaska’s mineral resources without leaving some reasonable return for the support of Alaska governmental services and the use of all the people of Alaska will mean a betrayal in the administration of the people’s wealth. The second danger is that outside interests, determined to stifle any development in Alaska which might compete with their activities elsewhere, will attempt to acquire great areas of Alaska’s public lands in order not to develop them until such time as, in their omnipotence and the pursuance of their own interests, they see fit. If large areas of Alaska’s patrimony are turned over to such corporations the people of Alaska may be even more the losers than if the lands had been exploited.

What Bartlett did not foresee, however, was the possibility that the conservation movement would organize to prevent many of Alaska’s bountiful resources from being developed at all. One of the outcomes of the Constitutional Convention was that Alaska is the only state to dedicate an article in its constitution solely to natural resources. Article VIII of the Alaska Constitution begins with a statement of policy that reads, “It is the policy of the State to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.” Among other ramifications of this provision, the courts have ruled that the development of any state-owned resource be in the best interests of the state, resulting in a state-permitting review process similar to the environmental impact statement process used by the federal government. Alaska’s constitutional framers were keenly aware of the exploitation that had taken place in the past as well as the potential for abuse going forward. They also recognized that without development, Alaska would not be able to create the economic base it would need to support basic government services at the state level. The Constitution articulates a clear

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Logging in the vicinity of Pigot Bay, Prince William Sound, 1945. Logger is using a Caterpillar bulldozer with an attached lifting arm to move logs into place to form a log raft. Russell W. Dow (1915–1992). Papers. 1917–1992. UAA-HMC-0396, Archives and Special Collections Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.

bias toward development of Alaska’s resources, but balanced by a firm commitment to the public interest and to sustained yield. The courts, however, have sometimes taken a more restrictive view of this mandate. The 1957 discovery of the Swanson River oil field in Cook Inlet provided a spark to the statehood movement and indicated to many in Washington that Alaska did indeed have the means to be a self-sufficient state. In 1959, after more than a decade of debate, Alaska became the forty-ninth state in the Union.

The First Fifty Years During the last half century Alaska’s abundance of natural resources has led to the development of world-class industries and the enactment of unparalleled conservation measures. Alaska’s land ownership, resource management systems, and the very structure of its economy have been revolutionized since statehood. So, what does the modern Alaskan economy look like?

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View of 23rd oil and gas lease sale for Alaska inside Sydney Laurence Auditorium in Anchorage with map of North Slope area on sign. Alaska Governor Keith Miller holds microphone, while Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Kelly stands at far right. Sept. 10, 1969. Ward W. Wells Collection, AMRC-wws-4794-6, Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.

No single event did more to shape the first fifty years of Alaska statehood than the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope. Oil transformed the Alaska economy virtually overnight. Lease bids, taxes, and royalties would grow the state treasury exponentially. In 1968 the state’s budget was roughly $100 million to serve a population of approximately 300,000 people. In 1969, the state lease sale at Prudhoe Bay generated nearly $900 million in bonus bids! Oil and gas from Cook Inlet and the North Slope currently account for more than 15 percent of the nation’s total production in 2009. Only Texas produces more oil on a daily basis than Alaska. Since first production from the Swanson River field in 1961 Alaska has produced more than sixteen billion barrels of oil. Tax and royalty revenue from this production underwrites an average of 85 percent of state

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“Welcome.” Anchorage Natural Gas Corporation in the 1960s. Christine M. McClain (1915–1989) Papers, 1907– 1992. UAA-hmc-0370, Archives and Special Collections Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.

s­ pending on an annual basis. In 2008 the oil and gas industry generated more than forty thousand direct, indirect, and induced jobs—nearly 10 percent of all employment in Alaska. Petroleum accounts for roughly onethird of Alaska’s gross state product. Alaska’s mining industry includes hard-rock mining (both small placer operations and large open pit and underground lode mines), coal, and sand and gravel production. Alaska produces gold, silver, zinc, lead, and coal for export. For more than a decade, the total value of Alaska’s mining industry—exploration, development, and production activities—has exceeded $1 billion. In 2006 Alaska ranked sixth in the nation in terms of the value of the state’s mineral production. The Red Dog zinc mine in northwest Alaska is the world’s largest zinc producer. Other major mines, such as Fort Knox and Pogo in the Interior and Greens Creek in Southeast Alaska are major regional employers and taxpayers. Alaska’s vast fisheries resources have spawned a diverse and vibrant statewide industry. The value of fish landed in Alaska has exceeded $1 billion for much of the past decade. Alaska’s pollock fishery is the

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world’s largest groundfish fishery. Alaska also boasts the largest run of wild salmon in the world at Bristol Bay. The fisheries industry is the major employer and taxpayer in many of the state’s coastal communities. Approximately half of the nation’s commercial fish harvest takes place in Alaska. Additionally, fish make up a significant portion of Alaskans’ subsistence diets. Of Alaska’s resource industries, the timber industry has arguably had the most turbulent experience since statehood. Once an industrial powerhouse in Southeast Alaska, with two major pulp mills operating and hundreds of millions of board feet harvested annually, the industry has contracted significantly since the mid-1990s. While Alaska is home to the nation’s two largest national forests—the Tongass and the Chugach, totaling twenty-two million acres—federal land withdrawals, increasingly restrictive environmental requirements, and a constant barrage of litigation have reduced the state’s timber harvest tenfold from its peak. By 2006 direct employment in the timber industry had fallen to fewer than two thousand jobs, and the total value of timber exports was a mere $111 million. Tourism has been an economic success story. While different from the extraction industries, tourism nevertheless depends on Alaska’s natural resources—the mountains, rivers, lakes, glaciers, fish, and wildlife, and the innumerable recreational opportunities these attractions provide. During the summer of 2006 more than 1.6 million visitors came to Alaska. The industry is a major employer, accounting for more than forty thousand full-time equivalent positions annually, and is a significant contributor of local and state tax revenue. The industries described above would not exist without several key land and resource management decisions made by state and federal policymakers in the fifty years since statehood. Settling aboriginal land claims, working through the state’s land selections, creating an unprecedented system of state and federal conservation system units, and enacting groundbreaking resource management policies dictated the direction of the state’s economic growth. In 1971 Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). Through ANCSA, Alaska Natives retained forty-four million acres of land. The act resolved the issue of Native land claims by granting fee simple title to the forty-four million acres of land and nearly $1 billion

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to capitalize Native-owned regional and village economic development corporations. Not only do these corporations now play a significant role in the state’s economy, but many investors feel that Native land managers are more amenable to development than those who manage lands owned by either the federal or state governments. In hindsight, the initial opposition to ANCSA from many in the business development community was clearly misplaced. However, the rare—and prescient—business leaders, most notably banker Elmer Rasmuson, had the vision to see that private ownership better served the state’s future. Congress enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1981. ANILCA added millions of acres to the national parks, fish and wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. Today Alaska holds 70 percent of the country’s national park lands and 85 percent of its wildlife refuge lands. Additionally, Alaska has 56 percent of America’s federally designated “Wilderness” acreage. ANILCA foreclosed on many potential resource development opportunities as highly prospective oil and gas and mineral deposits lay under park and refuge land. The ANILCA lands have, on the other hand, provided a critical foundation from which Alaska’s tourism industry has been built. Additionally, ANILCA has ostensibly protected habitat important to the state’s fishing industry and the subsistence lifestyle of Native Alaskans. It is important to keep in mind that Alaska was a truly poor state when it entered the Union fifty years ago. State budgets were small and often balanced with revenues from small oil and gas lease sales. The political leadership from both parties recognized the need to build a stronger economy and that such development depended on both control over existing resource development, such as fisheries, and development of yet untapped natural resources. Throughout the first fifty years of statehood, Alaska’s major resource development projects shared a number of characteristics. First, they involve world-class resources. To overcome the many economic challenges posed by doing business in Alaska—distance from markets, challenging operational environments, relative lack of infrastructure—developers need a resource of significant size. Four of the ten

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largest oilfields in North America are located on the North Slope. The Red Dog zinc mine is the world’s largest producer of zinc. Dutch Harbor– Unalaska and Kodiak have been two of America’s largest fishing ports in terms of volume and value for much of the past three decades. Nowhere in the world are more wild salmon harvested than in Alaska. Second, most of Alaska’s major success stories in resource development have enjoyed endorsements from a broad array of stakeholders, which, in turn, have helped provide the political support needed for many of these projects to move forward. The federal and state governments own nearly 90 percent of Alaska’s surface and subsurface estate, and, therefore, these entities play a major role in nearly all resource development opportunities. To successfully develop projects in Alaska development advocates must be able to influence policymakers and the political and government bureaucracy. The business community, organized labor, local communities, and Alaska Native corporations have consistently worked together during the past fifty years to make sure needed economic development could take place. More often than not, these diverse entities have advanced what has been in their mutual best interest—jobs, taxes to local communities, and business opportunities for Alaskan companies—and this unique coalition has consistently produced positive political results. To make the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System possible, Congress passed the Alaska Pipeline Act only after Vice President Spiro Agnew cast a tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate. Congressional action was also required to allow the development of the Red Dog mine by voting to allow a transportation corridor through the Cape Krusenstern National Monument. Congress has also dealt some blows to resource development in Alaska. ANILCA eliminated the possibility of exploring for minerals over much of Alaska’s most geologically promising lands. The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge remains off-limits to oil and gas exploration because of a veto by President Clinton in 1994 and more recently the inability of supporters to avoid a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. The Tongass Management Act, combined with endless litigation, has effectively eliminated large-scale forestry activities in the nation’s largest national forest (seventeen million acres). Litigation has also stalled timber development in other parts of the state. Many Alaskan conservationists find

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it ironic that one of the state’s two major renewable resources now plays an almost insignificant role in the state’s economy. However, it is important to recognize that some of the resource development projects mentioned above had the support of at least a few conservation groups, and the land protection measures listed above were driven by the conservation community.

Today—a Crossroads Today many of the state’s great opportunities in resource development are stalled. This is due to a variety of reasons. Economic challenges, environmental concerns, legal objections, the inefficiency of the judicial system, conflicts with competing interests, and Outside political interference are some of the stumbling blocks facing Alaska’s next wave of world-class resource development opportunities. Commercialization of the North Slope’s natural gas resources, expansion of the state’s mining industry, including prospective development of the state’s massive coal resources, and access to the federal outer continental shelf (OCS) for oil and gas exploration each have the potential to create jobs for Alaskans, business opportunities for Alaska firms, and tax revenue to local and state government. In addition they would provide the United States with energy and other resources important to the nation’s well-being. Whether these projects are able to go forward may well determine the health of Alaska’s economy over the next fifty years. A prime example of this situation is the thirty-six trillion feet of natural gas that has been discovered on Alaska’s North Slope. Since the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the subsequent construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, Alaskans’ bid to commercialize this North Slope resource has been met with a frustrating lack of success. Industry, the state, and many interested local communities and individuals have tried in vain to jump start the project. They have explored different technologies (LNG, GTL, petrochemicals, and the more traditional large-diameter pipeline) and different routes (across the Arctic and Canada, to Valdez, across Alaska to Alberta and Chicago, and to southcentral Alaska), all to no avail. The economics have proved elusive and competitive alternatives have filled the energy gap as North American shale gas and imported LNG may be poised to do now.

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Projects with defined resources such as the Kensington gold prospect, the Donlin gold prospect, and the Pebble copper, gold, and molybdenum prospect all face opposition of one sort or another, with the last two also burdened with huge challenges relating to infrastructure development. Alaska’s vast outer continental shelf likely contains commercial quantities of oil and gas, but exploring for and developing this potential faces both local and national opposition.

The Next Fifty Years So what will the next fifty years look like? Alaska remains a storehouse of world-class resources. Onshore and offshore oil and gas; coal, gold, copper, and other minerals; and lands set aside primarily for conservation purposes all have the potential to keep Alaska’s economy vibrant. The economic and political sophistication of Alaska Native corporations combined with their desire to provide a better life for Alaska Natives can also be a powerful contributor to the economic future. Alaska has great potential to become a national, even international, leader in the development of renewable resources. Across the state there is potential to develop wind, hydro, geothermal, and tidal power. The state recently leased rights to develop the geothermal resource located near Mount Spur on the west side of Cook Inlet, approximately 125 miles southwest of Anchorage. State and federal policymakers have also begun to reassess the possibility of developing a major hydro project on the Susitna River to provide electric power to the Railbelt. Many of these resources will face the same challenges that confront traditional resource development projects in the state. They will be capital intensive and will require significant infrastructure development. Many prospective renewable energy projects will also require technological advances or breakthroughs to be deemed sufficiently economically attractive to develop. Issues related to global climate change will undoubtedly affect future development in Alaska, but the effects are likely to be unpredictable. Already the federal government has listed the polar bear as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, based on computer models that project significant damage to the bears’ habitat over the next fifty years due to expected increases in greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

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The Environmental Protection Agency recently determined that CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) pose a public health risk, opening the door for the agency to regulate GHGs through the Clean Air Act. President Barack Obama and many in the U.S. Congress have expressed a desire to pass comprehensive climate change legislation—likely a capand-trade system—in the next year. Such legislation will create winners and losers among industries and the impacts to Alaska are difficult to foresee clearly. If the United States is looking toward a future based primarily on renewable energy sources, it might consider placing a premium on natural gas over other fossil fuels. Doing so could have a positive impact on the economics of commercializing North Slope gas. Many in the conservation community support natural gas as the most environmentally friendly means of transitioning to a green energy future. However, such a system would simultaneously disadvantage prospective coal developments near the Beluga River and in the western Arctic—projects with great potential for jobs, infrastructure development, and local and state tax revenue. Depending on how Congress deals with carbon capture and sequestration, and pending significant technological advances, Alaska has the potential to play a role in carbon storage, as well. There is, of course, no guarantee the old coalitions can be re-created, or that we can re-create some of the important political successes of our first five decades. Short-term political decisions combined with parochialism may scare away investors. Conflict between resource users seems likely to grow as the state’s population increases and as different industries compete over land and water use.

Conclusion What many opponents of resource development in Alaska fail to recognize, either out of ignorance or intent, is the vastness of our state and the unprecedented commitment the state has already made to conservation. Thus, it is easy for those people to promote the concept that any development means the end of the last great wilderness on earth. Too many have come to see the conflict between development and conservation in Alaska as a zero-sum game.

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In addition, Alaskans have become used to the wealth created by North Slope oil and seem less prone to take on any risks development might bring. This state of mind is in sharp contrast to the spirit the early leaders of this state showed in making Alaska as prosperous as it is today. Can that spirit be recaptured? Can future prosperity be spread to many of the Alaska Natives who still live in poverty? Will Alaska continue to be an important source of the resources for the nation and the world? Will Alaska Native corporations continue to be a driving force in the state’s economy? Only time will tell. We will need to rekindle that risk-taking spirit of our founding mothers and fathers if Alaska is to live up to its incredible potential and pass along that prosperity to generations in the next fifty years, and beyond.

Environment, People, and Place

chapter 11  George J. Cannelos

The Future of Alaska’s Villages

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ne of the joys of leading the Denali Commission, an independent

federal agency charged with providing basic community infrastructure to Alaska’s remote villages, is the privilege of learning from people across rural Alaska. In July 2008, for example, I joined regional leaders visiting Athabascan villages along the Koyukuk River, including our final stop at Galena along the Yukon River. The high point of this journey was my conversation with ninety-fouryear old elder Sidney Huntington in Galena. Sidney lived a life of wilderness fur trading in the Alaska Interior that has utterly vanished. He remains an outspoken advocate of education and a champion for young people. I asked him what the villages will be like in fifty years. He smiled and told me emphatically that if people continued to depend on “government handouts” and “forget how to live,” then villages are doomed. However, he said, if people do remember “how to live genuinely and care for one another,” the future is very bright indeed. I’ll echo Sidney’s theme in this chapter—that if we have the political will, the wisdom of Alaska Native elders, and a bit of game-changing luck, Alaska’s villages will do fine. Even more, in fifty years, our villages will be even more unique on planet earth, where most everyone else is rushing headlong to embrace urbanization. Small-town values, where doors stay unlocked and everyone knows your name, have great appeal in our larger world that is becoming ever more homogeneous. I also believe profoundly 209

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Fishing for bullheads off south beach in Point Hope, 1950s. Mary Cox Photographs, 1953–1958, UAF-2001-129-343, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

in the strength of diversity and the need to solve the challenges of the day by seeing issues through different prisms. I write this article with some trepidation and lots of humility. Trepidation because I hold the people who live in Alaska’s constellation of villages with great respect and because the future of rural Alaska is uncertain. Humility because although I’ve lived in Juneau, Anchorage, and Bethel during my thirty-four years in Alaska, I didn’t grow up in a village, nor have I spent considerable time living in one. I arrived in Juneau in 1975, recruited as a regional planner fresh from graduate school in the east to join the new Department of Community and Regional Affairs. Those were heady times for Alaska. Oil had just started flowing in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, dollars were just being deposited in the Permanent Fund, and under Governor Jay Hammond, we believed we could have genuine environmental stewardship and economic development simultaneously. We advocated passionately on behalf of Alaska’s rural communities and villages, and had a significant seat at the table of public policy. My first business meeting fired my passion for rural Alaska. I landed by floatplane in front of Tenakee Springs for a meeting with Mayor Rod

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The Alaska Native Brotherhood hall in Sitka in 1975. Bureau of Land Management Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (BLM ANCSA) hearings were held here on April 11, 1975. University of Alaska Anchorage Archives and Manuscripts Department, Neil Risser Bassett Papers, UAA-HMC-0377.

Pegues. Instead of walking to nearby city hall, Rod directed me into the community bathhouse, where we immersed ourselves in the soothing hot waters and wrestled with resource issues of fishing versus timber. Within weeks, I met with tribal leaders of Kootznoowoo in Angoon, hearing for the first time the swish of the raven’s wings beating over my head, and watching with awe as whales swam placidly by the village. Later I worked with creative rural leaders like Harold Napoleon, Myron Naneng, Gene Peltola, Harold Sparks, Lyman Hoffman, Joan Hamilton, and others from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. I moved to Bethel with my two sons, then aged five and seven, fell in love with the tundra, and experienced fish-camp life near Chevak. I came to understand that rural Alaska is an American treasure. Scattered across vast tundra, tucked away along rugged coastlines, deep within dark forests, and around the next bend of the river in the vast Alaska Interior are people living in more than three hundred remote towns and villages. Alaska Native peoples and transplants to the Great Land alike raise families, educate their children, sometimes travel to find work in the

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cash economy and still rely on subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering as the defining core of culture and way of life. Values of sharing, love of family, patriotism, humor, and resilience run deep. Rural Alaska still resembles the United States at the time of Lewis and Clark. Most villages lie far from any road system or distributed power grid. Major rivers are unbridged, undammed, and lack even basic navigational aids. Common sense, courage, innovation, attention to detail, and a respect for nature are required both to survive and thrive. Reliance on air and river transportation is essential for everyday living. History teaches me that so many first cultures have been overrun and destroyed by the majority culture, and whether intentional or circumstantial, the result is the same. In Alaska’s villages, I saw a real desire to blend the best of both worlds to create something even better. Inexcusably, however, many health and social indicators still resemble those in developing countries. Suicide rates are still among the highest anywhere. Where else in the country are women in their third trimester of pregnancy required to fly into a regional center and wait to have their babies safely delivered, given the lack of local medical facilities? So let’s first briefly look back at the past fifty years, examine the present day, and then I’ll offer a strategy for the next fifty years.

The Past Fifty Years When Alaska became a state in 1959, most rural communities lacked basic community infrastructure, including running water. Most homes relied on CB radio for communications. Examples abound of Lower Forty-Eight firms designing and building housing, schools, and public facilities woefully inadequate for Arctic conditions. Alaskan architectural and engineering firms often lost out to the lowest zip code (Alaska’s zips all start with 99) in procurement competitions. And while Alaska’s state constitution, hailed as one of the most progressive in the country, focused correctly on local self-governance, it did so through a Lower Forty-Eight prism of incorporated municipalities and regional governments. Senator Vic Fischer acknowledges that missing completely was recognition of traditional tribal governments, which are often more suited to consensus governance found in most village life.

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Daniel Horace is seen here in his fur parka and mittens with rifle at the ready. 1981. Roger Kaye Photograph Collection, UAF-2007-24-15, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

During the 1970s, state government accepted as normal practice that mail to a city office in the bush could go unanswered for weeks, even months. The Internet and e-mail were pure science fiction; villages sometimes had only one telephone. Mostly, however, we knew that the one-person city offices were busy doing subsistence hunting or fishing and they would get around to opening the mail when they returned to the office. Leaders like Byron Mallot and Willie Hensley urged local communities to take charge of their future—to not blithely accept grants of public facilities and social programs being offered by well-meaning but sometimes heavy-handed top-down government agencies. Several events coalesced to gradually begin bringing villages into the modern age, including: • discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay, the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and the unprecedented flow of revenues to support government services;

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• passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) and the rise of regional and local village corporations; • Governor Jay Hammond championing the concept of a Permanent Fund Dividend, with a current principal balance of around $30 billion; • the ascendancy of regional health and social nonprofit organizations, which have taken charge of health delivery, promoted sobriety, and other values of traditional living; and • the election and staying power of Senator Ted Stevens, whose power in Congress brought billions of dollars of investment into every corner of Alaska. In 1998, Senator Stevens, at the urging of several Alaska Native leaders, convinced Congress to create the Denali Commission to focus attention on the need for government coordination, to listen respectfully to local concerns, and to partner to bring basic community infrastructure to Alaska’s villages. The Denali Commission has exceeded all expectations as a model for government. The seven commissioners, all public policy leaders, have strategically invested $1 billion of federal funds into essential community-level facilities for energy, health care, job training, and rural transportation. Using program partners, the small commission staff oversees planning, design, and construction of hundreds of facilities. A rigorous business planning process gives assurance of long-term sustainability of each facility. Why the focus on infrastructure? I learned years ago from Mort Hoppenfeld, chief designer for the new city of Columbia, Maryland, and executive director of the New Capital Site Planning Commission for Alaska, that bricks and mortar do not define the spirit or the well-being of a community. We know it takes the love, caring, and commitment of community members to bring about long-term viability (or as the Denali Commission calls it, sustainability of a community). Yet infrastructure plays an essential and undervalued role. Infrastructure investment, when done right, brings jobs, cash, and opportunity to everyone involved. Without the basic elements of shelter, provision of energy, education, transportation and communication connections, ­essential utilities, and more, humanity has little chance to soar. And when

Aerial view of hospital at Kanakanak, Alaska, in the 1950s. Delivering basic infrastructure to remote Alaska villages spread across an area two and a half times the size of Texas is key to their survival. Robert Fortuine. Papers, 1957–1999, UAA-hmc-0455-6401bB17, Archives and Special Collections Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.

View of government hospital at Kanakanak, Alaska, in January 1964. Robert Fortuine. Papers, 1957–1999, UAAhmc-0455-6402bB13, Archives and Special Collections Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.

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we go beyond the basics to embrace cultural relevance, innovative technology, and green design, infrastructure has the ability to inspire.

It’s 2009—Do You Know Where Your Village Is? Most villages had never been permanent institutions until the missionary, merchant, or government agent discovered an indigenous population, usually at their summer fish camp, and plunked down a church, store, or school, essentially forcing nomadic people to stay put. Unfortunately, summer camps are not ideal locations for permanent communities, as they are often located on the outer curve of a meandering river. Several alarming trends lead many to conclude the prospects for Alaska’s villages are dimming. The lack of economic opportunity in most remote communities forces long-term residents to commute and/ or consider moving to more urban settings. The cost of living, combined with back-to-back poor fishing harvests have made life unaffordable in many villages. Substance abuse in the Alaska bush remains among the worst in the nation. Climate change affects village life from subsistence to building foundations. I visited the beautiful, but mostly empty, community of Rampart on the Yukon River in 2007. My most poignant moment came when I discovered the impressive metal-and-wood Rampart School, boarded and shuttered when the student population fell below ten kids. Fireweed, brambles, and a birch forest had reclaimed the playground. More than twenty schools have closed in the past ten years, which often leads to a downward spiral in the community’s ability to sustain itself. Yet I see many reasons to be optimistic! Several innovative organizations are effectively mentoring young leaders, laying a critical foundation for tomorrow’s villages, for example. The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program graduates rural Native professionals. First Alaskans Institute trains rural interns. The Institute of the North brings together emerging leaders to interact with experienced professionals. The Alaska Works Partnership trains rural residents in real-life job and career skills with incredible results. Alaska Natives have taken charge of providing health care, an excellent harbinger for the future. The Southcentral Foundation has transformed health delivery into a customer-owner model achieving

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The Anguyak Alutiiq Dancers perform during the 50th Anniversary of Statehood Day, January 3, 2009, at the Denaina Convention Center downtown. Erik Hill, Anchorage Daily News.

impressive outcomes. Southcentral’s CEO, Katherine Gottlieb, is from rural Alaska and the recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. The Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium successfully battled the American Dental Association to establish a dental therapist program, critical for combating the worst dental conditions in the nation. The Denali Commission and its partners have built more than one hundred primary care clinics and trained community health aides, greatly improving access to health care. We’re leading the way in renewable energy solutions in rural Alaska, too. Our partner, the Alaska Village Electrical Cooperative (AVEC), has received national and international recognition for pioneering remote wind-diesel solutions. And Alaska’s architectural-engineering community has come of age, providing Arctic-appropriate technology to the built environment. The private-sector Cold Climate Housing Research Center tests and builds energy-efficient and cost-effective homes and buildings in several villages. ANCSA corporations are major economic drivers.

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Significantly, many organizations support a fundamental cultural resurgence. NANA Regional Corporation partnered with Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program to create a computer curriculum for the Iñupiaq language and several regions offer spirit camps for traditional healing and wellness. By 2009, virtually every city and tribal office was connected to everywhere else via the Internet. E-mailing, text messaging, and so on are the norm. Northwest Arctic Borough Mayor Siikauraq Martha Whiting established a broadband task force to move the region beyond the already successful paradigm of mining jobs at the world’s largest lead-zinc mine.

The Next Fifty Years Predicting the future is perilous. National Public Radio once aired a great story on a time capsule unearthed in 2000 in Detroit. City fathers in 1900 applied their best prognostications for the future. Some forecasted prosperity due to commerce on the Great Lakes, others thought textiles would lead the way. None of the forecasts predicted that, within five years, the automobile would revolutionize transportation and forever transform Detroit and the world. Alaska’s history is also marked by surprises. In the last century alone we have the colorful gold rushes, the Great Depression, the World War II invasion of Alaska and military buildup, the Cold War, statehood, the Good Friday earthquake, the discovery of oil and the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, ANCSA, the coming of the Internet, climate change, and the current global financial crisis. Will all current villages be viable in fifty years? Absolutely not. Villages across Alaska have thrived and vanished like ephemeral tundra ponds since the original settlers crossed the Bering land bridge and spread out over the post-Pleistocene landscape. Captains James Cook and George Vancouver recorded many deserted villages. Yup’ik villages like Kotlik on the lower Yukon formed from four smaller settlements. Many small communities may disappear, while others will benefit from consolidation; and regional centers will likely grow in importance. I firmly believe Alaska in 2059 will still be comprised of major urban centers and dozens of small remote villages. If we do this right, these special places will be crucibles of creativity and innovation and still

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r­ epresent small-town, traditional values that reinforce raising families, living a subsistence way of life combined with the latest in connectivity, and competitiveness in the global economy. To achieve this vision, however, we need to come together and: 1. Adopt sweeping policies to eliminate third-world disparities. State and federal government must come together and affirm that rural Alaska has value, recognize tribal governments as the primary governing body in many locations, declare that third-world disparities are unacceptable anywhere in the United States, and make sure that Alaska leads in sustainable twenty-first-century living. 2. Commit to a long-term program of sustainable infrastructure. I support Tlingit leader Byron Mallot’s call for a more balanced approach to Alaska’s development over the next fifty years—a Marshall Plan for ensuring that public investment is focused appropriately in both urban and rural areas. Organizations like the Denali Commission should play a central role in policy and strategy development, sustainable infrastructure programs, and essential government coordination. Alaska’s private sector, especially the ANSCA corporations, must be part of this effort. 3. Mentor even more emerging leaders. Even one effective community champion will make the difference in rural communities, whether they are high-performing or failing. We need even more emphasis on mentoring emerging leaders and celebrating village success stories. These efforts will pay tremendous benefits for Alaskan society as the years pass. 4. Be ready for the next surprise. Award-winning journalist and author Thomas L. Friedman writes about “game changers,” events or technical breakthroughs that fundamentally alter our ability to leap ahead. A tremendous game changer would be the ability to provide inexpensive, reliable energy to isolated communities. We must be open and ready to seize the unexpected game changer. 5. Lead! Alaska should lead on so many levels. In this context, the vision of villagers as both stewards of their environment and masters

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of their destinies is compelling. We should be leading the world in community planning, facility design and construction, energy provision, long-distance education, and how remote populations deal with the challenges of darkness, isolation, and cold. In the end, it’s all about respect. As Sidney Huntington told me, if we remember to care for one another as equals, the future is bright indeed. I’d like to think that in fifty years another young planner will arrive in Juneau, soak in the bath in Tenakee for his first meeting, hear the swish of the raven’s wing in Angoon, and encounter a constellation of villages that are the envy of the world. It’s up to us.

chapter 12  Susan A. Anderson

A Journey to What Matters

The Trail Head Aan yátx’u sáani Gunalchéesh áyá x’axwdataaní Noble people of this land Thank you for allowing me to speak

M

y name is Susan Anderson, I am Tlingit of the Eagle/Wolf clan, and

out of respect to my ancestors and family I share with you that my paternal grandmother and father, Charlotte Blake Anderson and Henry E. Anderson Jr., were from Wrangell, in Southeast Alaska. My paternal grandfather, Henry Anderson Sr., was from Norway. My mother, Nancy Parker Anderson, was from Battle Ground, Washington. As I was growing up I knew that I was Alaska Native, but that understanding—and any attempt to connect me to Tlingit culture and traditions—came mostly from my German-Irish mother, and not my Tlingit father. I am now attempting (sporadically) to learn how to speak my Tlingit language. My father wasn’t allowed to speak his Tlingit language growing up in children’s homes—he mentioned more than once having his mouth washed out with soap as a very small child for doing so. Being very young when he first entered a children’s home—and contact with

Adapted from a speech presented to the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Honoring Nations Program, Harvard University, September 2007. 221

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family being greatly reduced—he lost the ability to speak Tlingit; and losing the ability to speak it, he of course lost the ability and opportunity to pass the language on to another generation—to me and my sister. My father’s disconnect from Tlingit culture has its roots in a difficult childhood: the early death of his Tlingit mother, the alcoholism of his Norwegian father, the numerous children’s homes he lived in, and the tearing apart of his family by various agents claiming to be acting in their best interests. An uncle—my father’s half-brother—lived in another children’s home in another part of the state, and was later shuffled between family friends and distant relatives in Juneau and Wrangell. An auntie was sent to a residential hospital one thousand miles away in Seattle for a number of years. My father and another auntie went to a children’s home in southcentral Alaska—eight hundred miles away from their home in Southeast—and were subsequently adopted by a well-meaning family who, following the paternalistic wisdom of the day, attempted to Westernize these children in all ways possible with no regard for their Native heritage or family ties.

Evolution of Education for Alaska Natives The early education system in Alaska mirrored this paternal approach as well. During territorial days, and well into statehood, Alaska Native children were regularly sent away from their villages and towns to live in boarding schools thousands of miles away from home, either in the Lower Forty-Eight or some distant, unfamiliar part of Alaska. They were not considered in the developing Alaska education system that was being built by, and for, the growing community of transplants in the territory. The belief that most Native children would not move beyond eighth grade was widely held by administrators of educational institutions and systems. As one of the commissioners of the territory’s board of education noted in 1917—when the predecessor to the University of Alaska Fairbanks was being established—the aboriginal population of Alaska did not need to be taken into account as they planned for enrollment. He and others saw a very small percentage of Alaska Native students go on to high school, and went on to conclude that Alaska Native participation “will not be a factor from the higher educational standpoint for at least two generations, if one is to judge from their past rate of progress.”1

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Students boarding a Wien Air Alaska plane at Shungnak, Alaska. They are a part of nearly 600 students gathered from forty remote villages and fish camps going to Fairbanks and Juneau for high schools and colleges. Kay J. Kennedy Aviation Photograph Collection, UAF-1991-98-683, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

To better understand the—until quite recently—low participation of Alaska Natives in higher education (and one could argue it is still low, but making progress) one need only look at the primary and secondary educational opportunities that were offered to Alaska Native children during the territorial days and into the early years of statehood. Different schools were variously run by either religious organizations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or the state, offering a disparate and mostly unprogressive approach to education with little or no consideration given to Alaska Native people regarding how or where they wanted their children to be educated. While there were indeed many wonderful teachers who cared about their students and helped them to succeed, there are also many other accounts of unqualified—and even undesirable—people in these classrooms. My uncle had a literacy issue, extending into adulthood, even though he attended

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school at the children’s home where he lived. Teaching was not the main mission in the children’s home, and his basic education suffered for it. It took until the mid-1970s for there to be a truly unified approach to education in the State of Alaska—combining the state and federal approaches to serving Alaska Native students in the public school system. These changes were directly due to the Molly Hootch case (Tobeluk v. Lind), which was settled in 1976, in addition to the general influence of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. As their participation in the state economy grew, Alaska Native people were starting to find their own voice in education and other public policy matters. The careless unraveling of the cultural, physical, and emotional threads of my family is an all-too-common story among Alaska Natives, as it is for many indigenous people who live in Hawai‘i, the Lower Forty-Eight, or elsewhere around the world. However, as difficult as this experience was for my father, he was resilient—as many Native people can be in the face of adversity. He forged on to get a high school degree, serve in the navy, obtain a college degree, become a teacher, have a family—and eventually reconnect with his Tlingit culture through his carving and other creative endeavors. My dad was one of the few Alaska Native teachers in the state during the 1960s, and his journey to become one was based as much on luck as on any rational planning. After high school he joined the navy and served in the Korean War. Upon his return to Alaska he was a commercial fisherman and also worked as a janitor in the Territorial Legislature in Juneau shortly before statehood. When fall rolled around and some of his friends were heading back to college in Washington State, he went with them because he had the GI Bill, and he thought he would give it a try (he’d heard there were girls and parties, so how bad could it be?). He was about three weeks into the term when a professor asked him for a document of some sort. My dad had no idea what he was talking about and the professor indicated that it was something he would have received during the registration process. My father—confounded—said, “What registration process?” Dad had not signed up for his classes; he just started attending them with his friends. No one in his family could give him guidance, because he was the first in his family to pursue higher education. However, he managed to get enrolled (having already been in class), and ultimately

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graduated with an education degree from Western Washington State College, now Western Washington University, my own alma mater as well. First-generation attendance to postsecondary schooling is still not all that uncommon today among Alaska Natives. Many people believe this stems from the less-than-pleasant experiences that some of our mothers, fathers, and grandparents had with boarding schools or other schools in Alaska during the territorial and early statehood periods. The Alaska Native educational foundations like the Doyon Foundation, Sealaska Heritage Institute, and The CIRI Foundation (TCF) work with many first-generation students and help guide them through the sometimes convoluted oxbows of the higher education process. But as much as my father accomplished in his life, he paid a significant cultural price early on with the loss of language and tradition. Cultural loss of this kind gets passed down to the generations that follow in ways that are both quite visible for some and more indiscernible for others. Finding your way back is a personal journey that is challenging and yet extremely rewarding for those who choose to do so. Knowing my culture—who I am as a human being as my Yup’ik friends would say—is part of my journey to weave being an Alaska Native person into how I serve on my professional path as the president and CEO of TCF.

ANCSA Empowers As stated in TCF’s publication Alaska Native Corporations: Sakuuktugut, We Are Working Incredibly Hard, “there were 80,000 Alaska Natives alive on December 18, 1971 who were one-fourth degree Indian, Aleut or Eskimo ancestry who were issued 100 shares of corporation stock to 13 regional corporations determined by where the person lived at the time or where he or she was from.”2 The for-profit corporations created under ANCSA received a total of $962 million distributed during an eleven-year period. Provisions in the law required that individual ANCSA corporations distribute 70 percent of their resource revenues from ANCSA lands to all twelve in-state regions (Section 7i) and that regional corporations distribute half of the 7i money they receive to villages within their region and at-large shareholders (Section 7j). This was a new and different approach to the Western corporate model, but sharing the wealth is a time-honored practice in the Alaska Native tradition.

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ANCSA also charged the for-profit organizations with certain social responsibilities to their shareholders, many of which have been delegated to nonprofit organizations created by the for-profits to focus on employment, health, culture, and education issues. To focus on educational pursuits, each of the current thirteen regional corporations—the thirteenth regional corporation was created in 1975 to serve Alaska Natives living outside of Alaska—has set up an educational fund, trust, or foundation— some of which also include heritage preservation and perpetuation in their mission. Funding of these institutions varies from annual modest donations from the respective for-profit corporations to, in one case, a permanent $40 million endowment. These education-oriented nonprofits from each ANCSA region have come together to work on education and heritage preservation issues as the informally structured ANCSA Education Consortium (AEC). The goals of the AEC are threefold: to serve Alaska Native students by (1) increasing educational dollars available, (2) identifying and delivering nonfinancial resources and other support, and (3) sharing best practices among AEC members. Accomplishments of the AEC members during the thirty-seven years since ANCSA passed have been many. The Sealaska Heritage Institute, based in Juneau, serves thousands of youth, adults, and elders from Southeast with its nationally acclaimed cultural and heritage programs, Native language restoration curriculum, and scholarship funding—with more than $10.5 million being awarded since it was founded. Since 1993 the Koniag Education Foundation has made more than $2 million worth of educational awards, and has worked to increase the amount of funds they have available to their Kodiak Island–vicinity constituency. Bering Straits Foundation throughout its history has focused on gradually increasing the number of their Northwest Arctic people served through scholarships, with the recent addition of a mentor program and an alumni association. And the Doyon Foundation has also grown and increased services and scholarships available to their primarily Athabascan, Alaska Interior–region recipients. Their anticipated total award amount for 2008 was $600,000, distributed to more than 350 students. Aggregate numbers of Alaska Native people attending postsecondary institutions today have grown dramatically from that of the territorial and early statehood period. During the four years from 1998 to 2002, AEC

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members gave out more than 9,542 scholarships totaling $12.3 million. While impressive, there are still great unmet financial needs as higher education costs continue to increase at a precipitous rate. During these same years, an additional $7.3 million was requested by students, which was not able to be met by the AEC member organizations. However, progress is being made toward meeting this financial need. In 2005 alone the award amount made by all AEC members was $4.4 million to more than three thousand recipients, which is approximately a third of what was given out during the entire 1998–2002 period.3 And while there are more Alaska Native students going on to high school compared to the early years, the statistics indicate that between 30 and 40 percent of our students today do not graduate. The educational pipeline feeding into the postsecondary system needs to begin with quality early learning opportunities for children so that they can then successfully move through a strong K–12 system and into the postsecondary arena. While much progress has been made toward an improved education system for Alaska Native students and the people of Alaska in general, there is still much work to be done during the next fifty years. TCF’s mission is to provide economic self-sufficiency through education and cultural heritage. We believe that educating yourself about who you are and where you come from leads you to the ultimate selfdetermination, which is to provide for you, your family, and your people. Over the past twenty-six years more than $15 million has been distributed by TCF through more than ten thousand scholarships, career upgrade grants, vocational training grants, and cultural fellowships. In the early 1990s TCF began to look at new ways to effect even greater change for our people, and began to make project grants to tribal and nonprofit organizations in the area of education improvement and heritage preservation and perpetuation. As one of the earliest scholarship recipients of TCF, it is humbling and amazing to me to see how far we have come, and where we are poised to go. Specific giving patterns and avenues of philanthropy obviously differ among Native organizations. However, the priority categories of funding from Native grant makers tend to be (1) education (e.g., scholarships and institutional operations), (2) cultural preservation, and (3) a growing interest in youth and related projects. Part of this may be due to an awareness of the “seventh generation philosophy”—planning for not

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only your grandchildren’s future, but their grandchildren’s, and so on. According to a Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP) report, “Native donors see children as ‘leaders of tomorrow,’ essential to preserving their Native heritage.” This is, indeed, the case in Alaska, where AEC member organizations and their for-profit Alaska Native corporation benefactors continue to focus on education, looking to build their future leadership from their shareholders-to-be.4

What Matters My own family’s story and the work of the organization that I am honored to lead today are examples of why the past fifty years of statehood and economic development in Alaska are so important to the economic self-sufficiency and self-determination of the first people of Alaska. The ANCSA for-profit corporations and their nonprofit organizations are doing vital work for Alaska Native people and all Alaskans in many cases. According to the Foraker Group’s Alaska Nonprofit Economy Report: 2006, Most of Alaska’s nonprofit sector, roughly three-quarters, is comprised of either charitable 501(c)3 organizations or civic leagues and social welfare 501(c)4 organizations. Within the 501(c)3 category, most are public charities, among public charities most are social service organizations followed in order by arts/culture, health organizations, education, and civic organizations. Most public charities are small with budgets of less than $1,000,000 and nearly half have budgets less than $100,000. The largest public charities are mostly hospitals and Alaska Native health and social service nonprofits. And due to Alaska Native nonprofits being unique to Alaska it is useful to present their spending separate from other public charities. The largest Native nonprofits generated nearly $1 billion of expenditures in 2004.5

Harvard University’s Honoring Nations Project website, a systematic and comparative study of social and economic development within American Indian and Alaska Native communities, asks: “What works, where, and why?” Their research indicates what we as Native people have always known: Sovereignty matters, institutions matter, culture matters, and leadership matters.

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The four key research findings of the Honoring Nations Project support the wisdom of our Elders. While the project focuses on tribal entities, the findings have real meaning for Alaska Native people in our for-profit, nonprofit, and tribal entities. • Sovereignty Matters. When Native people make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, they consistently outperform external decision makers—on matters as diverse as governmental form, natural resource management, economic development, health care, and social service provision. Harvard uses the term sovereignty, however, in Alaska we are really talking about self-determination. • Institutions Matter. For development to take hold, assertions of self-determination must be backed by capable institutions of governance. Native people do this as they adopt stable rules, establish fair and independent mechanisms for dispute resolution, and separate politics from day-to-day business and program management. • Culture Matters. Successful economies stand on the shoulders of legitimate, culturally grounded institutions of self-government. Indigenous societies are diverse; each nation must equip itself with a governing structure, economic system, policies, and procedures that fit its own contemporary culture. • Leadership Matters. Nation building requires leaders who introduce new knowledge and experiences, challenge assumptions, and propose change (and here I would take the liberty of adding “while respecting traditions and culture”). Such leaders, whether elected, community, or spiritual, convince people that things can be different and inspire them to take action.6

Sovereignty Matters My family’s story illustrates why sovereignty, or self-determination, matters. The concept that Alaska Native and American Indian people might know what is best for themselves was not widely held even as recently as fifty years ago. We have always had the ability to make good decisions

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within our own cultural context: about how we should interact, take care of the land, and raise our children. We are doing that every day, which is why many Alaska Native nonprofit programs receive investment from national foundations. These programs and their leadership are recognized by such organizations as Harvard University and the MacArthur Fellowship Program committee. Although statistics for our state still show Alaska Native people at the top or near the top of many lists of negative indicators, there is real progress taking place in our communities. The Ya Ne Da Ah (Ancient Teachings) School in Chickaloon (a small federally recognized tribe located seventy miles north of Anchorage), a 2002 Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development Honoree, is an example of both a positive development in our communities and of sovereignty. TCF has had the honor of partnering with the Chickaloon Traditional Village Council to support and encourage their tribally owned day care and school since the year 2000 (to date $120,000 invested in curriculum and operational activities). This is an example of Alaska Native people investing in ourselves. Making our own decisions about education and cultural preservation for our children is vital to the survival of our cultures. One of the founding Elders of the school, Katie Wade, stated to the younger generations working to create the school that they must keep the local school district and the State of Alaska out of the development process. Instead, they needed to focus on teaching their language and heritage the way they saw fit. Chickaloon knows best how to perpetuate their culture—sovereignty matters.

Institutions Matter The people of Chickaloon have worked to build the Ya Ne Da Ah School for almost a decade. They have looked at it as a long-term investment and placed it as a top priority in their community. The people of Chickaloon are thinking of their grandchildren’s grandchildren and how this school will help to ensure that future generations will learn who they are, adapt and incorporate new tools, and thrive as a people. As they will tell you, it has been an ongoing struggle; however by focusing on the children and their future, the entire community succeeds.

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Chickaloon has reached out to other institutions and organizations that they normally would not have in the past due to mistrust and politics, as is common in many Native communities, because they know that their future as a people is reliant upon educating their children in the ancient teachings. They have put aside differences to move this educational institution—their institution—forward. Institutions matter. Alaska Native foundations such as Sealaska Heritage Institute, Doyon Foundation, and TCF are another layer in an evolving infrastructure of Alaska Native institutions. They play an important role for Native organizations such as Chickaloon, offering support and technical assistance, working together to make positive change in the critical areas of education and culture. Again, institutions matter.

Culture Matters As the Honoring Nations Project suggests, “successful economies stand on the shoulders of legitimate, culturally grounded institutions of selfgovernment.” Through the mission of TCF, conditions have been created to encourage cultural and heritage preservation and perpetuation. The project grant partnership between TCF and Chickaloon has helped create standards-based, yet culturally relevant curriculum in the Ya Ne Da Ah school. Other Alaska Native foundations are also partnering with individuals and organizations to promote and perpetuate education and culture through activities in the schools, community and tribal organizations, and other public venues. The AEC member organizations offer, or fund, programs that help strengthen relationships between the elders and youth, help restore cultural identity and pride through teaching language and traditions, and prepare the youth for the future—both academically and socially. The Ya Ne Da Ah school exemplifies this integrated approach, and some of the student accomplishments include: • taking first, second, and third place in the local Conversation Is Power public speaking contest; and second place in the state competition (from a small village of two hundred); • excelling on the state exams that the school chooses to use as one measure of the children’s academic success;

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• regularly performing dances and songs—in their traditional Athabascan language—for Chickaloon Elders, the village, as well as the wider Alaskan community; and • taking first place, overall, at the 2006 Senior Native Youth Olympics. According to Chickaloon tribal members, “students who participate in the Ya Ne Da Ah school have strengthened our tribe and the surrounding community by holding professional-level positions in the tribe, becoming college students . . . and being strong and confident in whatever they do.” These students are succeeding in the Western world, while remaining culturally strong. Not only does culture matter—it is critically important.

Leadership Matters As Native people living in the modern (or postmodern) world, we have many leaders, some traditional (e.g., community, hunting, cultural, spiritual) and some less so (e.g., business, tourism, entertainment). Alaska Native leaders have always had to be innovative and creative to survive in challenging circumstances, creating tools, clothing, and techniques the effectiveness of which is difficult to surpass, even with current scientific knowledge. As Alaska shifted from being a territory to a state, Alaska Natives were not yet at the table in a significant way. However, when significant oil deposits were discovered on the North Slope, and the prospect of building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System became more real, the land claims question needed to be answered. Early in this process, the leaders of the Native Village of Tyonek—in a demonstration of inspired leadership and foresight—put up money from their Cook Inlet resource-related revenues, and helped bring Native leaders from around the state to the negotiation table, leading to the formation of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN). Former disagreements between the different Native cultures were overcome by the traditional value of concern for the group, as they came together for this cause—and the ANCSA agreement was eventually forged. To some the settlement was to the detriment of Alaska Native people; less-than-desirable lands

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ANB and ANS members in a statehood parade on July 4, 1959, in Juneau. Alaska State Library, Theodore R. (Ted) Merrell Jr. Photograph Collection, 1958–1990s, asl_p450_1_0058.

replaced traditional areas, with money making up the difference. It was an unprecedented agreement. There were no models of leadership related to the concept or implementation of ANCSA to go by; no rule book for the fishermen, whalers, truck drivers, elders, and others who took up the leadership mantle as the regional corporations and subsequent nonprofits were formed. Ultimately, the original leaders had to take a government document (the ANCSA agreement) and turn it into reality (jobs, health care, education), using the new tools of capital and politics, all the while preserving and respecting tradition. We know how to hunt, gather, save, and invest our resources for a rainy (or snowy) day. We also know that we must share our resources with one another when there are those who have not had a good fishing season or are not able to gather their own berries. It is with these ways of living that we can move into the next century using traditional skills in new contexts. We can use all the arrows in our quiver as we hunt and gather the financial resources to continue the good work that we are doing or to start new work that needs to be accomplished with our people.

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We have financial and human resources and institutions available to us as never before. Inspirational and innovative leadership has been key to the success of Alaska Natives. We integrate traditional ways with the new tools of today to continue the living traditions of Native people—we adapt, survive, and thrive. Leadership mattered in pre-contact time; it matters today; and it will continue to matter in the future.

Future Generations Many Alaska Native groups are now coming into their economic own with businesses, natural resources, contracting, and other investments to put to work for their people. Some Alaska Native corporations are international organizations employing thousands of people in the state, and around the world; and there are more philanthropic foundations and nonprofit organizations now than ever. But as bountiful as current resources are compared to fifty years ago, there is room to grow. We need to learn the different strengths of the various arrows in our quiver, as we seek to add to the resources in the cache for our people’s future. One arrow in the quiver is education. Alaska Natives certainly have more educational opportunities now than they did fifty years ago. They are enrolling in record numbers to university, college, vocational training, and other types of postsecondary education. There is still plenty to work on, as 28 percent of whites twenty-five years or older had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, compared to only 7 percent of Alaska Natives. Despite the large gap, the 7 percent represents a substantial increase from the 4 percent of Alaska Natives holding bachelor’s degrees in the 1990 Census. According to a report entitled Native American Philanthropy: Expanding Social Participation and Self-Determination, a key element in the self-determination successes the Native community has experienced is education. As graduation rates rise, and Native people realize that the economic success they refer to as the “New Buffalo” (or “New Walrus,” to keep things regionally appropriate) is now attributed to higher education. It enables Native people to compete and excel in the larger society. Native people and organizations that experience educational success and subsequent employment see growth in entrepreneurial activities, enhanced vendor relationships, professional services, and so on.7

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As Native people and organizations gather and create financial and human resources, it is up to us to wisely manage and distribute them. The new way we gather resources may be through companies and investments, but the traditional concept of distributing and sharing is still present. The AEC membership consists of nonprofit entities, performing different types of fund investment and distribution within their communities, but with the same goal in mind—to promote educational attainment, and preserve and perpetuate culture. A new arrow that Alaska Native foundations or funds might begin to use in the future is that of program-related investments (PRI), which are a collection of financial instruments. Native foundations that adopt the use of program-related investments in our own communities can support organizations that are working on critical education and culture goals. These investments are usually structured as loans but can also be equity investments, linked deposits, or loan guarantees. By using new tools and innovative leadership, we can create new opportunities.

The Journey Continues My own hunting and gathering for culture and resources to make the world a better place for my people in the twenty-first century is similar, I believe, to many in our Native community. As I walk this path I truly believe that our people have entered a new season where sovereignty matters, institutions matter, culture matters, and leadership matters. Alaska Native people know what is best for us. We have for time immemorial. We did fifty years ago. We do now. And we will until time stops. It is up to us to take responsibility for making things happen that we know are right for our people. The work of our educational foundations, trusts, and funds is powerful, and must be celebrated and perpetuated. The Alaska Native corporations showed far-reaching vision in creating these education funds. Some of those corporations have given out substantial annual dividends—but a good education, along with being grounded in culture, will pay long-term dividends for our people. Sovereignty matters. We as Alaska Native people must know who we are and preserve and pass on our knowledge to the next generations. As recently reported by the Alaska Public Radio Network’s Alaska News Nightly, the white mother of twin adopted Alaska Native boys who attend the new Alaska

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Native Charter School in the Anchorage School District says the drive from Peters Creek, several miles north of Anchorage, is worth it. “I often thought of it, at the other school, as I was trying to fit two square pegs in round holes. That they just didn’t fit. And now, my son bounces out of bed every morning . . . he loves to go to school. He’s opening up. And I way underestimated what culture meant to those children.”8 We are living people with living traditions that honor our ancestors as we add to these traditions in today’s world. Institutions matter. We as Alaska Native people need to use these institutions—or create new ones—to fulfill the dreams of our people. As Rosita Worl from Sealaska Heritage Institute says, “there are educational and cultural imperatives we must focus on during the next 50 years to further contribute to the survival of Native cultures.” We must continue to work together as Alaska Native people and pull together in the longboat to the distant shore of educational success and cultural enrichment. Culture matters. Like the leaders who created ANCSA, we need to challenge ourselves again to invest in the future through daring choices. As my friend Paul Ongtooguk says, “Why not start the process of changing the rules so all 7i funds go toward education in the future?” As controversial as that may sound, leadership needs to again become bigger than individual needs, and inspire and help us to think in different ways. During the next fifty years, and beyond, we must work with each other and all Alaskans to strengthen and develop each of the Alaska Native foundations, to ensure that the critical work of education and cultural preservation continue. Leadership matters. As we move into the next fifty years and beyond, who will climb into the longboat with me, grab the paddles, and pull together on the journey toward what matters for the future of Alaska Native people and the Great State of Alaska? Gunalchéesh áyá x’axwdataaní Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Notes 1. Michael Jennings, Alaska Native Political Leadership and Higher Education: One University, Two Universes (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2004), p. 49.

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2. Alexandra J. McClanahan, Alaska Native Corporations: Sakuuktugut, We Are Working Incredibly Hard (Anchorage: CIRI Foundation, 2006), pp. 48–51. 3. ANCSA Regional Corporation Presidents and CEOs, Inc., “Wooch Yaayi,” Woven Together, Alaska Native Corporations 2005 Economic Data, executive summary, 2007. 4. Mindy L. Berry, Native-American Philanthropy: Expanding Social Participation and Self-Determination (Evanston, IL: The Alford Group, June 1999). 5. The Foraker Group, Report on the Alaska Nonprofit Economy, executive summary, February 2007. 6. Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, American Indian Economic Development, Honoring Nations Program, www.hks.harvard.edu/ hpaied/overview.htm. 7. Berry, Native-American Philanthropy. 8. Len Anderson, “Alaska Native K-6 Charter School Seeking More Anchorage Students,” Alaska News Nightly, September 12, 2008.

chapter 13  Raymond Voley

On the Importance of History, American and Alaskan

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magine if you were walking down the street and a man approached a

child with a club, hit him over the head, and the child could no longer remember his past. We would say that man had committed a crime, and we would be outraged. Now imagine if a whole society of individuals, organizations, and institutions committed the same crime against the students in our schools. We would call that a national crisis that demands immediate action. Across Alaska and America, our children are being robbed of their historical memory, and we as educators are entirely to blame for a problem that has been called historical amnesia. And just as amnesia can devastate an individual, so too can it destroy a free society. A recent study by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute showed that our nation’s college freshmen and seniors failed to grasp basic American history, government, economics, and international relations. These students lacked understanding of essential history and civics such as the outcome of the Revolutionary War, the basic principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the purpose of the U.S. Constitution, principal issues in the Civil War, and our allies and enemies in World War II. An editorial writer at the Providence Journal summed it up best: “Should we be concerned that our best-educated young Americans know so little about civics and history? We should, if we hope to sustain our representative democracy.” 239

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A few years ago, the Pulitzer Prize–winning American historian David McCulloch testified before the U.S. Senate that American history was “our nation’s worst subject in school,” and the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress confirms his testimony. Our children perform worse in American history than they do in reading or math. We have generations of young people who are becoming strangers in their own country. The problem begins in our elementary, junior high, and high schools. And I expect the problem will continue to get worse because it drifts outside the orbit of No Child Left Behind. The study of history has taken a backseat to reading, writing, and math. History has been marginalized, trivialized, and pushed into a corner as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) concerns take center stage. That is a dangerous trend. In some ways we are like the man who spends all his time cutting firewood, but discovers he does not have a match with which to light it. If Mark or Matthew were historians alive today, they might well say, “What benefit will it be to you if you gain AYP, but lose your own soul?” The soul of our nation is our history. Just as a man or woman should not neglect his or her soul, so too should our nation’s citizens not neglect their past. I believe it is essential that all students learn to read, write, and compute proficiently. I know some may be thinking: How can students enjoy history if they are not proficient in reading or writing? But I believe absolutely that a teacher who cultivates a love of the past inspires his students to do well in reading or writing. Let me tell you about two students of mine: If given a choice, both would rather have listened to Frank Sinatra music for an hour than write two words. Our class read a letter written by the great Roman philosopher Cicero to his son, and one of Cicero’s points set off a discussion. It was the idea that there is no separation between a private and public person; in other words, a person’s private life impacts the quality of his public life and cannot be ignored. After the debate I asked the students to write an essay either in opposition to or in support of the central premise. The sparks flew, and so did the words. The two reluctant writers wanted to express themselves. One kept asking me, “Did you read my essay? Tell me what you think.” Who knows, history just might be the spark to light the fire of the uninspired.

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One of the boys was also given a principal role in our high school Shakespearean play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He struggled but he managed to memorize ninety lines. After the play, I asked him to write an essay to future student actors on the importance of the historical arts in school, and he wrote a very poignant essay and said his performance was the greatest accomplishment of his life. It was the best essay I had ever seen him write. Go figure. The historical arts can fire the imaginations of struggling students, and make them want to read more and write better. If we neglect the historical arts, so many of our students may find that they have so little to write about.

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We live in a free nation, the likes of which has never existed before. The founders of our country knew that the fate of our free institutions depended on succeeding generations’ understanding of what our country stood for in the past, and the sacrifices that were made to secure our way of life. If we expect our free political institutions to endure, it is essential for our students to understand the founding principles of this country, what it has fought for through the ages, and some of its greatest heroes. While we devote all our energy to raising math, reading, and writing test scores, let us not lose sight of something much grander that, if neglected, has the potential to undo our entire country and render as moot the debate over No Child Left Behind. At a time when their minds are incredibly absorbent, today’s students are being swindled out of the riches of our past, and losing out on some of the most amazing stories ever told. I recently read a story about Sandra Day O’Connor, who was the first female Supreme Court justice, and if you didn’t know that, shame on your teacher. She quit the Supreme Court to take care of her husband, who was stricken with Alzheimer’s. O’Connor discovered that her husband had fallen in love with another woman who was being treated at the same Alzheimer’s clinic in Phoenix. I struggle to imagine how she feels, but in a sense, that’s exactly how I feel when I see our students losing their historical memory. They are falling in love with counterfeit heroes, phony messages, and vices masquerading

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as virtues. They are being poisoned and preyed upon by a culture that exudes pure contempt for them. Without a sense of history, an understanding of history, we cannot continue to be a free people. A nation that fails to understand itself can never understand the world around it. We will create Americans who look to every wannabe dictator as a savior, every fad as a revolution, every innovation as salvation. They will become all sail and no anchor, future citizens who lack the ability to draw from the past—the greatest teacher—for solutions to social problems. We need people who understand consequences, not just concepts. Looking into the future, I worry as John Adams when he said, “We will not have men fit for the times.” The future demands a new kind of thinker, one who not only thinks outside the box, but perhaps one who doesn’t even see the box. We face many problems: from global warming to the rise of nuclear nations, from an increasing national debt to decreasing health-care protection. But it’s not the technocrati who will be the prime problem solvers of tomorrow. There have been far too many times in the past when the scientists and technologists have shown a lack of vision, praising some new technology as the cure-all for humanity, and promising a “new Eden,” whether it was through the emerging factory system or the “peaceful” use of nuclear weapons. What we will need are individuals who can look forward and backward at the same time, who understand something about the patterns of the past, and who can anticipate the consequences of action—or inaction.

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There are some who say it is a lost cause trying to rekindle our students’ interest in the past. They are overdigitized, desensitized, unenthusiastic spectators with short attention spans, mesmerized by music groups and gilded heroes who wouldn’t—by the way—last two days on the Lewis and Clark expedition, or twenty minutes on an Iñupiat whale hunt. If history has become tasteless, dull, and provincial it is only because history teachers have made it that way. Our children are begging for true stories of glory and romance. Most of the so-called heroes of today wouldn’t survive one swim in the Missouri, one attack from a grizzly bear,

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or one trip across the Atlantic. The stories of genuine heroes are there, if we just have the motivation to help our students discover them. For a story about success despite incredible odds, introduce your students to George Washington’s gamble at Trenton in 1776 when he and a motley collection of farmers, tradesmen, fishermen, and other ordinary men made one last-ditch attempt at saving the American Revolution, and they did. Talk about the triumph of an underdog. For a story about the nature of true love under fire, introduce your students to the letters between Abigail Adams and her dearest friend, John. For a story about the triumph of the human spirit, introduce your students to the slave Harriet Jacobs, who hid in her grandmother’s cramped and boiling crawlspace for seven years to escape a demented doctor. For a story about the nature of friendship through adversity, introduce your students to Lewis and Clark, or York and Sacajawea, and their battles against bears, waterfalls, and, let’s not forget—mosquitoes. Rather than look to the cheap, quick, and counterfeit road to success, introduce your students to Frederick Douglass and the route he took to becoming one of the most respected men in American history. He was the slave who beat up his overseer, and cherished education so much he was willing to trade his food for reading lessons. If your students are looking for tough, how about the story of Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1912 was shot, but a speech double-folded inside his jacket helped stop the bullet’s full penetration. Roosevelt told his audience, “The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech, but I will try my best.” How marvelous. The stories of the past can fire the passions of our youth and give our younger generation something honest and real to hold onto through a tempestuous future. History can be that anchor that holds them steady through the fiercest storm. Our past is full of imperfect people who accomplished extraordinary feats; they are the perfect role models for today and tomorrow. In Alaska, we too must make sure our students understand our rich and amazing history—the stories of the courageous, ingenious Native people who inhabited this place for thousands of years, surviving and thriving in a land fraught with danger and peril. Introduce them to the Barrow duck hunters who protested the federal government’s hunting regulations

Websites like www.alaskool.org (above) and www.akhistorycourse.org (below) help provide links and information about Alaska history for teachers and students of history.

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In 2006, the Alaska Historical Society compiled a list of the sixty-seven best history books about Alaska and published the annotated list as The Alaska 67.

by turning in themselves and their ducks one at a time to an overzealous game warden. Introduce them to the bold people of Point Hope and Howard Rock who stood up to some of the country’s most powerful scientists who wanted to detonate atomic bombs on their hunting grounds. Introduce them to Elizabeth Peratrovich’s and Alberta Schenck’s battle for civil rights, and Bill Egan’s masterful Alaskan methods for leading the 1955 Constitutional Convention. History is not the mere regurgitation of facts, but the fabric, the heartbeat of who we are, and where we are going. It is the rhythm of the ages set down in words, music, speeches, letters, photographs, hopes, dreams, tragedies, and stories of failure, but more important, success on a grand scale. We should not magnify our nation’s shortcomings, which seems the politically popular thing to do today, and diminish our achievements as a nation—a nation that inspired democratic revolutions all across the globe, a nation that ended slavery, united a continent, helped liberate Europe from Nazism, won a Cold War against communism , sent a man to the moon—all those things that still make us, as President Lincoln said, “the last best hope.”

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Let us not neglect the historical arts in our drive to make AYP. Let us remember that our nation is part of a noble experiment. There is no such thing as a free-energy republic, coasting without effort into the future. The life of free institutions and free people must be fought for, defended, and secured by each generation that understands fully the price that must be paid to maintain such a way of life. You can’t maintain a representative democracy without vigilance. You can’t have vigilance unless you have an appreciation for what is at stake. You can’t understand what is at stake until you have looked into the hearts, the minds, and the battles of the past to learn how dedicated our ancestors were to liberty and justice. As Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” It is critically important that for us to survive as a free people the younger generations must know how we became the people we are today, what our principles are, and what we stand for as a nation. Let us not, in our rush to demonstrate small gains in reading, writing, and math, sever what President Lincoln called those “mystic chords of memory” that tie us together.

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About twenty-five years ago, during one of my college years, I worked as a fishing guide on the Nushagak River. One September evening two other guides and I raced our boats upriver, pursued by a ferocious storm. We were preoccupied by the need to set up a secure camp. We threw our rope to shore and quickly unloaded everything from the boats. We staked down our tents, moved our gear to dry ground, and made sure our tarps were secure. And then the tempest hit. As the wind and rain pelted our tent, we felt secure in our cocoon-like sleeping bags. We slept deeply. When morning came, we realized our boats had vanished; we had failed to secure them to higher ground before the flood came. When the storms come, let us not forget to make sure we have anchored ourselves to higher ground. Let us not forget to secure the vessel that delivered us here in the first place.

chapter 14  Mark Hamilton

The University of Alaska at 50 Past, Present, Future

The Constitution of the State of Alaska Article 7 The University of Alaska is hereby established as the state University and constituted a body corporate. It shall have title to all real and personal property now or hereafter set aside for or conveyed to it. Its property shall be administered and disposed of according to law. The University of Alaska shall be governed by a board of regents. The regents shall be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by a majority of the legislature in joint session. The board shall in accordance with law, formulate policy and appoint the president of the university. He shall be the executive officer of the board.

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ince that great day for Alaska, January 3, 1959, when President

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the official declaration of Alaska’s statehood, the University of Alaska has played a significant role in the economic, social, and cultural life of America’s Last Frontier. With the establishment of a board of regents, the founders clearly envisioned that a nonelected board should govern the university, set its policies, select its president, and submit its budget to the state. The eight-year term, though quite a commitment, allows time for regents to reach a stage of familiarity with the many programs and functions of the ­university, 247

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and by staggering the terms, ensures there are always experienced regents beside the newly appointed. The term also removes the board from the burden of dealing with a politically “stacked” board that might lose its focus on the state in favor of a region. Examples abound nationally that show what happens to elected boards, to boards that are reappointed with each new governor, and to any other politically motivated service on a policy body. Decisions must reflect the longer term to be effective and efficient. They might otherwise give way to political expedience and short-term public perception. The relationship of the state to the university has changed over time. In its earliest phase as the School of Agriculture and Mines, it enjoyed the focus of purpose on the state’s perceived future. The clear connection of purpose and preparation, particularly in the state’s early mining industry, produced graduates whose livelihood was greatly enhanced by the university and many remain staunch advocates and financial contributors today. It was later, in the 1960s and 1970s, while the university still had only one urban four-year campus in Fairbanks, that we saw the larger purpose of a state university appear in the training of leaders in all walks of life. In addition to general liberal arts programs, the Fairbanks campus developed a focus on science and engineering that forms its primary identity to this day. It was then that the sons and daughters of Alaska’s residents began to come to the university. Today they abound in important leadership and business positions around the state. As important, they have begun to appear as members of the board of regents. Current UA alumni on the board are Mary K. Hughes, Cynthia Henry, Erik Drygas, Robert R. Martin Jr., Kirk Wickersham, and Patricia A. Jacobson. Alumni regents bring more than a sense of advocacy. Their successful personal and professional lives are a testament to the value of higher education and they serve as real-life models for the students we serve. Every member of the regents is an Alaskan (unlike some other state university boards) and as a group, they bring both a historical perspective and a real-world view of Alaska’s current and future needs. Today, with the establishment of three universities and fourteen community colleges the university has entered another phase that provides much greater accessibility for Alaska’s citizens. The advent of distance delivery has further expanded the reach of the university into the smallest and most remote village in Alaska.

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While the educational reach and scope of the university has grown over time, the state’s view of the university as a key economic driver hasn’t always kept pace. Every governor since Egan has identified the university—its programs and research—as critical elements in ensuring a prosperous social, economic, and cultural future for Alaska, but it hasn’t translated into broad public or political support. With resource extraction as the primary industry, Alaska developed a “colonial” type of economy for most of its history. That is, much of the expertise brought to bear on resource extraction “booms” of our history, particularly oil, came from Outside, rather than from within the state. This economy has served us well, if unevenly, for most of our history, but has led to a history in which, with the few exceptions of mining and arctic engineering and some geophysical research, the contribution of the state university has not been conspicuous. As a result, when resource extraction opportunities wane—these are the “busts” of our economic history—the university has neither been called upon nor stepped forth as part of the solution. The end result is grievous and dramatic. I have rehearsed often a set of compelling numbers that show the difference between states which have a history of utilizing and depending upon the economic contributions of their state universities and our own state. During the oil price drop of the 1980s, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana recognized the need to diversify their economies. I’m quite certain that Alaska recognized the same need at the time. The difference in reaction, however, is instructive. Those other three states, on the average, increased funding to their state universities 57 percent over the subsequent ten years. Why? Because Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana saw the role of the state university in their state’s long-term economy. During that same period Alaska’s government, on the other hand, increased funding to the university by only 2 percent. That is 2 percent in nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation. So you see clearly that we actually cut the university significantly, factoring in ten years of compounded inflation. While to some of us, and I hope now to most of us, that appears to be a self-destructive tactic, it is understandable in light of the history that had never established the university in that important role of economic engine. The state was able to function for a long time, as colonies usually do, by importing industry and employees on

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An aerial view of the West Ridge area of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The Museum of the North is on the right.

a temporary basis. As a result, the need for a strong education system was hidden. We hope those days are all in the past. There is only one reason for a state to have its own state university. It is a sort of compact that says, “We, the state, will supplement the cost of education so that we can offer low tuition to our citizens to entice them to stay in the state and, with their credentials earned at the university, become the leaders and the work force of our state.” State universities, like the University of Alaska, do not offer a “cheap” education; they offer a quality education at less cost to the resident students. Understanding this compact helps us understand why it is necessary to continue to seek more money from the state every year. Student tuition does not, cannot, cover the cost of education. That was the whole deal to begin with. The state said, in fact, “We will help you get an education by subsidizing the cost.” So, the university is not a business. You may be sure that the university follows best business practices and accounting, but we are not a business. Students are not customers in the sense that having more of them leads to profit. Having more of them means there are more students in need of

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The University of Alaska Southeast campus in Juneau. Photo by Erica Hill.

state subsidy. That means the university and its advocates need to go to Juneau every year and ask for the means to do our job in graduating the state’s future work force and leaders. The University of Alaska now attracts 63 percent of our state’s collegebound high school graduates. This was unheard of a dozen years ago, when only 44 percent chose to stay inside Alaska for their postsecondary education. That meant Alaska lost out on keeping its own talent while Alaska businesses had to import workers, driving up costs. That cost is astounding. I asked the State of Alaska Department of Labor a few years ago to research the amount of money that had left the state of Alaska (in the form of payroll to nonresidents) since the completion of the pipeline. Their number is $81 billion! In recent years, an average of $1.7 billion leaves the state of Alaska to be spent in the “hometowns” of our nonresident workforce. Imagine what capturing a billion from that total would do to the economy of Alaska. One additional billion dollars chasing goods and services within the state! It can be done. Every year the university produces 2,400 job-ready graduates for Alaska’s highest-need jobs. Every time we produce an Alaskan, work-ready, in a most-needed field, we save Alaskan businesses from having to bear the additional expense of recruiting and transporting

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The ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building just constructed at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Staff photo, UAA Advancement.

­ utside labor. Those costs have to be passed on to the Alaskan buying o public. It is a hidden cost that Alaskans have borne for decades. It is great that the large majority of Alaskans seeking a college education are now electing to attend the University of Alaska, but we have a larger challenge. Nationally Alaska ranks eighth from the bottom for high school graduation. Less than a third of those graduates continue to postsecondary education, here or elsewhere. From that small pool, the University of Alaska draws the 63 percent. This must change. Whatever complicated reasons may exist for these dismal statistics, they cannot continue. As citizens of the state, and if for no other reason than self-interest, we can’t stand by while so many of our children face the limited career options that await them without adequate education. Alaska needs all of its citizens prepared to take the jobs that are currently being filled by workers from outside Alaska, as well as those of an aging resident workforce. If Alaska is going to attract business and industry to make investments here, we must show that we value education and job training enough to provide the necessary workforce to support their needs.

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That is why this year, 2008–2009, the historic fiftieth anniversary of Alaska statehood, the university has pursued a unique endeavor. We have put as our number-one priority in asking for general funds from the state K–12 outreach. You may be assured that this is the first time that any state university has pursued this goal as their first priority. Why? Because if we want students to be successful in postsecondary programs, they have to be successful in middle school and high school. If students don’t see the value of an education at an early age, it is unlikely they will be successful in high school. And if they are unsuccessful in high school, they are unlikely to seek additional education that will enhance their ability to seek good-paying employment. We must do a better job of preparing our young people for college and work. The skills are the same for both. We must encourage more of our children not only to finish high school, but to do very well while they are there. They must reach beyond the “exit exam,” which is a floor, not a ceiling. They must learn to value the skills necessary to succeed in our highly technological and rapidly shrinking world. I often hear people say, “She’s not college material,” meaning she can slouch her way through high school and get a decent job with just a diploma. For the overwhelming majority of people, that is a myth. Nothing could illustrate this point more than the fact that we have added courses specifically designed to prepare students to qualify for apprenticeship programs offered by federal and union partners. Our students, and the parents of those students, must be made aware that deciding to pursue a “blue-collar” apprenticeship path is not a substitute for good scholarship in high school. All of the apprenticeship programs require the same kinds of math, reading, and communications skills that previously in our history were needed only if the student was heading to college. The term college means far more than four-year degrees. Alaska’s university has the mission of embracing the “community and technical college” role, as well as four-year degrees and master’s degrees and PhDs. A good chunk of what we provide already is career and technical education, typical of a community or technical college. These include one- and two-year programs, plus certificates that can be earned within weeks or months. The university has emphasized the short-term workforce programs over the last decade. We have added more than one hundred new programs, eighty-five of which are programs of two years or less, virtually

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all aimed at filling critical jobs in Alaska. If you are workforce material, you are college material. Seventy-seven percent of jobs in America do not require a four-year degree—but there are very few with a living wage that do not require some level of postsecondary education. Our past provided plentiful jobs in construction, oil, fishing, mining, timber, and other blue-collar sectors. Those jobs are still out there, but many of them are changing. Technology used across all sectors requires more training, not less. In short, it’s not your grandfather’s blue-collar workforce. It’s not even your dad’s blue-collar workforce. We are trying to inform every high school student of the rigorous requirements for preparation for a variety of today’s career pathways. Further, for those students who come to the university to pursue their education and training, we have to do better in retaining and guiding them to degree or program completion. The first step is to provide better academic and financial aid counseling. In a state as rich as Alaska, financial aid should be available to every young person who wants education and job training beyond high school. Instead, Alaska is last in the nation in financial aid—offering no statesupported merit-based program and only a modest needs-based program that serves a small number of students in high-demand career areas. Our state must make this issue a top priority. Former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao predicted nearly 70 percent of all new jobs in the next ten years will require some level of training and education beyond high school, or considerable on-the-job training. Talk to employers. As university president, I do every day. They’re hard-pressed to find qualified people to hire from within our state. Even employers who are willing to provide training are finding it difficult to find people with the most basic skills, interest, and work habits required for on-the-job training. People with higher skills and additional job training are better off in many ways, and the communities in which they live and work are better off as well. They earn more money, contribute more to their communities, support commerce and the arts, and give more generously to churches and nonprofits. The correlations are all positive. The more education and job training people have, the less likely they are to be on welfare, in prison, or to require government services. And the

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more likely they are to be happily married, in good health, and actively involved in community life. The statistics I have just shared above indicate Alaska doesn’t have a culture that fully values education—at any level. While “education” will always be number one on any poll of what people care about most from their communities and their politicians, the support apparently has little depth. A recent report for the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education (ACPE) focused on the problems inherent in Alaska’s failure to elevate education as a state priority. It offers five recommendations to move the state in this direction: 1. Create a statewide college-going culture. 2. Establish kindergarten-through-college partnerships. 3. Establish peer mentoring programs. 4. Build up financial aid awareness and opportunity. 5. Focus attention on college access by creating a governor’s K–16 council. The university supports these recommendations. We’ll continue to work with the ACPE, school superintendents, the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, business owners, unions, and many others. The university, in partnership with ACPE and the University of Alaska College Savings Program, reaches out to schoolchildren as early as second grade. We’ve pumped up financial aid awareness. We offer dozens of summer and bridging programs for high school students to improve skills and explore careers: everything from auto mechanics to, literally, rocket science. We provide tech-prep and dual enrollment programs for high school students to earn college credit while still in high school. And we’re now offering high schools e-transcripts, so their graduates can submit online academic records to the university campus of their choice. We asked for funding from the state last year for some of these things we call “student success” but didn’t get it. That is hard to understand, when you know Alaska’s rather alarming statistics. We’ll try again!

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Money alone won’t ensure student success. Parents, business and civic organizations, and our elected leaders must join forces to make education a priority. Importing workers from outside is one alternative. Educating Alaskans for Alaska’s future is the better choice. What about that future, especially the next fifty years? For the university it looks very promising indeed. The world will need to tackle several important issues in the next decade, among them climate change and energy. The university has significant talent in both areas, and we have secured competitive research grants for many years already. In fact, when you say climate change and energy in the same sentence, you are talking Alaska. Because of this fact, the University of Alaska is ahead of the pack. We are pursuing what I believe will be the template for many of the studies in the years ahead. We are successfully linking the hard science of the University of Alaska Fairbanks with the public policy expertise of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Our goal is to define the probable ranges of climate impact and to begin to formulate the options for public policy at the varying degrees of probability. Providing hard science to guide public policy is a worthy goal of a university, and we are prepared to fulfill that role. Energy is a boon and a bane to Alaska. Our great resources in energy will continue to be a major factor in our state’s economy. We will continue to pursue the methods for responsibly utilizing that wealth. At the same time, many Alaskans find the cost of energy a threat to sustainability. Through its Energy Center, the university is providing the knowledge and the research efforts to tap renewable energy options from a state so very rich in wind and water and geothermal resources. For once our continuing lack of economy of scale can work for us. No one is going to find a renewable resource that can fuel Los Angeles, but it is entirely possible to discover resources to nearly completely replace fossil fuels in the micro communities we enjoy in Alaska. I see a day when Nome’s electrical needs will be powered from the Pilgrim Hot Springs geothermal resource. There will be others. The University of Alaska can drive this research and innovation into solutions for our state, our nation, and our planet. If Alaska’s efforts with K–12 begin to show success, we will see more and more jobs in our state going to our citizens. We will continue the

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efforts of the last decade to provide Alaska’s workforce, its citizens, and leaders. Personally, I look forward to the day when the Alaska Scholars Program will reach its full potential. This program, begun in 2000, and funded completely by earnings from the university’s land grant trust fund, provides a scholarship to the top 10 percent of Alaskan high school graduates of every high school in the state. Every high school reports to the university their top 10 percent of students as measured at the end of their junior year. The reason for choosing this method, instead of the top 10 percent of SAT scores or ACT scores throughout the state, was purposeful. At the beginning of the program, many students came from high schools that had never had anyone go on to college. Their selection for a scholarship served as an inspiration to those who followed. Their success provided confidence. The larger goal will take some time but it is worth waiting for. Having the scholars come from every corner of the state allows for students to interact with young people from cultural experiences very different from their own. As these students grow and graduate, become the leaders of the state, we will see some of Alaska’s seemingly intractable problems addressed among classmates, among people who have shared a piece of their lives at the university. Greater understanding, shared experiences, and friendship will serve as the basis for meaningful exchange. After all, that is the definition of success for a great university. As derived from the Latin, it means “community,” bringing together in one place many different people and perspectives. It also shares the same root as “universe,” this complicated and interrelated place that we all call home. As the University of Alaska looks forward to the next fifty years, we anticipate many great things, new challenges, and grand possibilities. A state as great as Alaska deserves a university to match it. With investment and support, the University of Alaska, in partnership with the schools, and with business and industry, can lead the state into that bright future. The education, job training, research, and public service needed by Alaska and her citizens can only be accomplished by the focused efforts of these partners. Education isn’t just one of the answers—it is the only answer.

chapter 15  Dennis Metrokin and Jason Metrokin

In the Beginning ANCSA and the Future of Alaska Native Corporations

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or most residents, discovery of gold and oil, World War II, and

achieving statehood are high among the most significant historical events for Alaska. Each one has greatly impacted the place where we all live today. For Alaska Natives, first contact by Europeans is the single most defining event in our history. Arguably, none of Alaska’s other important events come close to the magnitude of impact on Alaska’s people that began in 1784 with the establishment of the first permanent Russian settlement on Kodiak Island (first contact with Russians took place in 1725) and continues to this date, 225 years later. For at least ten thousand years prior to “contact,” Alaska Natives developed their cultures, which included spiritual beliefs, art, dances, stories, unique tools, and survival techniques, while thriving in the land we call Alaska; and then greater powers began to take control. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the childhood and early adult life of many Alaska Natives were influenced by foreign cultures. Some were baptized and married in Western or Eastern churches. It was common for Natives to have foreign surnames while Elders often spoke a mixture of foreign and Native languages. Church services may have been conducted in one language while English was used at school and many parents spoke their Native language in the home. Because many Native youth lost their parents during the influenza breakout in 1918, children were sent to boarding schools at an early age. After schooling, many Alaska Native young adults could hardly speak their Native language, if at all. 259

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Episcopal priest Rev. Cox presiding over the baptism of Gus and Julia Kowunna’s baby in Point Hope, 1950s. Mary Cox Photographs, 1953–1958, UAF-2001-129-141, Archives University of Alaska Fairbanks.

In our families’ case, much of our knowledge of Native culture was lost by the time current generations came along. We knew almost nothing about our Native heritage and culture and we believe this was common among peers. In the case of our father/grandfather, he was not troubled by this at the time, as his family seemed happy with the way things were. Today we understand that this void was a result of events that started more than two hundred years ago. During his youth he was not aware of other changes taking place, such as struggles for civil rights and land ownership for Alaska Natives. He knew more about the fate of the Indian tribes of the Lower Forty-Eight than his own people because of what he was taught in school. Then, in 1971 the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law and things, for most, began to change—although at that time Native people could not envision what those changes would mean. Of course this was also true for most people because management of Native lands and assets using a corporate business model had never been tried before.

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These are the perceptions of two Alaska Natives who each have a working knowledge of two different ANCSA corporations and their respective shareholders. Neither of us claims to be an expert on ANCSA so we will not present statistics or analytical discussion and conclusions. There are plenty of great resources available from highly qualified people and we encourage readers to research some of them and compare these thoughts on ANCSA with the data and hard facts provided by others. We believe readers will get a broader understanding of the real meaning of ANCSA through such an exercise. ANCSA provided Alaska Natives with more than $962 million and forty-four million acres of land through the formation of a unique corporate structure. It seemed a generous solution that could please everyone. Most politicians and oil executives seemed to be satisfied; many others were not. Here are some reasons: • State and federal governments already had most of the resourcerich lands tied up, and after thirty-eight years Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) still do not have all of their land entitlements. • Native subsistence lands and assets were traditionally governed by tribes and they are not included in ANCSA. There has always been a movement to transfer ANC assets to the tribes. However, there are barriers that make this unlikely, if not impossible, under current rules. For example, in most cases tribal members have to live within tribal jurisdiction, but ANC shareholders live all over. (In Koniag Incorporated’s case less than half of its shareholders live in the Koniag region; therefore, those outside the region are not eligible to be voting members of tribes of that region.) • Twelve regional and more than two hundred village corporations divided the contributed capital and lands based on the number of shareholders enrolled in the corporation. When this was done, Bristol Bay Native Corporation, for example, settled for roughly $30 million and three million acres of subsurface land. The surface estate of the same acreage is owned by the village corporations in the Bristol Bay region. • Shareholders’ expectations ran the full gamut. Some didn’t expect anything from another “government” project while others thought, and hoped, they were going to get a large sum of money

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and land. At the outset, few understood that in order to survive and prosper a corporation had to invest its assets and make a profit before distributing money to individuals. Many of those who did know how the corporation system worked still had little faith that commercial fishermen, hunters, and small businessmen could properly manage and direct a multimillion-dollar corporation. Unfortunately, this attitude was justified in some cases as some corporations lost most of their contributed capital during the difficult start-up years. • A few corporations took control of resource-rich land that was accessible for immediate development. Typically, these corporations established solid infrastructures early and also started paying dividends and creating other shareholder benefits programs. Others acquired land with resource potential but could not take advantage because of market conditions and the inability to access the resources that are located in remote areas. These corporations had to rely on their ability to wisely invest their “settlement money.” Some of these went through a long and difficult learning curve that resulted in the loss of millions of dollars before finally building the infrastructure needed to prosper and grow. Most regional corporations and some village corporations now have education foundations that provide assistance to shareholders’ education. • ANCSA shareholders cannot sell their stock, so there is no market value. The shares can be gifted to their heirs or bequeathed through an estate. Banks and potential business partners look for growth in shareholder equity as a measure of a company’s success. Yet, since ANC shareholders cannot sell their shares, but rather look for continuing cash distributions, scholarships, and financial support to cultural awareness programs, is equity growth a realistic goal? Unlike investing in non-ANCSA companies in which the investor hopes to build equity that can be used later in retirement or for other significant quality-of-life issues, ANCs’ strategy is to provide steady and reliable benefits to shareholders now and forever.

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From Entrepreneurs to Corporations After some difficult years of trial and error, most ANCs started settling in and operating like a business corporation somewhere between 1980 and 1990. Remarkably, when some boards of directors advised shareholders that there would be no dividends paid until they recouped all the lost capital contributed through ANCSA for the creation of the corporation, the shareholders understood and supported the board. This is one aspect of this program that has really stood out: The shareholders, for the most part, have been very patient and supportive of their elected representatives and their management teams. This has been a critical factor in allowing the ANCs to mature by building up experience and infrastructure which in turn is now starting to provide cash dividends and other benefits to the shareholders.

Present Day In 1988 when Dennis Metrokin was elected to the board of directors of Koniag Inc., one of nine directors had a college degree and few had more than small business experience. Today more than half might be degreed or have extensive business management experience. There are also pools of qualified shareholders for many of the professional and management

The Bristol Bay Native Corporation is one of the corporations created by ANCSA. This is the cover of the corporation’s 2008 annual report.

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positions in the corporation. Many of these folks come from small villages. This is an important step forward for several reasons. As the corporations grow, the business of running them becomes more complex. ANCs need directors who have a solid mix of education and experience to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to understand policy development, investment, and strategic planning. These skills provide management with the guidance to achieve the set goals and objectives of the corporation. Boards of directors also need some members who understand the needs of the people who choose to live in our ancestral homeland and contribute to keeping our culture alive. Native corporations have had some very capable and dedicated non-Native professionals managing the day-to-day operations, and without them the ANCs might not be where they are today. As good as these individuals are, the fact is that they are not Alaska Native. It is therefore difficult if not impossible for them to fully appreciate the importance of an ANC to provide the level of benefits expected by shareholders. While most can understand the importance of paying dividends, a successful ANC means much more than cash disbursements. In 2003 and after several prior attempts, Jason Metrokin was chosen to join the Bristol Bay Native Corporation board of directors. He was the first of his generation, those born after the passage of ANCSA in 1971, to be elected to serve. Throughout this thirty-plus-year transition of leadership, the torch was finally being passed toward the future. Several other regional and village corporation entities, tribal councils, and other governments are doing the same. We are no longer small and growing corporate entities struggling to find our way among giants of industry. We are on the map, chartering unknown territory, but now as multimillion-dollar (in some cases billiondollar) global companies with visions to accomplish even more. The passage of ANCSA brought change to Dennis Metrokin’s generation’s knowledge of his heritage, and through his connection to Koniag, his family learned more about their Native history and culture. This was when he began to realize an important part of himself had been missing. He had never seen an Alutiiq dance until a group was formed in Kodiak with the help of corporate funding. Now possibly every village in the Koniag region has a dance group and hardly a celebration goes by without inclusion of song and dance. The region has the popular Alutiiq

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Alaska Pacific University Campus, originally founded in 1959 as the Alaska Methodist University with a ­mission to educate Alaska Natives. Photo courtesy Alaska Pacific University.

Museum and a successful language revitalization program. Children are learning to carve and make masks, and to sing and dance as our ancestors did. Just this year an exhibit of nineteenth-century Alutiiq masks purchased by collectors from outside was displayed during a traveling show here in Alaska. For many of us, becoming a shareholder in our respective corporation has provided us with something more valuable than dividends. Having been given back our stories, songs, and art we now have an appreciation for and pride in who we are. Partnerships between Native profit and nonprofit entities have been helpful in making significant progress towards reviving our culture. At Bristol Bay Native Corporation we stress the long-term value and growth of our dividend program. The corporation has few land-based natural resources that have been exploited for a profit other than gravel for local infrastructure. BBNC has provided a sustainable, growing shareholder dividend since 1978—quite possibly one of few companies in the world that can state that claim. In addition, the corporation supports educational, cultural, and social programs much like our sister regional corporations. While every company supports similar efforts, we all do it respective of our individual strategies and long-term commitments to the land and people of our region. Current global corporations are expected to be transparent, with an emphasis on the fiduciary and legal responsibilities to themselves and

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to shareholders. ANCs are no different. Board directors, although representative of the entire shareholder body, oftentimes hold board seats that represent geographic areas or specific villages. Although no individual director speaks on behalf of the company, encounters with other friends or family members who are shareholders or community leaders themselves can make this difficult. In very few other industries are board members so closely tied to their shareholder base. As more culturally and generationally diverse boards are the trend of new-millennium ANCs, it is experience and education that differentiate today’s corporations. Many directors are formally educated, with some obtaining master’s level degrees. As the corporate entities grow, so does the experience of the board and staff—along with shareholder expectations. The many lessons learned in the early days of ANCSA have been important for this growth, but some of those scars still linger. It took many years for most ANCs to develop a business plan and even longer to fully understand what their future might hold. From a strategic perspective, corporations now have the luxury to think longer term with a clearer mission and vision. But unlike their non-ANCSA counterparts, ANC time horizons are much longer: twenty-five, fifty, even a hundred or more years. One major difference is that ANCs have no plans to go away. While business and industry come and go, Native corporations are using this longer-term perspective to understand what the landscape will look like long after an individual investment runs its course, or current leadership is gone. There should be no question that ANCs are an economic engine for Alaska—they are almost an industry within themselves. Not only do rural communities benefit by their existence, so do our urban centers. Many would argue that a prosperous urban Alaska is only possible by maintaining the health of our rural communities. According to the ANCSA Regional Association, a statewide nonprofit organization comprised of regional corporation CEOs, more than thirty thousand people worked for regional for-profit ANCs at their last count in 2006. Almost half of those people lived in Alaska. When you add the fact that village corporations also employ thousands of people, those numbers grow significantly. Of the nineteen Alaska Native corporations listed in the 2007 Alaska Business Monthly Top 49ers report, ANCs accounted for 63 percent of

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total revenues, 54 percent of all Alaska employees, and 72 percent of all employees working for the top forty-nine Alaskan companies listed. Regional corporations provided more than $20 million in scholarships in 2006 and nearly that same amount in charitable contributions. When you include shareholder dividend programs, combined with salaries, scholarships, and donations, we’re talking major economic support for many Alaskans. These contributions are not only a major component of Alaska’s current welfare, but a necessity for our state to thrive well into the future. Today’s Native corporations are involved in more sectors than one could count. They are doing business in every U.S. state, as well as abroad. From construction, engineering, and environmental work to information technology, security, and medical fields, our corporations continue to develop expertise within their respective shareholder base and employ not only direct descendants of our ancestors, but other locals who live in those places where we do business. Our commitment to a thriving ­workforce comes with a preference for our own but the corporations also abide by local laws and regulations such as other public or private corporations around the world. We are taxpaying entities who “pay our way” like anyone else. The economic success of the ANCs has provided Alaska Natives with unprecedented political influence within the state. In most political circles it is commonplace to take the temperature of Native corporations when it comes to certain issues of the day. While the Alaska Federation of Natives remains the statewide membership organization we rely heavily on for advocacy and expertise, our corporate Native entities have tremendous clout as well. This influence spans great distances, from remote rural communities to the halls of our state government and on Capitol Hill. When you combine these forces it cannot be ignored that the Alaska Native perspective is important, and we have a seat at the table when decisions are made.

Future Outlook The ANCs have overcome many obstacles while developing into solid business entities with strong leadership. They are already successful as is shown by their contributions to Alaska’s economy and to their shareholders. However, aside from the typical challenges, such as market fluctua-

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tions, economic changes and future political uncertainties, there will be other serious obstacles to face in the future. As time goes on most original shareholders will be passing their one hundred original shares on to descendants. Overall this will mean more shareholders in a corporation, but with most holding less than one hundred shares. As this redistribution of shares continues it presents a serious challenge for all the corporations. How do we keep shareholders incentivized to take an interest in their corporation’s business activities and their responsibility to participate in the annual election of directors? Is it realistic to say that shareholder equity will grow at a sufficient rate so that the size of a dividend payment for twenty-five shares in a few years can be the same or greater than a payment for one hundred shares today? Or, if not, will shareholder benefits and expanded communication efforts be enough to maintain shareholder interest? Whether it is for education, job opportunity, elderly care, quality of life, or just a desire for warmer weather, shareholders, like many Alaskans, not only move out of their region but also move out of Alaska. In some corporations, more than a third of the shareholders live in the Lower FortyEight and some live overseas. Many descendants and new shareholders who live out of state have never been to Alaska and know very little about ANCSA or traditional Native culture. Newly inheriting shareholders have called to ask what the stock certificate they received is about and what “Native corporation” it refers to. After encountering this situation too often, Koniag Inc. established a program to register as many descendants as possible before they become shareholders, so the corporation can start educating them in advance on what ANCSA is about. Typically, descendants are eligible for scholarships from the corporation, so those who apply usually start receiving the information they will need when they inherit stock. In some cases, less than 40 percent of descendants fall into this group. Shareholders are also encouraged to complete a living will and file it with the corporation, thereby identifying future shareholders that could be added to mailing lists. Contacting and educating descendants is going to be a critical outreach effort for sustaining shareholder involvement in the future. Federal and state funding for social programs has shrunk dramatically over the past several years. The stress on nonprofit entities to meet the

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needs of the people who are dependent on their services has increased substantially. With the recent nationwide economic crisis, it is only getting worse. Indian tribes in the contiguous United States have been establishing for-profit arms for many years. Many of the tribes with successful gaming enterprises, for example, have invested in real estate and other business activities to diversify their income streams. In recent years, a few Alaska tribes have started this practice with the hope that new income sources will help to sustain the programs that are so important to their membership. There are more than 200 tribes and some 170 Native village corporations in Alaska, in addition to the twelve regional corporations. With the right leadership and vision, many of the tribes and village corporations can, in time, become strong economic factors in Alaska. One of the goals of ANCSA was to help reduce the burden on government for social programs in low-income areas. It makes sense that when some of our tribes and more of our village corporations develop successful for-profit companies they could significantly enhance the chances of maintaining needed programs with reduced taxpayer support. An additional aspect of ANCSA for Alaskans is that the corporations don’t just invest in Alaska. They have been successful bringing new money home from doing business globally. What could it mean to Alaska’s future economy if fifty or more additional Native companies were doing the same thing and at the same time reducing dependency on government money? Since the tribes didn’t receive money or land from ANCSA, many of them wouldn’t have the capital needed for startup costs. Others might have limited funds that could provide capital in a project such as a commercial real estate venture. There are experienced and successful real estate ventures that offer opportunities for small investors to take a part in new projects that they will manage. These might be investments with short-term buyout options that provide nice returns that can, in turn, be used for other future growth opportunities. Also, several tribes within a region might form a business coalition for investment purposes. The tribes have many of the same 8(a) minority and disadvantaged business opportunities as the ANCs. The prospect of adding tribes to Alaska’s business matrix, following the successful model of

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the ANCs, is something that our government and business leaders should be interested in studying. While each corporation has different mission statement, the common vision is to provide for shareholders and strike a balance between cultural and financial sustainability. No two corporations achieve this in the same way. We believe that Native corporations will continue to play a major role in shaping Alaska’s future. We will see new partnerships forming, the mentoring of village corporations and tribal entities, and business deals that are global in nature. We are very proud to be shareholders of a Native corporation. It is our responsibility to make sure our children understand the importance of history, culture, and pride, into and beyond the next fifty years of statehood.

Index

Note: Italicized page numbers indicate illustrations.

A Adams, Cindy, 116 Adams, John and Abigail, 243 Adams, John Luther, 116–17, 128n73 AEC (ANCSA Education Consortium), 226, 234 Ahvakana, Larry, 17 Alaska: as American treasure, 211; challenges of, 192; as muse, 61; and the popular imagination, 61–65; remaking of, in common cause, 173; romantic views of, 116–17; Russia’s sale of, to United States, 77; size of, in comparison to the U.S., 191; as storehouse of resources, 203 Alaska 20/20, 143–46 Alaska (Pedersen), 58 Alaska Arctic, as canary in the coal mine, 19 Alaska Artisans shop, Juneau, 27 Alaska Business Monthly, 266–67 Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education (ACPE), 254–55 Alaska Constitution: creation of, 149; Declaration of Rights, 156; delegates’ signatures, 139; fundamental values of,

155; judiciary article, 160–62; mechanism for revision, 156–57; natural resources article, 195–96; nonrecognition of tribal governments in, 212; political power of the people in, 137; and power of the present, 186; University of Alaska, article establishing, 247. See also Constitutional Convention Alaska Department of Labor, 251 Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), 22–23, 28, 232–33, 267 Alaska Festival of Native Arts, 28 “Alaska Flag Song, The,” 6 Alaska Folk Festival, 111 Alaska Growth Policy Council, 141 Alaska House, New York City, 17 Alaska Humanities Forum (AKHF), 6, 37–39, 140, 143 Alaska Independence Party (AIP), 4, 12 n.1 Alaska Judicial Council, 161–62, 165 Alaska legislature, 150, 152, 178, 179, 181 Alaska Marine Highway System, 175 Alaska Methodist University Press, 39 Alaska Music Trail concert series, 104–5 271

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Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), 77, 116, 178, 187, 200–201 Alaska Native Arts and Crafts Clearinghouse, 27 Alaska Native band at Hydaburg, 98 Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall, Sitka, 211 Alaska Native Charter School, 235 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA): black gold rush and, 141; corporations of, 218–19, 225–26, 261–62; and education, 73, 224; Education Consortium (AEC), 226, 234; goals of, 269; and life cycle protocol, 77; and Native history knowledge, 232, 264; and Native identity, 30; passage of, 178, 199–200; and pipeline construction, 110; Regional Association, 266; scholarships awarded by, 268; significance of, 214, 225–28, 260–62 Alaska Native corporations (ANCs): common vision, 270; for-profit arms of, 269; international, 234; and land entitlements, 261–62; maturation of, 263–64; and Native identity, 30; planning horizons of, 266; prospects for, 203; revenues and employees in, 266–67; shareholders in, 261, 267–68; and transparency, 265–66 Alaska Native Corporations (TCI), 225 Alaska Native Language Center, 40, 48 Alaska Native peoples: adaptations to rapid change, 21, 29–30; battle between preservation and change, 67; as domestic dependent nations without treaties, 77; history of, 130–33, 232, 243, 264; as percent of population, 22; political influence of, 267; split among, 184; and statehood movement, 5–6, 174; and survivance, 73; traditions of poverty and racism, 77

Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program, 216 Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, 217 Alaska Native Writers, Storytellers, and Orators, 53 Alaska Nonprofit Economy Report: 2006 (Foraker Group), 228 Alaska Pacific University, 7, 265 Alaska Permanent Fund, 141, 178 Alaska Pipeline Act, 178, 201 Alaska Press Club, 36 Alaska Progress Report (Alaska 20/20), 144 Alaska Public Forum, 141 Alaska Quarterly Review, 39, 40 Alaska Scholars Program, 257 Alaska State Council on the Arts, 37–39, 111 Alaska Statehood Experience grant project, 6 Alaska Studies programs, 60 Alaska Territorial Guard (Eskimo scouts), 104 Alaska tribes, 230–32, 261, 269 Alaska Values Survey, 143 Alaska Village Electrical Cooperative (AVEC), 217 Alaska Works Partnership, 216 alcohol abuse and addiction, 83, 163, 222 Aleutian Boy (Oliver), 58 Aleutian Islands, and World War II, 58, 104 Aleut language, 47 Aleut Tales and Narratives Collected 1909–1910, 87 Allen, Bill, 181–82, 187 Alutiiq Dancers, 217 Alutiiq language, 74 Alutiiq Museum, Kodiak, 131, 264–65 Amason, Alvin, 20 American Judicature Society, 161 Anawrok, Edgar, 42–43 Anchorage, 2–3, 9–10, 22, 146, 149, 175, 184 Anchorage Daily News, 17, 18

Index

Anchorage School District, 10, 235 Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, 106 ANCs. See Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) ANCSA. See Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) Anderson, Charlotte Blake, 221 Anderson, Henry, Sr., 221 Anderson, Henry E., Jr., 221 Anderson, Nancy Parker, 221 Andrews, Susan B., 53–54 Anguyak Alutiiq Dancers, 217 Aniak magistrate, 168–69 ANILCA. See Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) animal parts, 77 ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), 187–88, 201 apartheid, 78, 79, 84, 175 apportionment of voters, 152, 181, 184 apprenticeship programs, 253 architectural-engineering community, 217 Arctic Chamber Orchestra, Fairbanks, 107–9, 110 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), 187–88, 201 art, Alaska Native: courses in, 110–11; cultures reflected in, 23–24; Festival of Native Arts, 28; the future of, 31; infiltration of thought and action by, 69–70; issues in, 28–29; primitive, 80–81; support for, 28; transmission of stories through, 25 art analysis, symbolic capital in, 82–83 artists, Alaska Native, 22–23, 25–26, 29, 31, 81–82. See also names of individual artists artists, role of, 40 Athabascan languages, 102 Athabascan old-time fiddling, 100, 102, 111–12 “At the Door of the Native Studies Director” (Hoffmann), 94–95

273

At the Mouth of the Luckiest River (Griese), 59 Attla, George, 79 Atwood, Bob, 149 Auksulaq (Burtner), 119 Aurora Images (Davis), 92 authenticity, in literature, 43, 60 Ayapana, Charlie, 25 Ayek, Sylvester, 17 B Baby Animals of the North (Main), 60 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 71 Banghart, Bob, 101–3, 111–12 bank failures, 180 Barrow duck hunters, 243–45 Bartlett, E. L. “Bob,” 149, 153, 195 Begich, Mark, 183, 187 Begich, Nick, 183 Begich, Tom, 182–83 Belkofsky Greek Catholic Church bell ringer, 89 Bell, Margaret, 58 Benson, Benny, 6 Benson, Diane E., 53 Berge, Cliff, 107 Bergsland, Knut, 87 Bering, Vitus, 130 Bering Straits Foundation, 226 Berkowitz, Ethan, 188 Berry, William D., 58 Bevins, Susie, 81, 83 Bevins-Ericsen, Susie, 19 Bigjim, Fred, 52, 54 Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun (Wallis), 53 Blanchett, Phillip, 112 Blanchett, Stephen, 112–14, 120–21 Blonde Indian (Hayes), 46 Blueberry Shoe (Dixon), 57 Boas, Franziska, 115 Boaz, Franz, 47 Boney, George, 168 Booth, William, 96–97 Boraas, Alan, 40 boroughs of Alaska, 154–55

274

a l a s k a at 5 0

Bourdieu, Pierre, 82 Box, Roy, 107 Bradfield, Elizabeth, 57 Bristol Bay Native Corporation, 261, 263, 265 Bristol Bay salmon fishery, 199 Brooks, Frances Caroline, 124n10 Brown, Edwin H., 177 Brown, Emily Ivanoff (Ticasuk), 51, 52 Bruchac, Joe, 53 Bruckner, Anton, 117 Burleson, Derick, 56 Burtner, Matthew, 117–18, 121–22 Butler, Evelyn, 93 Butler, Hugh A., 150–51 Butrovich, John, 178 C Cage, John, 115–16, 128 calendars in Alaska, 78 Camai Festival, Bethel, 28 Campbell, Joseph, 115 Cannelos, George, 8 Cape Krusenstern National Monument, 201 Carlo, Poldine, 53 Carlson, Barbara Švarný, 121 Carpeneti, Walter, 165 Carter, Jimmy, 187 Cartwright, Shannon, 59 Caston, Anne, 56 Catholics, 92 Caught in the Act (musical recording), 114 “Cauyaqa Nauwa?” (“Where’s my drum?”), 114 ceremonial oratory, 48–49 Chadwick, Jerah, 56 Chao, Elaine, 254 Cheechakos, 21 Chefornak, 112 Chemawa Indian School, 98 Chester, Hans, 50 Chickaloon tribe, 230–32 children’s literature, 57–61 Christianity and Christian missionaries, 78–79

Chugach National Forest, 199 Chugach State Park, Anchorage, 175 church organs, 90, 91 Church Psalmist, 88–89 CIRI Foundation (TCF), 225, 227, 230–31 civic engagement: in Alaska (1959– 1979), 139–42; in Alaska (1979– 2009), 142–45; frontier mentality and, 138–39; future challenge of, 145–46; trajectory of, in Alaska, 145 civic identity, Alaskan, 6, 153, 183 Classics of Tlingit Oral Literature, 50 Clay, Arlene, 168–69 climate change (global warming), 23, 66, 203–4, 256 coal developments, 204 Coalson, Glo, 58 Coghill, Jack, 1, 171, 173–75 Coghill, John, 171, 174–75, 188–89 Cold Climate Housing Research Center, 217 Cold River Spirits (Harper-Haines), 53 Cole, Charlie, 159 Cole, Marjorie Kowalski, 45 comic books, 83 Coming into the Country (McPhee), 44 Commander Island, 87 commercial fish harvest, 193, 199 commercial flights, 103–4 common cause, 174, 182 Commonwealth North, 142 community-based democracy, 183–84 community sustainability, 214 Compass Inside Ourselves, The (Lord), 42 Conference of Alaskans, 143 Conference on Alaska’s Future, 143–44 Conference on Alaska’s Future Frontiers, 142 “Conference on the Future of Alaska” (AKHF), 140 ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building, 252 conservationists, 195, 201–2, 204

Index

Constitutional Convention: civic engagement and, 139–40; delegates to, 1, 140, 147, 148, 153, 173–74; keynote speeches, 152–53; Resources Committee of, 154; statehood debate and, 194; statehood movement and, 5 Cook, James, 218 Cook Inlet, 203 corporations: ANCSA and, 218–19, 225–26, 261–62; global, 265–66. See also Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) Correcting the Landscape (Cole), 45 corruption in politics, 181–82, 186 Cory, Craig, 116 cost of living, in villages, 216 court system, 154, 162, 164–67, 169. See also judicial system Cox, Loretta Outwater, 50, 53 Cox, Paul, 115 Cox, Rev., 260 “Credo in US” (dance-drama), 115 Creed, John, 54 Cremo, Roger, 150–51 creolization, 120 Criminal Justice Working Group, 165 Croft, Chancy, 171, 175, 178, 178, 187–88 Croft, Eric, 171, 179–80, 187–88 Crooked Stovepipe, The (Mishler), 100–101 cross-cultural traditions, 70 CrossSound , 93, 107, 120, 122–23 cultural exchange, intertidal zone of, 121–22 cultural exploration, for youth, 132 cultural memory, 118 cultural survivance, 82 culture and cultures: Alaska Native and American, 18–19; foreign, influence on Alaska Natives, 259; gap in, between Alaska and mainstream publishing, 60; humor and self-deprecation in, 83–84; indigenous, 212, 225, 229;

275

knowledge of Alaska Native, 260, 264; language as key element of, 69, 71, 73, 76; in music of Pamyua, 112; political, 171–72, 176, 179; preservation of, 28; subsistencebased, 24, 192–93; traditional, rebuilding links to, 121. See also individual tribes and groups Cunningham, Merce, 115 Curran, Ruth, 93 curricula. See educational curricula D Dale, George, 93 dancing, 28, 90, 96, 115, 217 Dankworth, Ed, 181 Dauenhauer, Nora Marks, 41–42, 52, 55–56, 98 Dauenhauer, Richard, 41, 48, 52, 55–56 Davis, Carol Beery, 92, 104–5, 124n10 Davis, Constance, 104 Davis, Henry, Sr., 93 Davis, Olena Kalytiak, 57 Davis, Robert, 42, 52 Davis, Trevor, 124n10 DeArmond, Dale, 59 death, rituals of, 77 Demmert, Ruth, 49 democracy in Alaska, 137–38, 246 Dena’ina Legacy: K’tl’egh’I Sukdu (Kalifornsky), 40 Denali Commission, 209, 214, 217, 219 Deneki (Berry), 58 dental therapist program, 217 Dewey, John, 138, 146 digital evidence locker, 165 Dimond, John, 168 diplomatic protocols, indigenous, 76 Dirks, Moses L., 87 diversity, of Alaska’s people, 35–37 Division of Policy Development and Planning (Alaska Public Forum), 141 Dixon, Ann, 57 Dominicks, Vesta, 50 Doogan, Mike, 64

276

a l a s k a at 5 0

Douglass, Frederick, 243 Doyon Foundation, 225–26, 231 Droning Shaman, The (Dauenhauer), 41, 52 drumming, 96–97 Drygas, Erik, 248 Dutch Harbor–Unalaska, 201 Dyson, Cindy, 64 E Eaton, Perry, 17, 30 ecoacoustics, 118 economic development, 200–201 economic success, higher education and, 234 economy of Alaska, 139–43, 172–73, 180, 196–97, 249 education: of Alaska Native children, 93, 222–23, 240, 260–61; for Alaska Natives, 222–25; compulsory, 78; the future of, 234–35, 257; high school graduates, 227, 251–52; postsecondary, 226–27, 234, 248– 49, 254; by Protestant churches, 92; as state priority, 255; student success, 253, 255–56; technical, 253; traditional Tlingit, 49; unified approach to, 224 educational curricula: Alaska history in, 244–45; Alaska Native languages and customs in, 73; Alaska Studies in, 60; American history in, 239–41; Iñupiaq language in, 218; music in, 90; standards-based culturally relevant, in Ya Ne Da Ah school, 230–32 educational programs, 110–11, 132, 164 educational system, 222 Egan, Bill, 142, 155, 174–75, 245 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 18, 150 electronic media, 174, 184 Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, 10 Elnguq (Jacobson), 53 embodiment theories, 81

employment, 198–99, 266–67 Endangered Language Program, Rosetta Stone, 218 Energy Center, University of Alaska, 256 energy issues, 19, 256 Environmental Protection Agency, 204 Enzweiler, Joe, 56 Epic of Qayaq, The (Oman), 51 Episcopal Church, 92 Erdman, Jean, 115 Ernst, Max, 115 Eskimo Legends (Oman), 51 Eskimo Olympics, 111 ethnomusicology, defined, 123n1 European folk music, Athabascans and, 100 Extreme Conditions (Strohmeyer), 181 Exxon Valdez oil spill, 180 Eyak language, 70, 75 F Fabe, Dana, 8 Fairbanks, 106, 161, 193 Family Law Self-Help Center, 164 Fast, Phyllis, 9 federal government, 150, 201 Ferber, Edna, 44 Ferrell, Nancy, 59 Filipino Community Center, Juneau, 103 Filipino musicians, 98 Fireweed Press, 39 First Alaskans Institute, 216 fiscal plan, long-term, for Alaska, 142 Fischer, Gloria, 150–51 Fischer, Helen, 151 Fischer, Vic, 1 Fishcamp: Life on an Alaskan Shore (Lord), 42 Fisher, Vic, 8 fisheries industry, 193, 198–99, 201 fishing for bullheads, Point Hope, 210 Fitzgerald, James, 168 foreign cultures, influence of, 259 foundations, Alaska Native, 225, 231 4’33” (Cage), 116

Index

Fowler, Jim, 59 Franklin, Sir John and Lady Jane, 61–62 Freeman, Molly Lou, 57 French, L. H., 177 Friedman, Thomas L., 219 frontier, closure of, by ANILCA, 178 frontier mentality, and civic engagement, 138–39 fusion, 125n27 G Galanin, Nick, 82 game changers, 219 Gariepy, Henry, 97 gas industry, 197–98 geothermal resources, 203 Ghost of Kingikty, The (Oman), 51 GI Bill, 224 Gill, Shelley, 59 Give or Take a Century: An Eskimo Chronicle (Senungetuk), 52 global corporations, 265–66 globalization, 20–21, 76, 79, 269 global warming (climate change), 23, 66, 203–4, 256 gold nuggets from Anvil Creek, Nome, 177 gold rush, 96, 100, 176, 193 Goldsmith, Scott, 180 Goodwin, Sister, 43, 52, 55 Gottlieb, Katherine, 217 Governor’s Council on Economic Policy, 141 Green Alaska: Dreams from the Far Coast and Beluga Days (Lord), 42 Griese, Arnold, 59 Groh, Cliff, 150–51 Gruening, Ernest, 10, 36, 137, 149, 153 Guinn, Nora, 169 Gwich’in culture, 51, 102 H ha, meaning of, 122 Haakanson, Sven, Jr., 9, 56, 86, 132 Haidas, 97, 103

277

Haines, John, 37, 39–40, 44, 55, 85 Hale, Mary, 38 Hamilton, Mark, 8 Hammond, Jay, 111, 141, 176–79, 185 hand controllers, 118–19 Harborview School, Juneau, 110 Hardy, Aurora. See Tony, Mary Harper-Haines, Jan, 53 Hayes, Ernestine, 46, 50 health care, 216 Hedin, Robert, 37 Henry, Cynthia, 248 Henry, Sue, 64 Hensley, Willie, 213 Hermann, Mildred, 149 Heyne, Eric, 65 Hickel, Walter J., 4, 142, 178–79, 186 higher education, 226–27, 234, 248– 49, 254 high school graduates, 227, 251–52 Hilscher, Hilary, 105 Hinag, Deg, 50 “His Silent Partners” (cartoon), 177 historial amnesia, 239 history: Alaska Native, 130–33, 232, 243, 264; in educational curricula, 239–41, 244–45; glory and romance in, 242–43; significance of, 245–46; significant events in, 259; understanding of, in 21st century, 129, 241–42 history books, 130 Hmong, forced removal of, 73–74 Hoffmann, Robert Davis (Xaashuch’eet), 50, 93–95 Hohman, George, Jr., 142, 181 Hollowell, Erin, 57 Holly, George, 50 Holy Trinity Church, 124n10 home rule authority, 154–55 Honoring Nations Project, 228–29 Hootch, Molly, 224 Hoover, John, 81 Hope, Andrew III, 41, 50, 52 Hope, Elizabeth Goodwin, 50 Hope, Ishmael, 50, 83 Hoppenfeld, Mort, 214

278

a l a s k a at 5 0

Horace, Daniel, 213 Hudson Bay Company traders, 100 Hughes, Bridget, 5 Hughes, Mary K., 4, 5, 248 Hughes, Patty Ann, 5 human world–natural world dynamic, 51 Huntington, Sidney, 63, 209, 219 Hurley, Katie, 1–2 hybrid media, 120 hydro project, proposed, 203 hymns, 89 I Ice Palace (Ferber), 44 identity, Alaska Native, 25–27, 29–30 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, 79 income tax, cancellation of, 180 Indian Historian Press, 52 indigenous soundscape, and foreign words and music, 86 infrastructure investment, 214–16, 219 in-migration and urbanization, 176 In Sisterhood (Martin), 97 Institute for American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, 27 Institute of the North, 216 institutions, in research findings, 230–31 institutions, research findings, 229 Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 239 Internet access, 218 Into the Wild (Krakauer), 63 Inuit culture, in music of Pamyua, 112 Inuit drumming, 118 Inuksuit (Adams), 117 Iñupiaq editions of children’s books, 60 Iñupiaq language curriculum, 218 Iñupiaq legends, 122 Iñupiat traditions of Nalukataq, 79 Ipalook, Percy, 149 Island Institute’s Summer Symposium, 39 Island Within, The (Nelson), 41 ivory carvers, 24–25

J Jackson, Clarence, 97 Jackson, Henry “Scoop,” 187 Jackson, Nathan, 81 Jackson, Sheldon, 88, 92 Jacobs, Harold, 50 Jacobs, Harriet, 243 Jacobson, Anna, 53 Jacobson, Patricia A., 248 jagtime, 100 Jefferson, Thomas, 246 Jetté, Jules, 75 Jochelson, W., 87 Johnson, Johnny C., 97 Jones, Arlitia, 56 Jones, Chief Marie Smith, 70, 75 Jones, Eliza, 75 Jones, Stan, 64, 183 judges, 154, 159–60 judicial system: design of, 153–54, 160–63; discovery in, 165; emerging technology in, 164–65; family law, 164; territorial, 159– 60; therapeutic courts, 163–64, 169–70. See also court system Juneau, 107, 111, 166, 193 K Kadashan, 52 Kahtahah (Paul), 59 Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga (Boraas), 40 Kairaiuak, Ossie, 112 Kake, Salvation Army band of, 97 Kalifornsky, Peter, 40 Kanakanak hospital, 215 Kantner, Seth, 45, 63 Kari, James, 40 Kashevaroff, Andrew P., 92, 115 Kashevaroff, Xenia Andreyevna, 115, 125n51 Kelly, Tom, 197 Kenai Peninsula Orchestra, 107 Kessler pipe organ, Sitka, 90 Kiana’s Iditarod (Gill), 59 Kicaput, 113 Kilbuck, Edith, 95–96

Index

Killisnoo musicians, 101 Klondike Gold Rush, 96, 176 knowledge specialists, traditional, 79 Knowles, Tony, 187 Kobuk, 108–9 Kodiak Island, 131 Kohlhass v. State, 12 n.1 Koniag Education Foundation, 226 Koniag Inc., 263, 268 Kowunna, Gus and Julia, 260 Koyukon dictionary, 75 Koyukon language, 72–73, 75–76 Koyukons, cultural customs of, 72 Krakauer, Jon, 42, 63 Krauss, Michael, 48, 71 Kremer, Carolyn, 56 Kuik (Burtner), 119 L land claims, settlement of, 110, 172, 174, 232–33 land grants, 155, 194 Landlord, Trina, 20 languages, 59, 69, 71, 73–76, 84 languages, Alaska Native: adaptation of, to Cyrillic alphabet, 86–87; Alutiiq, 74; Athabascan, 102; endangered status of, 47–48, 50; Iñupiaq, 218; Koyukon, 72–73, 75–76; linguistic distribution, 72 (map); punishment for speaking, 221–22; revitalization programs, 265; and symbolic continuum of indigenous culture, 73; at the time of Russian contact, 55; Upper Kuskokwim Deg Hit’an, 116; viability of, 70; Yup’ik, 53, 113 Larianoff, Willie, 101 Laurence, Sydney, 81 leadership, in research findings, 229, 232–33 legal systems, alien, 76 legends, 51, 122 Legislative Council of the State of Alaska, 140, 142 “Letter Home” (Anawrok), 42–43

279

Letters to Howard (Bigjim), 52 Life Woven with Song (Dauenhauer), 52 Lincoln, Abraham, 245, 246 linguistic and cultural revival, 110 linguistic avoidance and resistance, 71–72 “Listening in October” (Haines), 85 Liszka, James, 39 literacy, 47–48, 87 literature, 37, 44–46, 50–54, 65. See also writers; writing Little Men for Statehood, 151 Life Woven with Song (Dauenhauer), 41 Log Cabin Church, Juneau, 124n10 log church decorated for Christmas, 91 logging near Pigot Bay, Prince William Sound, 196 London, Jack, 64–65 Longest Story Ever Told, The (Brown), 51 Lord, Erica, 29 Lord, Nancy, 42 Lutheran Church, 90 M MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, 217 Macheras, Dimi, 83 Machetanz, Fred and Sara, 58 Madsen, Roy, 169 Main, Katy, 60 MAJIC (Multi-Agency Justice Integration Consortium), 165–66 Mallot, Byron, 213, 219 Man Who Swam with Beavers, The (Lord), 42 Marston, Muktuk, 155, 176 Martin, Elizabeth, 97 Martin, Robert R., Jr., 248 mask makers, 81–82 Matanuska-Susitna Borough, 184 McCain, John, 19, 187 McCandless, Chris, 63 McCarriston, Linda, 56 McCulloch, David, 240 McElroy, Dave, 37 McKay, Douglas, 151

280

a l a s k a at 5 0

McKinnon, Allen, 92 McLaughlin, George, 161 McMahon, Craig, 169 McPhee, John, 44 Meade, Marie, 126n48 Meekins, Russ, 137, 142 men’s houses, 124n12 Metcalf, Lee, 36 methamphetamine, 169 Metrokin, Dennis, 8, 263–64 Metrokin, Jason, 9, 264 Midnight Sun Writers’ Conference, 39 Miller, Keith, 197 Miller, Terry, 178 miners waiting to register claims, Dawson, 175 mining industry in Alaska, 198 Mishler, Craig, 100–102 “Missionary Meeting” (song), 89–90 Missions and Measures, State of Alaska, 144 mission schools, 222–23 Møller, Karina, 112, 113, 118 money, and community, 180 Morgan, John, 56 Multi-Agency Justice Integration Consortium (MAJIC), 165–66 multicultural awareness, 73 Munger, Philip, 116 Muñoz, Rie, 59 Murkowski, Frank and Lisa, 186–87 Museum of Modern Art, 115 music: Alaska Music Trail concert series, 104–5; commissioned for CrossSound, 122–23; composers, influences on, 116; in educational curricula, 90; fiddling styles and tunes, 100–103; Filipino, 98; hybridization of, 121–22; indigenous, missionaries’ view of, 95; nature, 126n54; orchestras, 102, 106–9, 110; of Pamyua, 112– 14; Russian fur traders, heritage of, 88; western European vs. non-western, 85. See also names of individual musicians

musical works, contemporary, 119 music appreciation vs. ethnomusicology, 85 music festivals, 111 mystery genre, 45, 64 mystique of the North, 66 myth, and the Alaskan difference, 11–12, 63 N Naalagiagvik (“Place Where You Go to Listen”), 122 Naish, Constance, 47 Nalukataq celebration, 78–79 NANA Project, 141–42 NANA Regional Corporation, 218 Napoleon, Harold, 22 narratives, traditional, 43, 46–49, 51, 60 Narullgiar, 126n48 National Endowment for the Arts, 38 National Endowment for the Humanities, 38 national monuments, 187 national park lands, 200 National Public Radio, 218 national wildlife refuge lands, 200 Native American Art exhibition, 115 Native American Philanthropy (report), 234 Native American Renaissance, 52 Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP), 228 Native Arts Center, 27 Native-owned corporations. See Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) natural gas resources, 202, 204 natural resources, 185, 191–92, 195–96, 200–203, 249 nature, in children’s literature, 60 nature, speaking for, 62–63 nature music, 126n54 Neakok, Sadie, 169 Nelson, E. W., 92 Nelson, Richard, 40–41 Nesbett, Buell, 164–65, 167–68 Newton, Charles, 96

Index

New York publishers, 60 Nickerson, Sheila, 56 No Child Left Behind, 240 Nolan, James, 178 nomadic lifestyles, precolonial, 76 Nome, 193 Nondiscrimination Act, 10 nonfiction works, 45 nonprofit sector, 226, 228 nonvoters, 183 Nordale, Katherine, 186 Northern Light Church, 92 North Slope Borough, 155 North Slope oilfields, 197, 201 Northway, Alaska, 37 Noyes, Arthur H., 160 Nulato (Carlo), 53 Nunapicuaq, 126n48 O Obama, Barack, 204 O’Connor, Sandra Day, 241–42 oil, 180, 187, 197–98, 201, 249 oil and gas lease sale, 197 oil industry, 110, 140, 173, 178, 181 oil spills, Prince William Sound, 172, 180 oil wealth, effects of, 66, 172, 176, 185, 196–97 Oliver, Ethel Ross, 58 Olsson, Maggie Curran, 93 Oman, Lela, 51–52 Ongtooguk, Paul, 235 On Mother’s Lap (Coalson), 58 Operation Statehood, 151 oral narratives and tradition, 43, 46– 49, 51, 60, 129 oratory, ceremonial, 41, 48–49 orchestras, 102, 106–9, 110 Ordinary Wolves (Kantner), 45, 63 Oregon Progress Board, 143 Osier, Jill, 57 Ostercamp, Ken, 9 Ostrom, Elinor, 184–85 Ostrom, Vincent, 184–85 outer continental shelf (OCS), 202–3 Outsiders, as teachers, 59

281

P Palin, Sarah, 19, 187–88 Pamyua (Encore), 112–14 Paniyak, Rosalie, 22–23 Paniyak, Ursula, 22 Parnell, Sean, 165 Paul, Frances Lackey, 59 payroll, nonresident, 251 Pedersen, Elsa, 58 Pegues, Rod, 210–11 Peratrovich, Elizabeth, 10, 245 Peratrovich, Frank, 5, 149, 174, 178 Permafrost: A Literary Journal, 39 Permanent Fund, 142–43, 210 Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), 74, 180, 185–86, 214 petroleum, as percent of Alaska’s gross state product, 198 Petticoat Fisherman (Pedersen), 58 philanthropy among Native organizations, 227–28 Pier One Theatre, Homer, 107 Pilgrim Hot Springs, 256 place, 67, 86, 117, 119 “Place Where You Go to Listen” (Naalagiagvik) (Adams), 128 poetry, 54–57 polar bears, 203 political corruption, 181–82, 186 political culture, 5–7, 171–72, 176, 178–79 Pollock, Jackson, 115 pollock fishery, 198–99 population, 10, 21–22, 103, 176, 184 potlatches, 77 poverty, 77, 175 Power of Public Ideas, The (Reich), 145 Presbyterian ministry, in Chilkat Valley, 88 Pribilof Island, 87 primitive art, 80–81 Principles and Interests Project (AKHF), 143 profit-making corporations, 225 program-related investments (PRI), 234 property rights, 155 Prudhoe Bay, 110, 140, 197, 213–14

282

a l a s k a at 5 0

public charities, 228 Public Defender Agency, Sitka, 61 public institutions, lack of trust in, 138 public policy, principles of, 145 public wealth, paradoxes of, 143 publishing industry, 60–61

Russian Orthodox Church, 74, 78, 86–87 Russians, in history books, 130 Russian settlement on Kodiak Island, 259 Rust, Meghan, 64

R Rabinowitz, Jay, 159, 168 racism, 77, 172 Rader, John, 178, 186 Raising Ourselves (Wallis), 46, 53 Rampart, 216 Rasmuson, Elmer, 200 Rasmuson Foundation, 6, 217 Raven’s Bones (Hope), 41, 52 Raven Tells Stories (Bruchac), 53 reciprocity, as diplomatic protocol, 76 Red Dog zinc mine, 198, 201 regional corporations, 218, 261–62 Reich, Robert, 145 religious conversion, 89–90 Resonance of Place (Adams), 117 resource management, 185, 191–92, 195–96, 200–203, 249 Results that Matter, 145 revenue from oil production, 180 revolution, 83 Rexford, Cathy, 56–57 Rich, Kim, 64 rituals of death, 77 Rock, Howard, 245 Rockefeller Center in St. Paul, 105–6 Rogers, Jean, 59 Roman Catholics, 92 Roots of Ticasuk, The (Brown), 51 Rosenthal, Paul, 111 Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program, 218 Ross, Alex, 126n54 Ruppert, James, 51 rural Alaska, 22, 212 Russian-American Company, 87 Russian fur traders, 88, 192–93 Russian immigrants, mission of, 74 Russian language, in Alaska, 74

S “Sacrifice” A Dream / A Vision” (Goodwin), 43 “Saginaw Bay” (Davis), 42 Saint Nicholas Day dance, 90 Salisbury, Leslie, 109 salmon fishery, 199 Salvation Army, 96–97, 99 Sam, Bob, 50 Sapir, Edward, 69 satellite television and sod-roofed cabins, 21 Saulitis, Eva, 56 Schandelmeier, Linda, 54 Schenck, Alberta, 10, 245 Schlichting, Sally, 107 scholarships, from ANCs, 268 School of Agriculture and Mines, 248 schools. See education Sealaska Heritage Institute, 225–26, 231 Seaton, Fred, 18 segregation, 78, 79, 84, 175 self-determination, 229, 234 self-government, authentic, 185 self-representation, in family cases, 164 Senungetuk, Joe, 42 Senungetuk, Joseph, 52 Service, Robert, 64–65, 77 seventh generation philosophy, 227–28 Sexton, Tom, 56 Shadows on the Koyukuk (Huntington), 63 shamanism, 79 Shapiro, Jane, 105 Shapiro, Maxim, 104–5 sharing, and process of survival, 79, 223, 225 Sheffield, Bill, 181 Sheldon Jackson College, 93–94 Shelikov, Grigorii, 130

Index

Shively, John, 8 Shopping for Porcupine (Kantner), 63 Shotridge, Louis, 47 Shumaker, Peggy, 55 Shungnak, 109 Silook, Susie, 82 Silver Hand program, 30–31 Singh, Renee, 50 singing, 96 Sinrock (Bigjim), 52 Sitka, 62 Sitka Summer Music Festival, 111 Smith, Bridget, 64 Smith, Eleanor R. “Ellie,” 108–9 Snowball, Ben, 113 sobriety, statewide cry for, 83 social capital, 182 social programs, 268–69 songs, 87–89 Soulcatcher (Davis), 52 SoundScriber, 164–65 Southcentral Foundation, 216–17 Southeast Symphony, Ketchikan, 107 sovereignty, in research findings, 229–30 Spatz, Ronald, 39 St. Herman, 86 St. Paul, television’s arrival in, 105–6 Stabenow, Dana, 64 Stark, David, 56 state budgets, 197 state constitutions, hypothetical instruction manual for, 148–49 state government, 180–81, 185, 194, 201 statehood: debate over, and Constitutional Convention, 194; first quarter century, 172; in glacial terms, 67; golden anniversary of, 1–2; for Nancy Lord, 43; opponents of, 149–50; as opportunity to revisit history, 129; parade, 233; principal advocates of, 149; responses to, 3–4, 6–7; second quarter century of, 172; traditions of, 78 Statehood Act, 167–68, 186

283

state mottos, 10, 66–67 State of the Judiciary address, 168 State of the State Conference, 144 state parks, 175 state seal, 6 state song, 69 Stepovich, Mike, 18 Stevens, Ted, 182, 187 Stewart, June, 105 Stewart, Thomas B., 152, 156, 160 Stone Harp, The (Haines), 39 Story, Gillian, 47 Strohmeyer, John, 181 Strong Man (Hope), 83 subsistence-based cultures and economies, 24, 192–93, 199 subsistence lands and rights, 172, 261 suicide rates, 212 Summerville, Suzanne, 104–5 Sundown, Teddy, 113–14 Survival (Lord), 42 survivance, 71, 84 sustainability, 193, 214, 219 Swanson River oil field, 196 Swartz, Peggy, 110 Symphony No. 8 (Bruckner), 117 T taadle’o, 80 Tagaban, Gene, 50 Tales of Ticasuk (Brown), 51 Tallmountain, Mary, 42, 53, 55 Taruyamaarutet (“Twisted Faces in Wood”) (Burtner), 118 taxes, 178, 180 TCF (CIRI Foundation), 225, 227, 230–31 teachers, Alaska Native, 224 technology, 118, 164–65 techno-shamanic interfaces, in Burtner’s work, 118 TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge), 79 telecommunications, 105 television, 21, 105–6, 184 tensions in Alaska, 66

284

a l a s k a at 5 0

territorial Alaska: federal bureaucracies in, 150; judicial system in, 159–60, 162; legislative voting districts, 173; legislature of, 150, 152; misgovernment of, 150, 153; political status of, 150; population of, 21; residents of, 137 therapeutic courts, 163–64 There is No Word for Goodbye (Tallmountain), 53 third-world disparities, 219 Thomas, Amber Flora, 56 Thomas, Joseph, 97 Thoreau, Prince, 62 throat singing, 118 timber industry, 199 timelines, 13–14, 33–34 Tlingit Eagle/Wolf clan, 221 Tlingit language, 47, 55–56, 221–22 Tlingit narratives, 41, 48–50 Tlingit women, 103 Tlingits, and Salvation Army, 97 Tobeluk v. Lind, 224 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 182 Tongass Management Act, 201 Tongass National Forest, 199 Tony, Mary (pseud. Aurora Hardy), 53 “Totem Ancestor,” 115 Totem Echoes (Songs of the Totem) (Davis), 92 tourism, 59, 199–200 trading partner network, 76 Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), 79 traditions: of Alaska Native peoples, 28, 49, 78–79, 225, 233; continuity of, 72–73; cross-cultural, 70; globalization and, 76; literary, emergence of new, in English, 50 Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, 110, 141, 201, 210, 251 transience, in Alaska’s population, 183–84 Tribal Funk, 112 tribal governments, 212, 219

tribal jurisdictions, and ANC shareholders, 261 tribes, 230–32, 261, 269 Tryck, Molly, 151 ts’eebaa (sadness holds me), 75 Two Old Women (Wallis), 46, 53, 63 U “Uivarranga” (“Goose Hunt”), 113–14 Unangan hunters, relocation to Sitka, 87 Unangan hunter’s song, 87–88 University of Alaska, 247–51, 253 University of Alaska Anchorage, 252, 256 University of Alaska Fairbanks, 152, 248, 250, 256 University of Alaska Juneau, 251 Upayuilnguq, 126n48 Upper Kuskokwim Deg Hit’an language, 116 U.S. Bureau of Education, 93 U.S. Congress, 204 U.S. Indian Arts and Crafts Board, 27 V Vancouver, George, 218 VECO corruption scandal, 186 Veniaminov, Ioann, 87 Victory at Bear Cove (Pedersen), 58 village corporations, 261–62 villages: consensus governance in, 212; ephemeral nature of, 218; events effecting changes in, 213–14; prospects for, 209–10, 216, 218–20 Vizenor, Gerald, 71 von der Heydt, James, 168 voter apportionment, 152, 181, 183–84 W Wade, Katie, 230 Wallis, Velma, 46, 50–51, 53, 63 Way of Our People, The (Griese), 59 wealth sharing, in Alaska Native tradition, 79, 225, 233 Weatherly, Marv, 105

Index

“We Come Out of the Fog” (Hoffman), 93 Westernization of Alaska Natives, 222 Whale Snow (Edwardson), Iñupiaq edition, 60 whaling crew, 95 When Raven Cries (Kadashan), 52 White, Barrie M., 150–51 White Silence, the, 65 Whiting, Martha, 218 whole language movement, 59 Whorf, Benjamin, 69 Wickersham (judge), 161 Wickersham, Kirk, 248 Wien Air Alaska plane, Shungnak, 223 Wien Alaska Airlines, 104 wilderness acreage in Alaska, 194, 200 Willard, Caroline, 88 Williams, Jesse, 98–100, 119–20 Williams, Maria, 23 Williams, Walter (Juneau storyteller), 119–20 Williams, Walter, Sr., 98–99

285

Wind is Not a River, The (Griese), 59 Winter News (Haines), 37, 39, 44 Witness to the Stolen (Benson), 53 Wohlforth, Charles, 9 Wohlforth, Eric, 173 Worl, Rosita, 235 World Eskimo Indian Olympics, 28 World War II, 58, 103–5, 125n34, 176 Wright, Gordon, 107–8, 117 “Writer as Alaskan, The” (Haines), 44 writers, 41, 46, 49–54, 65, 129. See also names of individual writers writing, 29–30, 45, 52–53, 55–56, 66–67 Y Ya Ne Da Ah (Ancient Teachings) School, Chickaloon, 230–32 Young, Don, 187 Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta songs, 112 Yup’ik dancer with dancing paddles, 28 Yup’ik language, 50, 53, 60, 113 Yup’ik villages, 218