Table of Contents
Section and department titles are in Siberian Yupik. Each issue of First Alaskans features a different Native language in this role. Thanks to Yaari Walker (Siberian Yupik) and George Noongwook (Siberian Yupik) for their help in translating titles for this issue.
Setting the stage for the climate battle—on our terms
By ilgavak (Peter Williams) (Yup’ik)
Wilson Justin (Ahtna/Alth’setnay)
dealing with the danger in front of you
dealing with the danger in front of you
Setting the stage for the climate battle—on our terms
By ilgavak (Peter Williams) (Yup’ik)
Wilson Justin (Ahtna/Alth’setnay)
There were more than a dozen tents scattered across patches of grass and log cabins. The National Science Foundation had funded the event. In order to have a deeper conversation on the impacts of climate change and its solutions, the Association for Interior Native Educators, PoLAR Partnership, and International Arctic Research Center collaborated on the project. Combining Alaska Native science and perspectives with Western ones. Collaborating on Climate: The Signs of the Land Camp as a Model for Meaningful Learning Between Indigenous Communities and Western Climate Scientists by Malinda Chase (Deg Hit’an Dene’) among others.
Ungipaghaq STORIES FROM AROUND
Alaska Tribal Spectrum receives wireless frequencies from FCC
In March, the Federal Communications Commission granted the largest single 2.5GHz spectrum award in the country to an Alaska Native Tribal-managed nonprofit organization. The Alaska Tribal Network is a collective of Tribal entities across Alaska with the goal of creating a statewide network that is Tribally governed. Currently the Alaska Tribal Spectrum represents half of all Tribes in Alaska, amounting to a quarter of all Tribes within the United States.
“This really is huge news for our Tribes,” said Crystal Dushkin, Native Village of Atka President. “Access to high-speed internet at unprecedented affordable prices will revolutionize our lives in our rural communities, such as our remote village of Atka.”
Read more at the Alaska Tribal Spectrum.
Nome police dispatcher settles suit against city
In 2017, Inupiaq police dispatcher Clarice “Bun” Hardy was sexually assaulted, and she reported the assault to the Nome police. Despite video evidence and Bun following up with both the Nome police and Alaska State Troopers, she was never given progress updates, and the case did not to appear to be investigated for over a year. In 2020, Bun filed a lawsuit against the City of Nome.
In March, Bun and the city reached an agreement that she would drop her lawsuit in exchange for $750,000 and an apology from the city. Bun credits Nome sexual assault activists in giving her the courage to pursue action against the city.
To read more, visit the Anchorage Daily News.
“Sovereignty From the First Breath”
f you have given birth or been intimately involved with the arrival of a baby, you know what an awe-inspiring, transformative, and all-encompassing experience it is. It’s also an enormous challenge: even a birth that is free of major complications is hardly all storks and snuggles.
For Alaska Native individuals there are often extra complications, some of them stemming from historical policies that extinguished our traditional methods of caring for parents and families, and others more specific to the contemporary healthcare system or structural racism.
The Father of Alaska Native Land Claims
ince right now we’re really celebrating and looking at the 50th anniversary of ANCSA. I have to say that William Paul [Sr, Lingít] should be regarded as the father of Native land claims,” said Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl, PhD (Lingít) after a recent talk on William’s early life by his grandson Ben Paul.
“We’ve had many, many great leaders who have come after him, but he was the one that began it,” she said.
Decades before Congress adopted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the Lingít and Haida Indians of southeast Alaska waged claims battles launched by Paul (1885-1977).
Beyond
Land
Acknowledgements
Saityen
Saityen was known by many names; Sayyen by Iñupiat storytellers of the Middle Kobuk River (Charles Piġliġiaq Custer, Truman Siqupsiraq Cleveland,) Saityet (Joe Immałurauq Sun) and Saityen (Barbara Qalhaq Atoruk) on the Upper Kobuk River, and Satnik and Sannik (Simon Panniaq Paneak, Justus Mekiana) was his Nunamiut name. (Storytellers further west and north add too many elements that are not in the upper Kobuk version. Therefore, the author has omitted them.) His name in Koyukon might mean something associated with the word ‘knife,’ tsaaye. This person was also known as Nitsehduu (Stephen Peter) of the Neets’ąįį Gwich’in.
s a young boy, Saityen was displaced from the Nendaaghe River (Noatak River) sometime after 1820. He came from a community who called themselves the Nendaaghe Hut’aane Koyukon people. They were exclusively caribou hunters.
Unbeknownst to Saityen’s people, geologic events took place across the world that caused a period of sudden unexpected cooling. The initial cooling was so severe that it caused some family groups, fearing starvation, to abandon their land to join relatives far to the east, around 270 miles as the crow flies. Unfortunately, this left a weakened community of Nendaaghe Hut’aane on the upper Nendaaghe. This was not good.
The ANCSA Regional Association
laska Native corporations (ANCs) are as diverse as the Alaska Native shareholders and communities they represent, all with varying interests. An organization works behind the scenes to support ANCs in areas where those interests intersect; it started to come together after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was half as old as it is now.
In 1997, a group of Alaska Native regional corporation leaders came together to discuss the unique advantages of creating a forum where they could collaborate on issues they had in common. They agreed that, given the differences in purpose, structure, and mandates among ANCs and other organizations representing Alaska Native people, they must discuss and respond to the common challenges faced by Alaska Native regional corporations.
This group included Carl Marrs, Cook Inlet Region, Incorporated; Michael Brown, Bristol Bay Native Corporation; Oliver Leavitt, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation; Dennis Metrokin, Koniag; and Morris Thompson, Doyon, Limited. These Alaska Native leaders understood that while the twelve regional corporations operated different businesses, they also had similarities and there were many common issues that affected ANCs and Alaska as a whole.
by Blossom Teal Olsen (Iñupiaq)
We Are Still Here
I am no longer my Ancestors
The voices of this world tell us that our world has past
The people who live on the land that we have taken care of for millennia say that we need to move on
by Blossom Teal Olsen (Iñupiaq)
There is No Such Thing as Time
Before the government told us that we were a government
Our Elders listened to one another, as their Elders listened to one another
by Blossom Teal Olsen (Iñupiaq)
Laws Affect Us
The rest of Americans live in their houses and drive their cars and fly in planes
Meanwhile, the Indigenous are fractions of people who belong to nations older than the government we call America
Reads and Reviews
The Break and The Strangers
by Katherena Vermette
Masthead
Chairman
Sam Kito, Jr. (Tlingit)
Vice Chairman
Valerie Davidson (Yup’ik)
Secretary/Treasurer
Sven Haakanson, Jr. (Sugpiaq)
Albert Kookesh (Tlingit)
Sylvia Lange (Aleut/Tlingit)
Oliver Leavitt (Iñupiaq)
Georgianna Lincoln (Athabascan)
Morris Thompson (Athabascan)
In Memoriam
(Haida/Tlingit/Ahtna)
Alaska Native Policy Center Director
Karla Gatgyedm Hana’ax Booth (Ts’msyen)
Indigenous Leadership Continuum Director
Melissa Silugngataanit’sqaq Borton (Sugpiaq),
Indigenous Operations & Innovations Director
Elizabeth Uyuruciaq David (Yup’ik)
Financial Director
Angela Łot’oydaatlno Gonzalez
(Koyukon Athabascan)
Indigenous Communications Manager
Kacey Qunmiġu Hopson (Iñupiaq)
Indigenous Knowledge Advocate
Elizabeth La quen naáy / Kat Saas
Medicine Crow (Tlingit/Haida)
President/CEO
Vice President
& Indigenous Operatons Director
Candace Cutmen Branson (Suqpiaq)
Indigenous Advancement Director
Gloria Kaaswóot Wolfe (Tlingit)
Indigenous Leadership Continuum Director
Hannah Egeghaghmii Hamilton (Siberian Yupik)
Ikayuq
Meritha Misrak Capelle (Iñupiaq)
Gyedm Si Ndzox
Olivia Henaayee Irwin (Koyukon/Iñupiaq)
Indigenous Knowledge Advocate
Anchorage, AK 99501
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