Western

Nome’s coast will get a little more crowded this summer, but it’s not dredging or your standard drilling that will add to the offshore activity.

“We’re not drilling for something, we’re drilling a path for something,” explained Kristina Woolston.

Woolston is Vice President of External Affairs for Quintillion, the company that is promising to bring high-speed internet to Western Alaska by 2017.

Quintillion has been working onshore since March, laying the fiber optic cable that will help deliver that internet to Nome’s more than 3,000 residents.

Woolston said the offshore portion of the project will happen sooner than expected.

“We actually are going to start a little bit early here in Nome than what we had thought because we have a vessel available and we also have some great open water,” Woolston said.

The onshore cable will connect to the subsea cable just a few miles east of downtown Nome. Woolston said Quintillion chose that portion of the shoreline since it was free of gold dredging leases.

Quintillion will begin work laying subsea fiber optic cable off Nome’s coast the first week of July.

Subsistence fishermen on the Yukon are getting some rare gillnet openings during the middle of the summer season, and will be allowed to keep any king salmon they catch.

Targeted openings for Yukon king salmon have not occurred in more than 5 years, though occasionally subsistence users are allowed to keep kings taken as bycatch in the summer chum fishery.

Fish and Game Yukon River Summer Season Manager Holly Carroll said the idea of allowing gillnets during the heart of the summer run has been developing since the end of the 2015 fishing season when subsistence users up and down the Yukon repeatedly criticized managers for not enabling people to meet their subsistence needs.

When it came time to discuss the 2016 management plans last winter, Carroll said that subsistence users and fishery managers came to a consensus.

“We told them that we would rather, if the run looks strong enough, provide a little bit more subsistence harvest than last year,” Carroll said. “And most people gave us feedback on how they would want that. They want it soon enough to be able to dry their fish. They want it before all of the kings are old or unusable upriver. They also wanted chums when they were fresher, for the people that harvest chums. Basically at those meetings, we present our management strategy, and then we take all of the feedback we are given and try to incorporate what say they actually want.”

The openings are being timed to fall after a large second pulse of kings moves upriver, in order to minimize the impact that the more efficient gillnet gear could have on the struggling king salmon stock.

The 2016 king run appears to be similar in size to last year’s run, when over 85 thousand kings crossed into Canada – almost twice as much as required by a treaty between the U.S and Canada.

Fish and Wildlife Service Yukon River In-Season Manager Fred Bue acknowledges that managers achieved that high level of escapement, in part, by virtually eliminating subsistence fishing time. But this year, Bue said, managers want to provide better subsistence opportunities on the river.

“There’s no way we are going to meet people’s needs,” Bue said. “But we do hope to get a little bit of fish for people to use, and we hope to have it not right on the back end of the run when the quality of fish kind of deteriorates. It’s not as good as those first, fresh fish. If you are going to harvest a fish, we would like you to get the maximum benefit out of it.”

A series of 18-hour openings utilizing gillnets with a maximum mesh size of 6 inches have occurred in lower river districts 1 and 2, and similar opportunities will be afforded to middle and upper river districts over the next few weeks.

A 6-inch mesh restriction for gillnets is intended to select the smaller males, while allowing spawning females to escape.

Middle and upper river fishermen are more likely to harvest kings as the runs separate, and chum turn off into tributaries to spawn.

The Pilot Station sonar estimate for kings on Tuesday was just over 91 thousand fish – about 18 thousand fish above the 10-year average for that date. Managers attribute some of that high number to the early run timing this year.

The Nome Port Commission is preparing for a steady stream of visitors this summer. Vessels serving the fiber optic cable installation will be in harbor the last week of June.

But it’s the month of August that will likely be the busiest for Nome’s port. While the city isn’t the official host, the U.S. Coast Guard will be in and out of town during its Arctic Chinook search and rescue drill in mid-August.

At its most recent meeting, City Manager Tom Moran told the Port Commission it’s not just Americans that will be in town

“We’re also going to have some Canadian National Guard presence at our National Guard hanger,” Moran explained.

The Arctic Chinook drill is taking place between Kotzebue and Tin City. While the decision not to be based out of Nome is frustrating for some, Moran says those two locations were next in line for Coast Guard training.

And, he said, it actually might be a good thing.

“Long story short is the fact that we’re not having this monstrous microscope on us during this training session is not a bad thing administratively because of the timing,” Moran said.

The timing of the Arctic Chinook drill coincides with what will likely be the port’s business day of the summer. The thousand-passenger Crystal Serenity cruise ship will call to Nome’s port on August 21.

Bethel’s Senior Center is closing its doors. Orutsararmuit Native Council, or ONC, runs the program and will keep many of its services. But starting next month, it will no longer offer a space for seniors to gather, talk, and eat. Seniors will remain fed and supported, but they could be spending a lot more time alone.

It’s 9:30 in the morning at the ONC Senior Center. Albert Kawagley and I are waiting for a half hour for the other elders to show up.

Kawagley: I’m 67, going on 68, a young man yet. [Laughs]

Albert’s been coming to the center every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for six years. He said many of the elders grew up in Bethel and have known each other since childhood.

KYUK: What will you miss most when this closes down?

Kawagley: My friends, playing cards with my friends here and not just watching the four walls that surround me.

The closure is happening July 1. At that time, elders will no longer have a place to eat lunch, talk and play bingo three days a week.

Program Director Nikki Hoffman said ONC is closing the center to prevent a $200,000 budget deficit.

“What I fear with the loss of this program is a risk for isolation and loneliness and their primary care providers could increase risk for burnout,” Hoffman said.

The program mainly runs off state grants but the funding problem isn’t with the state’s budget cuts. It’s with the Senior Center itself, housed in the Lion’s Club building.

“The grant award that we get for the adult day is $111,000,” Hoffman said. “75% of that would be used directly for the facility.”

Three positions are also being cut. One of those, the Program Manager, is held by Denise Kinegak.

“And so this is what they do,” Kinegak said. “They usually come in, wash up, and then they head over here. Check our the birds, of course. Whenever we get new food donations, they’re always quick to check out what we have, so they know what’s in stock.”

The birds are about a dozen ducks and geese lying on a table—subsistence donations that will be taken home and used for future lunches.

The elders move to different parts of the room. Most get a snack. Some start a game of Rummy or begin quilting. Others watch Jeopardy. I approach one elder, eating a pastry and wearing a big red sun hat.

Catherine Peters is 82. “Or am I 83?” she laughs. Peters said she lives with her son who works during the day. She can’t cook or leave the house by herself. All this, she said, makes the Senior Center so important.

“Sometimes we’re lonesome at home,” Peters said. “Our families can’t be all the time with us in the home. I’ll miss talking with my friends here. Even if I can’t see or hear, they come to me, and that makes my day happy and cheerful.”

ONC Senior Services will still deliver a meal to 50 seniors around Bethel Monday through Friday. And ONC will still drive seniors to the post office, bank, and grocery stores, but that route will happen once instead of three times a week. They’ll also continue helping elders with paperwork like paying bills and requesting prescription refills.

ONC’s long-term goal is to build a Senior Center of its own and give its elders a place to gather and eat throughout the week. As of now, there are no set plans for making that happen.

Educators in Kwigillingok are preparing their students for bright educational futures – in both English and Yup’ik. They’re part of a nationwide expansion of dual language programs, where kids learn in two languages at the same time. And in Kwigillingok, it’s working.

Most of the students have already arrived at the rural Kwigillingok School by foot, bike, or four-wheeler when Principal Megan Rosendall’s voice booms out of the intercom system, welcoming them by their school mascot name.

“Good morning Eagles! The language of the day is Yugtun!”

That means when students are in the halls or at recess, they’re supposed to speak to each other only in the Yup’ik language. That applies to all of the students – kindergarten through 12th grade. First-grader Chloe Lewis tries her best as she pulls on her jacket and heads to the playground. She starts reciting her most recent science lesson, announcing how to say ankle and skin in Yup’ik.

She rushes outside with her friend Isiah Igkurak, and they figure out who will be “it” in a game of freeze tag.

“Ink pink, you stink,” Isiah says, pointing at his classmates’ shoes and chattering in Yup’ik. “Chloe you were out!”

Despite the day’s language rules, as they zip around the playground, Chloe and some of her friends default to using English. Chloe grew up speaking mostly English at home. Others grew up mostly using Yup’ik. But in school, they’re all required to use both. Chloe says sometimes it’s a struggle.

“A little bit hard because sometimes I don’t know how to speak in Yup’ik.”

But she says it’s very fun to learn.

Long-time Kwigillingok teacher Karen Paul says it wasn’t always this way. When she went to school more than 30 years ago and when she started teaching, students only used Yup’ik through the third grade.

“We had all Yup’ik teachers, and we taught them all in Yup’ik,” she recalls. “Reading, writing, social studies, science, and math.”

Then, the Lower Kuskokwim School District changed courses. Math had to be taught in English.

“I didn’t really agree with it,” Paul says. “But we had no choice.”

The district experimented with a few different models, like adding an extra year called “3T” to transition from Yup’ik to English and trying to teach English in phases. But six years ago, they started a new program – dual language.

“Dual language teaches both English and Yup’ik and at first, again, I didn’t like it. Because I thought students would lose Yup’ik language.”

But now, Paul has changed her mind. Test scores show that kids in Kwingillingok are reading and writing in Yup’ik better than ever before.

Gayle Miller was the director of academic programs and curriculum at the Lower Kuskokwim School District when they chose to transition from teaching only in Yup’ik through the third grade to using the dual language model. She says the district made the change because students were leaving school without being fully proficient in either language. Switching from teaching in only Yup’ik to only English was “throwing them off the language cliff.”

Adding the extra transition year didn’t help. Miller says they consulted with the communities in their district and learned that most people wanted their kids to be proficient in both languages. So the district began researching different dual language teaching models and eventually settled on a method that was successful in Texas, where it was designed to help primarily Spanish-speaking communities.

“Their population was similar to ours: people who were low-economic students, people who were transitioning from one language to another and did not have proficiency in either language,” Miller recalls. A group from the district even traveled to Texas to watch it in action.

The Gomez & Gomez model includes starting kids off learning language arts in their strongest language then eventually teaching that lesson in both. Math is always in English. Science and social studies are always taught in Yup’ik. The students get a solid bilingual base all the way through the fifth grade, and teaching methods are more interactive.

So far, the district is seeing mixed results. “We have seen some improvements in some schools, not in all schools,” says Miller. “Which was a surprise to us because we made a concerted effort to monitor the implementation and encourage really strong implementation.”

Miller says it comes down to school and staff engagement. The schools that are really excited about the model are doing better. She says they will continue providing training to staff and improving their Yup’ik language teaching materials.

Back in Kwigillingok, 6-year-old Chloe says she likes getting to use both languages at school.

“How do you decide which one you want to use?” I ask.

“Just by using my brain!” she replies, giggling.

The dual language program gets Chloe thinking in Yup’ik and English. Which is exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Nome Public Schools has a new option for saving the local preschool without having to tap into city coffers. At a school board meeting Monday night, Superintendent Shawn Arnold announced that despite budget cuts, the state will fund early childhood education for a select group of Alaska school districts.

Arnold said Nome Public Schools is eligible for the three-year grant worth $6 million. But the funding would also require the district to find a long-term solution — one that doesn’t rely on Pre-K money from the Alaska Department of Education.

“We’ll get it, but we also have to have plans with the state,” said Arnold. “Detailed plans answering: ‘How are we going to sustain it?’”

While the district works on its grant application, which is due July 1, Arnold said he’ll explore possibilities for more permanent funding. That might include developing a trust, seeking donations from corporations, or building partnerships with community organizations like Kawerak. If Nome does win the grant, the state will notify the district by mid-July.