Alaska Native Arts & Culture

Some Alaska tribal organizations say Aug. 4’s dam break at a British Columbia mine shows what could happen at proposed near-border mines. But some B.C. tribal governments strongly support development.

“Here you’ll see some of the types of ways that we use oolichans. They’re sun-dried as well as smoked.”

Kerry Small explains what’s in a display case in northwest British Columbia’s Nisga’a Museum. It’s a gleaming, glass-fronted building in a wide valley about 20 miles from the Alaska border.

The valley surrounds the Nass River, home to the Nisga’a Nation and its tribal government, which is at the forefront of Canada’s aboriginal rights movement.

Small points to a carved, rectangular, wooden dish used to process oolichans, also called hooligan or candlefish.

“The bottom’s laid with fern and you cook it down, and that’s how you create the grease. And this is oolichan grease. It’s like liquid gold. It’s one of the most valuable items still to this day,” she says.

Kevin McKay, executive chairman of the Nisga’a Government’s legislature, says the Nisga’a people depend on the health of the Nass River to keep the oolichan coming, as well as salmon.

“The oolichan has been called the survival fish because it’s a very important part of our cycle of food that we get in abundance,” McKay says.

But they also need jobs.

That’s one of the reasons the tribal government signed an agreement this summer pledging support for the Kerr-Sulpherrets-Mitchell Mine, under development to the north.

“What we told our citizens … (is) we have taken every measure and every opportunity to mitigate those environmental impacts throughout the life of the project,” he says.

KSM will store its tailings–ground up rock leftover from ore processing–behind dams within the Naas River watershed.

“We had some concerns with the original design they had presented throughout the course of our negotiations,” he says.

McKay says those changes will cost the developer a couple hundred million dollars. KSM says changes made to address aboriginal concerns bring the amount to $500 million.

“Now I dare say, without that significant move by the proponent, it may not have been possible for the parties to reach a mutual agreement.”

Total development costs are estimated at $5.3 billion.

McKay says the Nisga’a-KSM agreement also provides lump-sum payments, training, jobs and environmental protections.

“There are no 100 percent guarantees. We go into this with our eyes wide open,” he says.

The mine faces objections on this side of the border.

“I just firmly, firmly, firmly believe that this is a bad idea,” says Ketchikan’s Rob Sanderson Jr., who co-chairs the Southeast Alaska-based United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group. It’s backed by the Tlingit-Haida Central Council, as well as several Southeast communities’ tribal governments.

All the groups say the KSM and other near-border mines could threaten the Unuk, the Stikine or the Taku rivers, which flow from Canada into Alaska.

“We live in a very seismic area of the world and one of the big concerns about the KSM is the scale,” he says.

And it’s not just when the mines are running. Sanderson and other critics worry about the decades–or centuries–after they close, when tailings dams fail.

“If they get up to capacity and production and we have a catastrophic event, that pretty much puts southern Southeast into a dead zone,” he says.

Those objections won the backing of the Washington, D.C.-based National Congress of American Indians this summer. It’s the nation’s largest Native organization. It’s urging Congress, the White House and the State Department to push Canadian officials to increase environmental scrutiny.

But the KSM’s environmental-protection plans are close to approval. And, the Red Chris Mine, owned by the same company that had the dam collapse, is already extracting ore within the Stikine River watershed.

KSM developers have also won support from the Gitxsan Nation, a British Columbia aboriginal government east of Nisga’a territory.

Another tribal government, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, had opposed the project, but signed an agreement this summer.

“What we’re concerned about is the tailings facility that does drain into Gitanyow territory,” says Fish and Wildlife Biologist Kevin Koch, who works for the Gitanyow Fisheries Authority, a branch of that government.

He says mining’s impacts may not be immediately obvious.

“When some metal or element of some kind is released into water, it might not directly kill fish, but it might impair some part of their physiology or behavior. They might lose their ability to avoid predators, that sort of thing,” he says.

It might also hurt salmon’s sense of smell, which makes it hard to find their spawning grounds.

The Gitanyow’s KSM agreement is not a full endorsement. Rather, it sets some rules and guarantees the tribal government is part of environmental monitoring.

“For Gitanyow to feel that their territory’s protected, they need to be directly involved. They need to have people on the ground taking part in the work, analyzing the work, reporting directly to the chiefs rather than government or industry just reporting annually,” Koch says, speaking as a biologist, not as a tribal representative.

Gitanyow staff have done field work, studying salmon and moose habitat.

Another tribal government, the Tahltan Central Council, has also expressed concerns about transboundary mines.

Mine proponents say that’s part of the assessment process required by government regulators.

Brent Murphy is spokesman and top environmental official for Seabridge Gold, the Kerr-Sulpherrets-Mitchell Mine’s developer.

“The guiding principal behind the design of the KSM project was the protection of the downstream environments,” he says.

Other mine projects concerning tribal groups are Galore Creek and Schaft Creek in the Stikine River watershed, and Tulsequah Chief near the Taku River.

Earlier this year, Alaska became the second state after Hawaii to recognize indigenous languages as official state languages.

The legislature passed a bill granting the designation to 20 Alaska Native languages. Gov. Sean Parnell is expected to sign the measure soon. Supporters hope it will help boost efforts to revitalize those languages, many of which have just a handful of native speakers left. One such effort took place in Juneau last week: A camp that’s using sport to keep the Tlingit language alive.

On the basketball court at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, a dozen middle and high school students warm up for their first day of camp. As they stretch near half court, Jessica Chester counts to 10 in Tlingit: “Tléix’, déix, nás’k, daax’oon, keijín, tleidooshú, daxadooshú, nas’gadooshú, gooshúk, jinkaat.”

Chester teaches Alaska Native languages for the Juneau School District. She’s been helping out with Sealaska Heritage Institute’s summer basketball camps since 2006. She says all of the drills incorporate at least some Tlingit.

“You know, if they’re saying, ‘Go get a ball,’ I’m going to be behind the coach saying ‘kooch’eit’aa…” You know, go get a ball in Tlingit,” she says.

Chester’s originally from Yakutat, where she grew up hearing elders speak the language. She began studying it herself in college.

Languages carry the ideas, and the feelings, and the emotions and thoughts of a culture, of a people, and so bringing that back is real important to me,” she says.

Linguists say fewer than 150 native Tlingit speakers are alive today. Some Alaska indigenous languages have no remaining native speakers. They exist only in written form or as recordings.

Sealaska Heritage Institute is dedicated to advancing the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures of Southeast Alaska. President Rosita Worl says many Alaska Natives grew up ashamed of their languages and traditions.

“We’ve had a policy and history in this country to suppress Native languages and suppress Native culture,” Worl says.

About 15 years ago, the heritage institute decided to make language preservation its top priority. Worl says the inspiration came after meeting with a group of Hawaiian language preservationists. That state officially recognized indigenous languages in 1978.

“We looked at their programs,” Worl says. “And I will tell you, our board of trustees started to cry, because they saw little children speaking the Hawaiian language. And they said, ‘If the Hawaiians can do that, we can do that.'”

Now that Native languages are getting official recognition in Alaska, efforts like this camp are expected to grow.

Worl says she no longer worries about the Tlingit language becoming extinct.

“It may be that it will never be spoken as a first language. But we have always said that you’ll be hearing the voices of our ancestors through our children,” she says.

Michelle Martin’s daughter and son are attending the camp for the third time. Martin’s from Hoonah, where she picked up some of the language from her grandparents. She says her kids already speak it better than she does.

“I can understand phrases and I know what they’re saying,” Martin says. “And I try to learn, and I’m like, oh my gosh, I need to go back and learn some more.”

Most of the kids say they were initially hooked because of the basketball, but keep coming to learn their language. Jaime Kelley-Paul, 16, says he’s not even that interested in sports. Instead, he wants to build up the Alaska Native pride that was almost lost.

It’s my culture. I love it,” Kelley-Paul says. “It’s fun to learn about it. It’s important to keep our culture alive instead of just everyone being one type of person.”

Kelley-Paul says he can’t wait to teach his little brother everything he learned about Tlingit language and culture.

*Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Friday August 8, 2014.

The Organized Village of Saxman filed a lawsuit July 25 in federal court over the Federal Subsistence Board’s 2007 decision to designate the Tlingit Native village as non-rural.

Calling the decision, and the criteria used to reach it, “arbitrary and capricious,” the complaint asks the court to reverse that 2007 Subsistence Board decision, declare it invalid and award court costs to the Village of Saxman.

According to the complaint, residents of Saxman have continually engaged in traditional subsistence gathering since the community first was settled in the late 1800s.

And until 2007, the U.S. government considered the village rural, at least for subsistence purposes. In 1990, the Federal Subsistence Board ruled that Saxman was a rural community, even though the village and its residents have close ties to non-rural Ketchikan.

The board initiated a review of rural designations in 2000, and six years later published a proposed rule that kept Saxman rural. Here is Matthew Newman, an attorney with the Anchorage Native American Rights Fund, which is representing Saxman.

“They had a public comment period on that rule. They received overwhelming public testimony in support of that rule. In fact, their own staff at the office of Federal Subsistence Management supported maintaining Saxman as a rural community,” he said. “Then, somewhat unannounced and immediately, the board decided to vote and go in the opposite direction.”

That decision became final on June 6, 2007. Newman said the board didn’t offer an explanation for voting against the proposed rule.

Within a month of that decision, Saxman officials asked for reconsideration.

“The board took the request under advisement. They reviewed it for a full year,” he said. “But then their final denial of the request for reconsideration also didn’t contain any reason or any plausible argument as to why they took the action they did.”

The lawsuit argues that the criteria used to group Saxman with the larger community of Ketchikan denies Saxman residents the ability to continue customary and traditional harvests, and fails to account for the economic, social and communal independence of Saxman.

Newman said that Saxman waited until now to file the lawsuit in hopes of an administrative solution. And the subsistence board just a couple of months ago indicated it could reverse that ruling for Saxman.

However, Newman said, this year marks the deadline for the community to legally challenge that 2007 ruling. If the Subsistence Board does reverse it, the lawsuit could be dropped. But, “given Saxman’s experiences with the administrative process so far, the board will have to take some very affirmative steps.”

David Jenkins, policy coordinator with the Federal Subsistence Management Service, also noted that the Federal Subsistence Board is in the process of recommending changes. It would then be up to the federal government whether to accept those recommendations.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason. The defendants named are Federal Subsistence Board chairman Tim Towarak, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

The defendants have 60 days to file a response.

Haida carving brothers Joe and T.J. Young are back in Juneau to finish a pair of Eagle and Raven totem poles.

About this time last year, the Hydaburg men and their apprentices were using axes and chainsaws to shape the red cedar logs. Friday, they were working with small hand tools.

“As you work your way, as you start roughing it out, you’ll start getting — the tools’ll get smaller and smaller and smaller,” says T.J. Young. “And you’ll do a lot more sharpening throughout the process.”

Sealaska Heritage Institute commissioned the new poles to replace the deteriorating, 36-year-old ones in front of the Gajaa Hít building off Willoughby Avenue.

Young says they’re working 12-hour days, but are on schedule. The new totem poles are supposed to be raised at the end of the month.

About 100 of the late Tlingit elder’s family and friends gathered at Juneau’s Marine Park for the bill signing ceremony on Wednesday, where Soboleff was remembered as a man who spread love and good will to all Alaskans.

The idea for a day honoring Soboleff first took off at the 2012 Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood Grand Camp convention.

“We were in Sitka at our 100th anniversary,” said Peter Naoroz, ANB’s 2nd Grand Vice President.

At the time, Naoroz was ANB grand secretary. He recalled that there were two competing resolutions calling on the legislature to make Soboleff’s birthday a day of remembrance in Alaska. His job was to combine them.

“It was quite an undertaking to try to get all of his accomplishments in a couple of pages,” he said.

Soboleff was born in 1908 in the now abandoned village of Killisnoo, near Angoon.

He was the first Alaska Native pastor in Juneau at a time when the town was segregated. He fought for civil rights alongside Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood leaders Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich.

Later in life, Soboleff became the cultural and spiritual standard bearer of the Tlingit people, helping launch efforts to revitalize the language, as well as traditional art and dance.

He passed away in 2011 at the age of 102.

Naoroz said the thing he found most remarkable about Soboleff was his ability to make his fellow Alaska Natives take pride in themselves and their culture.

“He made people who were from this world, from this countryside right here, feel so special about their ability to tell stories, remember stories,” Naoroz said. “The power of the oral tradition and how he made people stand up and feel good about who they were.”

Wednesday’s bill signing ceremony included many similar sentiments. Gov. Parnell said Soboleff was known for his love of all Alaskans.

“And this day will help us remember the love that he had for each of us, as well as for this place,” Parnell said.

One of Soboleff’s four children, Walter junior, said his father would have been humbled by the recognition. He said the family hopes Alaskans will mark the day of remembrance by thinking about Soboleff’s teachings.

“Respect for others, caring, loving, compassion,” Soboleff said.

Walter Soboleff joins Elizabeth Peratrovich, Ted Stevens and Jay Hammond as prominent Alaskans to have a day named for them. Sealaska Heritage Institute’s new cultural center under construction in downtown Juneau will be named for him as well.

This time of year, indigenous people across the Far North gather to play games and celebrate traditions. Earlier this month, in Fairbanks the took part in the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. There was also a gathering of people from across the Circumpolar north in Inuvik, Canada. This year, native people from Arctic nations joined Russia’s Chukchi and Inuit peoples for the first ever Beringia Arctic Games. It was the largest gathering of it’s kind in a once forgotten corner of the world called Chukotka.

Seven women row a long, wide boat out to the middle of a protected bay off Russia’s Bering Sea coast. A flare soars into the air and they pull with all their strength at long wooden oars. They’re in a race against seven other boats and teams.

These are skin boats, made from hand-carved driftwood and the hides of two female walrus. Valentina Attun stands at the back of one. She mans a giant wooden rudder and counts strokes in Russian to help her team keep a cadence. By the end of the race, her voice is hoarse.

“Of course we are very happy to win the race,” says Attun, “but we had a lot of training,” She says her team is very thankful for the men in her village and her uncle who helped build their boat.

This year, more than 20 athletes from seven Arctic nations including Canada, Norway, the United States, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands joined the competition. They also took part in other games of agility, endurance and strength that test traditional hunting and survival skills.

In a school gymnasium, competition is fierce during the one arm reach. An athlete balances their entire body on one hand and reaches above their head for a tennis ball, but their legs cannot touch the floor. It’s the same movement you might make if you were gathering bird eggs from a rocky cliff.

Johnny Issaluk is from Iqaluit, on Canada’s Baffin Island. He was surprised to discover Russia’s Chukchi people play the same games as Canada’s Inuit.

“When we start competing, it’s just the same as competing at home. There’s nothing different. I am playing with my homeboys.”

Issaluk says the Russian competition is stiff because they are here to represent their villages. Andrej Kainenen agrees. He is one of 200 residents who lives here in Novoye Chaplino.

Kainenan captains a skin boat for his village. He says the event is good because it brings people together. He says the people in Novoye Chaplino took the time to make their village presentable for guests.

The games were met with traditional drumming and dancing. Olga Leitikai is from a small coastal village to the south. She came to sing. She also works as a liaison between the Russian government and local marine mammal hunters. As more attention is paid to natural resources in the region, she says there is dialogue on all sides.

“Of course the society of Chukotka is changing, like all over the world, it’s changing. I think the most important things is to take a balance between tradition and modern life.”

The challenge to find that balance is familiar for Sam Nystad, a native Sami from Norway’s Finnmark region. “The western world has definitely taken a big chunk in the Sami culture,” he says. “The thing is i was actually impressed by how they preserved their culture and how they wanted to chow it to the world through the games.”

After two days, the official games come to a close, but the residents of Novoye Chaplino aren’t ready to quit.

A group of teenage girls from Greenland sings around a bonfire as Andrej Kainenan shows the crowd a new game. Men carry a giant rock around in a circle until their arms are exhausted.

As a midnight sun sinks below the horizon other local games last well into the night, the same way they have for generations.