Alaska Native Arts & Culture

It was almost exactly a hundred years ago when Alaska first began to exercise a form of self-government. The Second Organic Act of 1912 allowed the creation of the Territorial Legislature.

Eight senators and sixteen representatives from around the state met on March 3rd, 1913 in the Elks Hall in downtown Juneau, the first Alaska legislative hall, for the first Alaska legislative session that lasted sixty days.

The Territorial Legislature almost immediately gave women the right to vote, and eventually passed the Bone Dry law, a precursor to national prohibition, and the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945 which preceded the national civil rights movement by almost twenty years.

But the Organic Act hamstrung the Territorial Legislature. The federal government still retained control over Alaska’s resources and the right to legislate on some issues like divorce or the sale of liquor, and still had overall authority on the Territory’s fiscal issues.

Senator Gary Stevens from Kodiak is chair of the Alaska Legislative Centennial Commission which has put together a series of events starting this weekend marking the very first session.

Stevens credits staffer Tim Lamkin for organizing much of that program that runs March 3rd through the 5th.

Sunday, March 3rd

At 10:00 a.m. downstairs at Rockwell in the Elks Hall, a breakfast program called ‘Waffles with Wickersham: Delegate James Wickersham’s campaign for the 1912 Second Organic Act’ will feature John H. Venables.

During a lunch program at noon, former lawmakers Willie Hensley, Georgianna Lincoln, and Emil Notti will talk about ‘Equal Rights, One Man One Vote, and Alaska Native Leaders in our Legislative History.’

Then at 4:00 p.m. in the upstairs of Rockwell, Governor Sean Parnell and former lawmakers Clem Tillion and Terry Gardiner are expected to participate in the opening reception that will also feature unveiling of the 100-Years website.

Monday, March 4th

At 8:00 a.m., also downstairs at Rockwell in the Elks Hall, a ‘History of the Capitol Building’ that will feature a presentation by architect Wayne Jensen.

A noon lunch discussion on ‘Leading Women in Alaska’s Political History’ will feature Arliss Sturgulewski, Drue Pearce, Katy Hurley, Bettye Davis, and Gail Phillips.

A reception starting upstairs at 5:00 p.m. will include a presentation by Dr. Beverly Beeton on ‘Members and accomplishments of the first Alaska Territorial Legislature, including Women’s Suffrage – 1913.’

A dinner program upstairs at 7:00 p.m. will include a reenactment of the convening of the First Alaska Territorial Legislature and Passage of Women’s Suffrage that will feature Juneau actors and legislative staff.

Tuesday, March 5th

A breakfast program at 8:00 a.m. will feature Clark Gruening and Mike Miller on ‘A History of Politics and Changes’ at Rockwell in the Elks Hall downstairs.

The noon lunch program on ‘Perspectives on Accomplishments and Failures in Alaska’s Legislative History’ will feature Sam Cotten and Randy Phillips as moderators.

Happy Hour begins at 4:30 p.m. with a reception program on ‘Prohibition in Territorial Alaska’ with Dr. Terrence Cole and Rick Halford.

For more information, you can go to 100years.akleg.gov

Gavel Alaska and 360North television and AlaskaLegisture.tv will provide coverage of most Centennial events either live or on a tape-delayed basis.

Nick Golodoff, author of the book Attu Boy, passed away earlier this month at the age of 77. His memoir about the World War II internment of the Aleut village by the Japanese brought attention to one of the most obscure corners of American history.

As he told KUCB in an interview last year, he was born on the western Aleutian island of Agattu in December 1935, while his parents were fox trapping.

“But I was really from Attu, so I grew up to the age of six in Attu, and never once lived there ever again, because Japanese took me to Japan when I was six years old.”

Golodoff remembered the day the Japanese landed. He was following an older boy toward the beach when he heard unfamiliar sounds.

“Alex Prossoff is the one I was following, and he started running and I ran after him. And I see pieces of mud flying in front of me. I didn’t know why the piece of mud was flying, until later, so much later, I found out it was bullets that were hitting the ground.”

The Japanese occupied the village for nearly three months before putting the Attuans on a freighter. They spent the whole journey in the cargo hold.

 

“I don’t know how long we’ve been in the hatch, but when we got to Tokyo, they let us out and look around. And then put us back down and took us to Hokkaido, and that’s where they left us.”

The villagers spent three years teetering on the edge of starvation. Although Golodoff was among the 25 Attuans who survived the internment, he never returned to the island. The U.S. government forced families to resettle in Atka, 600 miles to the east. Golodoff went to school there, and spent lots of time outdoors.

 

“I used to hunt every day, I used to walk all day,” Golodoff said. “Pack a whole reindeer home from miles away. I used to leave in the morning and home at dark. Until I got a boat. I built my own wooden boat, bought the oars and used to oar, row and hunt like that until I got a motor. I used to hunt all the time.”

In his teens, Golodoff started working seasonally in the Pribilof Islands, harvesting fur seals. Later on he worked at the Atka airport, and for the last 30 years was a maintenance worker at the school.

“NG:They don’t want to fire me because they can’t find my replacement. [laughs] SJ: Do you ever talk to the kids in the school about your experiences?
NG: No, no. Some teachers want me to do that, but I cannot speak in public, I’m not used to that. I never did that in my life, so I don’t know how to do it.”

Instead, Golodoff wrote down his story with the help of his granddaughter, Brenda Maly, and National Park Service anthropologist Rachel Mason.

Mason says the Attuans’ story never would have been told otherwise, because the older survivors didn’t talk about it.

“And his perspective was different.For example, he had very warm feelings towards Japanese people. And he’s pictured on the cover of Attu Boy as a small child riding on the back of a Japanese soldier. So the eyes of a child were really unique.”

Mason also credits Golodoff with bringing together the descendants of Attu survivors during a reunion organized by the National Park Service last year.

 “At one of the events at the Attu reunion, he was signing his book. And it was just such a symbol of their pride in being from Attu, in the fact that Nick, the oldest person that had actually lived on Attu, had produced this memoir that told the story of their community. So, I think it’s a big loss, and yet I’m happy that he was able to be there and to be that symbol of unity for them.”

Golodoff will be laid to rest in Atka.

Studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Government Accounting Office show increasing numbers of Alaskans will be affected by floods and erosion in coming years due to rising waters and extreme weather events. And the studies predict some communities are likely to be destroyed by 2017. Of those, Newtok is the furthest along in relocating.

But an Anchorage human rights attorney says changes are needed so agencies can more effectively help people being dislocated due to the impacts of climate change.

The Yup’ik village of Newtok, situated between the Newtok and Ninglick rivers in southwest Alaska, is facing destruction. Rising waters and melting permafrost there have lead to two floods since 2004. Water has flooded the sewage disposal area, carrying contaminated water into the village and creating a health hazard. Stanley Tom is Newtok Tribal Administrator. He says the village is losing up to 150 feet per year to erosion… and their water source is only 154 feet from the river:

“When the village safe water was doing tests and we did pick three of them and they were already contaminated with salt water. It’s the only water we have left. It’s in front line of erosion. If it’s impacted this summer, how do we get our water?” Tom asks.

Erosion has destroyed the landing where barges used to deliver fuel and other supplies, as well as the former landfill. The village no longer has enough fuel tanks to hold a year’s worth of fuel.

Robin Bronen is Executive Director of the Alaska Institute for Justice.

Drawing on her research for her PhD dissertation, she gave a January 2013 presentation to the Brookings Institution. She’s calling for the creation of a framework that allows agencies to more effectively work with communities that choose relocation over protection in place… a decision some come to only after protection systems have repeatedly failed. But Bronen says the decision on whether to move would need to come from the community.

“The controversy is that we in the world have a horrific legacy of relocations, most of forcible by governments without people making the decisions whether or not they want to relocate and we have that history in Alaska not that long ago,” Bronen says.

In Newtok, villagers began working towards relocation in the 1990s. They selected a new site nine miles away, called Mugtarvik. After years of negotiations and lobbying, it acquired title to the land in 2003.

In 2006, the Alaska Department of Commerce, Economic Development and Community Affairs organized a Newtok planning group of more than two dozen federal, state, tribal, and regional organizations with Sally Russel- Cox as its coordinator. She says the group has pooled resources – for instance, two projects have used resources from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, federal department of commerce, state department of transportation, and a Department of Defense training program. She says one of the group’s biggest strengths is it’s collaborative approach.

“I like to think of the work that we have done, with Newtok, especially as in a way following the Yup’ik model of decision-making. Because it’s definitely a group type of decision making and that’s definitely been what’s happened, everybody sitting around the table brainstorming and coming up with ideas and building consensus among themselves on how things should happen, and with the community being in the lead in all that,” Cox says.

Bronen says that collaborative process can serve as a model for communities around the world facing relocation due to climate change.

But she says for Newtok to get as far as it has, it’s taken a remarkable and extraordinary effort. Bronen describes other communities that have gone through an extended public process to pick a new site, only to have an agency say it doesn’t meet certain criteria – criteria that wasn’t spelled out beforehand. And funding is often based on population. So Newtok finds itself in a Catch 22 position – it can’t move to Mugtarvik without water, power, transportation, and communications systems. But it can’t get funding for some of that infrastructure until people are living there. Bronen says it shouldn’t be that difficult.

“The relocation effort is taking an extraordinarily long time and people need to be moved now. Their community is not safe. I know everybody wants them to be able to move as qucikly as possible to their relocation site, but there are really difficult stat and institutional challenges that government agencies are working around,” Bronen says.

Then, she says, once a village is identified as needing to be relocated, funding for infrastructure in the current village site dries up, leaving villagers to cope with deteriorating conditions. Stanley Tom says the workload of keeping Newtok running while also writing grants, coordinating activities at Mugtarvik, and lobbying for money can be overwhelming.

“I’m worried about the funding, the community. It’s a lot of things in my mind I’m worried every day, every night. I have to wake up 5- 6 in the morning and worry about my work,” Tom says.

Still, Tom says the Mugtarvik village now has a barge landing, the foundation built for an emergency evacuation center, a road to the evacuation center, and six homes, He’s encouraged that the tribe has funds to build the community evacuation center at Mugtarvik, and 17 villagers trained to do the work. He’s also proud of the new website the village had created, at newtok moves.org. His next big goal is to find funding to build a total of 60 homes to accommodate the 350 or so villagers.

And Bronen applauds Newtok’s progress. She says it’s years ahead of several communities agencies forecast will no longer be viable by 2017, villages struggling against all odds to relocate.

 

The Association of Village Council Presidents would like its tribes to be able to prosecute non-tribal members in their local courts.

The Violence Against Women’s Act that is making its way through Congress has the support of AVCP for the most part. However, the Native non-profit organization which represents 56 tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is opposing part of the legislation, the part that doesn’t allow Alaskan tribes to prosecute non-tribal members.

That’s a sticking point for AVCP President Myron Naneng.

“Why do they always have to have an exclusion for non-tribal members?” Naneng said. “The tribal court should be able to deal with all people who live in the village,” Naneng says.

Reauthorizing VAWA has passed the Senate and will be considered by the House next. It does allow tribes on reservations to prosecute non-tribal members for domestic violence that occurs within their boundaries. However, in Alaska, there is only one reservation–Metlakatla in South East– so other tribes in the state would not have that right.

Senator Lisa Murkowski voted for the bill, saying she made sure Metlakatla was treated no different than other reservations in the country. She said for the state’s other tribes, she focused on language that confirms that they have the power to issue domestic violence protective orders against their own members.

“So, what this does is simply maintain the status quo,” Murkowski said.

Murkowski also included language to re-establish the Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement Commission, which has the tribes, state, and federal governments working together on rural safety issues.

In the Y-K Delta, there are about 20 tribal courts, but the state court still deals with most crimes region-wide. Naneng says access to state courts is difficult for some villages because they are so remote, sometimes hundreds of miles away.

“How much does it cost to go from one of the villages to Bethel to go to court, especially from Lower Yukon?” Naneng said. “It’s probably over $1,000 round trip.”

Giving tribal courts more leverage to deal with crimes would help, he says.

Tribal courts can use traditional forms of resolution such as peace circles or banishment, a form of punishment for people who consistently cause problems in a community. Naneng says tribes should be able to exercise that with non-tribal members as well.

“I think that the village should have the ability to ban these people from their communities which has been done and is still going on today,” Naneng said.

Naneng says AVCP would like to see changes made to the VAWA legislation in the House and they plan to work with other tribes in Alaska to lobby for that.

Former state Senator Albert Kookesh was medevaced to Anchorage Monday morning after suffering a heart attack.

His daughter Elaine says the 64-year old Kookesh was in Juneau preparing for a trip out of state, when he called his wife saying he was having chest pains and was going to the hospital. His wife also was in Juneau and was able to fly with him.

He was stabilized and flown to Providence Hospital and Medical Center.

“They’re currently now at Providence. They’re going to go in with a catheter and see where the blockage is,” she said Monday morning.

The eldest daughter of Mr. Kookesh’s five children, Elaine Kookesh says she will travel to Anchorage this evening to be with her dad.

“My sister and I are heading up tonight and then our other sister will head up as soon as she can,” she said. “Just keep us all in your thoughts and prayers. He’s a tough guy and never sits even when he’s sick.”

A Democrat from Angoon, Kookesh served 16 years in total, eight as a representative and eight more as a senator. He was defeated by Sitka Republican Bert Stedman after parts of their Southeast districts were combined during redistricting.

Kookesh is the current chairman of Sealaska’s board of directors and co-chair of the Alaska Federation of Natives board.

Alaskans marked Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on Saturday, in honor of the Tlingit woman whose testimony to the territorial legislature helped pass an Anti-Discrimination Act in 1945.

A small crowd gathered at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau to hear a talk from Barbara Cadiente-Nelson, a board member of Sealaska Native Corporation and the Douglas Indian Association, as well as a member of the Alaska Native Sisterhood.

“Mrs. Peratrovich’s testimony exemplifies a Tlingit value that our words have spirit and life,” Cadiente-Nelson said. “They tear down, or they build up. Choose them wisely.”

Peratrovich and her husband Roy were leaders of the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Brotherhood in the early 1940s, a time when Native people faced discrimination in housing and from many businesses in Juneau.

Since ANB and ANS were the leading civil rights organizations of the day, the couple petitioned territorial Governor Ernest Gruening to introduce the Anti-Discrimination Act. Elizabeth Peratrovich was the last to testify before the territorial Senate voted on the bill in 1945.

In 1988, the Alaska Legislature made February 16th Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, to mark the anniversary of the date Gruening signed the act into law.

Cadiente-Nelson acknowledged progress in the nearly 70 years since the act passed, but said there remains work to do to eliminate racism against Native people.

“When I was a teacher at Juneau-Douglas High School during a painful time, the acronym KAN was written on my white board and on my desk boards – it was Kill All Natives,” Cadiente-Nelson said. “That’s just one glimpse as to the presence of this evil that sometimes knocks on our door.”

After Cadiente-Nelson’s speech, the State Museum held a special screening of the documentary “For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska.” The museum currently has an exhibit honoring Peratrovich titled “Alaskan. Native. Woman. Activist.” It’s on display through March 16th.

The Juneau-Douglas City Museum also has a special exhibit this month honoring Peratrovich.