Community

Tuesday is Veterans Day and there are several ceremonies honoring veterans in Juneau. 

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and the Southeast Alaska Native Veterans group will host its annual Veterans Day ceremony and luncheon starting at 11 a.m. at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall.

It will feature performances by the Elders and Yaaw Tei Yi Dance Groups and keynote remarks by Col. Jeff Philippart of the U.S. Air Force and Col. Erica Iverson of the U.S. Army. 

Tlingit and Haida President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson said honoring veterans shouldn’t be limited to just one day a year. 

“Their example strengthens our tribe and inspires our young people to lead with integrity and care,” he said. “We just want to continue to lift them up with the support and the recognition and the resources that they deserve every day.”

The VFW Taku Post 5559 and the American Legion will also host their annual public ceremony at Centennial Hall at 11 a.m., followed by a dinner at 5 p.m. at the American Legion’s lodge in Auke Bay.

Duff Mitchell is a veteran of the Army National Guard and Commander of American Legion Post 25. He said it’s important to reflect on the impact of veterans’ service. 

“It doesn’t matter what political end of the spectrum you are, but freedom of speech and your other freedoms are very well protected in this country,” he said. “And, veterans have a lot to say of why we have those freedoms here.”

The Juneau chapter of Veterans for Peace also plans to host an Armistice Day ceremony outside the state Capitol building at 10:30 a.m. 

Tlinigit and Haida is also offering free coffee to veterans on Tuesday at its Aan Hít retail store and coffee shop on Franklin Street. 

In Juneau, young people have a new way to find their voice. 

This fall, a digital media club for youth is teaching technical skills and encouraging kids to explore their creativity through audio and video. And their first big project — inspired by Halloween — puts a new twist on an old fairy tale. 

“Quiet on set! Roll tape,” said Levi Spaulding as he directed a room full of middle schoolers in front of mics and mixing boards wearing headphones and costumes.

The kids meet in the new Indigenous Sciences Building on Sealaska Heritage Institute’s campus, which features a recording studio. 

Penny Maes practiced her interviewing skills under a bright red hood.

“Hi, everybody, it’s me, Little Red Riding Hood, and we’re here today with Mr. Wolfie Wolf Wolferson,” she said into the microphone. “Give a hand and get your bear spray out.” 

Recording their on-camera interview in front of a green screen, Penny demanded answers to the hard questions. 

“So, Wolf, why did you eat my grandma?” she said.

Lucas Kelleher answered her through a plastic wolf mask. 

“I didn’t!” he said.

Cory Wolf is the instructor. He has a background in documentary film, and wants to use his skills to help kids find theirs. 

“By giving them a space where they can learn the technical skills, it also gives them a space where they’re working with others as a team,” he said. “So just allowing each of the different gifts that come into the room, allowing those gifts to flourish.”

He said the kids are inspired by podcasts, which have blown up for younger audiences over the last few years. 

“All of the kids have their favorite podcasts,” Wolf said. “A lot of them that come to my class actually have a vision for their own podcast.”

And while they’re working on a Halloween-themed exclusive interview now, upcoming programs will continue to build the skills they need to launch their own projects. 

“Kind of the motto of that space is to give our young people a voice,” Wolf said.

The podcast – audio and video – will debut on Halloween at the Zach Gordon Youth Center. 

Volunteers in Juneau are offering free lunches for federal employees who were furloughed when the government shut down on Oct. 1. So far, more volunteers than furloughed workers have attended.

On Thursday afternoon, half a dozen volunteers laid out sandwich fixings, bags of chips, muffins and homemade pumpkin bread at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers building downtown.  

Chad Millen prepared a turkey and cheese sandwich and sat down at a foldout table with his two young daughters. He was furloughed from NOAA Fisheries, where he works as an IT specialist on a system that tracks commercial fishing catches. 

Millen said he saw the shutdown coming. 

“It’s like the game of chicken, and you’ve got the two cars driving towards each other,” he said, referring to the two political parties in a gridlock. “They’re both acting crazy, expecting the other side to yield, and we’re passengers in the car, and so that’s what it feels like, is, you know, it’s not really about you, but you’re in the middle of it.”

Millen said his division at NOAA recently joined the National Federation of Federal Employees, or NFFE. Coming to lunch is a good opportunity to learn more about the labor union. 

Millen was one of just two furloughed workers who attended lunch Thursday. 

Eric Antrim is the recording secretary for NFFE Local 251 and one of the free lunch volunteers. He was furloughed from the U.S. Forest Service, where he manages bridge inspections across the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. He said his last paycheck came on Oct. 10. 

“We’ve got a lot of members that are paycheck to paycheck,” Antrim said. “This next paycheck that we’re going to miss, I think that’s when, you know, maybe a baloney sandwich starts to sound a little bit better than it did last Monday.”

Antrim said they hosted one other lunch so far this year, last Monday, but only a few furloughed workers came. 

NFFE Local 251 represents nearly 500 U.S. Forest Service employees across Alaska. Antrim said that 330 of its members are furloughed, according to data he obtained from human resources. 

He said the volunteers plan to keep providing lunch and a space to gather for federal workers on Mondays and Thursdays until the shutdown ends. 

Correction: Eric Antrim manages bridge inspections across both national forests in Alaska, not just the Tongass.

A power outage hit all of Juneau on Tuesday just after 11 a.m. Alaska Electric Light & Power switched on diesel back-up generation about an hour later and restored regular hydropower by 2 p.m.

Debbie Driscoll is the vice president of AEL&P.  She said the outage occurred on a transmission line south of the city, between the west terminal near Taku Inlet and the Thane substation.  

She said staff patrolled the area and couldn’t identify the cause, but the transmission line wasn’t damaged.

“It’s possible, when we’ve had situations like that, that a tree branch comes into contact with the line and clears or wildlife comes in contact with the line and clears the line,” Driscoll said. 

She said other recent power disruptions are unrelated to Tuesday’s. North Douglas has had a string of outages in the past month caused by a squirrel, a tree, and an equipment issue.

Driscoll said that power outages are more common in the fall, when storms take down more trees that hit above-ground transmission lines. 

This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.

Lingít elder Ldaan.aat Laurie Cropley and elder-in-training Yuxgitsiy George Holly are leading dawn  prayers at the annual Elders and Youth conference in Anchorage next week. 

The prayers are from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday through Wednesday, and they involve singing, dancing, sharing thoughts. This year, they plan to lead a talking circle about tribal values across Alaska Native nations afterwards.

Listen: 

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Yuxgitsiy George Holly:  These are the words of Seigeige’i Emma Marks, when   she shared about an old way of greeting the morning, greeting each other in the morning. And she expressed that she said, though all those old peoples would say that “Again upon us, a day has broken.”

Maybe I can share with you the Dena’ina word for dawn prayers: Yetałqun duch’idatqeni. 

Dawn is for everybody. The whole earth turns itself towards the sun each morning, and you can hear the animals waking singing, and it is a time for everyone to enjoy. So dawn prayers is for everybody. It’s time for singing, it’s time for language. It’s time for making connections and really centering ourselves in a healing story.

Ldaan.aat Laurie Cropley: We all live by some values. We all have values that we live by. And in this particular case, we’re going to follow dawn prayers with tribal values circle, and we’re going to talk about how much we love holding each other up, how important it is to show reverence and respect for elders and others, and we’re going to spend some time just remembering and renewing our commitment to that way of life.

Yuxgitsiy George Holly: I don’t at all feel like an elder. I’m learning, you know, I’m learning. We all are learning. I mean, that, of course, is the truth. Lori is one of our elders.

Ldaan.aat Laurie Cropley: How old are you? 

Yuxgitsiy George Holly: 55. 

Ldaan.aat Laurie Cropley: He’s a cusp. I’m 80. So I’m claiming, I’m just recently claiming it. Really, it’s hard to be an elder. There’s pressure, there’s expectations, sometimes unrealistic. You maybe haven’t been able to practice your language or your lifestyle — like he mentioned — early in your childhood, and now here we are, you know, just trying to encourage and hold up others who are really focusing now on language and tribal values. And so, yeah, I’m an elder.

But that’s why this elders and youth conference is so important, working together with the young people who are really coming up in the language and the culture and elders who have some history and stories to share. 

What I found so interesting is that our values are such a way of life that when you ask a group of adults or youth, what are the values that they live by, they can’t mention them. They can’t verbalize them.

And so I found that talking circles about tribal values, it’s just like these lights go on, like, “Ah! we hold each other up, we’re reverent, we’re respectful.” It’s just our way of life. We’re all just relatives, we’re all family. We’re all beginning to realize that we have the same needs and wants. Want to be seen and heard and respected and held up and loved so all that kind of disappears in a talking circle because you’re sitting shoulder to shoulder. 

Yuxgitsiy George Holly: That’s so beautiful, Laurie. Gosh, yeah, it’s true. It’s all true. 

SATURDAY, October 25 – Celebrate Halloween Early with KXLL – Excellent Radio for Zombie Walk, Juneau’s annual flesh eating flash mob! BACK FROM THE DEAD AFTER EIGHT YEARS! 

Zombies will begin gathering at 7:00 p.m. at Overstreet Park, near the Whale Statue in Downtown Juneau. At this time, all zombies will assemble in front of the Whale Statue for a group photo and quick route briefing, then head out on the Zombie Walk to the Alaskan Hotel & Bar for the Haunted Hoedown – featuring Jessica Meuse and Maridon & The Primecuts.

The walk is an all-ages event beginning at Overstreet Park and ending outside The Alaskan Hotel & Bar. Attendees 21+ are encouraged to stay for the concert, costume contest, and prize distribution to follow inside the venue. Check out the route, here.

The Haunted Hoedown concert will take place inside the historic Alaskan Hotel & Bar – legendary to locals, and now nationally recognized  – recently ranked #5 in America’s Best Haunted Hotels by USA Today. The lineup features Jessica Meuse, fourth-place finisher on the thirteenth season of American Idol, followed by local favorites Maridon & The Primecuts beginning at 8 p.m. The costume contest will be announced at the show break.

Throwback special edition Zombie Walk T-shirts will be available for purchase thanks to Aurora Projekt.

Come support public media, local artists, and live music!

For more information, email Kelly at kelly.aicardi@ktoo.org.