A Special Postcard from the North  

      Many of you may have read about this year’s severe winter affecting the rural villages of Alaska, including those of the Yu’pik people you have gotten to know in “the kids from nowhere.”  The rural villages are experiencing significant fuel and food shortages.  The current situation also affects teachers in village situations similar to that of author George Guthridge. 

      Alaska resident and Yu’pik artisan, Richard Wisecarver, wrote to HB Reads committee member LeRoy Lucian about the current situation.  As we learn more about the Yu’pik way of life, we also learn how difficult life can be for those in the arctic. 

      Below are excerpts from Richard Wisecarver’s “Postcard from the North”: 

The high price of fuel 

      “…The high price of fuel affects everything.  Schools in rural villages are blowing their budgets on electricity and heat because most of them are not connected to any network.…Village fuels are brought here by tanker and then (transported) by smaller river barges to the other villages.  Villages and schools have to buy their fuel and pay for it in advance so it can be delivered before freeze up.  If the school funds arrive late, and they are unable to pay soon enough, then they get delivered during the last delivery at the end of Sep. and the first week of Oct.  This year low water and an early freeze meant many village(s) got no school fuel and so they bought theirs from the village supply if it was delivered and now there is none for the people's homes.” 

Transporting staples and supplies to rural villages 

      “Air transport for anything is the main cost of items brought in during the ten months with no barges.  Barge orders must often be purchased and paid for a year in advance.  The early fall ice even prevented the delivery of fuel and building supplies, propane, store goods, ammo to the villages.  Now even that must be flown in.” 

      Richard tells us that aid is not often getting to the more remote, rural villages, rather to “…Nome, Kotzebue, Bethel, and Dillingham.  These are not village(s) by Alaskan standards.  They have modern hospitals, warehouses, large department stores, restaurants, machine shops and all kind is of dealerships, hardware stores and lumber yards.” 

Subsistence 

      “…Homes with a good hunter and good boats and fuel collected drift wood …but the poor families got hit really hard.  Even up river above Bethel and St. Mary’s where there is timber, it takes a good skiff and engine or a snow machine with a sled and fuel to collect fire woods.  The poorest families have neither.  The food stamps run out half way through the month and cash is spent on fuel of some sort while many poor families survive on a diet of dry chum salmon and the generosity of the families that have men and gear.” 

      “Moose hunting has been extended for bulls but most likely they will shoot a fat cow.  The bulls are too skinny and stink from rut.  I have no doubt that the musk ox are taking a beating as well. (Seal hunting) is dangerous because the wind can blow you out to sea or create really dangerous pressure ridges.  The seas are still thin as well.” 

      Richard says one of his relatives traveled “across the tundra to some village above Bethel and traded Seals for bundles of dried chum salmon.  A 250 mile round trip during below zero weather.  They could only spare a four or five bundles of fish.  I am sure he stopped and bought a drum of fuel in Bethel.  They took several machines and sleds and bought groceries as well. (He) is well organized and burns drift wood all winter.  So has some cash to spare.  Still by the time he feeds his relatives, it won't go far.” 

The effect on teachers 

      “Teachers have found it difficult to stay in village because of high bills and they are rarely in villages to hunt and fish in the fall. Only (Alaska) Native teachers can hunt sea mammals.” 

The loss of cultures as rural Native Alaskans move to the City for work 

      “Everyday I work with (Alaska) Native kids when I sub.  Yesterday I had a student from St. Lawrence Island.  She didn't remember the island but I recognized her last name. She wouldn't tell me she was Siberian Yupik.  I was supposed to discuss King Arthur legends with the class and when I compared the stories with the Yupik Stories that she brightened up.  When the class broke we talked about her family -Itakayet- that is close- it is the name of a point on the mainland opposite the Island. She was a pretty young lady, but very shy about her heritage.” 

      “Still I meet children who have no idea where there families are from.   Or they just say Bethel or Kotzebue area.  There parent do no even seem to teach them the names of their relatives.  I think in the village the families rely on elders to do that.”   

The isolation of the rural villages 

      “(State officials) from the road or ferry system areas rarely get beyond the village hubs into over 100 rural native villages that are not connect(ed) to the road or ferry system.  Villages tend to run from 250 to 600 people with as few like Hooper Bay and Mountain Village running up to a 1000.  The larger villages tend to put a lot of stress on the local environment and the successful hunters need better equipment and more fuel.”   

      “Villages are usually located on small streams where they enter large rivers or estuaries. Coastal village have the advantage of sea mammals and ocean fish.  Many villagers have to travel over a hundred miles to hunt seals or moose or caribou and have to be careful not to infringe on another village territory without the permission of a close relative in another village.  Some villages have to travel 30 to 50 miles to old village sites now being used for fish camps.”  

Traditional incomes are decreasing 

      “…trapping territories have either grown smaller or fewer plus the animal rights people have driven down the price of fur in a very dramatic way.  Raw seal skins can no longer be sold commercially for the same reason.  The little seals and minks are just too cute.  Rabid foxes and poverty are the results of people trying to fix environmental problems that don't exist.”   

      “We eat the seal skins and we have them commercially tanned -expensive and takes over are year…momma or grandma turn them into skin boots or curios for the tourist market.  We used to tan the skins but the Gussaqs think the skins smell funny.  A beaver pelt worth $20.00 costs a $100.00 to have tanned or to purchase.  All the furs are this way.  The profit from skin sewers is under $1.00 an hour.  We still hand or teeth soften wolf, muskrat and fox for use in the family.  Winter caribou skins or musk ox skins are used for mattresses while winter hunting.  The Quivit is combed out of the muskox by hand and sent to the coop to be spun into yarn.  Which our women knit in expensive scarves and hats.  Again our share of the profit is very small.”   

      “Same with the grass baskets.  The raw materials are gathered at least a year before they are made into baskets.  It must be gathered at the right time of the year, dried and fermented, sorted and split and then dyed all before it is made into a basket.  There are a lot of hours in a $150.00 basket.  If you are (an Alaskan) Native living in urban Alaska, a bundle of grass that you can put your thumb and fore finger around and touch was $20.00 5 years ago.  I do not know what it costs now.”   

Native Alaskans doing the best they can 

      “What I am trying to say is that our people are doing the best they can with what they have.  It must be understood that the Alaska Native people are not helpless or hopeless but like so many other they are being in part overwhelmed by events over which they have no control.” 

For more information: 

“The Tundra Drums”, http://www.thetundradrums.com/  

The Alaska Federation of Natives, http://www.nativefederation.org/

Gladys Charles, (907) 274 3611 

Association of Village Council Presidents http://www.avcp.org/ 

HB Reads provides referrals to recognized organizations, but is not making an endorsement.  We ask our caring readers to conduct their own research before donating financial or other assistance to any organization.