Rural Alaskans learn to install and manage alternative energy systems
by Maria Downey KTUU
Thursday, December 10, 2009
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- More rural communities are seeking alternative energy options, so more training is underway to learn how to use the new technology.
Students from several towns and villages are now taking a two-day class at Susitna Energy Systems in Anchorage.
They're learning how to install and manage alternative energy systems such as wind and solar. They'll then go back to their communities to explain the viable options and be prepared to do the hands-on work that would follow.
More rural communities are seeking cheaper and cleaner options to cut down on the use of expensive fuel.
"It's important because being in a bush community it costs a lot of money for everything, especially electricity," said Chevak resident Shawna Noratak.
"I think it's very important because people are unaware that we have other resources such as wind turbines," Noratak said.
The class has been developed through the efforts of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council, the Denali Training Fund and Susitna Energy and lasts through Friday.
Contact Maria Downey at mdowney@ktuu.com
12.12.2009
12.01.2009
Dept. of Labor Training WIN WIN
Students from local villages team-up with Interior Region Housing Authority and the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council to deploy solar photo voltaic technology in Alatna. Homeowners to benefit directly from renewable energy technology and lower electric bills.
Read more......
Read more about the project here:
http://sustainruralalaska.blogspot.com/
Read more......
Read more about the project here:
http://sustainruralalaska.blogspot.com/
New ALT Housing Sprouting
Anaktuvuk Pass (AKP) is a pocket of beauty set in the far north-central region of the Yukon River Watershed. The Inupiat community of 350 in the central Brooks Range is about as remote as you can get in Alaska.
But living there is not easy. Residents endure some of the coldest winter temperatures in Alaska. The region is treeless therefore biomass energy resources are scarce. With no road or large river access, all petroleum based fuels must be flown in by plane. At $8.00/ gallon for stove oil and $10.00/gallon for gasoline, the cost of living in AKP is one of the most expensive in the Nation.
View Larger Map
As in all of the villages in the Watershed, the '70s-era wood-frame houses are poorly suited to life where everyone expects to see temperatures that drop below zero regularly.
The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC), with funding from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), has teamed-up with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC), DWScientific and the Tagiugmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority (TNHA) to help develop a more energy efficient, culturally and environmentally appropriate housing alternative for residents in AKP.
That means building a high-tech thermal envel h MaxGuard walls (think of your truck's bedliner). Add about 7 inches of soy spray-foam insulation, and set the Mound up earth on two or three sides. Finally, cover the roof with sod. It means orienting each house to capture the sun's heat and deflect snow drifts. It means creating "cool rooms" outside the living areas for butchering and drying game and providing natural refrigeration.
It also means supporting the energy needs of the home through the use of Solar Panels and a Wind Powered Generator. The YRITWC Energy Department staff worked this past summer and into the fall field season to construct and commission a 1000Watt Photo Voltaic Array on the south facing wall of the new home and a 700Watt Ampair Wind Generator behind the home. The renewable energy systems are 'grid-tied' which means, when active, the energy produced will support the home needs. It will also put energy back into the village power grid when energy produced exceeds the immediate needs of the home.
The YRITWC Energy Department has high hopes for the project. Data recorded throughout the two year experimental phase will show how viable these systems are in the arctic. Given the cost of energy in AKP, the energy produced will also be a direct financial benefit to the new homeowner.
Additional Links to checkout:
YRITWC Photo Set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinleonard/sets/72157622326298792/
First Alaskans Magazine Article:
http://www.firstalaskansmagazine.com/index.php?issue=08-2009&story=home
CCHRC Website Sustainable Dwellings:
http://www.cchrc.org/sustainable+northern+shelter+project.aspx
But living there is not easy. Residents endure some of the coldest winter temperatures in Alaska. The region is treeless therefore biomass energy resources are scarce. With no road or large river access, all petroleum based fuels must be flown in by plane. At $8.00/ gallon for stove oil and $10.00/gallon for gasoline, the cost of living in AKP is one of the most expensive in the Nation.
View Larger Map
As in all of the villages in the Watershed, the '70s-era wood-frame houses are poorly suited to life where everyone expects to see temperatures that drop below zero regularly.
The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC), with funding from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA), has teamed-up with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC), DWScientific and the Tagiugmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority (TNHA) to help develop a more energy efficient, culturally and environmentally appropriate housing alternative for residents in AKP.
That means building a high-tech thermal envel h MaxGuard walls (think of your truck's bedliner). Add about 7 inches of soy spray-foam insulation, and set the Mound up earth on two or three sides. Finally, cover the roof with sod. It means orienting each house to capture the sun's heat and deflect snow drifts. It means creating "cool rooms" outside the living areas for butchering and drying game and providing natural refrigeration.
It also means supporting the energy needs of the home through the use of Solar Panels and a Wind Powered Generator. The YRITWC Energy Department staff worked this past summer and into the fall field season to construct and commission a 1000Watt Photo Voltaic Array on the south facing wall of the new home and a 700Watt Ampair Wind Generator behind the home. The renewable energy systems are 'grid-tied' which means, when active, the energy produced will support the home needs. It will also put energy back into the village power grid when energy produced exceeds the immediate needs of the home.
The YRITWC Energy Department has high hopes for the project. Data recorded throughout the two year experimental phase will show how viable these systems are in the arctic. Given the cost of energy in AKP, the energy produced will also be a direct financial benefit to the new homeowner.
Additional Links to checkout:
YRITWC Photo Set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinleonard/sets/72157622326298792/
First Alaskans Magazine Article:
http://www.firstalaskansmagazine.com/index.php?issue=08-2009&story=home
CCHRC Website Sustainable Dwellings:
http://www.cchrc.org/sustainable+northern+shelter+project.aspx
8.01.2009
CCHRC Sustainable Housing
Sustainable Northern Shelter: Anaktuvuk Pass House Completed
Fairbanks– The Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC) is pleased to announce the completion of construction of its Sustainable Northern Shelter (SNS) demonstration house in Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska. Construction began on June 16 with substantial completion four weeks later on July 11.
With guidance from CCHRC and Tagiugmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority (TNHA), students from Barrow’s Ilisagvik College built the home to gain home‐building knowledge and experience, which they can apply to future building projects across rural Alaska.
“We hope this prototype home, in Anaktuvuk Pass, will change the approach to designing and building affordable, energy‐efficient, culturally‐based, and environmentally‐appropriate buildings for Alaska,” says CCHRC President and CEO Jack Hébert. “This is the beginning of a new day for rural Alaska. This project incorporates ten thousand years of sustainable principles with new technology.”
Located in the central Brooks Range, the small community of Anaktuvuk Pass has a number of homes poorly constructed for the extreme climate, and a shortage of housing overall. The completion of the home marks an important milestone in the Anaktuvuk Pass portion of the CCHRC’s Sustainable Northern Shelter Program. The program aims to work with local communities to build affordable, culturally‐rooted, energy efficient housing in rural Alaska villages by combining traditional home designs with modern home-building
techniques.
As part of the SNS program, CCHRC collaborates with the people of the community on the design of the home, to ensure the home is suitable to their lifestyle. Other villages currently participating in the program include: Newtok/Mertarvik, Point Lay, and Nuiqsut. There has also been statewide interest in the project’s general design approach.
This construction method utilizes an innovative building envelope. The basic technique involves a light steel frame structure with an interior plywood skin. A soy‐based, polyurethane insulation with an R‐60 is applied to this framework. This insulated layer is covered by a spray‐applied coating, which is durable, waterproof, and resilient. Earth‐banking and a sod roof are used to buffer the structure from strong winds and drifting snow. The home makes use of natural lighting, water conservation, and other energy‐saving techniques. To further reduce the home’s need for costly energy, the Yukon River Inter‐Tribal Watershed Council installed solar panels and will be adding a wind power system to produce renewable energy.
The high cost of transporting building materials to rural Alaska was a major consideration. All the material needed for construction of this home was approximately 30,000 pounds and could fit into a single DC‐6 aircraft. An average home in Anaktuvuk Pass uses 1,400 gallons or more of fuel oil per year and can cost over $1 million to build, including shipping of materials. The Sustainable Northern Shelter home is designed to use 110 gallons of fuel oil a year and cost under $150,000 to construct, including shipping.
The village of Anaktuvuk will choose a family to live in the home. Over the winter, CCHRC will monitor the building’s condition and systems to assess where changes can be made in future homes for Anaktuvuk Pass.
The Anaktuvuk Pass SNS project partners include: Tagiugmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority(TNHA), Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation, City of Anaktuvuk Pass, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, GW Scientific, Alaska State Museum, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, Nunamiut Corporation, Ilisagvik College, Yukon River Inter‐Tribal Watershed Council, Lifewater Engineering Company, Engineering and Environmental Internet Solutions, and Demilec USA.
________
Located in Fairbanks, Alaska, the Cold Climate Housing Research Center is a non‐profit institution dedicated to research that improves the durability, health, and affordability of shelter for people living in circumpolar regions around the globe.
For more images of the construction of the Anaktuvuk Pass home, visit:
Photo Set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coldclimatehousing/sets/72157621472154550/
Press Release:
http://cchrc.org/App_Content/files/Anaktuvuk_Completion_release.pdf
Slideshow:
http://cchrcresearch.org/slideshow.html
CCHRC Home:
http://www.cchrc.org
2.12.2009
STEM Charter School Alaska
STEM Charter School Alaska
http://stemcharteralaska.blogspot.com/
Dedicated to the Development of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Charter Schools in Alaska. Discussions on the topics of pedagogy, administration, concept design and implementation of STEM Charter Schools. resources, contacts, news, research, forums, STEM education native experiential alternative
Link to the Blog here:
http://stemcharteralaska.blogspot.com/
http://stemcharteralaska.blogspot.com/
Dedicated to the Development of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Charter Schools in Alaska. Discussions on the topics of pedagogy, administration, concept design and implementation of STEM Charter Schools. resources, contacts, news, research, forums, STEM education native experiential alternative
Link to the Blog here:
http://stemcharteralaska.blogspot.com/
1.16.2009
Economic Crisis
Emmonak man seeks food airlift to combat economic crisis
ALASKA NEWSPAPER STAFF
editor@alaskanewspapers.com
January 12, 2009 at 1:42PM AKST
A combination of extreme cold and high fuel prices has created a humanitarian crisis for the village of Emmonak, according to resident Nicholas Tucker.
In a letter sent out as a cry for help, Tucker describes economic conditions in which families are rationing food and warmth for themselves and their children in the Southwest Alaska village of 800.
The situation could easily worsen — extreme cold that arrived early this winter and stuck around means heating fuel must soon be flown in, which residents fear will push the price from $7.83 per gallon to $9 a gallon or more.
In the letter, Tucker, who calls himself a longtime advocate for the region, describes the desperate circumstances faced by several families. He learned about their situation after putting out a VHF radio announcement in the village asking families to describe how they were weathering the fuel crisis in rural Alaska.
Tucker requests a “massive airlift” of food and said money from churches, state agencies and other groups is needed to offset the high fuel prices. The 100 gallons of free heating fuel for every home in Alaska Native communities that has been promised by oil company Citgo will help. But it won’t be enough because it will last only one month, he said.
Tucker originally circulated the letter on Jan. 10 at a meeting in Emmonak in which Lower Yukon River villages discussed ways to lower fuel prices next spring. The letter has also been sent to some churches, the Food Bank of Alaska and officials with Calista Corp., the Native corporation for the region which owns this and other rural newspapers.
Emmonak man seeks food airlift to combat economic crisis
ALASKA NEWSPAPER STAFF
editor@alaskanewspapers.com
January 12, 2009 at 1:42PM AKST
A combination of extreme cold and high fuel prices has created a humanitarian crisis for the village of Emmonak, according to resident Nicholas Tucker.
In a letter sent out as a cry for help, Tucker describes economic conditions in which families are rationing food and warmth for themselves and their children in the Southwest Alaska village of 800.
The situation could easily worsen — extreme cold that arrived early this winter and stuck around means heating fuel must soon be flown in, which residents fear will push the price from $7.83 per gallon to $9 a gallon or more.
In the letter, Tucker, who calls himself a longtime advocate for the region, describes the desperate circumstances faced by several families. He learned about their situation after putting out a VHF radio announcement in the village asking families to describe how they were weathering the fuel crisis in rural Alaska.
Tucker requests a “massive airlift” of food and said money from churches, state agencies and other groups is needed to offset the high fuel prices. The 100 gallons of free heating fuel for every home in Alaska Native communities that has been promised by oil company Citgo will help. But it won’t be enough because it will last only one month, he said.
Tucker originally circulated the letter on Jan. 10 at a meeting in Emmonak in which Lower Yukon River villages discussed ways to lower fuel prices next spring. The letter has also been sent to some churches, the Food Bank of Alaska and officials with Calista Corp., the Native corporation for the region which owns this and other rural newspapers.
Emmonak man seeks food airlift to combat economic crisis
12.16.2008
ANSEP Leadership Development
ANSEP is developing the next generation of leaders for Alaska. View some of the speakers promoting ANSEP during the 2008 ANSEP banquet in Anchorage, Alaska.
Herb Schroeder ANSEP Introduction
Fran Ulmer, UAA Chancellor
Ted Stevens on America's Engineering and Science Capacities
Herb Schroeder ANSEP Introduction
Fran Ulmer, UAA Chancellor
Ted Stevens on America's Engineering and Science Capacities
11.23.2008
Some Native Corporations Planning for Future
Some Native corporations planning for future
TIM BRADNER
ECONOMY
Published: November 22nd, 2008 11:13 PM
Last Modified: November 22nd, 2008 02:10 AM
Alaska Native corporations, our large private landowners, frequently take the lead in natural resource and economic development. We see these corporations hustling for minerals and oil exploration on their land and sometimes land owned by others. We see them taking the leading innovative development projects too.
Most recently, Doyen, Ltd., the Interior regional corporation, and two other Alaska firms -- Arctic Slope Regional Corp., another Native corporation, and Fairbanks-based Usibelli Energy -- engineered a deal with a Denver independent petroleum company to drill an exploration well in the Nenana Basin west of Fairbanks. The venture includes land owned by Doyon as well as the state and the University of Alaska, which would also benefit if the well planned for next summer strikes gas.
Another example of entrepreneurship but also with some long-term thinking and regional planning is an effort by Tyonek Native Corp., owned by shareholders from a small village on Cook Inlet's west side, to facilitate some big development projects that are planned nearby.
Tyonek's goal is not only to position itself to be involved in these projects, most likely in support services, but also to shape the development to reduce any harm to local wildlife habitat as well as the traditional Tyonek community. What's refreshing about this is that we see the people who live closest to these projects saying "yes" to them, as long as they are done right.
Tyonek has developed a visionary plan that sets aside land it owns that is important for fish and game protection but also land for industrial development and infrastructure. In fact, a 1,000-acre industrial area has been established, and Tyonek is working on a plan for road access from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and planned housing subdivisions that would accommodate new population it feels the industrial projects will inevitably lead to.
CONTROVERSIAL COAL
Meanwhile, what are the projects? They are several. On the front burner is a medium-sized coal mine on nearby state land that is planned by the Bass-Hunt group of Texas. Another nearby coal deposit, owned by Barrick Gold, also could be developed.
These mines would export coal to Asia, at least initially, but there is also a plan for a coal-to-liquids plant that would convert coal from the mines to high-quality, environmentally clean liquid fuels that are much in demand in U.S. West Coast markets.
An objection some have to these mine projects is that the coal they would export, if used in industrial or power plants in China, would put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
The coal-to-liquids strategy would avoid this. A key advantage of the process is that it will capture CO2, and a plant at that location could inject the gas into nearby depleted underground oil and gas reservoirs and possibly use it to get more oil from aging Cook Inlet oil fields.
Tyonek likes this idea because the liquid fuels made would have a much higher value than the coal and would create a lot of jobs as well as several billion dollars in new industrial tax base for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. An Anchorage firm, Alaska Natural Resources-to-Liquids, is working to bring into this project Sasol, the South African energy company that is a leader in coal-to-liquids.
STEAM HEAT
Two other prospects for the area are the Mount Spurr geothermal project and the Chakachamna hydro project, which are near each other west of Tyonek. Both are being evaluated by private companies -- Chakachamna by TDX Power, another Alaska Native-owned company, and Mount Spurr geothermal by Ormat Nevada Inc.
Tyonek has other projects in mind, including gravel sales from its land. However, with the electricity potential of Mount Spurr, Chakachamna and waste heat from the coal-to-liquids plant that could generate 400 megawatts of power there could be a lot of low-cost electricity that could feed into the existing Southcentral-Interior power grid. Chugach Electric Association's Beluga Power plant is just a few miles from Tyonek.
With natural gas being depleted in Southcentral gas fields, the region needs new alternatives to gas-fired power generation. Tyonek hopes low-cost electricity could help attract other businesses to the region too.
All in all it's quite a vision. Tyonek deserves a hand for encouraging regional economic development and working to ensure it is done properly. I call that far-seeing leadership, and we need more of it in Alaska.
TIM BRADNER
ECONOMY
Published: November 22nd, 2008 11:13 PM
Last Modified: November 22nd, 2008 02:10 AM
Alaska Native corporations, our large private landowners, frequently take the lead in natural resource and economic development. We see these corporations hustling for minerals and oil exploration on their land and sometimes land owned by others. We see them taking the leading innovative development projects too.
Most recently, Doyen, Ltd., the Interior regional corporation, and two other Alaska firms -- Arctic Slope Regional Corp., another Native corporation, and Fairbanks-based Usibelli Energy -- engineered a deal with a Denver independent petroleum company to drill an exploration well in the Nenana Basin west of Fairbanks. The venture includes land owned by Doyon as well as the state and the University of Alaska, which would also benefit if the well planned for next summer strikes gas.
Another example of entrepreneurship but also with some long-term thinking and regional planning is an effort by Tyonek Native Corp., owned by shareholders from a small village on Cook Inlet's west side, to facilitate some big development projects that are planned nearby.
Tyonek's goal is not only to position itself to be involved in these projects, most likely in support services, but also to shape the development to reduce any harm to local wildlife habitat as well as the traditional Tyonek community. What's refreshing about this is that we see the people who live closest to these projects saying "yes" to them, as long as they are done right.
Tyonek has developed a visionary plan that sets aside land it owns that is important for fish and game protection but also land for industrial development and infrastructure. In fact, a 1,000-acre industrial area has been established, and Tyonek is working on a plan for road access from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and planned housing subdivisions that would accommodate new population it feels the industrial projects will inevitably lead to.
CONTROVERSIAL COAL
Meanwhile, what are the projects? They are several. On the front burner is a medium-sized coal mine on nearby state land that is planned by the Bass-Hunt group of Texas. Another nearby coal deposit, owned by Barrick Gold, also could be developed.
These mines would export coal to Asia, at least initially, but there is also a plan for a coal-to-liquids plant that would convert coal from the mines to high-quality, environmentally clean liquid fuels that are much in demand in U.S. West Coast markets.
An objection some have to these mine projects is that the coal they would export, if used in industrial or power plants in China, would put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.
The coal-to-liquids strategy would avoid this. A key advantage of the process is that it will capture CO2, and a plant at that location could inject the gas into nearby depleted underground oil and gas reservoirs and possibly use it to get more oil from aging Cook Inlet oil fields.
Tyonek likes this idea because the liquid fuels made would have a much higher value than the coal and would create a lot of jobs as well as several billion dollars in new industrial tax base for the Kenai Peninsula Borough. An Anchorage firm, Alaska Natural Resources-to-Liquids, is working to bring into this project Sasol, the South African energy company that is a leader in coal-to-liquids.
STEAM HEAT
Two other prospects for the area are the Mount Spurr geothermal project and the Chakachamna hydro project, which are near each other west of Tyonek. Both are being evaluated by private companies -- Chakachamna by TDX Power, another Alaska Native-owned company, and Mount Spurr geothermal by Ormat Nevada Inc.
Tyonek has other projects in mind, including gravel sales from its land. However, with the electricity potential of Mount Spurr, Chakachamna and waste heat from the coal-to-liquids plant that could generate 400 megawatts of power there could be a lot of low-cost electricity that could feed into the existing Southcentral-Interior power grid. Chugach Electric Association's Beluga Power plant is just a few miles from Tyonek.
With natural gas being depleted in Southcentral gas fields, the region needs new alternatives to gas-fired power generation. Tyonek hopes low-cost electricity could help attract other businesses to the region too.
All in all it's quite a vision. Tyonek deserves a hand for encouraging regional economic development and working to ensure it is done properly. I call that far-seeing leadership, and we need more of it in Alaska.
10.20.2008
Bering Sea Elders Group
Alaska Native elders seek united voices on bottom trawling in Bering Sea
DAVID BILL SR.
April 18, 2008 at 12:18PM AKST
Originally Posted: The Tundra Drums
The Bering Sea is warming.
Alaska Native people living on the coast, keen observers of the world around us, are witnessing many changes in sea ice and animals. Elders report that it’s harder to predict the weather in the traditional way because natural indicators are different.
Scientists report that loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic polar basin inhibits the formation of winter ice in the Bering Sea. Late formation of winter ice and early melting in spring is changing the ecosystem.
Regular surveys show that 45 species of fish have shifted their range northward. With rising temperatures and loss of annual sea ice, commercially valuable fish species are beginning to occupy increasingly more northern waters, inviting fleets to expand trawling into new habitats and sensitive areas.
In June 2007, federal fishery managers agreed to establish a northern bottom-trawl boundary as a precautionary measure to prevent movement of fleets northward beyond their current footprint. The boundary is a moratorium while they develop a plan for the northern Bering Sea.
Alaska Native Elders from eight tribes formed the Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group, administered by the Native Village of Kwigillingok, to provide traditional guidance on how to protect our subsistence way of life as part of the pending fishery plan to govern bottom trawling in the northern Bering Sea.
Representatives of the advisory group have been traveling village to village presenting the issue and inviting more tribes to join. The group has already expanded to 20 tribes and their designated elders.
All tribes from Kuskokwim Bay to Bering Strait are invited to join. The goal is to recommend a unified proposal for protecting our subsistence.
Participating tribes will determine what areas need to be protected from bottom trawling based on elders’ traditional knowledge and today’s active hunters, fishermen and gatherers.
Each tribe will develop maps delineating important and historical use areas and places of ecological significance that are necessary to support the species we depend on in the Bering Sea.
The mapping program is under development. It will include traditional knowledge already documented. Additional or updated information will be collected based on methods used by Canada’s First Nations and experience in Alaska.
Collecting this information will be done in the Yup’ik and Inupiaq languages. Information will be translated for fishery managers to understand.
The final proposal, approved by the tribes and our respected elders, will include maps along with stories, descriptions and seasonal practices provided by Alaska Native holders of traditional and local knowledge specific to each tribe.
Developing a northern Bering Sea bottom-trawl plan is an opportunity to apply the best science and knowledge held by traditional hunters and fishermen toward pragmatic outcomes affecting conservation and cultural integrity in the Bering Sea.
David Bill Sr., chair of the Bering Sea Elders Advisory Group, lives in Toksook Bay. He can be contacted at (907) 427-7165.
7.05.2008
Cooperative Extension Service RDP
Rural Development Project
Our Mission
The UAF CES Rural Development Project develops and disseminates relevant and easily understood research and technology to rural Alaskans – primarily in the lower Yukon Kuskokwim rivers, the Copper River Valley and Southeast Alaska – to improve their quality of life. The Project maintains an open dialog with those stakeholders to identify and adjust to evolving needs. Download the RDP Magazine >
Our Vision
Project faculty and staff collaborate with public agencies, professional researchers, consultants, community groups and, most of all, stakeholders. Programs and services include:
- Rural community development and economic analysis
- Forestry and natural resources
- Youth development
- Energy alternatives and environmental management
- Food self-sufficiency
Our Objectives
The RDP has identified the following objectives to attain both the mission and the vision.
- Support research and outreach that responds to the needs of rural Alaska communities.
- Increase opportunities for community participation in hands-on learning.
- Use technology to deliver information and to enhance knowledge.
- Manage the process of community outreach.
- Foster strategic partnerships with public and private stakeholders.
- Collaborate with public and private employers in workforce preparation.
- Develop and maintain a highly qualified and motivated staff.
Good Resources Page
Good Reference/Publications Page
_________
7.03.2008
ACTing Like Clean Water
Renewable Resources Coalition
The RRC is an Alaskan non-profit 501 c (6) corporation founded by Alaskans with a diverse membership including commercial fishermen, natives, lodge owners, and many others. The mission of the Renewable Resources Coalition is to preserve and protect the ongoing viability of Alaska’s abundant fishing and hunting resources and the lands and waters they need to survive.
Renewable Resources Coalition
Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown
Alaskans Against the Mining Shutdown (AAMS), a citizens' coalition, has taken the lead in fighting the initiatives put forth by the anti-mining interests in Alaska - including Ballot Measure 4 which could appear on the primary ballot on August 26th.
The AAMS coalition includes individuals and groups representing different business, regional, and political backgrounds that have gathered together to fight the very drastic and deceptive measures put forth by the anti-mining interests. AAMS launched this campaign to do three things:
(1) Protect the over 5,500 direct and indirect mining jobs, and future jobs in over 100 Alaskan communities, many of them in outlying rural Native Alaskan communities;
(2) Preserve the diverse Alaskan communities who depend on mining. Mining provides $175 million in revenue to Alaska State government, and $14 million in revenue to local governments and, in some cases, is the only source of revenue to to rural communities.
(3) Responsibly protect Alaska's future by ensuring our great mineral wealth continues to be a significant, growing sector of Alaska's economy.
AAMS also promotes responsible resource development, believing that economic development and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive. Alaska has very rigorous environmental standards and processes that mining projects have to go through, and the anti-mining interests would arbitrarily override these science-based processes and standards.
Alaskans Against Mining Shutdown
6.17.2008
Sustain Rural Alaska
Sustainable Development in Rural Alaska Issues Trends Demonstrations Solutions Dedicated to the survival of communities across rural Alaska.
http://sustainruralalaska.blogspot.com/
sustain sustainable rural alaska ak alternative energy development native village housing alt lifestyle change
http://sustainruralalaska.blogspot.com/
sustain sustainable rural alaska ak alternative energy development native village housing alt lifestyle change
2.12.2008
Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program
nspe.org
DECEMBER 2007
Expanding the Engineering Pipeline
The University of Alaska Anchorage is empowering native students to succeed as engineers and scientists and providing a source of technical talent for local industry. It's a model that's being replicated with indigenous students nationwide.
By Eva Kaplan-Leiserson
In Alaska, like other areas of the country, there aren't enough engineers to go around. Oil companies must often import staff from the "lower 48," which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in recruiting and relocation costs. And then, many employees quit after just a couple of years, unable to adjust to the cold and dark environment.
At the same time, many of the native people of Alaska struggle with low-quality education and eke out a living in traditional industries such as fishing. A suite of programs developed at the University of Alaska Anchorage, however, is creating a win-win situation, helping some Alaska Native students live their dreams of becoming engineers and scientists.
Developed by Herb Schroeder, associate dean of UAA's engineering school, the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program includes a pre-college program for high schoolers, a summer bridge experience for entering freshmen, a set of retention strategies for university students, and continuing services for graduate students.
The model has been so successful in attracting and retaining indigenous engineering and science students that five other colleges and universities in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington have implemented programs based on the ANSEP model. After an October conference in Anchorage, seven more in Washington, Arizona, Colorado, North Dakota, and South Dakota have committed to doing so.
At the six colleges and universities that have implemented ANSEP-based retention strategies, 70% of students have graduated or remain in the program. Among students who have completed the summer bridge program, that number shoots up to 85%. This compares to National Center for Education Statistics showing a six-year graduation rate of 36.5% for indigenous students in all disciplines.
Low Expectations
The story of ANSEP starts in the early 1990s, when Schroeder traveled to "honey bucket" villages in rural Alaska to research sanitation. In these villages, citizens haul buckets of sanitary waste to a town dump site, often spilling the contents en route, spreading pathogens, and creating health problems.|
Schroeder noticed communication problems between the Alaskan natives in the communities and the engineers from the public health service. "I decided you could mitigate some of the problems by having native engineers," Schroeder says. "In the whole two years I worked on that project, I never met a single native engineer." So the self-proclaimed "white guy" returned to the university determined to address the shortage of Alaska Natives who see engineering as a potential career path.
But the road was not a smooth one. At UAA there was a "widely held belief that native people couldn't do math and science," he says. And when he decided that he needed to reach out to high school students to ensure they were prepared for the tough college engineering curriculum, he faced similar views from high school officials.
The attitudes Schroeder encountered were representative of what he calls "systematic subjugation" of indigenous students, in which they're not considered college material. When Schroeder talked to high school officials, he got responses such as, "These students aren't cut out for college. They want to stay here [and] ride snow machines." And, "If we offered [higher-level math and science] courses, no one would take them and those that would would fail."
Years later, Schroeder would win the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring for developing the ANSEP program. In presenting the award in 2004, President Bush said something to Schroeder that perfectly summed up the resistance he encountered: "Under-represented minorities in this country suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations."
For Alaskan natives, low success rates in higher education were the root of those expectations. But the ANSEP program has demonstrated that it's not that indigenous students aren't cut out for college, but that their prior education leaves them ill-prepared.
Diane Kaplan, president and CEO of the Rasmuson Foundation, a major supporter of ANSEP, explains that the quality of education in rural villages is poor. "Kids from small villages who might even be valedictorian in their high school class arrive at university so ill-prepared for success that they often flunk out in the first year," she says. "Imagine how devastating that's got to be to someone's morale."
What the ANSEP program has proven, Kaplan adds, is that once placed on a level playing field with students from larger towns and cities, indigenous students can not only survive but thrive in higher education.
"It's not because they're dumb, not because they're not motivated or don't have potential or aren't interested," says Kaplan. "It really seems that the problem has been…that they are ill-prepared to be successful, and have had people tell them they're not going to be successful, and they're believing it after a while."
Says Schroeder: "We've turned all those beliefs totally upside down."
Building the Model
In 1995, Schroeder started the university retention portion of his program, working with two native students to identify what they would need to feel welcome and be successful. Schroeder's weekly meetings with the students expanded into study groups, and he eventually wove in internships to help students explore different engineering jobs.
Today, retention efforts include co-enrollment of native students in classes to support each other; twice-weekly group study sessions led by more-advanced peers; weekly team-building and networking meetings with students, faculty, alumni, and industry partners; and summer internships at partner companies. If students participate in all components and keep a 2.0 GPA, they can earn scholarships to cover the majority of their schooling costs.
Teamwork is essential to the program and illustrates its primary belief. "Everything we do is based on the fundamental indigenous value that community comes before the individual," says Schroeder.
But the associate dean found that he was still doing a lot of "damage control" with students unprepared for university courses. After coming across a summer bridge program at the University of Washington that brought high school graduates to the university campus before they started school there, he launched a similar program at UAA in 1998.
In the nine-week bridge program, students take two hours of pre-calculus class in the mornings; work an internship with industry partners like BP, Alyeska Pipeline, or ConocoPhillips for six hours during the day; and then do more math with peer tutors in the evening. On Friday afternoons students attend brown-bag sessions with industry professionals to learn about their jobs, and on the weekends students can participate in group activities like go-carting and laser tag.
Although the program was successful, Schroeder found that students were still too far behind. So in 2002, he added the pre-college program for high schoolers.
Flying to Kotzebue, on Alaska's west coast and 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Schroeder met with 10 high school juniors that friends had told him would be successful in university studies. He brought parts for 10 computers and offered to teach the students how to build and operate the machines. The requirement was that they had to take trigonometry in high school.
All 10 students were eager to participate, but there was one catch: The school didn't offer the class. Schroeder urged the students to petition the principal for it. Now the school offers trigonometry, physics, and chemistry, Schroeder says, and its students are graduating from UAA with engineering degrees.
Schroeder's idea is now a reality in 43 high schools in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. If students take trigonometry, physics, and chemistry, build a computer one year, and teach another student to do so the next year, they're rewarded by being allowed to keep the computer they built. Initially funded by NSF, the program is now supported by industry partners.
The program gives students not only a vision of what they might become, says Fran Ulmer, interim chancellor at UAA, but also the necessary tools and skills to achieve that goal. Schroeder, she says, has "opened up the doors and windows of people's lives in a very powerful way."
Why It Works
In the 10 years before ANSEP, UAA's engineering program graduated three native students. Now, in the 2007–2008 school year alone, there are more than 350 native engineering students at UAA, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska's Kuskokwim Community College, the University of Washington, the University of Hawaii Manoa, and Hawaii's Kapiolani Community College. About 200 more indigenous students are studying science at those schools.
What are the reasons for the model's success? The suite of programs that prepare students for university-level work is key. But equally important is the atmosphere that the retention program creates. For students and partners in ANSEP, it's a feeling of family and home.
Indigenous students come to study far from their villages and people they know, and they land in an urban environment vastly different than what they are used to. Through group study sessions; Friday afternoon pizza meetings; and organized activities like bowling, snowboarding, and rock climbing, ANSEP reinforces its group dynamic and creates bonds between participants and with faculty, alumni, and industry mentors.
The ideas of family and home are much a part of the 14,000-square-foot building that serves as ANSEP's headquarters. The ANSEP building was designed to look like a canoe and is decorated with indigenous art. Built with industry and foundation support and money from the state of Alaska, the building opened in October 2006. It is a place, Schroeder says, where native students can feel comfortable and "be native."
In addition to recitation rooms and offices, the building has a space for native dance performances and a kitchen where father-figure Schroeder can often be found on Sundays cooking up a meal for the students.
But even before the building opened, ANSEP was providing students with a sense of family. It is that feeling of community and belonging to which Matt Calhoun, a graduate student at UAA and the first ANSEP graduate, credits his academic success. Prior to joining as a sophomore, he says, "I just felt alone and distant to the point where I almost didn't continue college."
But ANSEP students, who share similar backgrounds and goals, support and help each other. Jenny Jemison, a senior at UAA who serves as a recitation leader for lower-level students, jokes, "I'm graduating in the spring, and I feel like I should have 70 other names on my diploma."
This team approach is perfect for preparing future engineers, explains junior Kelvin Goode, since much of engineering work is done in teams. "This program is pre-paring us for the engineering world from the moment we step into college because they emphasize teamwork and group thinking," he says.
Companies that host student interns and hire graduates believe that ANSEP students are better prepared than the average student. Kristi Acuff, senior vice president of employee and external relations for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, says participants are high-caliber workers with a good work ethic. "ANSEP students just excel," she says. "We've been very impressed with them."
With an internship every summer, students are highly prepared when they start their professional careers. Every graduate so far has gone on to work for one of the 50 industry partners, Schroeder says. And when the British energy company BP recently recruited at UAA, Schroeder reports, seven of the eight people picked were ANSEP students.
"These students are competing with the best and the brightest from the whole world," he says. "Because they're BP, they're not going to lower their standards for the talent they bring into the company."
Another sign of success is that non-indigenous students are now joining the program, attracted by ANSEP's team dynamic and elite reputation. ANSEP does not discriminate and welcomes them.
Further Application?
As the ANSEP model spreads beyond UAA and Alaska, some believe its impact could go even further.
"I think he's created a really good educational model for retaining students into an educational program," says Carolyn Smith, operations manager at NANA Development Corporation, an ANSEP partner. UAA's Ulmer says the school is discussing the applicability of the model for growing the next generation of K–12 teachers.
Kaplan believes the ANSEP strategies could be applied to many different disciplines. "It's not really about engineering," she says. "It's about having an attitude that the students can be successful and giving them the support they need."
She continues, "What Herb has created, it's not rocket science. It's really common sense and commitment."
Says Acuff about Schroeder's eventual retirement: "The biggest hope is that he trains somebody right behind him who has the same heart, because he's got an awfully big heart towards this program and it's made it very successful."
yellow bar
©2008 National Society of Professional Engineers | 1420 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 | 703 684 2800
DECEMBER 2007
Expanding the Engineering Pipeline
The University of Alaska Anchorage is empowering native students to succeed as engineers and scientists and providing a source of technical talent for local industry. It's a model that's being replicated with indigenous students nationwide.
By Eva Kaplan-Leiserson
In Alaska, like other areas of the country, there aren't enough engineers to go around. Oil companies must often import staff from the "lower 48," which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in recruiting and relocation costs. And then, many employees quit after just a couple of years, unable to adjust to the cold and dark environment.
At the same time, many of the native people of Alaska struggle with low-quality education and eke out a living in traditional industries such as fishing. A suite of programs developed at the University of Alaska Anchorage, however, is creating a win-win situation, helping some Alaska Native students live their dreams of becoming engineers and scientists.
Developed by Herb Schroeder, associate dean of UAA's engineering school, the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program includes a pre-college program for high schoolers, a summer bridge experience for entering freshmen, a set of retention strategies for university students, and continuing services for graduate students.
The model has been so successful in attracting and retaining indigenous engineering and science students that five other colleges and universities in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington have implemented programs based on the ANSEP model. After an October conference in Anchorage, seven more in Washington, Arizona, Colorado, North Dakota, and South Dakota have committed to doing so.
At the six colleges and universities that have implemented ANSEP-based retention strategies, 70% of students have graduated or remain in the program. Among students who have completed the summer bridge program, that number shoots up to 85%. This compares to National Center for Education Statistics showing a six-year graduation rate of 36.5% for indigenous students in all disciplines.
Low Expectations
The story of ANSEP starts in the early 1990s, when Schroeder traveled to "honey bucket" villages in rural Alaska to research sanitation. In these villages, citizens haul buckets of sanitary waste to a town dump site, often spilling the contents en route, spreading pathogens, and creating health problems.|
Schroeder noticed communication problems between the Alaskan natives in the communities and the engineers from the public health service. "I decided you could mitigate some of the problems by having native engineers," Schroeder says. "In the whole two years I worked on that project, I never met a single native engineer." So the self-proclaimed "white guy" returned to the university determined to address the shortage of Alaska Natives who see engineering as a potential career path.
But the road was not a smooth one. At UAA there was a "widely held belief that native people couldn't do math and science," he says. And when he decided that he needed to reach out to high school students to ensure they were prepared for the tough college engineering curriculum, he faced similar views from high school officials.
The attitudes Schroeder encountered were representative of what he calls "systematic subjugation" of indigenous students, in which they're not considered college material. When Schroeder talked to high school officials, he got responses such as, "These students aren't cut out for college. They want to stay here [and] ride snow machines." And, "If we offered [higher-level math and science] courses, no one would take them and those that would would fail."
Years later, Schroeder would win the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring for developing the ANSEP program. In presenting the award in 2004, President Bush said something to Schroeder that perfectly summed up the resistance he encountered: "Under-represented minorities in this country suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations."
For Alaskan natives, low success rates in higher education were the root of those expectations. But the ANSEP program has demonstrated that it's not that indigenous students aren't cut out for college, but that their prior education leaves them ill-prepared.
Diane Kaplan, president and CEO of the Rasmuson Foundation, a major supporter of ANSEP, explains that the quality of education in rural villages is poor. "Kids from small villages who might even be valedictorian in their high school class arrive at university so ill-prepared for success that they often flunk out in the first year," she says. "Imagine how devastating that's got to be to someone's morale."
What the ANSEP program has proven, Kaplan adds, is that once placed on a level playing field with students from larger towns and cities, indigenous students can not only survive but thrive in higher education.
"It's not because they're dumb, not because they're not motivated or don't have potential or aren't interested," says Kaplan. "It really seems that the problem has been…that they are ill-prepared to be successful, and have had people tell them they're not going to be successful, and they're believing it after a while."
Says Schroeder: "We've turned all those beliefs totally upside down."
Building the Model
In 1995, Schroeder started the university retention portion of his program, working with two native students to identify what they would need to feel welcome and be successful. Schroeder's weekly meetings with the students expanded into study groups, and he eventually wove in internships to help students explore different engineering jobs.
Today, retention efforts include co-enrollment of native students in classes to support each other; twice-weekly group study sessions led by more-advanced peers; weekly team-building and networking meetings with students, faculty, alumni, and industry partners; and summer internships at partner companies. If students participate in all components and keep a 2.0 GPA, they can earn scholarships to cover the majority of their schooling costs.
Teamwork is essential to the program and illustrates its primary belief. "Everything we do is based on the fundamental indigenous value that community comes before the individual," says Schroeder.
But the associate dean found that he was still doing a lot of "damage control" with students unprepared for university courses. After coming across a summer bridge program at the University of Washington that brought high school graduates to the university campus before they started school there, he launched a similar program at UAA in 1998.
In the nine-week bridge program, students take two hours of pre-calculus class in the mornings; work an internship with industry partners like BP, Alyeska Pipeline, or ConocoPhillips for six hours during the day; and then do more math with peer tutors in the evening. On Friday afternoons students attend brown-bag sessions with industry professionals to learn about their jobs, and on the weekends students can participate in group activities like go-carting and laser tag.
Although the program was successful, Schroeder found that students were still too far behind. So in 2002, he added the pre-college program for high schoolers.
Flying to Kotzebue, on Alaska's west coast and 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Schroeder met with 10 high school juniors that friends had told him would be successful in university studies. He brought parts for 10 computers and offered to teach the students how to build and operate the machines. The requirement was that they had to take trigonometry in high school.
All 10 students were eager to participate, but there was one catch: The school didn't offer the class. Schroeder urged the students to petition the principal for it. Now the school offers trigonometry, physics, and chemistry, Schroeder says, and its students are graduating from UAA with engineering degrees.
Schroeder's idea is now a reality in 43 high schools in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. If students take trigonometry, physics, and chemistry, build a computer one year, and teach another student to do so the next year, they're rewarded by being allowed to keep the computer they built. Initially funded by NSF, the program is now supported by industry partners.
The program gives students not only a vision of what they might become, says Fran Ulmer, interim chancellor at UAA, but also the necessary tools and skills to achieve that goal. Schroeder, she says, has "opened up the doors and windows of people's lives in a very powerful way."
Why It Works
In the 10 years before ANSEP, UAA's engineering program graduated three native students. Now, in the 2007–2008 school year alone, there are more than 350 native engineering students at UAA, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska's Kuskokwim Community College, the University of Washington, the University of Hawaii Manoa, and Hawaii's Kapiolani Community College. About 200 more indigenous students are studying science at those schools.
What are the reasons for the model's success? The suite of programs that prepare students for university-level work is key. But equally important is the atmosphere that the retention program creates. For students and partners in ANSEP, it's a feeling of family and home.
Indigenous students come to study far from their villages and people they know, and they land in an urban environment vastly different than what they are used to. Through group study sessions; Friday afternoon pizza meetings; and organized activities like bowling, snowboarding, and rock climbing, ANSEP reinforces its group dynamic and creates bonds between participants and with faculty, alumni, and industry mentors.
The ideas of family and home are much a part of the 14,000-square-foot building that serves as ANSEP's headquarters. The ANSEP building was designed to look like a canoe and is decorated with indigenous art. Built with industry and foundation support and money from the state of Alaska, the building opened in October 2006. It is a place, Schroeder says, where native students can feel comfortable and "be native."
In addition to recitation rooms and offices, the building has a space for native dance performances and a kitchen where father-figure Schroeder can often be found on Sundays cooking up a meal for the students.
But even before the building opened, ANSEP was providing students with a sense of family. It is that feeling of community and belonging to which Matt Calhoun, a graduate student at UAA and the first ANSEP graduate, credits his academic success. Prior to joining as a sophomore, he says, "I just felt alone and distant to the point where I almost didn't continue college."
But ANSEP students, who share similar backgrounds and goals, support and help each other. Jenny Jemison, a senior at UAA who serves as a recitation leader for lower-level students, jokes, "I'm graduating in the spring, and I feel like I should have 70 other names on my diploma."
This team approach is perfect for preparing future engineers, explains junior Kelvin Goode, since much of engineering work is done in teams. "This program is pre-paring us for the engineering world from the moment we step into college because they emphasize teamwork and group thinking," he says.
Companies that host student interns and hire graduates believe that ANSEP students are better prepared than the average student. Kristi Acuff, senior vice president of employee and external relations for Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, says participants are high-caliber workers with a good work ethic. "ANSEP students just excel," she says. "We've been very impressed with them."
With an internship every summer, students are highly prepared when they start their professional careers. Every graduate so far has gone on to work for one of the 50 industry partners, Schroeder says. And when the British energy company BP recently recruited at UAA, Schroeder reports, seven of the eight people picked were ANSEP students.
"These students are competing with the best and the brightest from the whole world," he says. "Because they're BP, they're not going to lower their standards for the talent they bring into the company."
Another sign of success is that non-indigenous students are now joining the program, attracted by ANSEP's team dynamic and elite reputation. ANSEP does not discriminate and welcomes them.
Further Application?
As the ANSEP model spreads beyond UAA and Alaska, some believe its impact could go even further.
"I think he's created a really good educational model for retaining students into an educational program," says Carolyn Smith, operations manager at NANA Development Corporation, an ANSEP partner. UAA's Ulmer says the school is discussing the applicability of the model for growing the next generation of K–12 teachers.
Kaplan believes the ANSEP strategies could be applied to many different disciplines. "It's not really about engineering," she says. "It's about having an attitude that the students can be successful and giving them the support they need."
She continues, "What Herb has created, it's not rocket science. It's really common sense and commitment."
Says Acuff about Schroeder's eventual retirement: "The biggest hope is that he trains somebody right behind him who has the same heart, because he's got an awfully big heart towards this program and it's made it very successful."
yellow bar
©2008 National Society of Professional Engineers | 1420 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314 | 703 684 2800
11.30.2007
America's Taxi Cab Capital
From the Los Angeles Times
America's taxi capital: Bethel, Alaska
With one driver for every 62 residents, the Albanian and Korean cabbies drive circles around other towns. Well, it's just one circle: Only 10 miles of road are paved.
By Tomas Alex Tizon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 30, 2007
BETHEL, ALASKA — Atiny, round-faced woman stands in a field of ice, a solitary figure in the tundra, waiting for a ride. From one hand dangles several plastic grocery bags. With her free hand, she flicks a finger as if inscribing a single scratch in the air, an almost imperceptible gesture.
A taxicab appears from a cloud of mist. It is an old, white Chevy, so splattered with mud there is hardly any white to see. On the roof glows a green sign that reads "Kusko."
"Hello, dear," the driver says.
"I'd like to go home," says Lucy Daniel, folding herself in the back seat among her bags.
Daniel, 65, a Yupik Eskimo who grew up riding dog sleds and paddling seal-skin kayaks along the Bering coast, now takes a cab everywhere she goes:
To work or to church or, like this afternoon, to the general store to pick up supplies, and then back to her house. Or whenever she goes ice-fishing for pike at her favorite spot along the Kuskokwim River east of here. She tells the driver: "I need 45 minutes." At the appointed time, the driver returns to get Daniel and her gear and, typically, one or two pike as long as a small woman's leg. The fish go in the trunk.
It's because of residents like Daniel that this remote village in southwest Alaska has become the unlikely taxicab capital of the United States. Bethel (population 5,800), buzzes with 93 taxi drivers, or roughly one cabbie for every 62 residents. That's by far more taxi drivers per capita than anywhere else in the country, according to Alfred LaGasse, executive vice president of the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Assn., the nation's largest cab organization.
Furthermore, Bethel only has about 10 miles of paved roads, which means there are about nine cabdrivers per paved mile. Dirt roads, branching off the arterials, add another 20 miles. These side streets, pockmarked by pond-sized depressions, are sometimes negotiable, sometimes not.
The taxi drivers spend most of their time on the paved roads, which form a loop connecting the most popular destinations: two general stores, the post office, the hospital and the airport.
"That's what I do: go in circles," says Bilal Selmani, the cabdriver who has picked up Daniel. Everyone calls him Lincoln. "Every hour, every day, every month. Round and round. Thirty years."
The taxis come in all makes and models, all colors and conditions, from brand new to barely legal. By the end of the day, they all end up looking uniformly Alaskan, that is, covered in a film of silt, slightly beat up but more or less functional.
Taxis rumble day and night, through fog and storm and minus-40 degree cold. In the process, cabdrivers weave themselves into the lives of residents to a degree unique in Alaska, or perhaps anywhere. The longtime drivers know everyone in town by face, first name or address. They know most everyone's stories.
They overhear arguments and love-struck whispers, they listen to confessions and tall tales and regrets. They pick up children from school. They shuttle travelers to and from the airport. They deliver everything -- moose meat, groceries, heavy-machine parts. They chauffeur all-night revelries, wedding parties and sometimes the dead.
The majority of riders are Yupik Eskimos. The taxi drivers -- most of them Albanian or Korean immigrants -- have their own tales, spanning continents and oceans but ending here, in a spot on the American frontier that most Americans have never seen or heard of.
Lincoln stops in front of a small square house in a subdivision of small square houses called Tundra Ridge. Daniel eases out, hands him seven one-dollar bills for the 5-minute drive. The flat rate is $5 per passenger in town, $7 per passenger to the outskirts.
"Bye," Daniel says. Like many who live in Bethel, she is originally from Tuntutuliak, a nearby Yupik village that survives on fishing and hunting. Daniel moved to "the city" in 1971 because, she says, "there was nothing for me in Tuntutuliak."
With her five children grown and her husband gone, Daniel spends her mornings working in a school cafeteria. She never learned to drive because, she says, "big machines scare me."
In any case, she can't afford a car, and even if she could buy a junker, she can't afford to have it transported to Bethel. It would cost $2,000 to $4,000 by barge or plane.
No roads lead to Bethel. What Daniel calls a city is a dusty, disheveled conglomeration of shacks and warehouses in the middle of nowhere -- nowhere being the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a treeless, permanently frozen plain the size of Utah. Culturally and geologically, the delta has more in common with far-eastern Siberia than with the rest of the United States.
Bethel, 40 miles inland from the Bering Sea and 400 miles west of Anchorage, is the hub for 56 Yupik villages that sprinkle the tundra like flakes of dried seaweed. A traditionally nomadic people, the Yupiks, like Daniel, began living in fixed villages such as Bethel only in the last 50 to 100 years.
They come to Bethel to work. It's also the primary reason outsiders come here. Bethel, the governmental and commercial center of the region, is a no-frills working town, where people draw wages in construction, freight, government administration and air travel. Then there are the taxis.
For Lincoln, the path to the American dream led from a farming town in eastern Albania, where he was born, to Connecticut and finally here. "I ask friend, 'Where can I make money fast?' He tells me, 'Alaska.' I drive eight days to Anchorage." A friend in Anchorage told him he could make a killing driving cab in the bush.
Lincoln, 53, has been a taxi driver in Bethel since 1977. He is short and stocky, with deep-set eyes and a prominent Roman nose. When he first arrived on the tundra, he had a long, black beard. One of his earliest customers, a native, marveled: "You look like Abraham Lincoln."
From then on, Bilal Selmani went by the name of the nation's 16th president. Most villagers don't know his real name.
During his first 25 years of driving taxi, Lincoln worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, nine months of the year. He would spend three months with family in Albania. Although his earnings might seem meager to many Americans, they represented a bounty for farmers in Albania. Word spread of his good fortune, and soon other Albanians trekked to Bethel to drive in circles for cash.
Between the late 1970s and early '90s, Albanians dominated the taxi business. Today, more than 100 townspeople claim Albanian ancestry.
Six years ago Lincoln brought his wife and two sons here. One son, Perparim, 24, drives graveyard after Lincoln finishes his day shift. When the car breaks down, Lincoln's other son, Lumni, 27, an auto mechanic, fixes it.
After dropping off Daniel at her home, Lincoln's workday proceeds like many others, with routine pickups and drop-offs.
He finishes an airport run, then picks up a woman and her infant daughter. The woman, in her early 20s, is crying. Lincoln helps her load the trunk with moving boxes. "It's a happy day. I'm finally free," says the woman, who has just broken up with her boyfriend. "Happy, happy," she says through tears. Soon her baby starts crying too.
After picking her up at a dilapidated trailer on one side of town, Lincoln drops her off at a dilapidated mobile home on the other side. "My life can begin," she says. Lincoln helps her with the boxes, each one labeled. Baby Clothes. Stereo & Music. Stuff.
Toward the end of his shift, Lincoln parks in front of the AC (Alaska Commercial) store, the same one where he picked up Daniel earlier in the day. It was quiet when he picked her up. Now the parking lot buzzes with people and cars. Most of the cars are taxis, and most of the drivers are Korean.
He gestures toward a couple of Koreans sharing a smoke between their cabs.
"Sixteen, 17 years ago, one or two Koreans," Lincoln says. "Now. Look. They take over."
"Mos-quito," the man says.
Yun Lee, 58, is describing what he hates most about Bethel. "Snow, not bad. Cold, OK. Mos-quito, big problem."
Lee has been driving cab here for about 1 1/2 years. Before that, he lived in Torrance for six months, and before that he had spent his entire life near Seoul. In Torrance he saw an ad in one of the Korean-language newspapers. The ad said something to the effect of Big Money, Big Adventure -- Come to Alaska!
Lee answered the ad and he has been driving loops on the tundra ever since. He has since learned that the first Korean cabdriver in Bethel started in the early 1990s.
Now Korean immigrants, who number between 100 and 130, own four of the five cab companies and all but three of Bethel's 12 restaurants. They're also buying up hotels and small businesses. The only video-rental store is Korean-owned.
Lee lives in a small apartment with other Korean cabbies. He works seven days a week. Work and sleep make up the totality of his existence.
Lee looks younger than his age, with smooth skin, a square jaw and a natural expression that seems to exude mirth. He is learning English from cassette tapes he listens to during much of his 12-hour shift. Today he is learning about outdoor gear. "Umbrella," the tape says. "Rubber boots." "Raincoat." Lee mimics the words.
Outside the post office, he stops for two men. He turns the volume down. The men appear to be in their mid- to late-20sand they seem strangely sullen. "Sub shop," one says.
The men hop in and the smell of liquor immediately fills the cab. The two pass a bottle between them. They snicker.
Lee pulls up to the sub shop, and the two men exit out of opposite doors and walk swiftly away. By the time Lee gets out of his cab, they're running. "Excuse me!" he yells in vain. Lee sinks into his seat, jaw set hard, and he turns the volume way up: "Snow shoes." "Parka." "Mittens."
Getting stiffed is part of the job. It happens once or twice a month, Lee says. Fortunately the village is small enough that sooner or later Lee will run into the two again, and he will ask for his fare. It's not like he can afford to give rides away.
After paying his overhead -- gas, dispatcher fees, insurance -- he is lucky to make $200 a day. In a place like Bethel, where consumer goods can cost double what they are worth in the Lower 48, a couple of hundred dollars doesn't go very far.
But the Koreans here are famous for scrimping and saving, and after a few years of driving, many take their cash and go home, though a few stay and invest in a business.
The best restaurant in town, the VIP, serves Korean and American cuisine. It was opened a few years ago by a Korean woman, another immigrant who drove a cab for years.
There are 16 female cabdrivers in town, most of them Koreans with limited English skills.
Which is just as well, says Alla Tinker, because they don't want to understand much of what their male customers say.
"The men, when they've been drinking, will come on to you," says Tinker, 35.
"I've had guys pay me to drive them around town all night just so they could hang out with me.
"What can I say? They're men."
The Koreans and Albanians tolerate each other. Still, the Albanians envy the Koreans for their success and their seeming aloofness. The Koreans tend to stay among themselves. The Albanians can be clannish too.
The Yupiks, who have publicly welcomed each group, privately grumble about both: the Koreans for being curt, the Albanians blustery.
Tinker hears it from all sides. She is one of the few Yupik taxi drivers in the village. She is friends with all the Albanian drivers, but the company she drives for is owned by a Korean.
"They cut each other up, but they're not openly hostile," Tinker says one afternoon as snow falls. Bethel is never prettier than after fresh snow. Tinker plows through town in her taxi, cruising for fares. "It doesn't look like the rest of America, but it's America here. Everybody's just trying to make money."
At the Larsen Subdivision, she picks up an elderly Yupik woman, Esther Green.
"Hi there!" Tinker says warmly.
"I haven't seen you in a long time," Green says. Green was Tinker's kindergarten teacher. It had been months since Tinker last gave Green a ride. "How have you been?"
The women speak in Yupik, laughing and exchanging news. Tinker stays connected to the community by talking with passengers. She also gets to share the goings-on in her life.
A single mother with two teenage daughters, Tinker has recently moved in with her mother to save money.
Tinker was born and raised in the Bethel area, and she wants nothing more than to get out. She says so to Green, who acts as if she has heard it before.
"OK then, bye-bye!" Green says, climbing out of the taxi.
But Tinker continues with her line of thought.
"One more year of this," she says. "Then I'm gone."
Her plan is to drive as many hours as she can, save as much money as possible, and then move to Anchorage, a real city, with tall buildings and universities and restaurants and movie theaters.
But more than anything else, she says, she is looking forward to getting in a car, stepping hard on the gas and driving, for once not in an endless loop, but straight, past the city limits, past everything familiar, to wherever the road leads.
tomas.alex.tizon@latimes.com
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America's taxi capital: Bethel, Alaska
With one driver for every 62 residents, the Albanian and Korean cabbies drive circles around other towns. Well, it's just one circle: Only 10 miles of road are paved.
By Tomas Alex Tizon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 30, 2007
BETHEL, ALASKA — Atiny, round-faced woman stands in a field of ice, a solitary figure in the tundra, waiting for a ride. From one hand dangles several plastic grocery bags. With her free hand, she flicks a finger as if inscribing a single scratch in the air, an almost imperceptible gesture.
A taxicab appears from a cloud of mist. It is an old, white Chevy, so splattered with mud there is hardly any white to see. On the roof glows a green sign that reads "Kusko."
"Hello, dear," the driver says.
"I'd like to go home," says Lucy Daniel, folding herself in the back seat among her bags.
Daniel, 65, a Yupik Eskimo who grew up riding dog sleds and paddling seal-skin kayaks along the Bering coast, now takes a cab everywhere she goes:
To work or to church or, like this afternoon, to the general store to pick up supplies, and then back to her house. Or whenever she goes ice-fishing for pike at her favorite spot along the Kuskokwim River east of here. She tells the driver: "I need 45 minutes." At the appointed time, the driver returns to get Daniel and her gear and, typically, one or two pike as long as a small woman's leg. The fish go in the trunk.
It's because of residents like Daniel that this remote village in southwest Alaska has become the unlikely taxicab capital of the United States. Bethel (population 5,800), buzzes with 93 taxi drivers, or roughly one cabbie for every 62 residents. That's by far more taxi drivers per capita than anywhere else in the country, according to Alfred LaGasse, executive vice president of the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Assn., the nation's largest cab organization.
Furthermore, Bethel only has about 10 miles of paved roads, which means there are about nine cabdrivers per paved mile. Dirt roads, branching off the arterials, add another 20 miles. These side streets, pockmarked by pond-sized depressions, are sometimes negotiable, sometimes not.
The taxi drivers spend most of their time on the paved roads, which form a loop connecting the most popular destinations: two general stores, the post office, the hospital and the airport.
"That's what I do: go in circles," says Bilal Selmani, the cabdriver who has picked up Daniel. Everyone calls him Lincoln. "Every hour, every day, every month. Round and round. Thirty years."
The taxis come in all makes and models, all colors and conditions, from brand new to barely legal. By the end of the day, they all end up looking uniformly Alaskan, that is, covered in a film of silt, slightly beat up but more or less functional.
Taxis rumble day and night, through fog and storm and minus-40 degree cold. In the process, cabdrivers weave themselves into the lives of residents to a degree unique in Alaska, or perhaps anywhere. The longtime drivers know everyone in town by face, first name or address. They know most everyone's stories.
They overhear arguments and love-struck whispers, they listen to confessions and tall tales and regrets. They pick up children from school. They shuttle travelers to and from the airport. They deliver everything -- moose meat, groceries, heavy-machine parts. They chauffeur all-night revelries, wedding parties and sometimes the dead.
The majority of riders are Yupik Eskimos. The taxi drivers -- most of them Albanian or Korean immigrants -- have their own tales, spanning continents and oceans but ending here, in a spot on the American frontier that most Americans have never seen or heard of.
Lincoln stops in front of a small square house in a subdivision of small square houses called Tundra Ridge. Daniel eases out, hands him seven one-dollar bills for the 5-minute drive. The flat rate is $5 per passenger in town, $7 per passenger to the outskirts.
"Bye," Daniel says. Like many who live in Bethel, she is originally from Tuntutuliak, a nearby Yupik village that survives on fishing and hunting. Daniel moved to "the city" in 1971 because, she says, "there was nothing for me in Tuntutuliak."
With her five children grown and her husband gone, Daniel spends her mornings working in a school cafeteria. She never learned to drive because, she says, "big machines scare me."
In any case, she can't afford a car, and even if she could buy a junker, she can't afford to have it transported to Bethel. It would cost $2,000 to $4,000 by barge or plane.
No roads lead to Bethel. What Daniel calls a city is a dusty, disheveled conglomeration of shacks and warehouses in the middle of nowhere -- nowhere being the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a treeless, permanently frozen plain the size of Utah. Culturally and geologically, the delta has more in common with far-eastern Siberia than with the rest of the United States.
Bethel, 40 miles inland from the Bering Sea and 400 miles west of Anchorage, is the hub for 56 Yupik villages that sprinkle the tundra like flakes of dried seaweed. A traditionally nomadic people, the Yupiks, like Daniel, began living in fixed villages such as Bethel only in the last 50 to 100 years.
They come to Bethel to work. It's also the primary reason outsiders come here. Bethel, the governmental and commercial center of the region, is a no-frills working town, where people draw wages in construction, freight, government administration and air travel. Then there are the taxis.
For Lincoln, the path to the American dream led from a farming town in eastern Albania, where he was born, to Connecticut and finally here. "I ask friend, 'Where can I make money fast?' He tells me, 'Alaska.' I drive eight days to Anchorage." A friend in Anchorage told him he could make a killing driving cab in the bush.
Lincoln, 53, has been a taxi driver in Bethel since 1977. He is short and stocky, with deep-set eyes and a prominent Roman nose. When he first arrived on the tundra, he had a long, black beard. One of his earliest customers, a native, marveled: "You look like Abraham Lincoln."
From then on, Bilal Selmani went by the name of the nation's 16th president. Most villagers don't know his real name.
During his first 25 years of driving taxi, Lincoln worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, nine months of the year. He would spend three months with family in Albania. Although his earnings might seem meager to many Americans, they represented a bounty for farmers in Albania. Word spread of his good fortune, and soon other Albanians trekked to Bethel to drive in circles for cash.
Between the late 1970s and early '90s, Albanians dominated the taxi business. Today, more than 100 townspeople claim Albanian ancestry.
Six years ago Lincoln brought his wife and two sons here. One son, Perparim, 24, drives graveyard after Lincoln finishes his day shift. When the car breaks down, Lincoln's other son, Lumni, 27, an auto mechanic, fixes it.
After dropping off Daniel at her home, Lincoln's workday proceeds like many others, with routine pickups and drop-offs.
He finishes an airport run, then picks up a woman and her infant daughter. The woman, in her early 20s, is crying. Lincoln helps her load the trunk with moving boxes. "It's a happy day. I'm finally free," says the woman, who has just broken up with her boyfriend. "Happy, happy," she says through tears. Soon her baby starts crying too.
After picking her up at a dilapidated trailer on one side of town, Lincoln drops her off at a dilapidated mobile home on the other side. "My life can begin," she says. Lincoln helps her with the boxes, each one labeled. Baby Clothes. Stereo & Music. Stuff.
Toward the end of his shift, Lincoln parks in front of the AC (Alaska Commercial) store, the same one where he picked up Daniel earlier in the day. It was quiet when he picked her up. Now the parking lot buzzes with people and cars. Most of the cars are taxis, and most of the drivers are Korean.
He gestures toward a couple of Koreans sharing a smoke between their cabs.
"Sixteen, 17 years ago, one or two Koreans," Lincoln says. "Now. Look. They take over."
"Mos-quito," the man says.
Yun Lee, 58, is describing what he hates most about Bethel. "Snow, not bad. Cold, OK. Mos-quito, big problem."
Lee has been driving cab here for about 1 1/2 years. Before that, he lived in Torrance for six months, and before that he had spent his entire life near Seoul. In Torrance he saw an ad in one of the Korean-language newspapers. The ad said something to the effect of Big Money, Big Adventure -- Come to Alaska!
Lee answered the ad and he has been driving loops on the tundra ever since. He has since learned that the first Korean cabdriver in Bethel started in the early 1990s.
Now Korean immigrants, who number between 100 and 130, own four of the five cab companies and all but three of Bethel's 12 restaurants. They're also buying up hotels and small businesses. The only video-rental store is Korean-owned.
Lee lives in a small apartment with other Korean cabbies. He works seven days a week. Work and sleep make up the totality of his existence.
Lee looks younger than his age, with smooth skin, a square jaw and a natural expression that seems to exude mirth. He is learning English from cassette tapes he listens to during much of his 12-hour shift. Today he is learning about outdoor gear. "Umbrella," the tape says. "Rubber boots." "Raincoat." Lee mimics the words.
Outside the post office, he stops for two men. He turns the volume down. The men appear to be in their mid- to late-20sand they seem strangely sullen. "Sub shop," one says.
The men hop in and the smell of liquor immediately fills the cab. The two pass a bottle between them. They snicker.
Lee pulls up to the sub shop, and the two men exit out of opposite doors and walk swiftly away. By the time Lee gets out of his cab, they're running. "Excuse me!" he yells in vain. Lee sinks into his seat, jaw set hard, and he turns the volume way up: "Snow shoes." "Parka." "Mittens."
Getting stiffed is part of the job. It happens once or twice a month, Lee says. Fortunately the village is small enough that sooner or later Lee will run into the two again, and he will ask for his fare. It's not like he can afford to give rides away.
After paying his overhead -- gas, dispatcher fees, insurance -- he is lucky to make $200 a day. In a place like Bethel, where consumer goods can cost double what they are worth in the Lower 48, a couple of hundred dollars doesn't go very far.
But the Koreans here are famous for scrimping and saving, and after a few years of driving, many take their cash and go home, though a few stay and invest in a business.
The best restaurant in town, the VIP, serves Korean and American cuisine. It was opened a few years ago by a Korean woman, another immigrant who drove a cab for years.
There are 16 female cabdrivers in town, most of them Koreans with limited English skills.
Which is just as well, says Alla Tinker, because they don't want to understand much of what their male customers say.
"The men, when they've been drinking, will come on to you," says Tinker, 35.
"I've had guys pay me to drive them around town all night just so they could hang out with me.
"What can I say? They're men."
The Koreans and Albanians tolerate each other. Still, the Albanians envy the Koreans for their success and their seeming aloofness. The Koreans tend to stay among themselves. The Albanians can be clannish too.
The Yupiks, who have publicly welcomed each group, privately grumble about both: the Koreans for being curt, the Albanians blustery.
Tinker hears it from all sides. She is one of the few Yupik taxi drivers in the village. She is friends with all the Albanian drivers, but the company she drives for is owned by a Korean.
"They cut each other up, but they're not openly hostile," Tinker says one afternoon as snow falls. Bethel is never prettier than after fresh snow. Tinker plows through town in her taxi, cruising for fares. "It doesn't look like the rest of America, but it's America here. Everybody's just trying to make money."
At the Larsen Subdivision, she picks up an elderly Yupik woman, Esther Green.
"Hi there!" Tinker says warmly.
"I haven't seen you in a long time," Green says. Green was Tinker's kindergarten teacher. It had been months since Tinker last gave Green a ride. "How have you been?"
The women speak in Yupik, laughing and exchanging news. Tinker stays connected to the community by talking with passengers. She also gets to share the goings-on in her life.
A single mother with two teenage daughters, Tinker has recently moved in with her mother to save money.
Tinker was born and raised in the Bethel area, and she wants nothing more than to get out. She says so to Green, who acts as if she has heard it before.
"OK then, bye-bye!" Green says, climbing out of the taxi.
But Tinker continues with her line of thought.
"One more year of this," she says. "Then I'm gone."
Her plan is to drive as many hours as she can, save as much money as possible, and then move to Anchorage, a real city, with tall buildings and universities and restaurants and movie theaters.
But more than anything else, she says, she is looking forward to getting in a car, stepping hard on the gas and driving, for once not in an endless loop, but straight, past the city limits, past everything familiar, to wherever the road leads.
tomas.alex.tizon@latimes.com
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
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Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
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11.16.2007
Alaska Gas Prices
Alaska Towns Freeze Gas Prices
by Angela Denning-Barnes
Listen Now [4 min 30 sec...link to NPR]
Morning Edition, November 16, 2007 · Gas prices in Bethel, Alaska, a remote bush town, range from $5 to $7 a gallon. The only saving grace for residents there and in many of the remote towns in western Alaska is that gas prices aren't going up. They were locked in during the fall when an entire winter's fuel supply was shipped in by river barge and stored.
Angela Denning-Barnes reports from member KYUK in Bethel, Alaska.
8.23.2007
Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council
YRITWC
The YRITWC is comprised of 65 Tribes and First Nations in Alaska and Canada who are united in using their governmental powers to protect the physical and cultural integrity of the Yukon basin. These indigenous governments span four distinct cultures, languages and geographies: T’lingit in the headwaters region, Gwich’in and Koyukon Athabascan in the middle river, and Yupik/Cupik Eskimo in the Yukon River delta and Bering Sea coast. Historically, these groups often clashed and at times were openly hostile, fighting over resources and territory. Even in contemporary times, cooperation was rare, allocations of commercial salmon harvests pitted one group against the other, and regional and international borders fractured communication and potential coalitions.
The YRITWC completely changed this dynamic. In the face of collapsing salmon runs, declining subsistence resources, epidemics of cancer and suicide and destructive development proposals, the YRITWC transcended historical divisions and inspired unity with a focus on clean water and watershed management based on traditional knowledge and common values. The Native communities came together in 1997 and discovered they had much in common and a real reason to work together: the Yukon River and their respective cultures were deeply threatened, and there would be no salmon to fight over if there was no clean water and habitat to support them. The only solution was collaboration across borders, languages, traditions and generations. This collaboration was formalized through the enactment of the Inter-Tribal Accord, essentially an international treaty that defines the operating parameters of the YRITWC and commits all indigenous governments that sign the Accord to consult and cooperate on all matters that have the potential to impact the cultural or ecological integrity of the Yukon River watershed.
The Yukon River watershed is the third largest basin in North America—about twice the size of California—and supports the longest inland runs of Pacific salmon in the world. Much of the region has no roads and can only be accessed by plane, boat, snow machine or dog sled. All imported items are flown in and gasoline costs over $7 per gallon, thus, the indigenous peoples are heavily dependent on locally harvested subsistence foods such as fish, moose, caribou, rabbits, and birds. Tribal and First Nation governments are often the primary local presence, yet state, territorial, and federal governments in the US and Canada regularly challenge indigenous jurisdiction and skew the economy toward outside development interests. Individual communities have benefited greatly by having a larger entity—the YRITWC—on which they can rely for technical assistance and outreach.
People from all cultures and regions within the watershed have become aware of each other and their respective issues. They are now friends, political allies, and partners on everything from applying traditional knowledge to identify adaptive strategies addressing climate change, to conducting water quality monitoring throughout the watershed with training and equipment provided by the YRITWC and the United States Geological Survey. Our collective reach is much further, more effective, and achieves economies of scale in a remote and expensive region where the long arm of government has been mostly used to extract resources for multi-national interests and undermine local empowerment.
The YRITWC is comprised of 65 Tribes and First Nations in Alaska and Canada who are united in using their governmental powers to protect the physical and cultural integrity of the Yukon basin. These indigenous governments span four distinct cultures, languages and geographies: T’lingit in the headwaters region, Gwich’in and Koyukon Athabascan in the middle river, and Yupik/Cupik Eskimo in the Yukon River delta and Bering Sea coast. Historically, these groups often clashed and at times were openly hostile, fighting over resources and territory. Even in contemporary times, cooperation was rare, allocations of commercial salmon harvests pitted one group against the other, and regional and international borders fractured communication and potential coalitions.
The YRITWC completely changed this dynamic. In the face of collapsing salmon runs, declining subsistence resources, epidemics of cancer and suicide and destructive development proposals, the YRITWC transcended historical divisions and inspired unity with a focus on clean water and watershed management based on traditional knowledge and common values. The Native communities came together in 1997 and discovered they had much in common and a real reason to work together: the Yukon River and their respective cultures were deeply threatened, and there would be no salmon to fight over if there was no clean water and habitat to support them. The only solution was collaboration across borders, languages, traditions and generations. This collaboration was formalized through the enactment of the Inter-Tribal Accord, essentially an international treaty that defines the operating parameters of the YRITWC and commits all indigenous governments that sign the Accord to consult and cooperate on all matters that have the potential to impact the cultural or ecological integrity of the Yukon River watershed.
The Yukon River watershed is the third largest basin in North America—about twice the size of California—and supports the longest inland runs of Pacific salmon in the world. Much of the region has no roads and can only be accessed by plane, boat, snow machine or dog sled. All imported items are flown in and gasoline costs over $7 per gallon, thus, the indigenous peoples are heavily dependent on locally harvested subsistence foods such as fish, moose, caribou, rabbits, and birds. Tribal and First Nation governments are often the primary local presence, yet state, territorial, and federal governments in the US and Canada regularly challenge indigenous jurisdiction and skew the economy toward outside development interests. Individual communities have benefited greatly by having a larger entity—the YRITWC—on which they can rely for technical assistance and outreach.
People from all cultures and regions within the watershed have become aware of each other and their respective issues. They are now friends, political allies, and partners on everything from applying traditional knowledge to identify adaptive strategies addressing climate change, to conducting water quality monitoring throughout the watershed with training and equipment provided by the YRITWC and the United States Geological Survey. Our collective reach is much further, more effective, and achieves economies of scale in a remote and expensive region where the long arm of government has been mostly used to extract resources for multi-national interests and undermine local empowerment.
12.30.2006
Death by Soda...SSBs Killing Rural Alaskans
More Dangerous Than Smoking? Death by Soda
By Joshua Frank, AlterNet
Posted on December 27, 2006, Printed on December 30, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/45498/
This article has appeared previously on counterpunch.org and countercurrents.org.
We are a country of overweight people. Americans are tipping the scales in record numbers, with approximately 130 million who are presently considered overweight or obese. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, half of all women aged 20 to 39 in the United States are included in these figures. Many factors contribute to the growing problem, from our sedentary lifestyles to our overindulgence in high-energy, low nutritional foods. Dealing with the crisis is not easy. The marketing of energy dense foods is a multi-billion dollar industry, and manufacturers of such products go to great lengths to ensure their shareholders continue to profit from the sales of nutrition-less foods.
Despite the barrage of marketing to the contrary, sales pitches, and misinformation, consumption of soda has been directly linked to both obesity as well as type 2 diabetes. Soft drinks are packed full of sugar and refined carbohydrates, both of which are undeniably correlated to these factors. Type 2 diabetes is also associated with a poor diet that is laden with high-fructose corn syrup and low in fiber. Research indicates that soft drinks largely contribute to this growing epidemic, with high school and college age kids being the most likely to consume sugar laden soda beverages on a regular basis.
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are bad news, according to health experts, because they contribute to the obesity epidemic by providing empty calories, that is, calories that provide little or no nutritional value. Meaning, a person who slugs down too much soda is swallowing more than their body can handle. And this added energy isn't healthy energy -- it's energy derived from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), i.e., highly refined sugar that has been chemically processed in order to excite your taste buds. It has been argued that too much HFCS in one's diet may offset the intake of solid food, yet does not produce a positive caloric balance. In turn, this over-consumption contributes to the slow development of obesity because the person is consuming more calories than their body can burn. And these days, people are drinking more soda than ever before. Perhaps not surprisingly, as portion sizes for soft drinks have increased, so have American waistlines.
Too put this dangerous pattern in to perspective, one regular 12-ounce can of sugar-sweetened soda contains approximately 150 calories with close to 50 grams of sugar. If this is added to the typical American diet, one can of soda per day could lead to a weight gain of 15 pounds in one year. Currently the consumption of soda accounts for about 8%-9% of total energy among children and adults, and studies suggest that it is most certainly having a negative effect on the people who consume it in such vast quantities. So what's so wrong with being overweight then, you ask? So what if soda has been linked to causing obesity? What's wrong with that? Well, plenty say scores of medical, health and public nutrition experts.
For starters, obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer as well as high blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes alone can contribute to cardiovascular disease, retinopathy (blindness), neuropathy (nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage), and other health complications. So if type 2 diabetes is highly associated with individuals who are obese, and obesity is linked to SSBs, then type 2 diabetes is highly associated with the consumption of SSBs because the consumption of SSBs is so highly associated with causing obesity. In short, if one consumes SSBs on a regular basis, they are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which itself may cause many ailments. That's why being overweight is not a good thing for one's health. And that's why drinking copious amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages contributes to poor wellbeing byway of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
On top of causing one to gain unhealthy weight and spurring type 2 diabetes, SSBs may also contribute to the loss of bone density, which may cause one to be more susceptible to bone fractures. It has been argued that low bone density may be a result of high levels of phosphate, which is found in elevated amounts in sugar-sweetened cola. Such large amounts of phosphate may alter the calcium-phosphorus ratio in people whose bodies are still developing, or people who are most likely to consume SSBs, and consequently this can have a toxic effect on their bone development. If a growing individual has a low calcium intake it could jeopardize bone mass, which may then contribute to hip fractures and other bone related disorders later in life. Drinking a lot of SSBs while your body develops could have lasting, deadly effects on your health. So while it is clear that soda isn't good for you, it is also obvious that soda is downright bad for your health. It can make you overweight, suck the calcium out of your bones, and increase risk of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of blindness. But that's not the kind of news the profiteers of big soda would ever want you to hear.
The marketing firms that barrage consumers with ads for their mouth-watering soft drinks hope to encourage you to drink more of their harmful products, not less of them. Indeed they have a financial incentive to do so. Their annual revenues are billions of dollars. To protect their interests, as Prof. Marion Nestle of NYU notes, the soda industry shells out tons of money to convince people to consume their products in mass quantities. In the late 1990s, Coca-Cola spent about $1.6 billion dollars in global marketing, with over $850 million spent in the United States alone. With that kind of lavish spending, it is little wonder why Coca-Cola is such a household name. Clearly, those who advocate for cutting down on the consumption of SSBs because of their negative health impacts are up against a very well financed opposition -- not unlike the anti-smoking activists who take on the shenanigans and deceit of Big Tobacco.
Nevertheless, Coca-Cola, like its competitors, is extremely savvy. They have inundated schools with their products. As Michele Simon, the author of Appetite for Profit, writes, "A 2003 government survey showed that 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent of high schools sold food through vending machines, snack bars, or other venues outside the federally supported school meal programs ... With public schools so desperate for funding, districts are lured into signing exclusive contracts (also known as "pouring rights" deals) with major beverage companies -- mainly Coca-Cola and PepsiCo".
In other words, these multinational corporations give millions of dollars to schools so that their districts and vending machines exclusively carry their goods. In reality, however, it comes down to one big clever marketing ploy: In the end these big corporations have hooked kids on their products while fooling people into believing they are virtuous corporate citizens because they support education.
Fortunately there is a growing movement across the country to ban sodas from schools. Indeed the feisty Killer Coke campaign, which focuses on the company's labor abuses and not Coke's negative health implications, has been successful is banning the product from over 10 major universities in the United States. But it would be wise to not just focus on the company's alleged murders in Colombia, and instead broaden the struggle against the soda industry by pointing out their complicity in the obesity epidemic worldwide.
Because death truly is the "real thing."
Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush and edits http://www.BrickBurner.org.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/45498/
By Joshua Frank, AlterNet
Posted on December 27, 2006, Printed on December 30, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/45498/
This article has appeared previously on counterpunch.org and countercurrents.org.
We are a country of overweight people. Americans are tipping the scales in record numbers, with approximately 130 million who are presently considered overweight or obese. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, half of all women aged 20 to 39 in the United States are included in these figures. Many factors contribute to the growing problem, from our sedentary lifestyles to our overindulgence in high-energy, low nutritional foods. Dealing with the crisis is not easy. The marketing of energy dense foods is a multi-billion dollar industry, and manufacturers of such products go to great lengths to ensure their shareholders continue to profit from the sales of nutrition-less foods.
Despite the barrage of marketing to the contrary, sales pitches, and misinformation, consumption of soda has been directly linked to both obesity as well as type 2 diabetes. Soft drinks are packed full of sugar and refined carbohydrates, both of which are undeniably correlated to these factors. Type 2 diabetes is also associated with a poor diet that is laden with high-fructose corn syrup and low in fiber. Research indicates that soft drinks largely contribute to this growing epidemic, with high school and college age kids being the most likely to consume sugar laden soda beverages on a regular basis.
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are bad news, according to health experts, because they contribute to the obesity epidemic by providing empty calories, that is, calories that provide little or no nutritional value. Meaning, a person who slugs down too much soda is swallowing more than their body can handle. And this added energy isn't healthy energy -- it's energy derived from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), i.e., highly refined sugar that has been chemically processed in order to excite your taste buds. It has been argued that too much HFCS in one's diet may offset the intake of solid food, yet does not produce a positive caloric balance. In turn, this over-consumption contributes to the slow development of obesity because the person is consuming more calories than their body can burn. And these days, people are drinking more soda than ever before. Perhaps not surprisingly, as portion sizes for soft drinks have increased, so have American waistlines.
Too put this dangerous pattern in to perspective, one regular 12-ounce can of sugar-sweetened soda contains approximately 150 calories with close to 50 grams of sugar. If this is added to the typical American diet, one can of soda per day could lead to a weight gain of 15 pounds in one year. Currently the consumption of soda accounts for about 8%-9% of total energy among children and adults, and studies suggest that it is most certainly having a negative effect on the people who consume it in such vast quantities. So what's so wrong with being overweight then, you ask? So what if soda has been linked to causing obesity? What's wrong with that? Well, plenty say scores of medical, health and public nutrition experts.
For starters, obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, bowel cancer as well as high blood pressure. Type 2 diabetes alone can contribute to cardiovascular disease, retinopathy (blindness), neuropathy (nerve damage), nephropathy (kidney damage), and other health complications. So if type 2 diabetes is highly associated with individuals who are obese, and obesity is linked to SSBs, then type 2 diabetes is highly associated with the consumption of SSBs because the consumption of SSBs is so highly associated with causing obesity. In short, if one consumes SSBs on a regular basis, they are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which itself may cause many ailments. That's why being overweight is not a good thing for one's health. And that's why drinking copious amounts of sugar-sweetened beverages contributes to poor wellbeing byway of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
On top of causing one to gain unhealthy weight and spurring type 2 diabetes, SSBs may also contribute to the loss of bone density, which may cause one to be more susceptible to bone fractures. It has been argued that low bone density may be a result of high levels of phosphate, which is found in elevated amounts in sugar-sweetened cola. Such large amounts of phosphate may alter the calcium-phosphorus ratio in people whose bodies are still developing, or people who are most likely to consume SSBs, and consequently this can have a toxic effect on their bone development. If a growing individual has a low calcium intake it could jeopardize bone mass, which may then contribute to hip fractures and other bone related disorders later in life. Drinking a lot of SSBs while your body develops could have lasting, deadly effects on your health. So while it is clear that soda isn't good for you, it is also obvious that soda is downright bad for your health. It can make you overweight, suck the calcium out of your bones, and increase risk of type 2 diabetes, a leading cause of blindness. But that's not the kind of news the profiteers of big soda would ever want you to hear.
The marketing firms that barrage consumers with ads for their mouth-watering soft drinks hope to encourage you to drink more of their harmful products, not less of them. Indeed they have a financial incentive to do so. Their annual revenues are billions of dollars. To protect their interests, as Prof. Marion Nestle of NYU notes, the soda industry shells out tons of money to convince people to consume their products in mass quantities. In the late 1990s, Coca-Cola spent about $1.6 billion dollars in global marketing, with over $850 million spent in the United States alone. With that kind of lavish spending, it is little wonder why Coca-Cola is such a household name. Clearly, those who advocate for cutting down on the consumption of SSBs because of their negative health impacts are up against a very well financed opposition -- not unlike the anti-smoking activists who take on the shenanigans and deceit of Big Tobacco.
Nevertheless, Coca-Cola, like its competitors, is extremely savvy. They have inundated schools with their products. As Michele Simon, the author of Appetite for Profit, writes, "A 2003 government survey showed that 43 percent of elementary schools, 74 percent of middle schools, and 98 percent of high schools sold food through vending machines, snack bars, or other venues outside the federally supported school meal programs ... With public schools so desperate for funding, districts are lured into signing exclusive contracts (also known as "pouring rights" deals) with major beverage companies -- mainly Coca-Cola and PepsiCo".
In other words, these multinational corporations give millions of dollars to schools so that their districts and vending machines exclusively carry their goods. In reality, however, it comes down to one big clever marketing ploy: In the end these big corporations have hooked kids on their products while fooling people into believing they are virtuous corporate citizens because they support education.
Fortunately there is a growing movement across the country to ban sodas from schools. Indeed the feisty Killer Coke campaign, which focuses on the company's labor abuses and not Coke's negative health implications, has been successful is banning the product from over 10 major universities in the United States. But it would be wise to not just focus on the company's alleged murders in Colombia, and instead broaden the struggle against the soda industry by pointing out their complicity in the obesity epidemic worldwide.
Because death truly is the "real thing."
Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush and edits http://www.BrickBurner.org.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/45498/
9.20.2006
The rise and fall of delta life
From my good friend matt da'schidt...born and raised on the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta...now leaving for big sky country and a new life and style...good luck matt!
Reality Time...September 2006
The rise and fall of delta life
by: matt da'schidt
Imagine that you live life nomadically. Moving with the changing season, making and breaking camp, constantly on the move to subsist, elders taught you where to hunt, set traps, and pick the best tundra plants and alternate places of animal migration. You have this vast knowledge of ecological wealth that you in turn pass this knowledge to your children with the hopes of them passing this to their children. This life goes on from time immemorial to the present.
Then one day you rapidly get forced in the “western world,” by outsiders not recognizable to the region, slowly brainwashed into their world. Stay put, buy a house, pay rent and bills, purchase fossil fuels to run all your new subsistence life; snow machines and four wheelers, outboard motors, heating fuel and food from the chain store that you become accustomed to.
All that knowledge gets replaced by time loitering at the store, going to the post office or traveling by plane to seek medical needs. Living paycheck to paycheck, living off the state due to lack of jobs in your community, welfare and food stamps and showing your children that you don’t need a job out here in the “bush,” the ‘government will take care of you’, you tell your children.
Then they become accustomed to this new life, satellite dishes on every other roof in your community, youth emulating the inner-city youth lifestyle. Forgetting the past, ignoring the elders and not understanding the language that surrounds your community. Hope is lost; drop out rates rise, children having children, drugs and alcohol being made and sold in your community and suicide becomes the norm.
Then a gold mine sounds promising, jobs, but the jobs end in 20 years. Open pit companies are a cancer; they deplete the natural resources and move on leaving an open scar on the land with heavy metal pollutants that poison the land for years to come. Until they find another resource to extract and the process repeats itself, the cancer spreads.
You have become culturally blind, and cultural denial sets in, this is not our responsibility, it will be taken care of by the outsiders, we need more money to fix this problem. Money cannot reverse where the world is going; your community and leaders have the will of the people, they were elected to take issue in your community. If they can’t address the problem then elect new members.
Then one day oil prices skyrocket, strife in the Middle East, China needs more fuel for their growing economy. The U.S. dollar lowers in value. Your snow machines and four wheelers rust and contaminate your land and choke the fresh water fish that spawn near your community. Your house falls apart. Crime rates rise for survival. Wildlife population falls due to over hunting. People freeze to death in their homes in the winter time. Airline transportation stops due to maintenance and fuel prices. People die from their illnesses. Communities become ghost towns. The social infrastructure of our nation collapses in on itself.
Medicare and Medicaid cease to exist. IHS clinics take only cash upfront. Barter towns open up where central hub communities were. The education system expires and all children will be left behind. Parents can’t home school their children because the parents dropped out of school when they were younger.
The world you know now will be gone. You will not survive. Global population, failed administrations, global warming, drought, floods, famine… a new global great depression sets in. Militias terrorize the land, and no new deal will fix things.
Ethics and religion are questioned. You’ve spent the majority of your life worshipping, staving off lust and sin to serve your deity. All those years on your knees praying for a better life and it does not pay off. Religious leaders say that we are being punished for gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research or whatever the newest sin is to protest. You give more money to the church, mosque or synagogue for forgiveness and acceptance.
But I could be wrong, you wake up to the same things everyday, more oil fields are found to sustain our current normality, global warming was a trend, and ice caps don’t melt. What a crazy thought.
And as a good friend says as it is, ‘or you die in a sewer ditch drowned in your own vomit clutching a handful of loser rippies tickets, worthless government bonds, meaningless diploma, newspaper full of propaganda and lies keeping you focused on lies and frivolities while your rights, freedoms are being stolen.’
Reality Time...September 2006
The rise and fall of delta life
by: matt da'schidt
Imagine that you live life nomadically. Moving with the changing season, making and breaking camp, constantly on the move to subsist, elders taught you where to hunt, set traps, and pick the best tundra plants and alternate places of animal migration. You have this vast knowledge of ecological wealth that you in turn pass this knowledge to your children with the hopes of them passing this to their children. This life goes on from time immemorial to the present.
Then one day you rapidly get forced in the “western world,” by outsiders not recognizable to the region, slowly brainwashed into their world. Stay put, buy a house, pay rent and bills, purchase fossil fuels to run all your new subsistence life; snow machines and four wheelers, outboard motors, heating fuel and food from the chain store that you become accustomed to.
All that knowledge gets replaced by time loitering at the store, going to the post office or traveling by plane to seek medical needs. Living paycheck to paycheck, living off the state due to lack of jobs in your community, welfare and food stamps and showing your children that you don’t need a job out here in the “bush,” the ‘government will take care of you’, you tell your children.
Then they become accustomed to this new life, satellite dishes on every other roof in your community, youth emulating the inner-city youth lifestyle. Forgetting the past, ignoring the elders and not understanding the language that surrounds your community. Hope is lost; drop out rates rise, children having children, drugs and alcohol being made and sold in your community and suicide becomes the norm.
Then a gold mine sounds promising, jobs, but the jobs end in 20 years. Open pit companies are a cancer; they deplete the natural resources and move on leaving an open scar on the land with heavy metal pollutants that poison the land for years to come. Until they find another resource to extract and the process repeats itself, the cancer spreads.
You have become culturally blind, and cultural denial sets in, this is not our responsibility, it will be taken care of by the outsiders, we need more money to fix this problem. Money cannot reverse where the world is going; your community and leaders have the will of the people, they were elected to take issue in your community. If they can’t address the problem then elect new members.
Then one day oil prices skyrocket, strife in the Middle East, China needs more fuel for their growing economy. The U.S. dollar lowers in value. Your snow machines and four wheelers rust and contaminate your land and choke the fresh water fish that spawn near your community. Your house falls apart. Crime rates rise for survival. Wildlife population falls due to over hunting. People freeze to death in their homes in the winter time. Airline transportation stops due to maintenance and fuel prices. People die from their illnesses. Communities become ghost towns. The social infrastructure of our nation collapses in on itself.
Medicare and Medicaid cease to exist. IHS clinics take only cash upfront. Barter towns open up where central hub communities were. The education system expires and all children will be left behind. Parents can’t home school their children because the parents dropped out of school when they were younger.
The world you know now will be gone. You will not survive. Global population, failed administrations, global warming, drought, floods, famine… a new global great depression sets in. Militias terrorize the land, and no new deal will fix things.
Ethics and religion are questioned. You’ve spent the majority of your life worshipping, staving off lust and sin to serve your deity. All those years on your knees praying for a better life and it does not pay off. Religious leaders say that we are being punished for gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research or whatever the newest sin is to protest. You give more money to the church, mosque or synagogue for forgiveness and acceptance.
But I could be wrong, you wake up to the same things everyday, more oil fields are found to sustain our current normality, global warming was a trend, and ice caps don’t melt. What a crazy thought.
And as a good friend says as it is, ‘or you die in a sewer ditch drowned in your own vomit clutching a handful of loser rippies tickets, worthless government bonds, meaningless diploma, newspaper full of propaganda and lies keeping you focused on lies and frivolities while your rights, freedoms are being stolen.’
11.30.2005
Wealthiest Man in Alaska
Original Article from:
Alaska Journal of Commerce -- WealthBuilder Column
Tim Pearson, June 13, 2004
Abe David
The Wealthiest Man in Alaska
by Tim Pearson
The wealthiest man in Alaska lives on Nunivak Island. His name is Abe David and he possesses the ability to turn straw into gold. Actually, he can make it even more valuable than gold.
Abe is a hunting and fishing guide extraordinaire. I met him this past week on the way out to the Nash Harbor science and technology camp on Nunivak. He told the following story:
One summer he had two clients from the Lower 48 – he thought they were friends – and took them out fishing. They were having mixed success, so with ever present good humor, he figured he’d show them how to do it. Abe being Abe, he hooked a big Dolly Varden on his first cast.
In the excitement of landingthe fish, he slipped off the rock he was on and fell into the icy water. The fish got away and he got drenched. His clients had a good laugh, but they laughed even harder when he stuffed his pants and shirt full of dried beach grass. No matter. The day wore on, he became warm and his clothes even dried out.
Later in the day he left the men in camp and when he came back he saw only one of the partners. He discovered that they had had a falling out and the other man had walked out of camp. They went looking for him but couldn’t find him. In fact, they really couldn’t find him – not a trace. After doing their best, they returned to Mekoryuk for a larger search party. Abe had a sleepless night knowing his client was out in the cold alone on the tundra.
The next morning as Abe looked out his window preparing to search again, he saw his client walking into town. The client had left camp, taken a nap on the tundra, became disoriented when he awoke and started walking along the river – away from town. Night fell and when he saw the lights of Mekoryuk behind him, he turned around and walked back in.
Then the client sprawled out on Abe’s front porch and told Abe, “It works.” He opened his pants and shirt to show that they were stuffed full of dried grass. He was scratchy, but warm. Like the hollow hairs of reindeer and caribou fur, the hollow stems of the dried grass served as the traditional natural insulator against hypothermia. The grass went home with him as a souvenir of his Alaskan adventure.
You pick up wisdom from hanging around Abe. It is who he is. He’s passionate about making a difference. He’s the field coordinator for the Nash Harbor sea kayaking camp, an educational, cultural, and adventure subsidiary of Nunivak’s village corporation, NIMA. Ten high school students from the YK Delta will be using it for a June science program. Other adventure and cultural activities will also occur through the summer. It’s part of a long-term, sustainable economic initiative for an island community of 215 in the Bering Sea.
However, for Abe, it’s about something much, much larger. It’s about being an entrepreneur. Abe’s favorite phrase: “It’s a saleable project.” It’s about being in charge of one’s own economic destiny. Abe’s favorite comment: “We’ll show you how it’s done. Just give us a chance.” It’s about passing on life lessons. Abe’s favorite summary on seizing life by the horns: “I wish I had started earlier. I could have done so much more.”
In the entry way to the NIMA Grocery store on Mekoryuk, there is a xeroxcopy of an old photo from the 1950’s or 1960’s of ten small kids standing in a group. They’re all of five to seven years old and are dressed in parkas, mukluks and mittens. Hand-typed captions identify the kids’ professions: council member, VPSO (village public safety officer), heavy equipment operator, carver (two) and preacher.
Abe stands in the back row: pilot. Kids turn into the future. Straw turns into warm survival. Wisdom turns into economic ventures and wealth. Abe is a wealthy man. Lest you doubt me, he’s the one who has a millennia-old summer fish camp between Nash Harbor and Mekoryuk. Value: priceless.
So then, what straw do you have at hand?
Tim Pearson is a Professional/Business Coach who helps people design meaningful careers and build great companies. He is at www.timpearson.net and can be reached at: (907) 562-1568 or by e-mail at tim@(remove this) timpearson.net.
Alaska Journal of Commerce -- WealthBuilder Column
Tim Pearson, June 13, 2004
Abe David
The Wealthiest Man in Alaska
by Tim Pearson
The wealthiest man in Alaska lives on Nunivak Island. His name is Abe David and he possesses the ability to turn straw into gold. Actually, he can make it even more valuable than gold.
Abe is a hunting and fishing guide extraordinaire. I met him this past week on the way out to the Nash Harbor science and technology camp on Nunivak. He told the following story:
One summer he had two clients from the Lower 48 – he thought they were friends – and took them out fishing. They were having mixed success, so with ever present good humor, he figured he’d show them how to do it. Abe being Abe, he hooked a big Dolly Varden on his first cast.
In the excitement of landingthe fish, he slipped off the rock he was on and fell into the icy water. The fish got away and he got drenched. His clients had a good laugh, but they laughed even harder when he stuffed his pants and shirt full of dried beach grass. No matter. The day wore on, he became warm and his clothes even dried out.
Later in the day he left the men in camp and when he came back he saw only one of the partners. He discovered that they had had a falling out and the other man had walked out of camp. They went looking for him but couldn’t find him. In fact, they really couldn’t find him – not a trace. After doing their best, they returned to Mekoryuk for a larger search party. Abe had a sleepless night knowing his client was out in the cold alone on the tundra.
The next morning as Abe looked out his window preparing to search again, he saw his client walking into town. The client had left camp, taken a nap on the tundra, became disoriented when he awoke and started walking along the river – away from town. Night fell and when he saw the lights of Mekoryuk behind him, he turned around and walked back in.
Then the client sprawled out on Abe’s front porch and told Abe, “It works.” He opened his pants and shirt to show that they were stuffed full of dried grass. He was scratchy, but warm. Like the hollow hairs of reindeer and caribou fur, the hollow stems of the dried grass served as the traditional natural insulator against hypothermia. The grass went home with him as a souvenir of his Alaskan adventure.
You pick up wisdom from hanging around Abe. It is who he is. He’s passionate about making a difference. He’s the field coordinator for the Nash Harbor sea kayaking camp, an educational, cultural, and adventure subsidiary of Nunivak’s village corporation, NIMA. Ten high school students from the YK Delta will be using it for a June science program. Other adventure and cultural activities will also occur through the summer. It’s part of a long-term, sustainable economic initiative for an island community of 215 in the Bering Sea.
However, for Abe, it’s about something much, much larger. It’s about being an entrepreneur. Abe’s favorite phrase: “It’s a saleable project.” It’s about being in charge of one’s own economic destiny. Abe’s favorite comment: “We’ll show you how it’s done. Just give us a chance.” It’s about passing on life lessons. Abe’s favorite summary on seizing life by the horns: “I wish I had started earlier. I could have done so much more.”
In the entry way to the NIMA Grocery store on Mekoryuk, there is a xeroxcopy of an old photo from the 1950’s or 1960’s of ten small kids standing in a group. They’re all of five to seven years old and are dressed in parkas, mukluks and mittens. Hand-typed captions identify the kids’ professions: council member, VPSO (village public safety officer), heavy equipment operator, carver (two) and preacher.
Abe stands in the back row: pilot. Kids turn into the future. Straw turns into warm survival. Wisdom turns into economic ventures and wealth. Abe is a wealthy man. Lest you doubt me, he’s the one who has a millennia-old summer fish camp between Nash Harbor and Mekoryuk. Value: priceless.
So then, what straw do you have at hand?
Tim Pearson is a Professional/Business Coach who helps people design meaningful careers and build great companies. He is at www.timpearson.net and can be reached at: (907) 562-1568 or by e-mail at tim@(remove this) timpearson.net.
11.28.2005
NIMA Looks to Education
By Margaret Bauman
Photos: Tim Pearson / Martin Leonard III
Alaska Journal of Commerce
Publication Date: 08/30/04
On a pristine island in the Bering Sea, inhabited mainly by reindeer and musk oxen, the Cup'ig Eskimo residents of Mekoryuk are hedging part of their economic future on an innovative college biology program.
It began this summer with a 10-day concentrated college-level biology course for 10 students from the Yukon Delta. Over the next few years, the Nunivak Island Mekoryuk Alaska (NIMA) Corp. hopes the summer program and related jobs will lead to steady employment on the island, which lies within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
http://yukondelta.fws.gov/
The camp is operated through Nunivak Island Cultural Education and Adventures LLC, a subsidiary of NIMA. It is located some 35 miles west of Mekoryuk, at Nash Harbor, on the north side of the island.
http://www.nimacorporation.com/NICEALLC.htm
"The main purpose of the camp was to create economic opportunities for shareholders on Nunivak Island," said Terry Don, who managed the camp. "We are looking to expand our operations next year. We hope to double or triple that number (of students)."
Don is also vice chairman of the NIMA board of directors.
The program included lectures, plus day hiking, backpacking and sea kayaking to augment classroom instruction. The academic staff included Native elders in residence, who supplemented scientific knowledge with local and indigenous knowledge of Nunivak Island.
The outdoor classroom, the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, is known for its abundance of seabirds, shorebirds, whistling swans, emperor, white-fronted and Canadian geese, black brant and other migratory birds, plus salmon, musk oxen and marine mammals.
The core curriculum of the course is a blend of Western academic and traditional subsistence sciences. Field projects are designed around real-time needs for data for the community and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as for long-term scientific efforts at the wildlife refuge. http://fc.bethel.uaf.edu/~summer_science/
"NIMA did a great job pulling the camp resources together," said Martin Leonard III, an associate professor at the Kuskokwim campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Bethel. Leonard is also the executive director of the outdoor center, which offers alternative education and village-based economic development. "They are doing work force development at the village level, everything from computer training to hospitality, guide training, first aid and training for transportation specialists," Leonard said.
The university has received funding through the National Science Foundation for a five-year program to develop science, technology, engineering and mathematics initiatives in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Leonard said. "We are providing education resources to develop students here so they can get four-year degrees in engineering and science."
Leonard also said he hoped the summer biology courses would be a springboard not only for the participants to attend college, but to also get them substantial jobs in the area in engineering, mining and management of the wildlife refuge area.
"We are hoping they will get a good start on their four-year degrees," he said. "In the past, there has not been a lot of good science and math instruction in rural Alaska."
Don envisions the program attracting a wide range of students.
"Part of the academic emphasis is attracting students in the Delta for exposure for a post-secondary course, but I don't think we will restrict the applicants to the Yukon Delta area," Don said. "Our goal is to provide the service and have it available to anyone. We'll be accepting applications from whoever is interested."
Don said it was a report from the Denali Commission citing the serious economic problems of Nunivak Island that prompted him to explore creative economics. "Our approach to education (through the subsidiary) emphasizes both the traditional Native way of knowing as well as the Western scientific approach," said Wayne Don, Terry's brother and program manager for NIMA's board. "Nunivak Island provides the ideal wilderness, historic and cultural setting for students to develop expertise in both disciplines." Wayne Don is also an assistant professor of military science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Participants in the education program also included the Alaskan Outdoor Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Nuniwarmiut Piciryarata Tamaryalkuti (the nonprofit cultural heritage organization for the village of Mekoryuk), the city of Mekoryuk and the Mekoryuk School, among others.
"NIMA has really stepped up to the plate," Leonard said. "They know they have a resource out here on the island, and we're happy to be part of it. We have five years to get it better and better. We think the resource is that valuable."
In a related development, NIMA also jumped into the tourism business by offering guided tours three times this summer to cruise ship travelers with Cruise West, which stopped at Nash Harbor. Together, the Don brothers approached Cruise West, which had been operating tours in the area for several years.
Cruise ship visitors offered NIMA an opportunity to train a handful of its young residents in tourism hospitality. Following courses in hospitality training and a wilderness first aid responder course, NIMA sent the young people off to guide several dozen visitors on an area tour, plus a little sea kayaking. "We had people from Australia, England, all over the planet," he said. "We took them on tours of the old village and campsite, hiking and kayaking. The guides actually did very well. They had a blast, interacting with the folks that came ashore. (Cruise West) agreed to come back next year."
Terry Don said the NIMA board would hold a planning session with Cruise West on ways to customize the tour to the travelers' desires next year. "We want to see what their customer base wants and to fine tune our product," he said. "We're hoping to offer them experiences they can't have anywhere else."
Text © The Alaska Journal of Commerce Online
Photos © Tim Pearson, Martin Leonard III
Other Web resources:
• NIMA Corporation http://www.nimacorporation.com
• Nunivak Cultural Programs http://www.nunivak.org
• Alaskan Outdoor Center http://www.alaskanoutdoorcenter.org
• Alaska Journal of Commerce
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/083004/foc_20040830010.shtml
Photos: Tim Pearson / Martin Leonard III
Alaska Journal of Commerce
Publication Date: 08/30/04
On a pristine island in the Bering Sea, inhabited mainly by reindeer and musk oxen, the Cup'ig Eskimo residents of Mekoryuk are hedging part of their economic future on an innovative college biology program.
It began this summer with a 10-day concentrated college-level biology course for 10 students from the Yukon Delta. Over the next few years, the Nunivak Island Mekoryuk Alaska (NIMA) Corp. hopes the summer program and related jobs will lead to steady employment on the island, which lies within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
http://yukondelta.fws.gov/
The camp is operated through Nunivak Island Cultural Education and Adventures LLC, a subsidiary of NIMA. It is located some 35 miles west of Mekoryuk, at Nash Harbor, on the north side of the island.
http://www.nimacorporation.com/NICEALLC.htm
"The main purpose of the camp was to create economic opportunities for shareholders on Nunivak Island," said Terry Don, who managed the camp. "We are looking to expand our operations next year. We hope to double or triple that number (of students)."
Don is also vice chairman of the NIMA board of directors.
The program included lectures, plus day hiking, backpacking and sea kayaking to augment classroom instruction. The academic staff included Native elders in residence, who supplemented scientific knowledge with local and indigenous knowledge of Nunivak Island.
The outdoor classroom, the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, is known for its abundance of seabirds, shorebirds, whistling swans, emperor, white-fronted and Canadian geese, black brant and other migratory birds, plus salmon, musk oxen and marine mammals.
The core curriculum of the course is a blend of Western academic and traditional subsistence sciences. Field projects are designed around real-time needs for data for the community and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as for long-term scientific efforts at the wildlife refuge. http://fc.bethel.uaf.edu/~summer_science/
"NIMA did a great job pulling the camp resources together," said Martin Leonard III, an associate professor at the Kuskokwim campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Bethel. Leonard is also the executive director of the outdoor center, which offers alternative education and village-based economic development. "They are doing work force development at the village level, everything from computer training to hospitality, guide training, first aid and training for transportation specialists," Leonard said.
The university has received funding through the National Science Foundation for a five-year program to develop science, technology, engineering and mathematics initiatives in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Leonard said. "We are providing education resources to develop students here so they can get four-year degrees in engineering and science."
Leonard also said he hoped the summer biology courses would be a springboard not only for the participants to attend college, but to also get them substantial jobs in the area in engineering, mining and management of the wildlife refuge area.
"We are hoping they will get a good start on their four-year degrees," he said. "In the past, there has not been a lot of good science and math instruction in rural Alaska."
Don envisions the program attracting a wide range of students.
"Part of the academic emphasis is attracting students in the Delta for exposure for a post-secondary course, but I don't think we will restrict the applicants to the Yukon Delta area," Don said. "Our goal is to provide the service and have it available to anyone. We'll be accepting applications from whoever is interested."
Don said it was a report from the Denali Commission citing the serious economic problems of Nunivak Island that prompted him to explore creative economics. "Our approach to education (through the subsidiary) emphasizes both the traditional Native way of knowing as well as the Western scientific approach," said Wayne Don, Terry's brother and program manager for NIMA's board. "Nunivak Island provides the ideal wilderness, historic and cultural setting for students to develop expertise in both disciplines." Wayne Don is also an assistant professor of military science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Participants in the education program also included the Alaskan Outdoor Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Nuniwarmiut Piciryarata Tamaryalkuti (the nonprofit cultural heritage organization for the village of Mekoryuk), the city of Mekoryuk and the Mekoryuk School, among others.
"NIMA has really stepped up to the plate," Leonard said. "They know they have a resource out here on the island, and we're happy to be part of it. We have five years to get it better and better. We think the resource is that valuable."
In a related development, NIMA also jumped into the tourism business by offering guided tours three times this summer to cruise ship travelers with Cruise West, which stopped at Nash Harbor. Together, the Don brothers approached Cruise West, which had been operating tours in the area for several years.
Cruise ship visitors offered NIMA an opportunity to train a handful of its young residents in tourism hospitality. Following courses in hospitality training and a wilderness first aid responder course, NIMA sent the young people off to guide several dozen visitors on an area tour, plus a little sea kayaking. "We had people from Australia, England, all over the planet," he said. "We took them on tours of the old village and campsite, hiking and kayaking. The guides actually did very well. They had a blast, interacting with the folks that came ashore. (Cruise West) agreed to come back next year."
Terry Don said the NIMA board would hold a planning session with Cruise West on ways to customize the tour to the travelers' desires next year. "We want to see what their customer base wants and to fine tune our product," he said. "We're hoping to offer them experiences they can't have anywhere else."
Text © The Alaska Journal of Commerce Online
Photos © Tim Pearson, Martin Leonard III
Other Web resources:
• NIMA Corporation http://www.nimacorporation.com
• Nunivak Cultural Programs http://www.nunivak.org
• Alaskan Outdoor Center http://www.alaskanoutdoorcenter.org
• Alaska Journal of Commerce
http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/083004/foc_20040830010.shtml
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