Festival of Alaska Native Arts 5

Tlingit from SE Alaska in their tradition dress.

Yup'ik performers from SW Alaska

Festival of Alaska Native Arts 4

 Inupiaq Eskimo drummers and dancers

Festival of Alaska Native Arts 3

 If I remember correctly, these are Inupiaq Eskimos.

Festival of Alaska Native Arts 2

The Native people were performing dances and songs representing their cultures.  Below is a Yup'ik dancer.  I think I posted these photos a few years ago but some of you probably haven't seen them before.

love seeing the little girl imitating the dancer.

Festival of Alaska Native Arts

map courtesy of travelalaska

Every spring, the university would host the Festival of Alaska Native Arts and Native people of all persuasions would come to Fairbanks to take part. In the auditorium, there were performances of various kinds and in the large lobby, tables were set up for artists, craftspeople, and writers to sell their work. One year, Bill went as the representative from the Film Archives, where he was working. I went with him to help. We had a TV with a VHS machine hooked up so he could play some of the old film. On the table, we had a binder or two with still photos in sleeves. The reason for us being there was twofold. First, just to let people know that the resource existed, since not many people knew about it and it was a treasure trove of old film. If anyone watched the film and wanted a copy, one would be sent to them, free of charge. Second, to see if anyone had any information about any of the people in the video or still photos.

As we were setting up, we were interrogated by the people at the table next to us. They wanted to know who we were and why we were there. When we tried to explain, we were met with hostility, which was kind of unpleasant, but understandable. They assumed we were there to sell things and were not happy at the idea of a couple of non-Native people or a university department making money off of their images—they’d been ripped off plenty under such circumstances for a long time. So we just went on with what we were there to do and kept on being nice to them.

courtesy of fna

People came up and watched the film and looked through the binder. There were conversations among people about who some of the people were and some identifications were made. They seemed to enjoy it. Then a woman came to the table with her granddaughter and started watching the film. When it came to a clip of some kids in a home ec class, a huge smile filled her face and she cried out, ‘That’s me!’ She proceeded to tell us about the class and that they were baking a cake. She turned to her granddaughter and said, ‘That’s grandma in the video!’ Her granddaughter, who was pretty young, said, ‘That’s not you, Grandma! You’re old and that’s a kid!’ We all laughed and the woman asked to see it again, so Bill rewound. He asked her if she wanted a copy and she was thrilled. She gave him her address in the village and he promised to mail it to her.

After watching all of this, the people at the neighbouring table understood that we really were not there to make money they came over to talk to us and apologized. They even looked through the binder. 

The next fews days will photos from the festival.

eskimo food 3

Notes: This is my experience of eating Native food. I respect the people and their love for the foods they grew up with and that have sustained them for generations. I use the word ‘Eskimo’ because that is how the people I knew identified themselves and how they wanted to e identified. This was to make a distinction between themselves and Native Alaskan people who were not Eskimos. Also, I have changed the name of the village in question, calling it simply ‘Village.’

Where Did You Learn to Eat This Food? Part Three

  At another potluck, one guy brought his contribution.  Out of a plastic grocery bag, he took a fish that was frozen solid, a cutting board and a curved knife (called an ulu).  Here was ease of preparation for sure!  The fish is caught and allowed to freeze (this is quaq).  When it is time to eat, you slice pieces of the frozen fish and pop them in your mouth.  There is not much taste to this, but the texture of what is essentially a fish popsicle is strange.  And being someone who has never cared for fish, it is not something I cared for much.  Still, it was better than black meat!  Then there was the “Eskimo ice cream” or akutuq.  The first time I had this, it was berries mixed with some shortening.  Not what I would have chosen, but at least it was not a sea mammal!  Now it was there again, so I took some and saved it for a treat at the end.  I was in for another surprise!  This had been made the traditional way—with fish oil instead of shortening.  Once again, I was chewing and smiling while my stomach churned. 

  Bill, on the other hand, genuinely liked the food.  He did make a bit of a mistake when he was introduced to seal oil. He thought he should use it like gravy and took too much. It’s seal blubber allowed to disintegrate into oil and it’s strong. Very strong. I was informed that beluga oil is lighter. I did not notice this, but I was willing to defer to people who knew about such things. Every time we would go to someone’s house for niqipiaq, we would sit there with the elders and they would be so happy that someone was trying to learn their language and they would ask, “Where did you learn to eat this food?” 

One day, we were having lunch and the jar of seal oil  came around the table.  Seal oil is used as a topping and a dip.  It was a very difficult thing for me to eat.  As the jar made it to me, I passed it to the elderly woman sitting next to me without taking any.  I hoped this would go unnoticed.  It didn’t.  “It’s seal oil, don’t you want any?” she asked, thrusting the jar back at me.  “Oh, seal oil, sure,” I replied and poured some on my plate.

  I can honestly say that I have not missed this food. I understand how important it is to people in many different ways and I respect that. For elders, it is an important part of their identities and they crave it when they’re away from home, just like we all crave food that we love and grew up with. Interestingly, planes would fly from villages to Fairbanks and Anchorage with Native food and fly from Fairbanks and Anchorage with fast food, requested by the younger people. 

 Native food was actually healthy for the people who ate it. As is true all over the US, when Native people switch from their traditional food sources to the standard American diet (SAD), health problems like diabetes and heart disease increase.

As a practical matter, when food in a grocery store is as expensive as it is in villages, where there are no roads in or out and food comes by plane or barge, Native food is important. When I was in the village, a gallon of milk was $7. People rely on Native food to survive. Unlike many Native groups in the lower 48, the subsistence foods were not deliberately wiped out by the colonizers. However, even when we were there, the climate crisis was already starting to cause problems and migration routes were changing, so some foods were not as abundant as they used to be. The Climate crisis is also causing some villages to have to be relocated or they will fall into the sea. This could change subsistence practices as well. There is much concern for the future.

eskimo food 2

 

Notes: This is my experience of eating Native food. I respect the people and their love for the foods they grew up with and that have sustained them for generations. I use the word ‘Eskimo’ because that is how the people I knew identified themselves and how they wanted to e identified. This was to make a distinction between themselves and Native Alaskan people who were not Eskimos. Also, I have changed the name of the village in question, calling it simply ‘Village.’

Where Did You Learn to Eat This Food? Part Two

Now it was Thanksgiving week, and our Eskimo friends had invited us to a church potluck.  The food on the table looked pretty familiar.  Then we saw it—the bowl of muktuk.  This is the quintessential Eskimo food.  It is blubber and outer skin (about an inch of each) from the gray whale.  Not all Eskimo groups have this food as a tradition, but it has become a kind of pan-Eskimo food and the one they are most known for.  So there it was.  Bill and I each dutifully took a chunk and sat down to eat.  Our friends were in charge of the music, so they were off doing other things.  We didn’t know anyone else, so we sat off to the side and ate, saving our muktuk for last.  The truth is, I didn’t know what the heck to do with it!  It was a huge chunk and it seemed to be impossible to cut, at least with a plastic knife.  I watched a Native woman eating hers and she was having trouble too.  Finally, I popped the whole thing in my mouth and started chewing.  I chewed and I chewed and I chewed.  Nothing happened.  I couldn’t possibly swallow it, so after several minutes of chewing on this stuff, I brought my napkin up to my mouth and discreetly spit my muktuk into it.  Bill placed his napkin over his.  We threw away our paper plates and had more soda.

  A few days later, we had a potluck in the Inupiaq Eskimo language class.  There was more muktuk there, but it was cut in matchstick pieces.  Everyone was watching the white people to see how they would do with the food.  There was a young woman from France in our class who proclaimed that she was not going to eat “that crap,” but would wait until she got home for Christmas and eat “real food.”  I was horrified at her insulting manner, but envious that she had enough self-confidence to say, “No, I don’t want any.”  I desperately wanted to say the same thing (though in a far more polite way!).

  Again, I took some of everything, sat down and hoped I would respond properly so as not to offend this room full of Native people.  I plastered my fake smile on my face and began to eat.  It was difficult. The first thing I put in my mouth was moose, though we learned only later that it was moose tongue. Bill had eaten his first and tried to quietly warn me, but it was already headed into my mouth. Later, when we would eat niqipiaq, moose stew was always something of a relief, but the tongue was strong. I struggled mightily to keep the smile on my face as I chewed and swallowed.  Then came the matchstick pieces of muktuk.  Those were not so bad, because I could pop them in my mouth and, being mostly blubber, they pretty much slid down my throat.  I had saved my salad for last, figuring that would help clear the taste of the other food out of my mouth.  That turned out to be a mistake.  The salad contained black meat, which is raw seal meat that has been dried.  It turns black as it dries, thus the name.  It was like big chunks of seal jerky there in the salad.  As I bit into this, a horrible taste filled my mouth—one that I would not be able to get rid of for hours.  I tried tea, soda, strong mints—nothing worked.  Everyone was asking how I liked it.  “It’s good,” I lied.  

eskimo food 1

 Notes: This is my experience of eating Eskimo food. I use the word ‘Eskimo’ because that is how the people I knew identified themselves and how they wanted to be identified. This was to make a distinction between themselves and Native Alaskan people who were not Eskimos.  I respect the people and their love for the foods they grew up with and that have sustained them for generations. Also, I have changed the name of the village in question, calling it simply ‘Village.’

Where Did You Learn to Eat This Food? Part One

I had known it was coming, of course.  I can’t honestly say that I was looking forward to it, but I knew it was coming and now it was here.  It was time to try Eskimo food, or “niqipiaq,” as it’s called (literally, this means “real food,” and it is also the word used for “meat,” which tells you something).  I had been preparing for this moment for months.  I was still nervous.  Familiar foods prepared in unfamiliar ways is one thing, but I was now faced with eating animals that I had never thought of as potential food before, and this was a real issue for me.    

In fact, eating animals at all was a real issue for me.  When I arrived in Alaska, I was a vegetarian and had been for the previous seven years.  I viewed this as a personal decision and it was one I felt good about.  It didn’t take long for this to be a part of what defined me as a person, and again, I was fine with that.  Other people, though, had a hard time.  They usually got defensive when I would decline or simply not eat meat—I usually heard, “Oh, I hardly ever eat meat.”  Frankly, that was their business as far as I was concerned, and always wondered where that defensiveness or need to explain came from.  I was never militant about my choice, and I was always polite.  Nonetheless, these kinds of experiences gave me some insight into the importance of food as an identity marker, and I brought this knowledge with me to Alaska.

    I knew that Eskimo people had been criticized and made fun of because of their food.  While language and some other aspects of culture had been beaten out of them when the missionaries came, it was impossible to do away with traditional foods as was done to some Native peoples in the continental US.  In the arctic, there are times when you take what you can get, and that means white people eat traditional Eskimo food.  It didn’t take long for me to learn the heightened importance of food to the older generation, who had been the ones to suffer the beatings and were still sometimes afraid to speak Eskimo (though, ironically, the one place where Eskimo people from Village regularly speak their language today is church).  And I knew the defensiveness I usually encountered about my food choices would only be heightened here.  So, I decided that I would eat Eskimo food when the issue came up.  I wouldn’t go out looking for it, and I wasn’t particularly thrilled by it, but I would do it.  

  Since I knew that their food was unlike any I had eaten before, I figured I had best prepare my system for the great quantities of meat that were to come, so that if there were any adverse effects, they would not make themselves known in a room full of Eskimos, who could get insulted.   I gradually introduced meat back into my diet.  I suffered immediately from stomach upset, lethargy, joint pain, and other issues.  Clearly, this stuff did not agree with me, but I kept on.

video is 3:43

inupiaq names

 Our first semester at the university in Fairbanks, Bill and I enrolled in Iñupiaq Eskimo Language class. Most of the students were Iñupiaq, but there were a couple of non-Native students besides us. As it happened, just before the academic year began, the guy who had taught the Iñupiaq language classes out of the Alaska Native Language Center (ANLC) left and they needed to find a new native speaker. They hired someone, but everything was not finalized before the year began, so we started out with the linguist in ANLC who was fluent in all dialects of Iñupiaq. A few weeks in, the new teacher arrived and they taught the class together for the rest of the year. It was a rocky start, but after a bit, everything went really well and it turned out to be a great class. I love words and written language especially, so studying languages is like doing puzzles for me in some ways. I get excited when I can see the logic of how things go together and how dialect differences show up, and I can become quite fascinated by some small aspect of language use. I was one of the few people I knew during my time in academia who really enjoyed the linguistic subfield that was part of my anthropological education. So I had really been looking forward to starting the Iñupiaq class.

alsaka native language map

I did get frustrated at first, because it seemed like we were not progressing—I grew tired of saying my name and where I was from over and over again, class after class. One day, however, things got more interesting. We were have a day where the teacher was informally doing commands—telling us to stand up, walk to the board, and write our names. When she got to me, I did what she was telling me to do, feeling a bit annoyed to be honest, and stood at the board with the chalk in my hand. ‘Kiña atqiñ?’ she asked. I wrote ‘Shari’ on the board in reply. ‘Do you have an Eskimo name?’ she wanted to know. I shook my head and said I didn’t. ‘Do you want one?’ she asked. I said I did. She was quiet for a minute or two and I started to fidget. ‘I’m going to name you after my sister. Kuukpiaq. She died,’ she replied. I stopped fidgeting and stood there, stunned. The class had gotten very, very quiet. I’d read enough by then to know about the tradition of the atiq (namesake) and what it used to mean. Traditionally, it was a way to extend kinship ties. People would name a child after a deceased relative of someone else and that would create the same kinship tie between the child and the relative. I wasn’t sure what to make of this development, or what it meant in this case, but the fact that all the Native students in the class were so quiet seemed significant to me. Not knowing what to say at that point besides ‘thank you,’ I said that. ‘Do you want to know how to spell it?’ she asked. I nodded, she told me, and I wrote it down. Then I went back to my desk and sat down, writing it in my notebook. When it was Bill’s turn, he went up and was also asked if he had an Eskimo name, said he didn’t, and was given one, but for his name, the teacher asked the class to provide one. Someone who had lived in a village suggested Sayuu, which was the name of someone she knew there. He wrote his name then came back to sit down. 

At the end of class, the teacher came over to me and asked, ‘Do you want to visit me?’ And we did. We went to the apartments she shared with her husband and grandson many times. They came to our home many times. She and I were in and out of one another’s offices. She made me traditional clothing, including the parka I posted about a while ago. They borrowed our truck for months when they needed reliable transportation during winter. They stored their stuff at our house when they went back to their village in the summers. She used to call me Sis Kuukpiaq. During the Christmas break that first year, when we were visiting, she told Bill she was naming him after her brother. 

Things did get complicated after a while and even painful at times, but we continued to be friends and remained in contact off and on after she left the university and we left Alaska. Most recently, we would communicate via Facebook, but she was rarely on there because she didn’t have regular access to wifi (or email). When I decided to leave Facebook and delete my account, she had been absent for a long time, so I sent her a private message, but I don’t know whether or not she would have gotten it after my account was gone. Maybe one day, we’ll connect again.

Note: All of the Iñupiaq names are real words, but not real names. Kuukpiaq means coffee and sayuu means tea.

summertime

 

Anytime I went from Fairbanks back to the Lower 48 to visit someone, they would ask me if it was cold at home. This happened no matter the time of year. Of course, we had snow and ice around for most of the year, but summers did actually occur. They were short, but intense. It was not hot during the time we lived there, although that is now changing as the climate crisis deepens. I don’t think it ever got to 80F the entire time we lived there, which was fine with me. 

It never got dark in summer, which was weird at first, but we quickly adapted. The sun did set in the wee hours sometime, but no darkness. The sky would become a light grey colour. Whenever anyone came to visit us, we had to spend at least one night outside at 3 a.m. so they could experience this. Of course, they missed seeing the aurora borealis because of the light. And when we first got to Fairbanks, our friend’s son was angry that there would be no fireworks on the 4th of July, but why bother, since no one would really see them?

pig races

Because of the constant daylight, people were able to have gardens, as long as they could have a fence that would keep out the moose. Giant cabbage contests were a thing at county fairs. In Fairbanks, the fair was in August. We learned that if we were going to get some elephant ears from one of the food stands, sharing was a good idea. And we enjoyed watching the pig races.

Summer solstice was the big day of celebration. There was a festival downtown and the Midnight Sun baseball game, which started at midnight and was played without any artificial lights.

Chatanika River

By August, I knew to start sniffing the air for that first bite of autumn. At the end of the month, the leaves had mostly changed colour. It was mostly birch and aspen in our area, which were bright yellow. We’d start waiting for the first frost because after that the time was right to pick low bush cranberries. There would be a day when the cloudless sky would be an expanse of bright blue—a background for the golden leaves. When we looked down, the vegetation close to the ground was bright red. Every time I see such a sky, I think of those moments I spent in the woods with my containers, picking berries, pausing to look up at the beauty above my head, and savouring the moments.

I’m not a fan of summer, but even I have to admit that summer in Fairbanks was pretty cool.

the knotty shop

spruce-burl sculptures outside the store

Salcha just south of Fairbanks

a caribou or deer?

a mosquito

 

a moose?

riverboat discovery

the Riverboat Discovery frozen in for the winter.  

Preparing for winter 2

Preparing for Winter: Getting Around

Boots were important. There had to be warmth as well as good traction. Bunny boots were common—these are large white boots that many people wore. People said their feet got yucky in them, so I never bought those. We had Sorrels for a while and they were good for warmth, but they were so heavy that walking in them caused pain. Lobbens were great—wool felt boots made in Norway. I also had some handmade mukluks with wool liners that I loved. These laced up the legs, so were good for certain conditions. The Lobbens ended at ankle height, although sometimes taller ones were available. Sometimes though, people opted for fashion over common sense. I used to see one professor every day in her fur coat, pantyhose, and pumps trying to gingerly make her way across the icy road to her car. I never saw her fall, but she came close at times, sliding and flailing her arms around to get her balance. 

Some people did not have vehicles and used their bicycles for transport throughout the winter. They got fatter tires and tire chains and off they went. There was a network of cross-country ski trails in the area we lived and people used that for skiing and skijoring (dog harnessed to a person on skis). People used snow machines, sometimes on the trails, which they were not supposed to do. 

Once things were frozen solid enough, people used lakes and rivers as roads and walkways. There were a couple of times that Bill had to walk across a lake to an elder’s home for work and I worried until I heard from him that he was back at the university and had not fallen through the ice! Every spring there would come a day when the front page of the newspaper contained a large photo of the first person to try to drive across the river, only to find that the ice was no longer thick enough to carry the weight, so in they went! 

The end of winter into spring could be tricky, because there was a lot of melting going on but also a lot of snow and ice still left. Walking through puddles required attention, because there was usually ice underneath. The surface temperatures would be warm enough to melt the ice and snow, but the ground was still frozen, so that top layer of meltwater had nowhere to go. It sat there, a welcoming breeding ground for the mosquitoes that some joked were the state bird. There was a lot of mud and tires tended to spin when one was trying to drive through it. It felt pretty warm by then, but it could still be dangerously cold if people felt a false sense of security. At one point, I read that more people die of hypothermia during this time of year than in the extreme cold of winter. When it’s extremely cold, people dress for it. After the period of extreme cold, even temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit feel warm, so people sometimes go outside without the proper clothing and, particularly if alcohol is involved, might sit somewhere and succumb to the cold.

We were not sure what it would be like to experience such a winter when we got there, but by the time we’d been there a year, we knew that it’s just something you get used to. By the last winter we were there, we were used to it, but also feeling a bit tired of the work and preparation required.

Preparing for Winter 1

ice fog

Preparing for Winter: Vehicles and Homes

Although things have changed since we lived in Fairbanks, due to the climate crisis, when we lived there, some level of winter was part of life for a good chunk of each year. The first snow would usually fall sometime in October, although it could be earlier. In April, things would be melting, but still with ice underneath. So preparation was important.

Every year, when the first snow hit the ground, there would be a mad rush to garages, so people could have their tires changed to studded snow tires, as though people somehow forgot that snow was coming and this needed to be done. Since we had a light pick-up truck, we also had to put heavy stuff in the back to prevent fishtailing. It also needed to be something that would not slide around. We found out before out first winter that people used sandbags, so we got some of those and also had cinder blocks back there. This worked.

It was important to keep certain supplies with you in the vehicle. We had a bag in the back seat with blankets, heavy mittens, and other supplies just in case we got stuck somewhere. Young people in particular would sometimes go out quite underdressed for the very cold temperatures, thinking that because they would be in a car, there was no need to consider the cold. But cars break down or won’t start, so it was important to be prepared.

oil tank

We’d have oil delivered once a year (about 500 gallons, if I remember correctly), in September, except for one year when we needed another delivery in April. We had a Monitor stove, which did an excellent job. Our house was well insulated, which helped a lot, too. The walls were several inches thick, and the guy who built it had made insulated window inserts in case they were needed. We had large double-paned windows in half the house and had we wanted to, we could have put the inserts in all or some of them to trap more heat. There were also electric wall heaters in both bedrooms and the utility room as well as electric baseboards in the large living room/kitchen/dining area half of the house.

oil monitor

When the house was built, electricity was cheap. When it became expensive, the guy put in the Monitor. I don’t think we ever used the baseboards. We did occasionally use the bedroom wall heater in our room and our daughter used hers all the time—her room was like an oven! The Monitor was located in the living room. It could be set to a certain temperature manually or be put on a timer. There was a fireplace in the house, but when we had someone come to look at the chimney, he said it was a mess and should not be used as it was. He suggested putting in a wood stove with a chimney for that constructed inside the existing stone chimney. We opted not to do this, so the fireplace went unused and it was important for us to make sure we had enough oil before the extreme cold set in. There was a sauna cabin near the house, which had a lot of wood inside. We never used this, but it was there if we needed it.

Sometimes heating the house was not enough to stop ice forming in the pipes. Our usual issue in that regard was with the drain pipe for the washing machine. The pipes were wrapped in heat tape, so I would regularly have to plug that one in when doing laundry in winter.

springtime

Springtime in Fairbanks

In other places, things are blooming

but here we are melting.

Oceans of mud cover solid ground

while lake-sized puddles invite

mosquitoes

to come, breed, lay eggs for the future.

Slowly the snow recedes except

for the mountainous piles

virtually indistinguishable

from dirt.

The ground lies bare for the first time in months

exposing last year’s dead vegetation

and our version of spring color-

the trash that’s been planted

along the sides of the roads.

the dark side

 The isolation of life in most places in Alaska can take a toll on people. In Fairbanks, there are few roads that lead anywhere.  You can go to Anchorage or Valdez with not much in between and this can be a hazardous drive in the winter.  You can go to some of the interior villages, but some of those roads are closed in the winter.  There is no way out of the state in the winter except by air and that is expensive.  There is one carrier that will take you out of state and it costs about $500 per person just to get to Seattle.  I have seen this isolation take its toll on people.  

Sometimes the stuff that happens seems kind of quirky and cute—at least when you first get there.  Then you start to see the darker undertones.  There is far too much alcohol, way too many drugs and weapons in Alaska.  Combine that with the idea that Fairbanks is “the end of the road,” and the people there are mavericks and independent types who don’t need any rules or government interference, and the results can range from the tragicomic to devastating.

Here are a few examples:  A young man had been drinking with his brother and decided to engage in some target practice—with the pipeline as the target.  This resulted in an oil spill of several thousand gallons.  

A man was found wandering around naked with knives sticking out of his buttocks.  He seemed unaware of them until police asked him about the knives.  He was happy to find them he said because he had been looking for them but his girlfriend had told him they were lost.  Apparently she found them before she stabbed him.  Alcohol was involved.

 A man and his stepson were snow machining when they came upon a “no trespassing” sign.  They turned around and were heading back when the owner of the property shot at them, paralyzing the boy.  He said his property rights were in jeopardy.

A drunk Native man called police to inform them that, “Shit, I think my girlfriend is fucking dead.”  She sure was and he was convicted of the crime.  Another native man and his wife came to town for something and checked into a local motel, where he killed her.

One guy took hostages at a restaurant on one of the roads north of Fairbanks. He declared that the ‘highway’ was his. The stand-off lasted a few days before he surrendered.

Alaska has the highest rates of domestic violence, child abuse and sexual assault per capita in the nation.  It can be an ugly scene, in spite of the natural beauty of the place.

pipeline 2

 Part 2:

Note: This was originally written shortly after we left Alaska in 2004, so the numbers given in parts of this essay were from that time.

 As of this writing, oil prices are as high as they have ever been—approaching $50 per barrel.  This has eased Alaska’s financial crisis somewhat, but it was fairly dire at the beginning of 2004.  Schools, local governments, services, law enforcement maintenance—all were facing huge cuts.  The answer to this problem was to find more stuff to drill or mine or chop down or kill.  Taxes?  No way!  Reformulating the permanent fund?  Don’t even think about it!  So there it was—a state sitting on huge amounts of oil money in which there is no state income or sales tax, and in which everyone gets a payout every fall.  It was also a crumbling state.  A group of parents, teachers and others actually filed suit in the state to try and force adequate funding for schools in August 2004.  Schools are simply not the priority.  In fact, in the last election, concerned citizens went to talk to a conservative Republican candidate for state senate about school funding.  He informed them that he sent his kids to Christian schools and didn’t much care about funding for the public schools.  In fact, he thought they got too much money already.  He won his race easily.  That was not surprising.

   

There was a real unwillingness in Alaska to face challenges head-on or to deal with complex problems.  In the 2002 elections, we had a long-time Republican senator facing off against the lieutenant governor, a Democrat.  The governor could not run again due to term limits.  He had won a close election in 1994 and then in 1998, the Republican candidate had to withdraw due to some legal troubles.  The Democrat was pretty straightforward about the problems faced by the state and she laid out a clear plan to solve the fiscal problems.  The plan did include some taxes but did not touch the permanent fund.  Her Republican challenger said that there was no problem at all.  The answer was to just drill some more oil.  This, in spite of the fact that the oil companies came out and clearly stated that they had no plans to drill the fields under discussion.  The senator dodged debates, though he finally showed up for one or two.  He said that no new taxes were needed.  In short, he ran a campaign of “there’s no problem, man.”  The polls said it was a close race.  On election night we found out it wasn’t.  Mr. No Problem won by a sizeable margin.  

His first act as governor was to go on a bird-hunting trip in Europe, much to the unhappiness of the people who voted for him.  He wondered what the fuss was about.  He had to be told that things were no longer like they were in the senate!  So he came back and got to work.  He had to appoint someone to fill his now-vacant senate seat, so he chose his daughter.  He saw that my gosh, there really were some serious fiscal problems here, so he promptly began talking about using permanent fund money (citizens always call these kinds of ideas “raiding” the fund) and he decided to cut off the Longevity Bonus for senior citizens.  This was a monthly payment implemented to encourage seniors who had lived in the state for a long time to stay.  They had a couple of months notice before they lost the couple of hundred dollars they were accustomed to getting—a serious part of the budget for many.  It didn’t take long for the howls of protest to begin.  Letters to the editor popped up saying things like, “we voted for you because you were a Republican and look what you are doing!”  They were clearly surprised.  I was not.  It was clear before the election that the guy had nothing to say and was trying to tell people what they wanted to hear.  One Democrat running for state senate had  a commercial in which he said, ‘I know I am not telling you what you want to hear, but I am telling you what you need to hear.”  It reminded me of a parent talking to a little kid.  He lost too.  Their outrage was somewhat comical, but not surprising.  

video is 3m 12s

video is 3m 20s

pipe benefits 1

 

Part 1:

Note: This was originally written shortly after we left Alaska in 2004, so the numbers given in parts of this essay were from that time. 

If ever there was an emblem for the state of Alaska, the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline should be it.  It didn’t take very long to learn that for the majority of the population of the state, pipelines are something of an obsession.  People seem to long for the “golden years” of the 1970s when the pipeline was being built.  And in fact, before that pipeline was even finished, people were talking about the natural gas pipeline that would be started in “about 5 years,” according to a 1977 newspaper article.  They are still waiting.  Even in 2004, the governor had a big press conference in which he announced that some companies had expressed interest.  As of this writing, as far as I know, that has gone nowhere.

This does fit in with the general pattern of thought by many people in Alaska that if you can suck it out of the ground, uproot it, chop it down, or kill it, you might as well do so and make a few bucks in the process.  Anyone who questions the wisdom of such ideas is immediately labeled a “radical environmentalist” and some other, less polite things.  People want their money and they want it now.  And they really do not seem to care how they get it.  They long for another pipeline boom, even though Fairbanks was a horrible place then—crime was rampant; drunken people and prostitutes populated the downtown area, and there was a severe housing shortage.  No matter—bring it on again is the mantra.  Drill for more oil, get that natural gas, cut down the trees, bring people in to shoot wolves from helicopters—whatever it takes, just show them the money.

And people are very protective of the most personal artifact of the oil boom of the 1970s—their Permanent Fund Dividend checks.  The permanent fund was formed out of oil revenues and at the heart of it is a payout once every fall to every eligible man, woman and child in the state.  Eligibility is determined by residence—each year residents fill out a form attesting to the fact that they were not absent from Alaska for more than 90 or 120 days of the previous calendar year.  There are some extenuating circumstances, but that is the general rule.  In the fall, the checks are mailed out or money is directly deposited into hundreds of thousands of bank accounts.  These checks have been for as little as $200 in the past, but around the turn of the century, they reached their highest level ever at the time we lived there—just shy of $2000 (there have been higher ones since, I think).  Remember, that is for every eligible man, woman, and child.  A family of 5 that year would have received $10,000.  

There is a complex formula that determines how much money will be available in the fund and then the individual payouts are determined by how many people apply (believe it or not, some people “forget” to send in their applications!).  Some of the money in the fund goes to pay for various state services, but any alteration in the formula or the breakdown of how the money will be spent, requires a vote.  It has never gotten that far because there is always a huge outcry whenever anyone suggests such a thing.

video is (2m:08s)

shoveling the snow

the long and winding driveway

One thing we bought before our first winter in Fairbanks was a snow blower. Our driveway was just a curving dirt path cut through the trees with a couple of spots where vehicles could turn around or park. It was tricky for the water guy, who had to back in with his large truck and make it around a tight curve. He sometimes had to try more than once to make it. So being able to clear the driveway was important. We got the snow blower and were ready—or so we thought. 

Winter was what we expected. It would snow and Bill would blow. Things went along, month after month. And then, late the first winter, we had a snowstorm. Snow started falling fast and kept on falling. The driveway quickly became impassable. Bill went to start the snow blower and it would not fire up. Uh-oh. He tried and tried. It had fuel, so that wasn’t the issue.  We had no idea what the issue was and there was no way to bring it somewhere to find out because the driveway was buried in snow. We had no snow shovels, but we did have garden shovels, so we both put on our winter gear, grabbed shovels, and started digging. Digging, digging, digging, hour after hour, digging while the snow kept falling fast. Six hours later, well after dark, we had a path cleared. We went inside, aching in muscles we did not know we had. We went to bed and when we woke up, you could hardly tell we’d shovelled at all, let alone for 6 hours! We both knew we wouldn’t be going to the university that day and we were a bit glum as we picked up the shovels and went back out there for more. We did another 6 hours that day and thought we were done. Not quite yet.

We needed to have water delivered. The guy came and tried to make it around the curve. He tried again. He failed again. He couldn’t make it. He left. Someone called and said to let them know when we’d cleared the driveway some more. We got the shovels and went out yet again. The next time, he made it. 

And the snow blower? It just needed a tune-up. 

These moose are at the end of our driveway.

missy and the pups

One day, I looked out the window and saw a dog standing in the driveway looking towards the house. I didn’t think anything of it that day, but when she kept coming back, I knew something was wrong and that she didn’t just stray out of a neighborhood property. She was skittish, so we would not try to get too close at first. We walked slowly towards her with a bowl of food, speaking in quiet, soothing tones. We’d put the food down and walk back into the house, watching from there as she ate it. Eventually, she grew to trust us and would let us pet her. Then she felt comfortable enough to come into the house. She seemed healthy and was not injured. No one was looking for her and we assumed someone just dumped her.

At this time, I was on a dean search committee at the university. The College of Liberal Arts was looking for a new dean, so the committee members had to go throw a very strict process to get to the point of a job offer for someone. First we had to go through every application and assign a number for evaluation purposes. Then we got together to discuss our rankings and the field was narrowed down based on the final numbers. Then we did phone interviews, again giving numerical rankings. This narrowed things down further. Finally, there were five finalists who would be brought to campus, each for a few days, to give presentations, have in-person interviews, do some socializing, and those sorts of things. We were in this latter stage when the dog, named Missy by Daughter, came to live with us.

A few weeks after she showed up, it was my turn to take the lead with a dean candidate from New York. I invited her and the other committee members to our home for supper, making a huge pan of lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and some sort of dessert. As I was setting the table in anticipation of everyone’s arrival, I stopped to pet Missy, who had rolled over on her back, waiting for a belly rub. ‘Hmmm,’ I said to Bill, ‘Maybe she isn’t just gaining weight because she is getting more to eat since we started feeding her. I wonder if she’s pregnant.’ We didn’t have time to think about this, because soon our guests started arriving and we were occupied with the 7 or 8 of them. When they left, I made plans to meet the candidate early the next morning, so we could begin the day. I was to escort her around to various places and presentations. The next day started far earlier than I’d expected it to!

In the middle of the night, Missy insisted on going outside. Just before 4 a.m. I woke up to a weird noise and went to check. When I turned on the light, I saw her standing next to the porch. She was agitated. Then I saw a tiny little creature.  Missy was having puppies! We brought her and the puppy inside. She was distressed and the other dogs and the cats were curious. We knew we had to get her somewhere quiet and where the other animals would not pester her or the pups. The only option was the small utility room out back. In order to get there, one had to enter a hallway that wrapped round part of the round house. At the end of that was the door to the utility room.There was not much free space back there. It was a small room anyway and we had our washing machine and an extra fridge freezer back there. We didn’t know there would be one in the house when we moved there, so we’d brought the one we had and ended up putting it back there when we found out we wouldn’t need it. 

We put down a pile of blankets and brought Missy and the puppy back there, going back and forth to check on things. Once we heard a sort of mewling sound and realized one puppy was missing. We worried that it had fallen down through the hole for the dryer vent (we didn’t have a dryer) or had somehow gotten through the opening that served as a handle to lift up the board providing access to the crawl space underneath the house. Bill went down there and saw nothing. When I moved the fridge-freezer to get at the dryer vent, I saw a poor wee pup stuck in the coils. We puppy-proofed the room as best as we could. 

We called the Humane Society for advice. They told us they couldn’t take the five puppies until they were at least 8 weeks old, so we wondered what the next 8 weeks would be like with 9 dogs and 4 cats! In the short term, I had to go escort a dean candidate around campus, so I left to do that. At least we had something non-academic to talk about!

We eventually got into a routine. It was still winter when the puppies arrived, but late winter, so by the time they were too big to stay in the utility room, we were able to put them outside. Someone who had lived in the house before us repaired snow machines and once got paid for a job with a pig. He’d built an elevated pen for this pig, complete with a pig house built up against the house. There was still straw there too, so it was perfect for the puppies. 

When they were big enough to run around, we’d let them out of the pen and they would scamper about, much to the annoyance of Pearl, who took herself off to a neighbor’s house, where she would rest on their quiet porch. Inu, the 150-pound dog who had made the journey to Alaska with us, was an elder by then and was quite alarmed at the tiny creatures running around his feet. He tried to stay away from them.

I fell in love with the smallest pup, calling him Little Runt. Every time I would come home and they would all run to greet me, I’d call out, ‘Hello, Little Runt!’ and he would jump on my legs. The day we had to gather them up and bring them to the Humane Society was a very painful one. I cried and cried. I considered keeping Little Runt, but we already had 4 dogs and I knew Little Runt would not stay little for very long. Being a puppy, he had an excellent chance of finding a happy and loving home. So we gathered all 5 puppies up and put them in the truck. Missy was upset as we started to drive away with them, which was hard to watch. But she was OK by the time we got home.

I went to check on the puppies a week or so later. They’d all been adopted.