Alaska Magazine
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Tim Lydon

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Authentic Alaska

Alussistuaqegcikici! 

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Merry Christmas in Central Yup’ik By the first week of January, most Americans are taking down their Christmas decorations, but for Alaska’s thousands of Orthodox Christians, who, in keeping with the Julian calendar, celebrate Orthodox Christmas on January 7, the holiday season is just getting started. The Orthodox Church in America lists over 90 active Orthodox parishes in Alaska. Most are along the coast from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta southward through southeast Alaska. They are a legacy of early Russian Orthodox influence, with Alaska’s first Russian Orthodox mission established in 1794 at Kodiak. Today, Orthodox Christmas celebrations include the Ukrainian practice of “starring,” where groups travel among homes and villages to sing folk and religious songs while spinning a crafted star that represents the story of the Three Wise Men. These and other practices are often mixed with Alaska Native foods and traditions. On Saint Paul Island, for instance, Slavonic songs…

30-Second Reads

Elements

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The Bitter Winter Wind Chills of Howard Pass Weather gauges that scientists installed in 2011 have recorded phenomenally cold wind chills at Howard Pass (called Akutuq in Inupiaq) in the far western Brooks Range. The pass, which sits at 1,647 feet, forms a tundra plateau between the sprawling Colville and Noatak watersheds. It lies within the Noatak National Preserve over 100 miles north of the villages of Ambler and Kobuk. Early on February 7, 2022, the weather station reported an air temperature of 43 degrees below zero and a 52-mph sustained wind speed, for a ridiculously cold wind chill of 91 below. In February 2013, the wind chill was 99.8 below. Nearly every year, scientists record wind chills colder than minus 70 at the pass. Wind speeds at Howard Pass can exceed 100 mph, especially when atmospheric pressure differences set up between Alaska’s North Slope and the state’s interior. Wind…

Amy Foote with Alaska-grown potatoes.
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Voices of Alaska

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Chef Amy Foote and the Traditional Foods Program of Alaska Native Medical Center As executive chef at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Amy Foote is determined to provide the hospital’s Alaska Native and American Indian patients with traditional foods that are both healthy and culturally meaningful, which Foote says can aid healing. Foote’s kitchen provides 5,000 meals a day to inpatients, outpatients, and visitors at the campus hotel. “Our traditional foods program accepts donations, but we also collaborate to see what can be hunted, fished, gathered, or grown. We have Alaska Native-raised reindeer, wild-caught salmon, and seal donated by Alaska Native hunters. I also work with farms and Alaska Pacific University to grow traditional plants, including hydroponically, so we can get the foods that really heal and comfort our patients. I love my job. It requires building partnerships and sometimes getting people to think differently, like when we…

Members of the 2023 Imago Initiative meet in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Imago: Re-imagining Conservation 

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Initiative brings new ideas on public lands management National parks and wildlife refuges are revered as places to find healthy habitat, clean water, and opportunities for recreation and reflection. But the story of our public lands is also marked by mistreatment and displacement of Indigenous people, including here in Alaska. Now, in a project called the Imago Initiative, Indigenous people, federal policy makers, and conservationists are re-thinking how to manage public lands to better align with Indigenous traditions. And they’re starting at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the nation’s largest refuge. Meda DeWitt of The Wilderness Society explains that the initiative is meant to foster on-the-land dialogue that integrates Indigenous knowledge and perspective into existing public lands management. Last summer, DeWitt was among a group of Indigenous representatives, conservation group leaders, and agency officials who discussed the initiative while camped in the remote refuge for over a week. “When you’re…

Thermosyphons like these that stabilize permafrost at the Fairbanks International Airport are also being used in arctic ice cellars.
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Local Fare

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Can Modern Technology Save Ancient Food Storage Techniques in a Warming Arctic? For many centuries, people along the Beaufort and Chukchi seas have preserved whale meat and other foods by digging ice cellars, called siġḷuat, into the permafrost. The cellars can store hundreds of pounds of whale meat, more than any modern household freezer could hold. And North Slope residents like Doreen Lovett, who is director of natural resources for the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), say they are better at preserving freshness and flavor. Cleaning and maintaining a siġḷuat is also tightly tied to Indigenous whaling practices. In recent years, thawing of permafrost due to anthropogenic climate change has led siġḷuat to leak or collapse, threatening both essential food supplies and long-held cultural practices. In response, ICAS is awarding grants to use long metal pipes filled with refrigerant, called thermosyphons, to protect siġḷuats. The pipes are drilled…

The National Native American Veterans Memorial.
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Native American Veterans Memorial dedicated

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Ceremony included Alaska Natives On Veterans Day, 2022, over 1,500 tribal members from across the United States, including Alaska Natives, participated in a dedication ceremony for the National Native American Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The memorial, completed in 2020, is the first Washington, D.C. monument to honor the military service of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. The monument was designed by Harvey Pratt, a Marine Corps veteran and member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma who served in the Vietnam War. Pratt’s design is intended to include commonalities among tribal groups but also to respect the uniqueness of the nation’s many hundreds of Indigenous cultures. The monument consists of a large stainless-steel circle balanced on a carved stone drum. It is set in a natural area that includes wetlands, benches for gathering or quiet reflection, lances for hanging prayer flags or other mementos, and water…

Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy principal Eldri Waid Westmoreland.
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Language and Culture Program expands in Juneau Schools

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Lingítin the Classroom A Juneau School District Lingít language and culture program that began in 2000 is expanding. Through a Sealaska Heritage Institute grant and support from the school district, the program recently hired its first permanent principal and is now available to middle school students. In May, the school district hired Eldri Waid Westmoreland as the program’s new principal. Westmoreland, who is Lingít, taught at the preschool, elementary, and middle school levels over three decades. She also owns Math Raven, an Indigenous education, research, and curriculum firm. Molly Box, who served as interim principal for the program for several years, describes it as an elective curriculum that is place-based and uses oral narrative themes and stories often connected to seasonal harvest activities. “It’s very connected to the land and the Lingít culture,” says Box. In addition to hiring Westmoreland, the Sealaska grant will bring in new teachers, additional help…

Anchorage City Parks
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Hidden Histories in Anchorage’s City Parks 

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Each of the 223 parks has a story The Municipality of Anchorage manages 223 parks covering 10,946 acres. Some, like Kincaid Park, are sprawling, while others are pocketed away in urban neighborhoods. Each has a unique story, including these three: Delaney Park (the “Park Strip” along 9th Ave): This downtown centerpiece hosts military monuments and summertime fairs and music. It was first cleared as a firebreak in 1917, then used as a golf course and an airstrip. In the 1920s, it was lined with brothels, which Mayor James Delaney ordered shuttered in the 1930s. Kincaid Park: Stretching between Turnagain Arm and Knik Arm, Kincaid is a local favorite for biking, disc golf, and miles of groomed and lighted ski trails. It was withdrawn from the Chugach National Forest in 1915 and later served as a Nike-Hercules missile battery before the park was pieced together beginning in the 1960s. It is…

Alaska Native historian Holly Miowak Guise
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Alaskan Voices

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Alaska Native Historian Holly Guise on the Value of Oral Histories Alaska Native historian Holly Miowak Guise (Iñupiaq) reflects on how recorded oral accounts connect Alaskans and incorporate Indigenous voices into today’s historical narratives. “Oral history is a powerful way to reach students, academics, and the public, enabling listeners to connect with a speaker, hear about their life, and perhaps more readily empathize with them. It’s also important for integrating Indigenous perspectives missing from Western archives. Oral histories are meant to be listened to. Even when a transcript is available, it’s best to listen to the audio, which offers human voice, character, intonation, and the interactions between the interviewer and interviewee. Today, websites or YouTube channels allow people to hear oral histories from their homes or classrooms. I created a website, ww2alaska.com, during a postdoctoral year at the University of California Irvine that hosts testimonies from Unangax̂ survivors of relocation…

Arctic fox
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Species Profile

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Arctic Fox Joins Seasonal Changes in Alaska The arctic fox is a lively and iconic resident of the north. It lives across treeless coastal areas from the Aleutians to the northern arctic coast and east to the Canadian border. Arctic foxes in the Aleutian and Pribilof islands have a blue color phase that is dark or charcoal colored year-round, although it is lighter in winter. Arctic foxes elsewhere in the state are brown in summer but by November sport a luxurious white winter coat. The arctic fox is a different species than the slightly larger red fox, which is found more broadly across Alaska. Both foxes are omnivorous, but due to its tundra habitat, the arctic fox’s diet often relies on small mammals, including lemmings and tundra voles, nesting seabirds such as puffins and murres, or sometimes berries, eggs, and carrion.

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