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Alaska Native Cultural Groups and Regions
Authentic Alaska

Alaska Native Cultural Groups and Regions 

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NOTE: Map is reprinted with permission from Travel Alaska (travelalaska.com) and Alaska Native Heritage Center (alaskanative.net); edited text is courtesy of Travel Alaska. IÑUPIAQ & ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND YUPIK The Iñupiaq and the St. Lawrence Island Yupik people call themselves the “Real People.” Their homeland covers Alaska’s northern Arctic region, remote and diverse, and accessible primarily by plane. Filled with an amazing array of wildlife and a landscape ranging from coastline to tundra, Alaska Natives here rely on subsistence. SUGPIAQ & UNANGAX The southwest region’s coastal communities and archipelago are defined by rugged shoreline and terrain. Having long depended on the sea for survival, water is central to the Unangax̂ and Sugpiaq way of life. Their homeland stretches from Prince William Sound to Kodiak Island and along the 1,200-mile-long Aleutian Islands Chain. TLINGIT, HAIDA, EYAK, & TSIMSHIAN The southeastern panhandle is home to the Tlingit, Haida, Eyak, and Tsimshian.…

Dr. Rebecca Wilbur with her family on the tundra that so inspires her.
Authentic Alaska

Dr. Rebecca Wilbur

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Clothing for the Tundra from the Tundra When Dr. Rebecca Wilbur moved to Fairbanks in 2005, she was shocked at how different it was from Quinhagak, the Yup’ik village where she grew up. It wasn’t just the trees, which didn’t exist at the mouth of the Kanektok River. Or the fact that her freshman class at the University of Alaska Fairbanks contained more people than her entire village. She missed the Native values that were rooted in the tundra, the deep connection to family and land. Nearly two decades later—after getting married, starting a family, and becoming an optometrist—Rebecca still lives in Fairbanks, and still misses home. She started Tundra Flower Designs in 2021 to create clothing designs that made her feel closer to the tundra. It turned out to be much more. —AS TOLD TO AND EDITED BY MOLLY RETTIG You started drawing these designs as a hobby during…

Members of the 2023 Imago Initiative meet in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
30-Second Reads

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.
30-Second Reads

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…

Authentic Alaska

Building a Home in Paradise

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The saga continues For those of you who missed an earlier column about the land my family purchased in Kodiak, the quick synopsis is this: We bought a couple of gorgeous acres in the only gated community in all of Alaska with an HOA that won’t allow us to camp on it or put a trailer on it (except temporarily or while building). It’s been two years, and so far, the only improvements we’ve made to the parcel are the wrought iron table and chairs I hauled out onto a knoll overlooking Middle Bay, where I sat enjoying a PB&J and dreaming about what it would be like to live there. My spouse has been a-okay with the fact that we’ve not spent any more money on the project, since interest rates are high, and it was my idea in the first place. As it is, I only get out…

White Duck 13’ Regatta Bell Tent
Gear

White Duck 13′ Regatta Bell Tent

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Gear Review I got the Regatta Bell Tent intending to use it for glamping on an island near Juneau. My plan was to set it up in the spring on a piece of property my family owns, so my kids and other family members would have a nice shelter for the summer. It was late in the warm season when I got the tent and, since work had me out of town, I wasn’t able to make good on that dream. Instead, just as the late summer rains and winds were coming to southeast Alaska, I pitched it in my backyard. It was quick, easy, one-man set up. My four-year-old promptly moved in and insisted that we sleep in it for the next three weeks. During the day, he, his younger brother, and their cousins spent hours playing in it. White Duck uses a tent fabric they call DYNADUCK. The…

The trans-Alaska pipeline crosses a river along the Richardson Highway north of Paxson. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, a consortium of oil companies, operates and maintains the 800-mile-long system between Alaska’s North Slope and the coastal community of Valdez in Prince William Sound. Mike Criss,
Authentic Alaska

Pipeline Dreams

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Alaska’s complex relationship with fossil fuels by Larry Persily Oil and gas production —and the good-paying jobs that come with it—have helped fuel the Alaskan economy for decades, and likely will for the near future. The far future is less certain. The industry’s tax and royalty revenues to the state treasury have allowed Alaskans to enjoy life without a personal income tax or a state sales tax—plus, they receive an annual dividend from investment earnings of the state’s 46-year-old oil-wealth savings account. But there are a lot fewer of those jobs. And there is a lot less oil flowing through the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, putting a strain on the state budget. Still, the industry is an essential part of Alaska’s economy. Pay is still good, but fewer jobs Oil and gas jobs are among the highest paying in Alaska. State Department of Labor statistics put the average oil company wage…

My View North
30-Second Reads

A Very short History of Alaska

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Spoiler alert: it doesn’t include everything My family’s history in Alaska goes back to just before statehood, when my parents, who hadn’t yet met, each moved here for work and adventure. To me, those origins—my origins—seem distant, but through other lenses, our time here is a mere blip on the screen of existence. History, this issue’s theme, is messy, multi-layered, and fascinating. And it’s always told from a certain perspective. This region’s past didn’t begin with statehood, of course, nor with overseas explorers, nor with Indigenous cultures. When did it start, then? With the dinosaurs roaming ancient lands? When plate tectonics and volcanism were building Alaska’s mountains?  When we decided on this theme, I thought, “How should we narrow it down? What to include? Leave out?” As happens with each issue, the process is part logical planning and part chance depending on what ideas writers pitch us and what photos…

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