Yupik Eskimo Youth Embrace Subsistence Living and Renew Community

RUSSIAN MISSION, AK—The riverbank echoes with the sounds of a giant bell: people are hitting the bottoms of their aluminum boats with wooden clubs, to scare the salmon into drifting gill nets. Eighteen year-old Art Vaska and his younger brother Carl have caught six king salmon so far, gracefully detangling wet nets and extracting the huge silver fish.

The Vaska brothers are skilled hunters and fishermen in the Yupik Eskimo tradition—a native subsistence culture dating back thousands of years. And at Russian Mission School, the one public school in their remote Alaskan village, they are beginning to link traditional ways with classroom learning. Alongside qualities taught by their father, like patience and observation, they know how to calculate the geometric design needed to build a salmon drying rack; how microscopic rings on a single fish scale evidence the years of that fish’s life.

When asked about participating in what is called Subsistence Education, Carl says simply, “It’s a good way—it makes me have more concentration to be here.” Fifteen year-old Rachel Evan grins mischievously and declares, “Tell all the other kids in America that they should come up to Russian Mission and try it out! It's pretty cool."

From What Kids Can Do
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Update 10/13/09
Pete Brown, volunteer fire chief for the village of Aniak and founder of the Dragon Slayers, recently learned he is terminally ill and doesn't have much time left. He asked friends to arrange a goodbye bash in the small village and hundreds attended the celebration of his life. We admire Chief Brown and thank him for his dedication to the Dragon Slayers. His spirit will live on through the lives of the many girls who have pursued careers in the medical field because of him. Read more

Angels in the Snow

ANIAK, AK— On Christmas Day 2002, 14-year-old Erinn Marteney was at her best friend’s house when she smelled smoke. Marteney and the friend gathered up the friend’s four younger siblings and ran out. While standing barefoot in the snow, watching smoke pour out of the windows, Marteney noticed a 2-year-old child missing and ran back into the house.

By that time the walls, ceilings and carpets were in flames. “I knew to drop to my knees and follow the wall,” Marteney says. “I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face and it hurt to breathe.” Undaunted, Marteney found the boy huddled behind the bathroom door and rushed him out to safety.

For most teens, the decision to run into a burning building could be a costly one. But Marteney is trained to save lives. She’s a member of the Dragon Slayers, an all-girl firefighting and emergency medical team in Aniak, Alaska.

From Connect for Kids
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Dragon Slayers, the Sequel

Two years ago Connect for Kids (CFK) profiled on their website an all-girl firefighting and emergency medical team in Aniak, Alaska, called the "Dragon Slayers." It was a terrific story, and CFK kindly allowed What Kids Can Do to reprint it on our website ("Angels in the Snow"). Since then, the Aniak girls have been growing up, and so has the program. CFK's reporter Holly St. Lifer recently revisited the group. Here is her sequel.

The Alaskan community of Aniak, pop. 572, doesn't offer many of the things young people growing up seem to want—no multiplex, no music scene, not many jobs. So when fire chief Pete Brown was interviewed two years ago for our first report on the Dragon Slayers, the all-girl firefighting and emergency medical team he established, he expected most of the girls to eventually be catching a permanent ride out of town. "Unless you want a job loading and unloading planes, there's not much to strive for here," he said then. "These kids are overachievers. We'd love to keep them, but most won't stick around after they graduate."

To his surprise, and to the village's benefit, Brown was wrong.

From Connect for Kids
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First Alaskans Institute
First Alaskans Institute helps develop the capacities of Alaska Native people and their communities to meet the social, economic and educational challenges of the future, while fostering positive relationships among all segments of our society.

Erin & Hig's Alaska Trekking Page
In 2005 and 2006 we journeyed through the rivers downstream of a proposed gold/copper mine in the Bristol Bay watershed.