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- [00:00]
Wesley Early
Support for Alaska Public Media On Demand comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two U.S. territories.
- [00:19]
John Sturgeon
I'm not even sure it's a hunting thing. It's just a human thing. We're hunters. They're hunters.
- [00:24]
Wesley Early
Normally at odds over fish and game, Safari Club members and Kipnuk subsistence hunters share a deer hunt together. From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Wednesday, December 24th. Good evening. I'm Wesley Early. Also tonight, a look at unique holiday celebrations at communities across the state.
- [00:41]
Kyle Tyler
You know, for us, this is kind of a send off. You know, it's good to everybody gets to go for a boat ride and.
- [00:48]
Wesley Early
You know those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. Governor Mike Dunleavy has chosen two Mat Su Republicans to fill vacant state House seats. In a statement today, Dunleavy announced the appointment of Wasilla resident Steve St. Clair and Sutton resident Garrett Nelson to the state House of Representatives. Both seats were vacated when George Rauscher of Sutton and Kathy Tilton of Wasilla were chosen by the governor to fill two vacancies in the Senate. Republican Senators Mike Schauer and Shelley Hughes both vacated their seats to focus on gubernatorial campaigns shower for lieutenant governor and Hughes for governor. Nelson will replace Rauscher as representative of House District 29. He's currently the chair of the Sutton Community Council and has lived in the area for seven years. According to the governor's statement, St. Clair will fill Tilton's seat representing House District 26. Officials with the governor's office say St. Clair is a retired military police officer who's lived in Wasilla for 15 years. Both Nelson and St. Clair will have to be approved by a majority of House Republicans in order to be confirmed by Alaska's next legislative session begins on January 26th of next year. The Alaska chapter of Safari Club International took a group of men from Kipnuk deer hunting last month. The hunters were evacuees from a storm that ravaged the western Alaska coast, unleashed by Typhoon Ha. Long after more than a month of staying in shelters and hotel rooms in Anchorage. They were quick to accept the invitation. And as KNB's Rhonda McBride tells us, what transpired turned out to be more than just a hunt.
- [02:35]
Rhonda McBride
The Safari Club and Alaska Native subsistence hunters have often been on the opposite side in debates over fish and game management. And some who have followed the politics over the years find it puzzling that the Safari Club reached out to help Kipnik hunters displaced by the storm But John Sturgeon, a longtime safari club member, says this shouldn't be a surprise.
- [02:59]
John Sturgeon
I'm not even sure it's a hunting thing. It's just a human thing. We're hunters. They're hunters.
- [03:03]
Rhonda McBride
Sturgeon helped to organize the hunt.
- [03:05]
John Sturgeon
We have the resources to help. And them eating wild game and going out after wild game is really important to them. And we just said, well, this is something that we can do to help, especially at Christmas time.
- [03:16]
Rhonda McBride
What started out with just five hunters snowballed. The evacuees didn't have the right clothes or gear, which they either lost in the storm or or had to leave behind. Club members loaned them guns and scopes. One dug into his own pocket to outfit them for the hunt. The safari club bought them hunting licenses, chartered a boat from Whittier to Montague island, where the men took nine Sitka blacktail deer.
- [03:44]
Daryl John
We were hunting deer in a beach.
- [03:46]
Lacey John
Which I never ever thought I would be hunting.
- [03:49]
Rhonda McBride
This was the first time Daryl John had gone hunting since the ocean came, carried his house away.
- [03:56]
Daryl John
When I was gutting deer, I knew my family was gonna eat something.
- [04:02]
Lacey John
Made me feel like I was providing for my family again.
- [04:05]
Rhonda McBride
Although Darryl never dreamed he'd go hunting in such a faraway place like Prince William Sound, he suddenly felt more like his old self.
- [04:14]
Lacey John
Made me feel like a man again.
- [04:17]
Rhonda McBride
When the hunters returned, they wanted to share their catch with other storm evacuees. Suddenly, plans mushroomed into a feast to than 200. The Safari Club collected donations of wild fish and game, which included a seal from Kodiak Island.
- [04:36]
Lacey John
Seals have a strong scent, so that was the first thing I smelled.
- [04:41]
Rhonda McBride
Daryl John's wife, Lacey, knew right away what was cooking when she walked into the commercial kitchen at Alaska Pacific University.
- [04:49]
Wesley Early
The seal that was baking, it smelled like home.
- [04:53]
Alena Neidson
I just breathed in.
- [04:56]
Rhonda McBride
Lacey and other women from Kipnock came to help prepare some of the dishes for the feast. There were other community volunteers, like chef Amy Foote.
- [05:05]
Caroline Vanhemert
We're braising the whole seal with a bone on. We'll cook it all day, nice and slow until it falls off the bone.
- [05:11]
Rhonda McBride
The seal had to be skinned and butchered, but one of the volunteers figured out how to do that. There was also elk stew with meat donated from a fog nap.
- [05:21]
Caroline Vanhemert
So I'm gonna add a little more Worcestershire and maybe a little bit more pepper. What do you think?
- [05:27]
Rhonda McBride
Nice. The deer meat that the Kipnuk hunters harvested went into big buffet pans of shepherd's pie topped with a fluffy orange layer of sweet potatoes.
- [05:39]
Lacey John
I was told by my elder to come help and make fry bread.
- [05:43]
Caroline Vanhemert
So I'm here.
- [05:46]
Rhonda McBride
Margaret Tarrant oversees the fry bread brigade. She drops pieces of dough into the oil and fishes them out, while Elizabeth John, a Kipnuk elder, keeps her supplied with dough. She has the strong hands necessary to knead it into a solly ax or fry bread. Elizabeth's hotel doesn't allow guests to cook in their rooms, so it feels good to be back in the kitchen.
- [06:12]
Caroline Vanhemert
I'm missing my cooking. I'm missing flour, seal meat.
- [06:17]
Rhonda McBride
But more than the food, Elizabeth misses family. We're all scared to tearing anchors, but the feast will help everyone reconnect.
- [06:26]
Caroline Vanhemert
I'm looking forward to see my family.
- [06:29]
Rhonda McBride
My family's together again.
- [06:32]
Lacey John
I know it's going to be a very healing experience.
- [06:35]
Rhonda McBride
What started out as nine deer harvested from Prince William Sound has turned into something bigger. For Kyle Tyler, the new president of the Alaska Safari Club, this has been.
- [06:46]
Kyle Tyler
Free of power politics. We're neighbors helping neighbors.
- [06:49]
Wesley Early
We're building partners in life. I have a group chat going with.
- [06:52]
Kyle Tyler
Five people that I would have otherwise never met.
- [06:54]
Rhonda McBride
Tyler says it's likely to be a long time before the Kipnu hunters will be able to go home and subsist. So Safari Club members are making plans to share knowledge about hunting grounds near Anchorage. Tyler says the relationship goes both ways. He says the Kipnuk men are expert hunters who can teach them a lot about how to handle big game. But then there's the game of politics. In recent days, the Alaska Federation of Natives blasted out an email to its members calling on them to oppose the Safari Club's latest initiative to reduce the size of the federal subsistence board. If that happens, AFN says the tribes will lose their voice. But that's a battle outside the bubble of this kitchen. For now, Lacy John shows Safari Club members how to make Eskimo ice cream or a Gouda. She uses her hands to whip up Crisco and sugar. After 20 minutes of work, it finally turns into a creamy froth. Then she adds frozen berries. The women share funny stories as they work. One encourages them to pick up their big stainless steel bowls and sit on the floor and stir like they would at home in the village. But this is Anchorage, where two worlds have come together to share what matters most. And to think it all started with a hunt. In anchorage, I'm Rhonda McBride.
- [08:33]
Wesley Early
Still to come on Alaska News, Nightly Gamble. Teachers work to keep drumming and dancing.
- [08:37]
Daryl John
Alive, keep learning, keep know who songs whose. The little story behind the song that's ahead.
- [08:46]
Wesley Early
Stay with US One person is dead after a fatal fire in a mobile home in South Anchorage this morning. Anchorage Fire Department officials say they received a report of the fire at around 5am at the Diamond Estates Trailer Court. When firefighters arrived, they reported half of a mobile home was covered in flames and smoke. Officials say one person was found dead in the trailer. The victim's name has not yet been publicly released. The origin of the blaze is currently under investigation by the Fire Department, and Anchorage police have also been notified of the fatality. Fire Department officials released few details about the incident this afternoon beyond noting it was currently unknown if there was a functioning smoke alarm in the home. This is the third fatal fire in Anchorage this year. Meanwhile, a Kotzebue man is without a home after a fire on Saturday night. Kotzubi Fire Chief Joshua Funk says the fire started at around 10pm at House 907 on shore.
- [09:40]
Kyle Tyler
There was one occupant in the building. He was able to get out safely. He had two pet dogs outside the building that firefighters were able to get out of the smoke and get to safety as well.
- [09:52]
Wesley Early
The house's occupant, Stevie Stein, told Funk he believes the fire might have started when his Toyo stove malfunctioned. Funk says nine fire department staff members and two volunteers responded to the fire. The crew used a fire ladder and engine plus two ambulances to keep firefighters warm as they worked on the fire. Funk says with temperatures well below zero, icing made fighting the fire more difficult. He said the fire burned hot enough to vaporize the smoke, which can ignite or flash burn, posing additional risks to the firefighters. And there was another threat. The fire was less than 100ft from a fuel facility owned by Crowley Fuels. Funk says he was thankful that the wind blew in a direction away from the tank farm.
- [10:31]
Kyle Tyler
So I was thanking God inciting that fire that that wind held because if the wind would have shifted, we would add a whole lot harder fire to extinguish.
- [10:42]
Wesley Early
Funk says city and volunteer firefighters worked on the fire until about 4am the next morning, Funk said. Ultimately the building was a total loss.
- [10:50]
Kyle Tyler
It is fully, fully damaged. The roof caved in. There is no way to move back in or to salvage the house. All of all of his possessions were pretty much destroyed. I doubt he'll be able to salvage very much from the remains of the house, funk said.
- [11:08]
Wesley Early
Stein is receiving help from his family and other organizations and looking for permanent housing. An Anchorage man was diagnosed with mpox or monkeypox this month. It's according to the state section of epidemiology. A spokesperson says the man likely contracted the virus through sexual contact outside the state. It's likely an isolated case that doesn't pose a risk to others in the state. Dr. Joe McLaughlin is the state epidemiologist. He says it's important for Alaskans to know that Even though the US Mpoke emergency ended in 2023, there's still a risk of contracting the virus.
- [11:50]
Kyle Tyler
MPOX is circulating in the United States. It's circulating in other countries as well, and it's just a plane ride away from Alaska.
- [11:59]
Wesley Early
McLaughlin says this is the first confirmed case in the state in more than a year. Since MPOX was first identified in 2022, the state has only recorded six cases of the viral. State epidemiologists recommend that anyone at higher risk of contracting the virus get the vaccine, which is highly effective. Those at higher risk, McLaughlin says, include people with multiple sexual partners and those having sex with people whose sexual histories are unknown.
- [12:24]
Kyle Tyler
People need to be aware that if they're going to have sexual contact with folks in the lower 48 or anonymous sexual contact, then that does put them at risk for exposure to mpox. And if they think that that is something that could happen in the be a good idea to go ahead and get vaccinated to prevent MPOX infection.
- [12:46]
Wesley Early
Symptoms of MPOX include flu like symptoms and a rash. The bumps of the rash typically start flat, then become raised, then blister and scab. It's usually mild, but in rare cases can be fatal. The state urges healthcare providers to test anyone with the symptomatic rash, regardless of their travel or sexual history, and to report any suspected MPOX cases to the state section of Epidemiology. Meanwhile, three Hanes artists were recently recognized by the Rasmussen foundation, which announced its individual artist awardees earlier this month. Writer, biologist and part time resident Caroline vanhemert was among them. She recently finished sailing the Northwest Passage with her family. That trip is among the adventures that will inform her new memoir, which is about finding hope in the natural world amid climate change and environmental collapse. Vanhemert sat down with Avery Elphelt with KHNS to talk about the $10,000 award and the project it'll help fund.
- [13:39]
Caroline Vanhemert
I'm working on a book project right now, so that's what the Rasmussen specifically is supporting or helping to support. And it's a combination of artist time and I'll be using some of my funds for some specific travel, hopefully do a little bit more in southeast Alaska not too far from home and then maybe make a trip up to the Arctic as well.
- [14:00]
Avery Elphelt
You said the award will specifically support your new book. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? What's it called? What's the focus and where are you at in the process right now?
- [14:08]
Caroline Vanhemert
Yeah, so that it's tentatively titled Upwelling, which actually comes from a moment when I was sitting at our cabin on Lynn Canal and looking out and watching a bunch of gulls beat up wind on a day probably very similar to what is happening now with some fierce north winds and trying to understand kind of what they were doing and why they were doing it. And that led me into lots of other questions about the exceptions and extensions to the natural world that often get overlooked. And so the book is, it's a memoir, but it's kind of a collection of both home based and travel based pieces, really, each of them starting with a specific encounter with a wild species that then helps me contemplate bigger questions about climate change and also our relationship to the natural world.
- [14:56]
Avery Elphelt
So in the Rasmussen kind of blurb about your award specifically, it says you'll work on your memoir, Upwellings to confront the collapse of your wildlife health research. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? I guess what, what they might mean by collapse.
- [15:13]
Caroline Vanhemert
Yeah, so I think in terms of collapse, I'm sort of referring to some of the ecological and environmental situations that have been unfolding. And I think it's, it's an alternative again to that narrative of gloom. So we are so inundated with, you know, the story of kind of the end of the world as we know it, which is not entirely untrue, but I think trying to draw on examples from the natural world of existing creativity and sort of solutions and things that we don't always think about when we look outside and see these massive changes.
- [15:45]
Avery Elphelt
Has there been like an example of collapse or change or shift that you've experienced and that's made a large impact on you or that you think has been particularly compelling or jarring to observe?
- [15:57]
Caroline Vanhemert
Where we live on Lynn Canal is very close to the Davidson Glacier. So anyone who spent any time in or around Haines knows that feature and knows how rapidly it's changing. So it's hard not to look at things like that and feel sort of the overwhelm of how rapidly our landscape is shifting. Sometimes there's a sense that you can almost run from the bad news by going to the places that we love. But I think this book has come about in part because there isn't really a running from those experiences so much as trying to figure out how do you grapple with them and maybe what are some of the ways that we can both acknowledge the state of change but gather the joy and the wonder that I think ultimately motivates all of us to think differently and maybe live differently in a larger collective way.
- [16:52]
Wesley Early
That was Caroline Vanhemert speaking with KHNs about her recent Rasmussen Award, which will fund her latest project. During the short and cold days of December, Alaskans find ways to bring light, connection and joy to the holiday season. Alena Neidson with the Alaska Desk has a few scenes from unique celebrations from across the state.
- [17:12]
Alena Neidson
On Tuesday morning, realtor Bennett McGrath gets up before 6am to start squeezing lemons and cutting rockfish in her home in Petersburg in southeast Alaska. Her son Lincoln, is here too, standing up on a stool and helping. You're missing the bowl.
- [17:30]
Caroline Vanhemert
I am okay.
- [17:32]
Alena Neidson
The family is making ceviche for julebucking. It's a local Christmas tradition with Norwegian roots. In Scandinavian countries, yulla buckers dress up and go from house to house asking for treats and drinks. But in Petersburg, local businesses treat everyone in town to drinks, dishes, desserts and pastry. So days before Christmas, everyone in town, including McGrath, is busy cooking, pickling and smoking to prepare for the feast.
- [18:00]
Rhonda McBride
It really fills the cup. You know, it makes you feel home.
- [18:04]
Caroline Vanhemert
It makes you feel a sense of.
- [18:05]
Rhonda McBride
Community, and I love giving back.
- [18:08]
Alena Neidson
McGrath says that what she loves the most about the tradition is that it gives her a chance to see and connect with everyone. Farther north, Utkahevik residents gathered last weekend for Blue Christmas, a tradition to create space for people who are struggling during holidays. Rachel Amavai is a coordinator with the Arctic Adventist Church that organized the event.
- [18:30]
Kyle Tyler
Typically, the holiday season should be a joyous time for most people, but that isn't always the case, especially for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one for the first time.
- [18:41]
Alena Neidson
Blue Christmas was a day long event with workshops and speeches about coping with grief, as well as prayers, songs and a candlelight vigil. The culmination was a reveal of the snow sculpture depicting Blanket Toss or Naluukatak. Inupiaq sculptors spent several days chiseling the snow blocks into the shapes of snowy figures holding a blanket with a child soaring above it. The end result represented how the young generation rises with community support. Back down south in Kodiak, a dozen vessels traveled together through the New Island Channel during the Harbor Lights Festival boat parade on December 20, when James Stevens, a commercial fisherman, went to sign up for the parade, he saw that his name was already on the list. Turns out his 17 year old daughter Bridget outpaced him.
- [19:34]
Kyle Tyler
Mom and her had this planned before I even knew. Overall, it went really good. A lot of fireworks during the parade.
- [19:41]
Alena Neidson
Boats small and large blinked and honked on a chilly night on the water. They were adorned with colorful string lights and some boasted an inflatable Santa, a Christmas tree or even a fire in a barrel on board. For Stevens, the parade was a chance to spend time with his friends and family before his crew goes out cod fishing in the Bering Sea until April.
- [20:04]
Kyle Tyler
You know, for us this is kind of a send off. You know, it's good to everybody gets to go for a boat ride and.
- [20:11]
Alena Neidson
You know, Some participants keep the lights on their boats through the holiday season, bringing a festive spirit to the harbor. Other Alaskan cities, towns and villages are also holding parades, truck rides with Santa Fe and games to celebrate the holidays. With help from Hannah Flor in Petersburg, I am Alena Naiden in Anchorage.
- [20:32]
Wesley Early
Dancing and drumming are essential to Siberian Yupik culture because they've been passed down by ancestors. Josie Ungut and Janessa Nunguk are dance and high school students in the village of gamble on St. Lawrence island in the Bering Sea. They wanted to learn about how different dance and drum was back when their teacher was young.
- [20:58]
Lacey John
We have Chris Pitu drumming for some students in a classroom in Campbell. He's been teaching this native dance class for over a year now. The younger kids are learning more dance from the older kids. Traditionally we use walrus stomach for the skin of the drum, but the drums they're using are not traditional. When performing, the women wear modern traditional clothing made from fabrics we call them. Kiba.
- [21:37]
Josie Ungut
Petu has been a teacher for so long, he's welcoming and kind to all of us students and he's so respectful to everybody in the community. He says dance was much more strict in the past.
- [21:51]
Daryl John
Only dancers to a song was. If it's that composer's daughter or wife, those were the only ones that danced.
- [22:05]
Lacey John
He says he probably wouldn't have been a drummer if he had grown up in the old days because his parents weren't drummers. Bittu tells us back then women would practice dance moves, but if a dancer made a wrong move, the older woman would throw a shoe at them.
- [22:24]
Daryl John
They had a big pile of shoes and I don't know how it was, but there were some girls dancing. But once a little wrong move, they would be throwing a woman threw at the girl.
- [22:41]
Josie Ungut
Long ago, the traditions were a lot stronger than today. We would be so happy to have experienced that. But then we are grateful that we didn't have to be put in that position where we get shoes thrown at us. I would be so scared. I wouldn't even dance, but I wouldn't.
- [23:02]
Lacey John
Have a choice and I would be scared also. Bindu tells us a sad experience about missionaries coming here last century and saying what our people couldn't do, that drumming, dancing, hunting, eating walrus and speaking our language was evil.
- [23:21]
Daryl John
That was when at one time the drummers listened to the church because all since the church first came here, they said it was evil. It was instilled deep in their heart that this was evil, that drums and church don't mix.
- [23:45]
Josie Ungut
Pitu tells us about five years later when the young ministers started working, they realized it wasn't evil and came and apologized. After they apologized, the people here started relearning the songs and dance and made new songs. As the years went by, the tradition slowly became less strict. For about 40 years now, everyone started dancing to any song.
- [24:14]
Lacey John
We ask Bttu how the younger generation can stay connected to these traditions by.
- [24:21]
Daryl John
Still showing up to dance, still learning these moves. Keep learning know who songs whose the little story behind the song.
- [24:34]
Josie Ungut
We also asked him what parts of the tradition are most important to protect.
- [24:40]
Daryl John
Language, I would say of the culture language and how to get the foods and how to prepare them not just as hunters but how to pick greens and storing them, getting them ready to make sour, all the way up to mixing them into the dish, the food.
- [25:05]
Lacey John
Peter says he wants to bring back regular Sunday adults, a dance and drum performance. We would feel so happy to bring those Sunday adults back. In Gamble I'm Sifungavi Jenison Nunguk and.
- [25:21]
Josie Ungut
I'm Billiak Josie Ungat.
- [25:24]
Wesley Early
High school students Nunguk and Ungat wrote and produced that story with help from Alaska Public Media health reporter Rachel Cassandra. It's part of a grant funded collaborative media project focused on health and wellness in rural Alaska. Find out more@alaskapublic.org. And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Rhonda McBride, Rachel Cassandra and Alena Knightley and in Anchorage, Desiree Hagan in Kotzebue, Avery L. Felton Haynes and Josie Ungut and Janissa Nunguk in Gamble. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment email us@newslaskapublic.org Our audio engineers, Crystal Hyde, Lori Townsend, helped produce tonight's show. And I'm Wesley Early. Have a happy and safe holiday.
- [26:27]
John Sturgeon
This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.