On the stepe of the Chugach Mountains north of Anchorage.<\/p>\n
I’m still trying to figure out Alaska. \u00a0When i was here in 2002 I was up in Fairbanks, working largely with non-Native people doing peacemaking work in the school system. \u00a0Fairbanks struck me as an interesting place, one in which you defintely had to have a deep intention to live in. \u00a0I enjoyed the people and the land – which is incredible – and I liked the feel of the town, which in all of its glory and ugliness, felt like northern towns everywhere.<\/p>\n
Anchorage is a different beast. \u00a0There is very little beauty in it. \u00a0It’s a pretty utilitarian place, especially once you leave the small core of downtown, which is actually full of little treasures like restaurants Orso and Ginger. \u00a0Other than some ice sculptures and snow sculptures in a cool town square, it is mostly a city designed to huddle against the elements and get you from one place to another on four or more wheels. \u00a0What pieces of interesteing difference there are – the Namaste Shangri-la curry house for example, or Ray’s Vietnamese – lie hidden away in cold suburban plazas surrounded by divided roads, equipment dealerships and super stores. \u00a0There is community here for sure, and its a darn interesting one, but the physical look of the city leaves much to be desired.<\/p>\n
But the land around here, the Chugak Mountains rising up behind us and the moose languidly traipsing across the frozen golf course in front of us, the majestic mud flats of Cook Inlet…all of that is very magical, very wild, very much a landscape that does not tolerate mindless interaction. \u00a0It is important not to make mistakes here or do things that are out of alignment with what the land wants.<\/p>\n
That is an art of course, and that is what we are learning here nrunning an Art of Hosting with 25 emerging Native leaers from all over the state, from the Arctic north slope, to the remote west coast on the Bering Strait, to the storm battered Aluetian Islands in the south, the rainsforests and glaciers of the south east panhandle and the little towns and villages on the braided rivers and folded mountains of the interior. \u00a0The multiplicity of landscape here is reflected in the people, in the cultures that are in this room, in the questions that are among us and the gifts we are uncovering.<\/p>\n
And I’m learning something about the state of Native life in Alaska too. \u00a0Since 1971 when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement was reached, people have lived not so much as citizens of a community or members of a nation of Tribe, but as shareholders of a corporation. \u00a0And as shareholders, the wealth of the land is reflected in the economic activity that is generated on that land. \u00a0This has resulted in a number of swirling dynamics including accelerated prosperity of some Native communities while at the same time, degradation of the land and subsistence lifestyles are changing, and traditional cultural values meet wealth and the easy money of corporate dividends, with the dividends winning out. \u00a0One of our participants is active in the middle of a massive project between local communities and the proponent of a gold\/copper.molybdenum mine called the Pebble Prospect<\/a> that would combine an open pit and a shaft system in the lake country above Bristol Bay, which is home to one of the most prolific and diverse wild salmon runs left on the planet. \u00a0People are largely lined up against the proposal which stands to affect the salmon and the water and land to the worse, and already jewlers from the UK, the USA and Europe are pledging not to use gold from that mine, but it is not so easy to be black and white when you are a local person whose communities could benefit for a long time from the wealth created from a mine like that. \u00a0Being shareholders of corporations brings people into a very different relationship with their land. \u00a0Better vs. worse, good vs. bad, becomes a slippery polarity. \u00a0Even when it seems obvious what to do.<\/p>\n I have long been suspicious of the benefits of easy and steady money schemes in Native communities like casinos and, here in Alaska, the corporate structure. \u00a0There is no denying that they provide money and resources to people who would otherwise be victims and marginal to the massive development taking place around them, but at what price? \u00a0When your citizenship becomes tied to a dividend paying share, what is the incentive to work for democratic participation? \u00a0In Alaska the power lies with structures that pay the people. \u00a0Even the state government does it, with benefits paid to Alaska citizens from the royalties from oil and gas and mineral development. \u00a0How does a government compete with a corporation when both take on the characteristics of each other? \u00a0What does it mean to be a citizen? \u00a0Who guards the culture? \u00a0Who guards the past and the connection to the land? \u00a0Does it even matter anymore? \u00a0To the young emerging leaders I am working with, and to their families and children, it matters a lot.<\/p>\n Big questions alive in this big country. \u00a0Taking my cue from Africa, where truth is not scarificed at the alter of a happy ending, I notice that finding the truth in all of this is that perhaps what Native people are trying to here is find the best bad ending to deal with, and as the long term evolves, sustain what is needed so that when it all goes away, there is still abundance left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the stepe of the Chugach Mountains north of Anchorage. I’m still trying to figure out Alaska. \u00a0When i was here in 2002 I was up in Fairbanks, working largely with non-Native people doing peacemaking work in the school system. \u00a0Fairbanks struck me as an interesting place, one in which you defintely had to have a deep intention to live in. \u00a0I enjoyed the people and the land – which is incredible – and I liked the feel of the town, which in all of its glory and ugliness, felt like northern towns everywhere. Anchorage is a different beast. \u00a0There …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-nations","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-H9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2677,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}