Alaska Federation of Natives convention highlights typhoon response and Indigenous cultures
The Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage, while it featured the usual cultural celebrations, socializing and discussions of state and federal policies, had a strong focus this year on a particular subject: the ravages on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of ex-Typhoon Halong.
Speaker after speaker at the convention, the largest annual convention of any kind in Alaska and one of the largest Indigenous gatherings in the nation, referenced the storm. It has displaced more than 1,500 people, killed at least one person and dislodged houses from their foundations. Residents of stricken villages have been airlifted away, with hundreds getting temporary residency in Anchorage. The state’s largest city is about 490 miles east of the evacuees’ home villages, and vastly different in culture and character from the highly rural Indigenous communities.
“My heart with everyone impacted by the recent coastal storms,” Natasha Singh, the president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the keynote speaker on the first day of the convention, said at the start of her address.
“While the damage is so vast, the love for our people is even greater. And even as we feel the pain and the loss, I also feel a sense of inspiration to see so many people reach out to help,” she continued.
A special feature of the convention was a second-floor room at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center that was set aside to collect donations headed to the storm victims. Over two days, as convention proceedings unfolded in the third-floor ballroom, the collection room became filled with boxes of diapers, toiletries, clothing items, shelf-stable food and other necessities that were sorted by volunteers.
On Saturday, the final day, delegates passed a resolution seeking an immediate national disaster declaration, and investment by the federal government in better infrastructure in rural Alaska to protect against future disasters.
The ravages of the remnants of Typhoon Halong demand more than an emergency response, the resolution said. The disaster “has continued to expose vulnerabilities in infrastructure, housing, and emergency preparedness for rural Alaska/extreme remote America, and highlights the need for stronger tribal-state-federal collaboration,” it said.
The call for a national disaster declaration and the aid that would come with it was among a packet of resolutions passed on Saturday. Many of the resolutions concerned food security and efforts to ensure that Alaska Natives can safely practice their traditional fishing and hunting practices.
One highly anticipated convention speaker was former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, who is considered a possible candidate for governor or U.S. Senate.
But Peltola made no campaign announcement.
“I want to preface everything I’m saying with: This is going to be very anticlimactic for everybody, I think,” she said at the start of her speech. “No big announcements, no big declarations.”
Instead, she discussed subsistence – the traditional harvests of wild foods and arts materials – and the legal and environmental threats to its continued practice.
She spoke about the way subsistence ties Alaska Natives to their home regions.
“Those spots, the places that we hunt and fish, they’re like another personality to us,” Peltola said.
She referred to a close friend who recently died. When she was on her deathbed, her family gathered around, Peltola said. “And at one point, they just talked about places. They just said the names of the places where they pick berries, or get whitefish, gather greens. And it was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced, just reciting names.”