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Indigenous community leaders held a lecture series in Washington D.C. this week to discuss successes in federal partnerships to boost tourism, as well as a path forward to build on that success.
But federal assistance that was expected nearly a decade ago is arriving slower than anticipated.
For the Mountain West News Bureau, Dylan Simard reports.
When President Obama signed the NATIVE Act in 2016, Native leaders were hopeful that it would stimulate a vibrant tourism industry in their communities. It got off to a good start.
But Wizipan Little Elk Garriott says it tapered off within a year – and leaders want to get it started again.
Garriott is with the Interior Department and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
“The act continues to really have a strong mandate, and everyone is supportive – the tribes, Congress – and it’s really about how can we implement and how can we continue to think about strengthening these efforts.”
Garriot discussed long term plans for getting federal agencies on board with the NATIVE Act.
It mandated that certain agencies make resources available for economic development surrounding tourism in Indigenous communities.
Father Oleksa and Rhonda McBride after an interview in 2016.
Many Alaska Native people are members of the Russian Orthodox Church and observe Christmas in early January with a seven-day celebration called “Slaviq” or “Slavvy,” which comes from the Russian word, glory.
For many this year, there will be something missing from this holiday – the presence of Father Michael Oleksa, who died in November at the age of 76.
Father Oleksa was probably one of the most well-traveled clergy in Alaska, serving Native communities from Kwethluk to Kodiak and across the Aleutian chain.
KNBA’s Rhonda McBride knew him personally and shares a few of her memories.
Father Michael Oleksa was a priest, a teacher, scholar, historian, and much more – but the thread that ran through it all was his storytelling.
And like many Alaskans, I have a favorite one from his time living in the Southwestern Alaska village of Kwethluk, where he was studying for the priesthood.
It was there he met his wife Xenia who, at 4 feet, 11 inches tall, was small in stature, but a tower of strength and not to be trifled with.
When they first crossed paths, Xenia says he kept winking at her.
“I thought he was very brazen myself,” she said, with that matter-of-fact touch of dry, Yup’ik humor.
But she must have over gotten over her initial annoyance, because they soon married and Father Oleksa found himself in the heart of Yup’ik life, the well spring of many stories like this one he told me years ago about a hunt for muskrats.
“And we came home one afternoon with about a dozen muskrats. And the lady of the house, who was my Yup’ik teacher, Annabelle Olick, she was delighted. She skinned and gutted these muskrats. Then she set the table with washcloths as well as spoons. I knew we were having soup, but the washcloths mystified me. I was soon to find out those were for pukug-ing, a word I had not yet learned.”
Pukug in Yugtun, or the Yup’ik language, is to eat tiny bits of meat, that cling to the bone – which you patiently pick away at with your fingers.
“At the end of the meal, my teacher, Annabelle, came to me and said, ‘Are you done?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ but she didn’t look happy about my answer.”
As he looked around the table, he saw that everyone else was still pukug-ing their muskrats, so he did his best to copy them.
“And with a lot of extra effort and noise (makes sucking and slurping sounds), that’s the Yup’ik word, “pukug-ing” – removing the meat from every little bone.”
For Father Oleksa, this was his first lesson in Yup’ik etiquette.
“Waste nothing. You consume everything as a sign of gratitude and respect, even for the animals who have died to keep you alive.”
It was the spirituality of living off the land that he shared in lectures across the state, to bring about an appreciation for Alaska Native culture and history.
One of his lasting legacies, his work to canonize Matushka Olga, or Mother Olga, the Russian Orthodox church’s first female saint in North America and wife of a Kwethluk priest known for her healing love, especially for abused women, was also a cause close to Father Oleksa’s heart.
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