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Native corporations and tribal organizations, as well as state and federal agencies, have already begun to hold meetings ahead of the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention.
The state’s largest gathering officially gets underway the evening of Wednesday, October 18.
AFN will kick-off with an event to honor veterans. Nicole Stoops, one of organizers for this year’s AFN, says it will feature the work of Bill Hess, who has photographed Alaska Native veterans for more than 40 years.
“There is many in black and white, there are many in color, but they’re all very emotional when you look at them. It’s a beautiful story to be told.”
Three elders, who have served in the military, will share their own stories – Emil Notti, one of the founders of AFN; former Alaska state senator Jerry Ward; and Benno Cleveland, who earned a Purple Heart in Vietnam.
Also that evening, AFN will premiere “One with the Whale”, a documentary that tells the story of a St. Lawrence Island teenager who landed a whale – a big accomplishment that was soon inundated by a wave of criticism from environmental activists.
Stoops says some even made death threats.
“And to have that kind of backlash, really. It shows his emotional turmoil and how his family suffered through that but also persevered through it.”
Stoops says the film will set the tone for the convention and its theme, “Our Ways of Life”, which will explore how values are shaped by a culture’s relationship with the land.
“We have diverse cultures, diverse languages, but the core values are still there. The cultural values that our ways of life are still very similar and how we can work together, especially when it comes to those obstacles that we face as Alaska Natives.”
Each region of the state will be highlighted, followed by panel discussions, in part to heal some of the rifts that occurred last year, when a bitter debate broke out on the last day of the convention over the Western Alaska salmon crisis.
Jesse Beers, cultural stewardship manager for the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians. (Photo: Brian Bull / KLCC)
This Saturday, a western Oregon tribe will celebrate the restoration of its federal recognition.
As KLCC’s Brian Bull reports, that event will happen at a site undergoing its own restoration.
The 1950s saw many tribes’ federal status terminated by Congress, resulting in decades of disruption and loss of ancestral lands.
The Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians were reinstated in 1984, after nearly three decades.
To mark that event, the tribe will hold several events recognizing its sovereignty, including one at the Siuslaw Estuary outside Florence.
Cultural stewardship manager Jesse Beers says this former dairy farm will be restored to its pre-development status, which will benefit salmon.
The restoration will also incorporate Native language and canoeing into its final design.
“Restoring the lands, the waters. Restoring the languages on the landscape, within our own hearts and minds. And restoring all the pieces that were stripped from us during the reservation era, during termination, during the boarding school era, all those things.”
A blessing and naming ceremony will complete the project.
(Courtesy Cherokee Nation)
The Cherokee Nation hosted a gathering of first language and fluent Cherokee speakers on Tuesday at the tribe’s Durbin Feeling Language Center at Tahlequah.
The event is one of the largest gatherings of fluent Cherokee speakers in modern history.
Cherokee Nation First Language & Fluent Cherokee Speaker Gathering at Durbin Feeling Language Center in Tahlequah, Okla. October 10, 2023. (Courtesy Cherokee Nation)
During the gathering, Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. and Deputy Chief Bryan Warner spoke about the tribe’s historic efforts at saving the Cherokee language, and gave a glimpse at some of the tribe’s next steps.
In 2019, the council of the Cherokee Nation approved the Durbin Feeling Language Preservation Act, a legislation introduced by Chief Hoskin and Chief Warner to provide an initial investment of millions of dollars into Cherokee language efforts – the largest language investment in Cherokee Nation History.
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