EXPLORE ALASKA
MODULE III
I recently traveled to Anchorage and flew back two days later on Alaska Air’s “milk run,” which provides service from Anchorage to Juneau with stops in Cordova and Yakutat. The view as we approached Cordova was of a wide, long beach/wetland, curling streams flowing broadside across the beach, now and then a straight mark that I told myself couldn’t be a road. In later research, I learned that I had been looking at a length of the Copper River Delta, part of which is recognized by the Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network as possessing “Hemispheric Importance” (Audubon). The Audubon Society calls this area “the single most important stopover site for Western Sandpiper and the Pacific population of the Dunlin.” Even my relatively brief glimpse of the mountains, waterways, beaches, and wetlands that have been formed here over geologic time convinced me that the place is significant indeed, not only to the countless shorebirds that find it such a rich stopping place in their migrations, but also to the many animals and fish that succeed so well in this environment, and to the people who are drawn here by the same resources that attract and nurture so many other examples of abundant life.
http://iba.audubon.org/iba/profileReport.do?siteId=2716&navSite=search&pagerOffset=0&page=1
The effect of our environment on our lives is evident in all of the land that is now Alaska. Although ecoregions are defined by vegetation and climate, our understanding of our environment is also shaped by a region’s important physical features, which in turn shape our understanding of the environment. In fact, to a large extent, those physical features control our interaction with our natural surroundings. Rivers and mountains comprise the most obvious elements that influence our interaction with our physical environment, but certainly vegetation, climate, and animals affect how we interact, how we travel, where we live.
Our choices are shaped by the weather—no one could fly out of Anchorage when a large volcano near Anchorage puffed out ash; no one could fly out of Sitka when most of northern Southeast Alaska was covered by a blanket of thick fog. I decide not to walk to the store when there’s word of a bear nearby. When we expect a windy night, sailors tend to their boats.
Our choices are shaped by our environment—I won’t try to grow something that won’t grow in this soil or in this climate, elements that might have been shaped by the movement of the tectonic plates that scientists agree on nowadays. It’s clear that almost all of our choices are affected by our environment in some way. How much more would the weather, the presence of game and edible plants, the availability of fresh water, the direction of the wind and the size of the rain-shadow influence long-term cultural choices such as settlements and exploration and ceremony.
On the plane, Yakutat was our next stop, a quick 30 minutes after we left Cordova. The village of Yakutat has long been somewhat isolated; it remains the northernmost settlement in Lingit Aani, the homeland of the Tlingit people. The view as we approached Yakutat was quite different: there were no wetlands/beaches/deltas to wonder about. There were simply mountains that seemed to reach right down to the ocean, with tree-covered islands a distance from the coastline. The environment of a southeast town. As soon as I looked at the surroundings of the town, with its mountains and islands and sea, I was reminded of some history I’ve heard, elements of which some people believe may have taken place quite nearby.
Most stories are intellectual property: a person who doesn’t possess the specific right to repeat the story mustn’t do so. A person who has been given permission to describe the events in the story is not to do so without proper attribution to the group that owns the story. By and large, most intellectual property is owned by the clan—the clan has often paid for that story with the life of one of its members, and its retelling is not to be taken lightly.
Among the many stories told about the land and the beings that live upon them is a story that is quite well-known and often told. It doesn’t fall into the specific sort of property rights that applies to most stories, songs, and history, but rather is part of a larger cycle that can be told by people other than a specific clan member.
It seems that when there was no light upon the world, curious Raven decided he would do something about the darkness, and through much scheming and investigation and plotting—as well as things going wrong—he finally carried out his deeds, and there was light in the world. There are people who believe that when this happened, everything upon the earth became frightened at the light. I can agree.
Think about the recently rescued miners who had been trapped under ground for such a long time that they had to wear sunglasses for days when then came to the surface. How must it have been, then, to experience light after a lifetime of darkness. Everything must have been frightened. Even the animals must have scattered and fled. Some say that even the mountains trembled. And some say that those mountains that trembled are near Yakutat. It might have been those very mountains that I looked at as we approached the landing place at Yakutat. They say that as light flooded the world, Raven transformed himself into his original form and flew away. When he did that, some people say, the people were deeply alarmed. They say that this time, even the mountains were frightened.
Paul Marks said that people once lived by the moon. Nowadays we no longer do that, because we now have a degree of artificial light that some think is actually light pollution. Be that as it may, there is some truth in the statement. We don’t really live by our environment any more, either, until a disaster strikes or some sort of anomaly can be made frightening by the media on a slow news day. We might more likely be like the people who say they will always come back to a place, even after there are no more fish and no more berries. Rather than living by the light and by the seasons, we are guided by printed calendars and scheduled meals. But we can return in some form, whether it’s because we are among the fortunate who return to a place summer after summer, not to fish, not to pick berries, but to laugh and become part of the land again, or whether it’s because we perform our hunting and berry-picking in the manner of the twenty-first century. We know that in the ancient way of understanding—the human way, as it were—to gather is to share.
Although I’ve been in some discomfort and perhaps unable to devote the degree of concentration I would have liked, I have taken a great deal from this week’s module. I especially enjoyed learning about the innumerable ways in which people style their experiences. How others blend their past and their future, how they blend their varied cultural identities, how they balance new lives in places far from home, how they live and love one place while remaining betrothed to another place, how others use contemporary information to illuminate and enhance traditional knowledge, are all important and long-lasting benefits I will continue to learn from as the weeks and years wear on. Thanks!
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