Ancient heritage focus in Chickaloon school

CHICKALOON VILLAGE -- For years, the language and traditions of the Ahtna Athabascan Indian culture in Chickaloon Village gradually faded away as younger generations grew up with little training about the history and ways of their ancestors.

In the summer of 1992, Katherine Wade, the clan grandmother of Chickaloon Village, started a Saturday school, in which children gathered in her yard to listen to the history and stories of their Native culture.

A year later, the Ya Ne Dah Ah or "Ancient Traditions" School opened full time in an effort to preserve the Ahtna Athabascan culture in Chickaloon before it completely vanished.

Wade said she was inspired to start the K-eighth-grade, one-room school after visiting with Native prisoners and seeing how alcoholism, drugs and shame had ruined their lives.

"Many are ashamed to be Native," Wade said. "Some of the prisoners listened but many did not."

Wade decided to focus her efforts on the younger generation and when the school started, Wade was the only full-time teacher.

"The time to teach is when the kids are young so you can keep them away from prison. If you pay attention to the children they can go on and be successful," Wade said. "We make them love each other. They are all relatives, more or less. We tell them to listen to the older ones and love one another like they love their own selves -- that's what I was taught."

Students at Ya Ne Dah Ah School learn the traditions of their tribe but they also learn mathematics, English, science and other standard subjects.

Above all, they learn respect.

"Respect is the name of the game. You need to respect everyone, even the animals," Wade said. "We have strict rules and we don't let them call each other names here."

Now 81 years old, Wade is no longer the primary teacher at the school but she is one of the very last people in Chickaloon who can still fluently speak the Ahtna Athabascan language, and her services are therefore still valuable.

Wade just recently completed a book, "Chickaloon Spirit," chronicling her life growing up in Chickaloon. She also continues to help at the school she founded by teaching the traditional Ahtna language. Wade said she works with her nephew to record the language on tapes and CDs.

The school has three regular classroom teachers with two teaching Ahtna Athabascan culture and one teaching traditional Western curriculum. Other special teachers and speakers come from around the state to teach various aspects of Native culture.

According to Marilyn Staggs, the executive secretary for the school, finding people who can teach Native culture is not always easy.

"Most of the special speakers are between the ages of 50 and 80 years old," Staggs said. "We have lost a lot of our culture and we have very few elders who can teach the culture."

The school runs Monday through Friday, with students learning Native dance, song and other traditions while also working on their English spelling words and arithmetic problems. Wade said the children occasionally perform songs and dances they learn at special meetings and other Native gatherings.

"They are not ashamed of who they are," Wade said.

Currently, the school building is only big enough for eight students, with many more on a waiting list. Chickaloon Village Traditional Council is trying to raise funds for a new building this week.

Last week the council hosted a fund-raiser at the Chickaloon Village office, where Native crafts, clothing, books and other items were sold to raise money.

"They want to put other kids in there, but we can't take them right now," Wade said.

In 2002, the Ya Ne Dah Ah School was one of eight American Indian programs nationwide to receive a $10,000 award from Harvard University for being an exemplary tribal government program.

"Not too many places are doing what we are doing," Wade said.

Education Director Kari Johns said the culture of Ahtna Athabascans, like many tribes in the Alaska and the Lower 48, has diminished through the influence of Western culture.

"In the 1920s, the state took children away from their families in the village and put them in boarding schools," Johns said. "This caused a generation gap in our families."

Wade's parents, however, did not send her to boarding school when she was a little girl and she was able to learn the language and traditions.

"She was one of the chosen people to carry on our traditions," Johns said.

Chickaloon Village owns and operates the Ya Ne Dah Ah School, while the Galena School District reviews educational plans for individual students and administers standardized assessment tests.

Parents who enroll their children in the program receive funds through the Interior Distance Education program of Alaska to help pay for books and curriculum. IDEA is a home-school program that offers the services of certified teachers and experienced home schoolers to help parents educate their children at home, while also providing standards for parents that support statewide education standards.

According to Johns, the kids at Ya Ne Dah Ah School are doing above average in most areas of the statewide benchmark tests and are right at average for language arts.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.