Coal mine access road is across the highway from tribal school

To the editor:

I used to love to drive past our Ya Ne Dah Ah School and the big lawn where so many children have played over the last 60 years. We moved to that area in 1950 and our home was always a safe haven for family and friends. Everyone was welcome, except if they were drunk or disorderly. My parents raised many children besides their biological ones.

To carry on the tradition of love and caring for one another, my mother, Katherine Wade, started our tribal school in 1993. We have been working hard since that time to keep our school going so that the children can learn their culture and the importance of caring for the earth and each other.

Now exploiters are determined to mine for coal and are busting a road into the forest right across from Ya Ne Dah Ah School.

For those of you who may not know, the federal government told my ancestors in Chickaloon that they needed to mine for coal to fuel their World War I warships. It wasn’t bad enough that coal-mining operations killed all the salmon in the Chickaloon River, but it was the beginning of the end of our rich Ahtna culture. Along with newcomers mining for coal came diseases, alcohol and new religions that taught fear of the natural world.

For the last 20 years our tribe/family has been in the process of healing and bringing back ways vital to our culture, such as teaching our Ahtna language that was near extinction.

Today when I drive past our Ya Ne Dah Ah School and the beautiful land where I grew up, it brings sadness and a heavy heart. Equipment is uprooting the beautiful trees and plowing through the ground, bringing death and displacement to the animals, insects and birds that have called this home. I can’t believe any government would allow this to happen so that greedy corporations can mine for coal, dirty the earth and ship coal to a foreign country. Coal has a very important role to play right where Creator put it, like purifying the water.

They call it progress and say it will bring jobs. But what about the illnesses it will bring, especially to our children?

Patricia Wade

Palmer