Old ways replaced with jobs, money

When my grandmother was born near Chickaloon about 100 years ago, our People were doing the job Creator had intended for them — taking care of the Earth.

If they did a good job, they would be provided with everything they needed. Her parents, Frank and Balasculya Nicolai spent the summers in the Talkeetna Mountains, harvesting meat and hides from caribou, moose, goat; and berries, which they dried and stashed in various caches they built on Boulder Creek. When winter came, they would sled their cached food down to Chickaloon where the family lived.

Change was inevitable in our beautiful homeland, but I doubt anyone could predict how tragic those changes would become.

My Ancestors always governed themselves. They had strict rules and laws and followed their clan structures to assure there would be no intermarrying. They burned dead trees in the winter and kept the trails picked up and tidy as they went. Several years ago, I took my mother for a drive. It was after a huge winter windstorm. As she looked out into the woods where trees had fallen and branches were broken and flung everywhere, she got upset and said, “Those trees could keep people warm, and it would give young people a job to bring that wood in. But those doggone bureaucrats won’t even let us cut down a tree without threatening to send us to jail!”

First it was the feds, promising to educate, medicate and protect us from abuses for the use of the land. How were my great grandparents to know that their education system would consist of forced removal of many children to boarding schools and teaching lies and half-truths — that we should respect and honor questionable people like Christopher Columbus, etc.? I guess it’s true that history is written by the conquerors.

For example, they didn’t share what Seward actually purchased from the Russians — trading posts and trading rights. Their “free” medicine included experimenting on Indigenous People. The Centers for Disease Control had a document calling Alaska the “greatest natural laboratory” after they injected radioactive iodine into unsuspecting People in the north. They promised that our People would have fishing and hunting licenses valid throughout their lives. There was no way to know when they promised to protect us from abuse that the new governments would become the super abusers.

Next, they wanted statehood. Even though their laws declared that Indigenous People would be allowed to vote, for the most part that didn’t happen. It’s been said that the military was encouraged to vote for statehood and given $5 to do so. Some people saw that as a military takeover. So that added another layer of bureaucrats bossing the original people around, pretending that they knew what was best for the land, animals and people. Our Ancestors went from being able to hunt and fish 365 days a year to only when the Department of Fish and Game said they could. Replacing those old ways were “jobs” and “money.” And what better place to find riches creating jobs than Alaska?

Mom and dad bought 40 acres near Moose Creek in 1950. That’s where I grew up and where our Ya Ne Dah Ah Tribal School and other offices are located. It’s also right across the Glenn Highway from what used to be a beautiful forest where our students would harvest wild roots and berries. Now there is a huge clearing with a road going up the hill, heading toward a sacred place where Usibelli Coal Mining Co. wants to blast and poison our world.

When mom told her Aunt Mary Shaginoff that she and dad had bought 40 acres, Aunt Mary asked, “Who did you buy it from?” What irony.

I left home in 1963 after graduating from Palmer High School. When I returned a year and a half later I looked around Palmer for a job. My last stop was the state employment office where someone told me there were no jobs. I said, “I found four openings today.”

I chose to work for the newly formed Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District. I didn’t even know what a borough was, but it paid the most. They had added onto my old high school and filled it with the superintendent, his assistant, four bookkeeper types and me, the secretary/receptionist. I didn’t stay at that job very long because it was too boring. There wasn’t nearly enough work to keep me interested or busy. Besides, my parents were hard-working taxpayers and I didn’t like sitting around doing nothing while taxpayers were working to pay my big $400-a-month wages.

The borough has grown like a cancer over the land adding even more bureaucrats making more rules.

When oil was discovered, the crooked governments realized they had never properly stolen the land from the Indigenous Peoples, so they came up with a new idea called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Once again, a proper vote of Indigenous Peoples wasn’t taken. And some people saw it as an act of genocide because of the cutoff date and blood quantum requirement. But who worries about legalities when there’s money to be had?

Mom used to get so angry when the news was all about ANCSA and how the Natives were getting rich. Many people became even more spiteful towards Natives when they thought we were getting something for nothing.

In 1973, we formalized our own Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, and became federally recognized in 1982. Once, nearly 20 years ago an official from HUD was visiting our tribal offices and he told us that we have the same rights as the federal government — above the state and borough. We have tried to work with the other governments and sometimes we make a bit of headway. Chickaloon Village Traditional Government provides services to not only our tribal citizens, but also the surrounding communities. We have a health clinic and PA in Sutton, housing, transportation/transit, Indian Child Welfare, environmental departments and our Harvard Award-winning Ya Ne Dah Ah Tribal School.

As a tribal government, we will work as hard as we can to protect this beautiful land and keep it clean, just like our Ancestors would want us to. What a difference 100 years makes in how we are “allowed” to take care of the Earth.

Today when the new governments and corporations claim ownership of the land and resources, I am still very offended by how they stole it all like they did.