Wasilla author writes of accepting what life brings

Growing up in Egegik as the son of the last traditional tribal leader, Wasilla's Phil Kelly had to ask his father for permission before talking to him. That would change when Kelly became a man, his father told him, and to become a man, the young boy had to shoot his first bear.

At age 10, that's exactly what Kelly did. And that is when Kelly become a man in his father's eyes.

"That's when I earned respect and when I was considered a man. There was no adolescence -- I went from a boy to a man the day I killed that first bear," Kelly said.

It's a concept many would find foreign. But in Bush Alaska, in the traditional villages such as Egegik, the Native Alaska way of life is the only way of life. For Kelly, the rite of passage from boy to man came at age 10. By 16, he was the captain of his own commercial fishing boat and had responsibilities that many young adults in urban areas could not fathom.

Kelly, a retired commercial fisherman of 30 years and a Valley resident since 1982, was one of 10 authors selected to portray an intrinsic Native Alaska value in the new book Alaska Native Ways: What the Elders Have Taught Us. His value was accepting what you cannot change, and his essay details how his Aleut people have changed the way they live because of outside influences such as the introduction of Russian fur traders and American people.

With the arrival of the Russians, the Aleut and Yup'ik people were pressed into service and many became servants. Tribes warred with the Russians, but eventually, the Aleuts became used to the Russians, Kelly wrote. Today, the Russian Orthodox religion is still widely practiced. The arrival of the Americans meant fish canneries popped up, and jobs became available.

As part of his essay, Kelly also recounted a time when he was a teen-ager and his boat, loaded with red salmon, was in shallow water. Fearing the worst, Kelly and his cousin used seals -- thought of as pests -- to get to deeper water. He captained his boat right up to the seals, scaring them into deeper water, and he followed them to make sure he was in the deepest channels.

"My father taught me to look at animals as a people," Kelly said. "If I was a seal and I was scared, that's what I would do -- head to deeper water and safety."

Kelly was approached by the publishers to write the essay based on manuscripts for children's books. Kelly has completed 10 children's books, but has had a hard time finding a publisher. Graphic Arts Center Publishing had his manuscripts for a year, and although they declined them, they knew of the Alaska Native Ways project and approached Kelly.

"They gave me the theme to write, and I thought about it for two or three hours and wrote the essay that night," Kelly recalled.

Kelly is a tutor and advisor for the federal programs at Houston Jr./Sr. High School. As part of his job, he works with students in the bilingual, Indian education and migrant education programs. He said students could benefit from reading the book.

"It is a part of our history," Kelly said.

He is still pursuing a publisher for his children's books, in which an outdoor or survival skill is taught through a story. He said he enjoys writing and working with students.

"I want to teach young people the things my father taught me when I was growing up," he said.

Some of the lessons conveyed in the children's books are how to tell the diference between a friendly bear and an aggressive bear; how to survive a fall through the ice in the winter; and how to read a moose's body language.

"They are things kids should know about the outdoors," he said.