Yup’ik, Polish, Albanian, Korean You name it we all work together

My Home
Photo Credits:Nikki Corbett

This is home. Where everyone is friendly. Everyone says “hi” and smiles as they pass you in the grocery store, or Subway. There are many different cultures present in my community. Koreans. Albanians. Yup’iks. Polish. Irish. Chinese. Japanese. Greeks. You name it, we got it. And all work and play together, nicely.

Our Yup’ik cultural values are:

Love for Children

Respect for others

Sharing

Humility

Hard work

Spirituality

Cooperation

Family Roles

Knowledge of Family tree

Knowledge of language

Hunter Success

Domestic Skills

Avoid Conflict

Humor

Respect for nature

Respect for land

Dog Mushing
Photo Credits:Nikki Corbett

Yup’iks are cultural, spirited, and we value our traditions and knowledge just like any other culture present here. I feel that all cultures follow most if not some of my Yup’ik cultural values. We are value family. And humility. Hard work. All these values play huge roles in our lives and we do our best to serve our families and friends.

All the different individuals who come to Bethel are fascinated by our Yup’ik culture and want to try new foods, and experiences at least once. If not twice. They do not shy away from king salmon. Or assaliaq. Many even adopt some of our favorite things to do like fishing or berry picking. And they bring their traditions, music, food, and more to share.

Ice Fishing
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

As the YKHC slogan says: “Working together to acheive excellent health.” Substitue health for communication. Relationships. Friendships. Bethel is all those things are more.

The Land: Keeping us Healthy & Happy

Alaskan Wilderness is everything to me. Without my Alaskan Wilderness my freezers would not be full of moose and caribou. I would not have blueberries, salmon berries and blackberries to keep me happy throughout the year. I would not have seal oil to dip my dry fish, or dried ptarmigan in. I would have nothing.

Atsaq= 🙂
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

Alaskan wilderness is in my backyard. I patiently wait as the snow melts and uncovers my future foods. Berries. Tundra tea. Wild Rhubard. Sourdock. I jump for joy at the sight of green. It means food. Food to keep my family happy and my stomach happy. To keep company returning to my house to enjoy the foods from the land.

Food for the soul
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

I have to protect my lands so it can keep giving to me. So I can continue to feed my family. I have to respect my lands. Respect all that it provides me. The land is everything to me. Without it I am nothing.

Akutaq always brings joy to my tummy
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

Protect our Lands, Protect our People

Alaskan Wilderness is everything I eat, breathe, and dream of. I live off Alaskan wilderness. I eat the fruit and vegetables that the tundra offers me. I eat the caribou, ptarmigan, and moose that graze the tundra. Alaskan Wilderness is my life. My ancestors traveled from camp to camp throughout the seasons utilizing everything and anything from the logs, to the geese, to the tundra greens.

Fruits from the land
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

We are to protect the lands from evil. We are to protect our animals and lands. It is our duty. If we do not protect our lands then they will be taken over and we will have nothing left but ourselves. By respecting the land, and giving back to it, it will always feed us and take care of us year after year. My ancestors respected the lands, and the lands respected them. We must protect our lands so that they can feed our families. Our childrens families. Our grandchildrens families. And so on.

Takotna Beauty
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

Our lands feed us, and we must protect them. If we leave our lands without protection there will be no more lands for our generations to come.

 

 

Discovering oneself through Alaska’s landscape

Taken from velmawallis.com

One of my favorite Alaskan writers is Velma Wallis. In high school I read all of her books Two Old Women, Raising Ourselves, and Bird Girl and the Man who Followed the Sun. All of which were my favorite because they are colorful, truthful, and engaging. Each story outlines Alaska in a different, but interesting light. My favorite was always Raising Ourselves, because like Velma my mother was an alcoholic also so reading her story gave me courage and it was comforting to read.

Taken from the epicenterpress.com

In Raising Ourselves the landscape and the need to survive go hand in hand. Wallis struggles to keep her family afloat with gathering firewood, trapping, and just trying to make it to the next day. The harsh weather, tough landscape all wear down Velma Wallis’s determination and will-power but she manages to keep on pushing. In writing about her landscape she is discovering that she is tough enough to survive on her own, and that the weather, tundra, winter cant stop her.

Ninilchik Sunsets
Photo credit: Nikki Corbett

In Bird Girl and the Man who Followed the Sun the landscape is used as a tool for the people in the story, as well as obstacles that the young woman and man must conquer. For example on page 64 it says, “She would prove to her people that she could survive on her own. She would go up to those mountains and make winter camp. There she would hunt, dry meat, and gather edible plants and berries. As she walked alongside the small river, Bird Girl’s footsteps grew bold with resolve.” The landscape here is used as a test for the young woman, that she must prove to her family that can survive on her own and then maybe they would allow her to choose when she is ready to marry. The landscape in the story breaks down, but also uplifts the spirits of the characters in emotional, physical, and psychological ways.

Takotna Winter
Photo credits: Nikki Corbett

Alaskan landscape can make or break an individual it depends on how you manage the vast tundra, snow-capped mountains, or dangerous waters. It is a prominent feature in writings because our landscape is everything. Without our landscape we would not be here. Without the beauties of our salmon filled rivers, grazing caribous on the tundra, or the abundance of berries my ancestors would not have settled here. And for that reasoning many have traveled to Alaska to experience it firsthand. Our emotions are tied to the land, sea, ocean, and rivers. For these reasons Alaska’s beauty draws visitors in, some leave, some stay forever, and some are never found.

Clam Digging in Ninilchik
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

Like the heavy tundra slowly rolls over and sinks in the darkness.

Auntie Irene picking quarciqs at Nash Harbor
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

This picture of my auntie Irene picking greens at Nash Harbor reminds me of John Haines poem “The Tundra,”

The tundra is a living

body, warm in the grassy

autumn sun; it gives off

the odor of crushed blueberries and gunsmoke.

In the tangled lakes

of its eyes a mirror of ice

is forming, where

frozen gut-piles shine

with a dull,rosy light.

Coarse, laughing men

with their women;

one by one the tiny campfires

flaring under the wind.

Full of blood, with a sound

like clicking hoofs,

the heavy tundra slowly

rolls over and sinks

in the darkness.

This picture was taken at Nash Harbor, off Nunivak Island. Here Irene is sitting on the tundra, next to the lake picking greens. I can hear her laughter as if it was just yesterday I was here, at that spot with her. The crisp autumn sun on our faces, while the tundra rolled and sank into the darkness. And at night we would light a campfire and share stories with one another. Haines does an excellent job of using imagery. I immediately though of this picture when I read this poem, because all the elements are there minus the men laughing. But he is able to describe the beauties that we Alaskans see everyday.

My first caribou
Photo credits: Nikki Corbett

After reading John Haines, “The Way We Live” and scrolling through my pictures this image stood out. The title captures this picture very well, because this is the way that we live. Many of our lives depend on subsistence, and while we are out hunting it is paradise. The mountains, never-ending tundra, and the smell out of the outdoors. All those elements are paradise to us. Striving for the simple life having a house, a lamp, and skin to cover our heads that is pure happiness. Again through his poetry and use of imagery I immediately picture the beauties of Alaska and all it has to offer.

I also felt that Tim McNulty’s poem “At the Foot of Denali,” did an excellent job with the use of imagery. His descriptions are colorful, and clear. I can picture the ice, blue motionless sky, and the small nameless insect that he is describing. I have always found poetry refreshing, especially poetry about Alaska because I find that imagery is a very useful tool when describing the mountains, the sky, the streams, and more.

If the Owl Calls Again- John Haines
at dusk from the island in the river, and it’s not too cold, I’ll wait for the moon to rise, then take wing and glide to meet him. We will not speak, but hooded against the frost soar above the alder flats, searching with tawny eyes. And then we’ll sit in the shadowy spruce and pick the bones of careless mice, while the long moon drifts toward Asia and the river mutters in its icy bed. And when the morning climbs the limbs we’ll part without a sound, fulfilled, floating homeward as the cold world awakens.
Photo Credits:Nikki Corbett

The majestical beauties of Alaska

Childrens Home on the Kuskokwim River
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

When I was a young girl and would stay at my grandmothers on the weekend she would tell us stories of big mouth baby, Gabriel Fox, the tea kettle story, how raven created the earth, irciinraaqs (little people), and many more stories. My mother would tell me stories about good and bad shamans. They lived completely different lives. They lived mainly off the land, their clothes came from the animals they killed, the traveled throughout the seasons to prepare for winter by hunting, and gathering. These oral stories I believe are the true Alaskan stories that should be written down and published.

Wild Grouse
Photo Credits:Nikki Corbett

The story “Legend of the Aurora Borealis,” an Eskimo Legend brought a smile to my face. My grandmother would tell us over and over again never to whistle while the northern lights are dancing because they will come down and take you away. I remember being afraid to play out, but when I would run into the house I would whistle. In the story, “People of the North,” by James A. Michener you can feel the hunger through the pages. At one point or another our ancestors knew this hunger feeling all too well. Those struggles were a mere set back to the victories they would see from the animals that would present themselves to the hunters.

Fireweed
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

I dont feel that nature is separate from us. We are all intertwined with the land, air, water, and life. We depend on nature to keep us fed, clothed, and happy. Those happy memories of berry picking, hunting for caribou, gathering quarciqs (tundra greens) are all because of nature. Without sun the berries wouldnt blossom. Without rain they wouldnt recieve the nutrients needed to grow to their full potential. Without the tundra, rivers, mountains, trees we would be lost. Alaskas landscape is our everything.

Takotna, Alaska
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

The stories that I enjoy that depict Alaska’s realness are written by Velma Wallis, Seth Kantner, Don Rearden, the oral stories told by my grandmother, aunts, and mother, Harold Napoleon, Oscar Kawagley, and many more. These stories share all what entails in Alaska’s beauties and struggles from alcoholism, to hunting. These I believe are all the true Alaskan stories.

Beauties of Takotna, Alaska
Photo Credits: Nikki Corbett

We are all one with nature, without nature we wouldnt be here.

 

Welcome!

This site is created for my English 350 Literature of the North class!

I am excited and ready to explore the literature of my stomping grounds!

I was born & raised here in beautiful Bethel, Alaska and absolutely love it. I aspire to be a physician assistant and I am studying to get my Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Arts. I look forward to this class!

This is me in my element!