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The Independent
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump's push for drilling, mining sharpens debate for Alaska Natives about land they view as sacred
Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon, which Alaska Native families have harvested for generations and preserved for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. 'Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival,' said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. 'It's the college of fish camp.' So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. 'We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land,' said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. 'Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously.' Trump policies intensify the debates Such debates are simmering across the state's vast tundra, broad rivers, sprawling wetlands and towering mountain ranges. Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area debating a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. More than 1 in 5 Alaskans identify as Alaska Native or American Indian alone or in combination with another racial group, the highest ratio of any state, according to 2020 U.S. Census figures. Alaska Natives include Aleut, Athabascan, Iñupiat, Tlingit, Yup'ik and other groups. For all their diversity, they share a history in the region dating back thousands of years, as well as cultural and spiritual traditions, including those closely associated with subsistence hunting and gathering. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure. Opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Tribal members sometimes even find themselves on opposite sides of the same proposal. Native-run corporations — formed to benefit Alaska Native shareholders — are supporting a mine in southwestern Alaska that a regional tribal coalition opposes, a scenario similar to an oil exploration project underway in Interior Alaska. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. 'Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security,' the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorized an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its 'big, beautiful twin.' Trump's policy shifts came even as he removed one of the most prominent Alaska Native names from the official map. He returned the federal name of 'Mount McKinley' to the largest mountain in Alaska and North America. For all their disputes over extraction, Native and Alaska political leaders were largely united in wanting to keep its traditional Athabascan name of Denali, which translates to 'the high one.' 'We need jobs … to stand on our own two feet' It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. Limited infrastructure and harsh weather raise costs. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritizing extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state 'America's natural resource warehouse.' So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. They've accused the previous administration of President Joe Biden of ignoring their voices. 'We need jobs. Our people need training, to stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future,' said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. He said communities can maintain their traditions while benefiting from economic development — but that it's crucial that public officials and businesses include them in the planning. 'Native people want to be heard, not pushed aside,' Simon said. Mayor Nathan Gordon Jr. of Kaktovik, the only community within the Arctic refuge, applauded the budget bill. It enables Kaktovik 'to strengthen our community, preserve our cultural traditions, and ensure that we can remain in our homelands for years to come,' he said in a statement issued by Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group advocating for oil exploration. A 'lack of respect' for Native subsistence traditions But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. 'We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources,' said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. 'There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles,' she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a coalition representing dozens of tribes in Alaska's interior south of the refuge, has long opposed the drilling. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. While the source of the salmon crisis is uncertain, researchers say possible causes include the impacts of commercial fishing, disease, warming waters, other environmental changes and competition between wild and hatchery-reared fish. In a June policy brief, Indigenous leaders, scientists and policy experts called for further study and for easing the disproportionate impact of the crisis on subsistence fishermen. But if the salmon collapse's cause isn't clear, its impact is. It has meant 'no fish camps, no traditional knowledge that's been passed down to our younger generation,' said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Fairbanks-based advocacy group Gwich'in Steering Committee. Moreland said she regularly takes her children to her home village in the north to reconnect with traditional festivals and activities, including those centered around the caribou hunt: 'They learn all our traditional knowledge that way. What if the caribou doesn't migrate up there anymore?' The yearslong battle over the refuge takes its toll, she said. 'How long do we have to advocate for our land and our people?' Chief Brian Ridley of the Tanana Chiefs Conference said he sympathizes with those tribal leaders supporting development, given the shortage of well-paying jobs in many villages. But concern over potential long-term environmental damage has prompted the conference to oppose projects such as oil drilling in the Arctic refuge and the nearer Yukon Flats, as well as construction of the so-called Ambler Road, which could open access to mining in more remote areas. Ridley said he recently attended a national conference with other tribal leaders who echoed a common theme — opposing 'development projects on our land or near our land that come in and promise jobs and whatnot, and they come and go and then we get stuck with the long-term negative aspects of cleanup and restoration.' Empty smokehouses, broken spirits In southwestern Alaska, a proposed major mine, the Donlin Gold project, has long been debated. The project, planned by private investors in cooperation with Native corporations owning the land and mineral rights, would require a massive dam to hold back millions of tons of mineral and chemical waste in a valley. Project proponents say the dam will involve state-of-the-art design, with its wide base anchored to bedrock and the surrounding mountain walls incorporated into containing the debris. Proponents tout benefits including jobs, shareholder payments and funds for such things as village services and education. 'This kind of project, since it's on our lands, is different than most other resource projects,' said Thomas Leonard, vice president of corporate affairs for Calista Corp., a regional Alaska Native corporation involved. 'We literally have a seat at the table, have a voice in the project.' But opponents, such as Mother Kuskokwim and some area tribes, aren't convinced and say the risk of a failure on the Kuskokwim watershed is too great. 'Protecting the river and the land and the Earth is part of the partnership and the relationship that we have as caregivers,' Simeon said. That relationship isn't abstract, Simeon said. She said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. 'What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?' Simeon said. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Associated Press
6 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump's push for drilling, mining sharpens debate for Alaska Natives about land they view as sacred
BETHEL, Alaska (AP) — Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon, which Alaska Native families have harvested for generations and preserved for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. 'Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival,' said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. 'It's the college of fish camp.' So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one. 'We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land,' said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. 'Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously.' Trump policies intensify the debates Such debates are simmering across the state's vast tundra, broad rivers, sprawling wetlands and towering mountain ranges. Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area debating a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. More than 1 in 5 Alaskans identify as Alaska Native or American Indian alone or in combination with another racial group, the highest ratio of any state, according to 2020 U.S. Census figures. Alaska Natives include Aleut, Athabascan, Iñupiat, Tlingit, Yup'ik and other groups. For all their diversity, they share a history in the region dating back thousands of years, as well as cultural and spiritual traditions, including those closely associated with subsistence hunting and gathering. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure. Opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Tribal members sometimes even find themselves on opposite sides of the same proposal. Native-run corporations — formed to benefit Alaska Native shareholders — are supporting a mine in southwestern Alaska that a regional tribal coalition opposes, a scenario similar to an oil exploration project underway in Interior Alaska. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. 'Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security,' the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorized an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its 'big, beautiful twin.' Trump's policy shifts came even as he removed one of the most prominent Alaska Native names from the official map. He returned the federal name of 'Mount McKinley' to the largest mountain in Alaska and North America. For all their disputes over extraction, Native and Alaska political leaders were largely united in wanting to keep its traditional Athabascan name of Denali, which translates to 'the high one.' 'We need jobs … to stand on our own two feet' It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. Limited infrastructure and harsh weather raise costs. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritizing extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state 'America's natural resource warehouse.' So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. They've accused the previous administration of President Joe Biden of ignoring their voices. 'We need jobs. Our people need training, to stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future,' said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. He said communities can maintain their traditions while benefiting from economic development — but that it's crucial that public officials and businesses include them in the planning. 'Native people want to be heard, not pushed aside,' Simon said. Mayor Nathan Gordon Jr. of Kaktovik, the only community within the Arctic refuge, applauded the budget bill. It enables Kaktovik 'to strengthen our community, preserve our cultural traditions, and ensure that we can remain in our homelands for years to come,' he said in a statement issued by Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group advocating for oil exploration. A 'lack of respect' for Native subsistence traditions But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. 'We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources,' said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. 'There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles,' she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a coalition representing dozens of tribes in Alaska's interior south of the refuge, has long opposed the drilling. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. While the source of the salmon crisis is uncertain, researchers say possible causes include the impacts of commercial fishing, disease, warming waters, other environmental changes and competition between wild and hatchery-reared fish. In a June policy brief, Indigenous leaders, scientists and policy experts called for further study and for easing the disproportionate impact of the crisis on subsistence fishermen. But if the salmon collapse's cause isn't clear, its impact is. It has meant 'no fish camps, no traditional knowledge that's been passed down to our younger generation,' said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Fairbanks-based advocacy group Gwich'in Steering Committee. Moreland said she regularly takes her children to her home village in the north to reconnect with traditional festivals and activities, including those centered around the caribou hunt: 'They learn all our traditional knowledge that way. What if the caribou doesn't migrate up there anymore?' The yearslong battle over the refuge takes its toll, she said. 'How long do we have to advocate for our land and our people?' Chief Brian Ridley of the Tanana Chiefs Conference said he sympathizes with those tribal leaders supporting development, given the shortage of well-paying jobs in many villages. But concern over potential long-term environmental damage has prompted the conference to oppose projects such as oil drilling in the Arctic refuge and the nearer Yukon Flats, as well as construction of the so-called Ambler Road, which could open access to mining in more remote areas. Ridley said he recently attended a national conference with other tribal leaders who echoed a common theme — opposing 'development projects on our land or near our land that come in and promise jobs and whatnot, and they come and go and then we get stuck with the long-term negative aspects of cleanup and restoration.' Empty smokehouses, broken spirits In southwestern Alaska, a proposed major mine, the Donlin Gold project, has long been debated. The project, planned by private investors in cooperation with Native corporations owning the land and mineral rights, would require a massive dam to hold back millions of tons of mineral and chemical waste in a valley. Project proponents say the dam will involve state-of-the-art design, with its wide base anchored to bedrock and the surrounding mountain walls incorporated into containing the debris. Proponents tout benefits including jobs, shareholder payments and funds for such things as village services and education. 'This kind of project, since it's on our lands, is different than most other resource projects,' said Thomas Leonard, vice president of corporate affairs for Calista Corp., a regional Alaska Native corporation involved. 'We literally have a seat at the table, have a voice in the project.' But opponents, such as Mother Kuskokwim and some area tribes, aren't convinced and say the risk of a failure on the Kuskokwim watershed is too great. 'Protecting the river and the land and the Earth is part of the partnership and the relationship that we have as caregivers,' Simeon said. That relationship isn't abstract, Simeon said. She said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. 'What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?' Simeon said. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Washington Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump's push for drilling, mining sharpens debate for Alaska Natives about land they view as sacred
BETHEL, Alaska — Fish camps still dot the banks of the broad Kuskokwim River in southwestern Alaska. Wooden huts and tarped shelters stand beside drying racks draped with bright red strips of salmon, which Alaska Native families have harvested for generations and preserved for the bitter winters ahead. But the once-abundant salmon populations have declined so sharply in recent years that authorities have severely restricted subsistence fishing on Alaska's second-longest river. They've imposed even tighter restrictions on the longer Yukon River to the north. Various factors are blamed for the salmon collapse, from climate change to commercial fishing practices. What's clear is the impact is not just on food but on long-standing rituals — fish camps where elders transmit skills and stories to younger generations while bonding over a sacred connection to the land. 'Our families are together for that single-minded purpose of providing for our survival,' said Gloria Simeon, a Yup'ik resident of Bethel. 'It's the college of fish camp.' So when Alaska Natives debate proposals to drill, mine or otherwise develop the landscape of the nation's largest state, it involves more than an environmental or economic question. It's also a spiritual and cultural one . 'We have a special spiritual, religious relationship to our river and our land,' said Simeon, standing outside her backyard smokehouse where she uses birch-bark kindling and cottonwood logs to preserve this year's salmon catch. 'Our people have been stewards of this land for millennia, and we've taken that relationship seriously.' Such debates are simmering across the state's vast tundra, broad rivers, sprawling wetlands and towering mountain ranges. Put a pin just about anywhere on the map of Alaska, and you're likely to hit an area debating a proposed mine, a new wilderness road, a logging site, an oil well, a natural gas pipeline. Such debates have intensified during President Donald Trump's second term. His administration and allies have pushed aggressively for drilling, mining and developing on Alaska's public lands. More than 1 in 5 Alaskans identify as Alaska Native or American Indian alone or in combination with another racial group, the highest ratio of any state, according to 2020 U.S. Census figures. Alaska Natives include Aleut, Athabascan, Iñupiat, Tlingit, Yup'ik and other groups. For all their diversity, they share a history in the region dating back thousands of years, as well as cultural and spiritual traditions, including those closely associated with subsistence hunting and gathering. Native leaders and activists are divided about extraction projects. Supporters say they bring jobs and pay for infrastructure. Opponents say they imperil the environment and their traditions. Tribal members sometimes even find themselves on opposite sides of the same proposal. Native-run corporations — formed to benefit Alaska Native shareholders — are supporting a mine in southwestern Alaska that a regional tribal coalition opposes, a scenario similar to an oil exploration project underway in Interior Alaska. Trump singled out Alaska as a priority for extraction projects in an executive order signed on his first day in office. 'Unlocking this bounty of natural wealth will raise the prosperity of our citizens while helping to enhance our Nation's economic and national security,' the order said. Increasingly, words are turning to action. Congress, in passing Trump's budget bill in July, authorized an unprecedented four new sales of oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and still more in other locations. Trump cabinet officials made a high-profile visit in June to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska's far north — an aging oil field that is one of the largest in North America. They touted goals of doubling the oil coursing through Alaska's existing pipeline system and building a massive natural gas pipeline as its 'big, beautiful twin.' Trump's policy shifts came even as he removed one of the most prominent Alaska Native names from the official map. He returned the federal name of 'Mount McKinley' to the largest mountain in Alaska and North America. For all their disputes over extraction, Native and Alaska political leaders were largely united in wanting to keep its traditional Athabascan name of Denali , which translates to 'the high one.' It takes years for proposed extraction projects to unfold, if they ever do. The extent of oil reserves in the Arctic refuge remains uncertain. Limited infrastructure and harsh weather raise costs. No major oil company bid during the only two lease sales offered to date in the Arctic refuge. But the measures pushed by the new administration and Congress amount to the latest pendulum swing between Republican and Democratic presidents, between policies prioritizing extraction and environmental protections. The budget bill calls for additional lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, west of the Arctic refuge, and opening more areas to potential leasing than authorized under recent Democratic administrations. Alaska's political leaders generally have cheered on the push for more extraction, including its Republican congressional delegation and its governor, who has called his state 'America's natural resource warehouse.' So have some Native leaders, who say their communities stand to benefit from jobs and revenues. They say such projects are critical to their economic prospects and self-determination, providing jobs and helping their communities pay for schools, streets and snow removal. They've accused the previous administration of President Joe Biden of ignoring their voices. 'We need jobs. Our people need training, to stand on our own two feet. Our kids need a future,' said PJ Simon, first chief of the Allakaket Tribal Council. He said communities can maintain their traditions while benefiting from economic development — but that it's crucial that public officials and businesses include them in the planning. 'Native people want to be heard, not pushed aside,' Simon said. Mayor Nathan Gordon Jr. of Kaktovik, the only community within the Arctic refuge, applauded the budget bill. It enables Kaktovik 'to strengthen our community, preserve our cultural traditions, and ensure that we can remain in our homelands for years to come,' he said in a statement issued by Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, a group advocating for oil exploration. But Native opponents of such projects say short-term economic gains come at the risk of long-term environmental impacts that will reverberate widely. 'We're kind of viewed as the last frontier, like we have unlimited resources,' said Sophie Swope, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Mother Kuskokwim Tribal Coalition. She said Alaska's most renewable resources — such as salmon, deer and other migratory wildlife — are threatened both by overly aggressive ocean fishing and by extractive industries. 'There's that lack of respect for our traditional subsistence lifestyles,' she said. Opponents of oil drilling in the Arctic refuge fear it will permanently disrupt the long-range migration of caribou, which Native people have hunted for millennia. The Tanana Chiefs Conference, a coalition representing dozens of tribes in Alaska's interior south of the refuge, has long opposed the drilling. A massive caribou herd goes to the refuge's coastal plain to calve in the spring before fanning out across a wider area, providing a crucial food source for Native hunters in Alaska and Canada. If the herd's migration is disrupted, opponents fear an impact similar to the salmon collapse — a loss not just of food but of a focal point of culture and spirituality. While the source of the salmon crisis is uncertain, researchers say possible causes include the impacts of commercial fishing, disease, warming waters, other environmental changes and competition between wild and hatchery-reared fish. In a June policy brief, Indigenous leaders, scientists and policy experts called for further study and for easing the disproportionate impact of the crisis on subsistence fishermen. But if the salmon collapse's cause isn't clear, its impact is. It has meant 'no fish camps, no traditional knowledge that's been passed down to our younger generation,' said Kristen Moreland, executive director of the Fairbanks-based advocacy group Gwich'in Steering Committee. Moreland said she regularly takes her children to her home village in the north to reconnect with traditional festivals and activities, including those centered around the caribou hunt: 'They learn all our traditional knowledge that way. What if the caribou doesn't migrate up there anymore?' The yearslong battle over the refuge takes its toll, she said. 'How long do we have to advocate for our land and our people?' Chief Brian Ridley of the Tanana Chiefs Conference said he sympathizes with those tribal leaders supporting development, given the shortage of well-paying jobs in many villages. But concern over potential long-term environmental damage has prompted the conference to oppose projects such as oil drilling in the Arctic refuge and the nearer Yukon Flats, as well as construction of the so-called Ambler Road, which could open access to mining in more remote areas. Ridley said he recently attended a national conference with other tribal leaders who echoed a common theme — opposing 'development projects on our land or near our land that come in and promise jobs and whatnot, and they come and go and then we get stuck with the long-term negative aspects of cleanup and restoration.' In southwestern Alaska, a proposed major mine, the Donlin Gold project, has long been debated. The project, planned by private investors in cooperation with Native corporations owning the land and mineral rights, would require a massive dam to hold back millions of tons of mineral and chemical waste in a valley. Project proponents say the dam will involve state-of-the-art design, with its wide base anchored to bedrock and the surrounding mountain walls incorporated into containing the debris. Proponents tout benefits including jobs, shareholder payments and funds for such things as village services and education. 'This kind of project, since it's on our lands, is different than most other resource projects,' said Thomas Leonard, vice president of corporate affairs for Calista Corp., a regional Alaska Native corporation involved. 'We literally have a seat at the table, have a voice in the project.' But opponents, such as Mother Kuskokwim and some area tribes, aren't convinced and say the risk of a failure on the Kuskokwim watershed is too great. 'Protecting the river and the land and the Earth is part of the partnership and the relationship that we have as caregivers,' Simeon said. That relationship isn't abstract, Simeon said. She said the disruption of communal hunting and fishing activities leads to a spiritual rootlessness that she believes contributes to alarming rates of addictions and suicide among Alaska Native people. 'What does it do to your heart and soul when you have to look at an empty smokehouse year after year after year, and you can't provide for your family?' Simeon said. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
CTV News
26-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Alaska Native woman, ‘everybody's helper,' is Orthodox church's first female North American saint
A detail of the official icon of St. Olga of Kwethluk, Matushka of All Alaska, is shown. (Diocese of Sitka and Alaska via AP) KWETHLUK, Alaska — It was in the dusty streets and modest homes of this remote Alaska Native village that Olga Michael quietly lived her entire life as a midwife and a mother of 13. As the wife of an Orthodox Christian priest, she was a 'matushka,' or spiritual mother to many more. The Yup'ik woman became known in church communities across Alaska for quiet generosity, piety and compassion — particularly as a consoler of women who had suffered from abuse, from miscarriage, from the most intimate of traumas. She could share from her own grief, having lost five children who didn't live to adulthood. Her renown spread to a widening circle of devotees after her death from cancer in 1979 at age 63 — through word of mouth and reports of her appearance in sacred dreams and visions, even among people far from Alaska. Now, after an elaborate ceremony in her village of about 800 people in southwestern Alaska, she is the first female Orthodox saint from North America, officially known as 'St. Olga of Kwethluk, Matushka of All Alaska.' 'I only thought of her as my mom,' said her daughter, Helen Larson, who attended the ritual last Thursday along with St. Olga's other surviving children and many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She is in awe of her mother's wide impact. 'This is not just my mom anymore,' Larson said. St. Olga is 'everybody's helper.' Why Olga's gender and ethnicity matter For a church led exclusively by male bishops and priests, the glorification of Olga, the first Yup'ik saint, is significant. 'The church is often seen as a hierarchical, patriarchal institution,' said Metropolitan Tikhon, head of the Orthodox Church in America. 'Recognizing women like St. Olga is a reminder that the same path of holiness is available to all. Male or female, young or old, rich or poor, everyone is called to follow the same commandments.' St. Olga's sainthood is especially meaningful because many women canonized by the church have been ancient martyrs or nuns, said Carrie Frederick Frost, a professor of religion and culture at Western Washington University who studies women and Orthodoxy. 'To come here and be a part of the glorification of a woman who was a lay woman and was a mother and a grandmother and lived a life that many women have lived, it's just incredibly appealing,' Frost said. St. Olga's appeal to those who have suffered abuse or miscarriage is also important, she said: 'I think the church has largely failed to minister to those situations, not entirely but largely.' There are several female Catholic saints from North America. They include St. Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th century Mohawk-Algonquin woman canonized in 2012. An elaborate canonization ceremony Hundreds of visitors from near and far converged for her canonization — or 'glorification' in Orthodox terminology. 'Thou art the glory of the Yup'ik people … a new North Star in the firmament of Christ's holy Church,' the choir sang. The ceremonies were replete with ringing bells, robust hymns and processions of black-robed clerics, golden-robed acolytes, women in headscarves and other devotees in a mingling of dust and incense. Some worshippers arrived for the glorification from nearby Yup'ik villages. Others flew in from faraway states and countries to the regional hub of Bethel, and then rode in a fleet of motorboats some 17 miles up the broad Kuskokwim River — a watershed central to the traditional Yup'ik subsistence lifestyle, marked by yearly rhythms of fishing, hunting and gathering. Hundreds gathered at a riverbank in Kwethluk to greet Metropolitan Tikhon and other bishops at a specially made dock. Choral chants and incense began rising after they disembarked, and continued for hours in the uncharacteristically hot sun of Alaska's long solstice eve. About 150 devotees squeezed into the sanctuary of Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church, whose golden onion domes rise above the village's modest one-story homes. Others listened outside as a choir sang hymns in Yup'ik, many of them composed for the occasion: 'Nanraramteggen elpet, tanqilria atauwaulria cali Aanaput Arrsamquq, cali nanrararput tanqilria yuucin elpet,' said one. ('We magnify thee, O holy and righteous mother Olga, and we honor thy holy memory.') Prayers honored St. Olga as 'the healer of those who suffered abuse and tragedy, the mother of children separated from their parents, the swift aid of women in hard labor, the comfort of all those wounded in heart and soul.' Worshippers approached her open casket after the ceremony, crossing themselves and kneeling. A family's recollections Wiz Ruppert of Cranston, Rhode Island, returned to her native Kwethluk for the ceremony. That the grandmother she lived with for much of her childhood is now a saint seemed strange at first, 'but then it was also very fitting, because she was also so kind and generous when she was alive.' And Larson, one of St. Olga's daughters, recalled watching women, and some men, seek her mother's counsel. She didn't eavesdrop, but 'I used to read their faces,' Larson said. 'They'd feel heavy, by their facial expression, their body language,' Larson said. 'Then they'd have tea or coffee and talk, and by the time they go out, they're much lighter and happier.' What is Orthodoxy's link with Alaska? St. Olga joins a growing cadre of saints with strong ties to Alaska — widely deemed an Orthodox holy land, even though only a fraction of the state's population are adherents. It's here that Orthodoxy — the world's second-largest Christian communion — gained a foothold in the present-day United States with the 18th and 19th century arrival of Russian Orthodox missionaries to what was then czarist territory. Several Orthodox monks and martyrs with ties to Alaska have already been canonized in the Orthodox Church in America, the now-independent offspring of the Russian Orthodox Church. St. Olga is the third with Alaska Native heritage, emblematic of how the faith has grafted in with some Indigenous cultures. Most of the state's Orthodox priests, serving about 80 parishes, are Alaska Natives. More than a dozen are from Kwethluk. A debate, now resolved, over Olga's remains In November 2024, priests exhumed Olga's body. Her remains are currently kept in an open casket in Kwethluk's church, where pilgrims can venerate her shrouded relics. When the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America authorized St. Olga's canonization in 2023, there was talk of moving her body to Anchorage as a more accessible location. But bishops answered the pleas of village residents, who didn't want to lose the presence of their spiritual mother. Now Kwethluk, inaccessible by roads, will become one of the American church's most remote pilgrimage destinations. The diocese is working with the village on plans for a new church, hospitality center and cultural center. Worshipping in your own language The village provided a taste of such hospitality for the glorification. Pilgrims stayed in a local school or in residents' homes — amply fed by home-prepared meals of Alaska specialties such as walrus meat and smoked fish. Nicholai Joekay of nearby Bethel — who is named for St. Olga's late husband and grew up attending church events with her family — was deeply moved by the glorification. 'In church, up until today, we sang hymns of saints and holy people from foreign lands,' he said in a written reflection shared with The Associated Press. 'We have had to learn foreign concepts that are mentioned in the Gospels referencing agricultural terms and concepts from cultures that are difficult for us to understand. 'Today, we sang hymns of a pious Yup'ik woman who lived a life that we can relate to with words that only we can pronounce properly,' he wrote. 'Today,' he added, 'God was closer to all of us.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Peter Smith, The Associated Press AP video journalist Mark Thiessen contributed.
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
The Car Worthy Of Your Digital Trust
Trust is an ephemeral, amorphous descriptor of consumers' behaviors, which in days of old would've ... More been described generically by "quality" but now has multiple words to describe it. Thirty years ago, the word 'trust' was invoked in automotive realms only when gauging the vehicle's overall quality. Yes, reliability or quality were consistently amongst the top five drivers of purchasing decisions in 1995 (along with price, safety, brand, and styling), but there weren't multiple definitions of trust and few quantifications beyond JD Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) or recalls. Then in 1995, the mass-produced, connected car became a reality with the launch of OnStar, and both the opinion of trust and the nomenclature expanded. In a recent study by Perficient, manufacturers of connected products ranked trust as the absolute lowest of influential factors for a customer's purchase decision, whereas consumers ranked it the highest, and commercial users ranked it the second highest. 'It's alarming that the manufacturers and their customers don't value trust in the same way,' summarizes Jim Hertzfeld, the Area Vice President for Strategy at Perficient. And just like the number of words describing snow in Inuit and Yupik (a.k.a. 'Eskimo'), the societal focus on automotive trust is birthing a combination of prefixes to articulate nuances about how the noun feels. A few possible prefixes defined herein shall explain a portion of the perplexing landscape: Fail-forward (trust), Cyber (trust), Personal (trust) and Nightingale (trust). MARCH 2025: The OTA & Software Updates Guide graphs the global software reflash capability versus ... More the frequency it's exercised, thereby demonstrating a difficult balance between consumer experience, trust, safety and technology enablement. Genesis is the only brand in the corner marked 'Safe & Trusted'. In a now famous, previously-internal corporate mantra, Mark Zuckerberg (CEO and co-Founder of Facebook), coined the phrase 'Move fast and break things.' To some extent, this has been the mentality of Silicon Valley's influence on software development over the past 5-10 years: don't worry over pesky defects since more and more vehicles – just like cellphones – can reflash all of the software post-production and, therein, fix any launched mistakes. Fail forward. This Over-the-Air (OTA) capability of reflashing is arguably the most confusing of the trusts since it invokes one of two opposing reactions from consumers: faith in software prowess (e.g., the automaker has impressive development capabilities that will defend me) or misgivings about bad behavior (e.g., laziness of upfront rigor via 'We'll fix it later' mentality). 'There's still a wide span of capabilities in the marketplace for Over-the-Air updates and conscious choices to be made on how frequently each automaker chooses to exercise it,' states Jeffrey Hannah, Chief Commercial Officer of SBD Automotive, an independent automotive technology research and strategy firm that tracks such automotive reflashing. 'This is really an evolving area of confidence which sits between the manufacturer and end consumer.' 'We have seen a noticeable uptick in initial quality problems, especially in software,' states SBD's North American Director, Alex Oyler, 'It is enabling bad behavior. What's happening below the surface there is that [automakers] are trying to increase the cadence of product development to launch new products, but they haven't been able to simplify the complexity out of their business.' The global digital footprint continues to be hacked around the world with increasing regularity, yet ... More cyber trust remains an expectation of customers. The most ephemeral of the earned faiths is cybersecurity trust since all parties understand that new threats evolve every day, that any well-funded hacker can penetrate even the securest of designs, and that global automotive attacks continue to rise. And yet the customer's expectation is quiet, bulletproof protection. To sustain that confidence, the automaker must pivot by utilizing that same reflashing capability. 'You are no longer necessarily building a vehicle for all of what it shall be able to do for its entire life,' states Bill Mazzara, the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Chairman of the Vehicle Electrical and Hardware Security Taskforce. 'Instead, you're now building for [intended, future functionality] one day. We're headed towards a world where products will get updated, grow, and live their life. Of course, good intent never leads to actual security. Hackers will hack you for your faults in implementation rather than your cult of intent.' Consumers have an inherent, unspoken assumption that corporations will safeguard their private ... More information, however historically this has not been universally true. The most obvious trust issue is 'Will the corporations be good stewards of my personal information?' For instance, one recent vulnerability discovered within twelve brands permitted employees and possibly hackers to understand exactly where a vehicle has been over the past year within the accuracy of a parking space. Some 2024 vehicles from BYD, a leading Electric Vehicle (EV) automaker in China, had internal SIM cards that could transmit audio from inside the vehicle (e.g., the Atto 3) without the driver's knowledge. And a portion of OnStar's service that enables an insurance discount based upon drivers' habits for safe behavior shall be discontinued in 2025 since numerous privacy complaints, lawsuits, and a Federal Trade Commission ban (for providing precise geolocation data and driving behavior without adequate, affirmative consent) have made the business prohibitive and likely strained trust with some General Motors's customers. These are just a few examples from the past year, let alone the last thirty. On the positive side, digital information has the ability to provide an additional safety value. OnStar had a long-standing ad campaign called 'Real Stories' – and still has a devoted website – which featured customers' real-world accounting for technology saving their lives. Additional, innovative post-crash services have been birthed using digital information to improve the outcomes of the crash's victims. Even from a preventative standpoint, a whole sector of product development called Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) relies upon digital information going to and from the cloud to improve maps, algorithms, responses, etc. Yes, akin to Florence Nightengale, the social reformer, statistician and founder of modern nursing, the vehicle's flow of information can provide a heathier outcome and, therein, improve the digital trust. This discourse probably confuses and frustrates the reader even more. 'Which ONE vehicle can I trust? How do I parse through this to make a buying decision?' I'd love to give you the decoder ring or point you to the window sticker's 5-star rating for trust. But they don't exist. And it would be outdated tomorrow. Here's my best advice: watch the number of software recalls. If a brand has to keep cleaning-up its messes, it obviously hasn't figured out how to prevent the messes.
