Native Alaskan Wellness

Beluga Point, Cook Inlet, Alaska

While in Anchorage for an Indian Health Services conference, I had the chance to meet many extraordinary Alaska Native people working to preserve their traditional food ways and lifestyles.

One such man, a tribal councilman from the Sitka tribe, generously shared with me his herring roe. Collected by laying hemlock branches deep under water during spawning season for the herring to lay eggs on and then gathered and frozen for safe keeping, he told me the Clupea pallasii is considered the first “big food” of spring; before the green shoots and leaves begin to show. The roe tasted like droplets of ocean breeze.

One beautiful woman artist and jewelry maker gave me a tiny fish made out of fossilized ivory to wear around my neck.

Another man, a cultural artist and teacher, shared with me a story about two elders he once met in a remote village. They were a traditional married couple who didn't appear to be nearly as old as their stated age of 90 years of age. He asked them what the secret was to their apparent youth and they replied, "food and love." He then shared with me how his aches and pains of “old age” (he’s 50) were cured one day when his brother gave him a jar of salmon roe. The salmon roe was so delicious, he ate half the jar in one evening- the next morning he awoke without pain. Now he makes a point to enjoy fish more regularly and he takes fish oil daily- he does not need aspirin any longer to be pain free. But the same brother who gave him the roes had to close up his salmon fishing operation earlier this year- a lifelong fisherman, he apparently had never experienced a salmon population so low.

In this land of ocean and lakes and rivers and streams, foods of the water are central to the cultural identity and health of the people as well as the ecology of the region. Along with berries, greens, roots and mushrooms and wild meat, fish, seaweed, and marine mammals make up a significant part of the many Alaskan’s traditional diets. We know that omega 3 fatty acids found in fish are cardio protective. We know that antioxidants in berries protect against cellular damage. When colonization forced changes in diet and lifestyle, these, and other protective effects of the traditional diet began to wane. There are many different tribes in Alaska, but one thing in common is their rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer are increasing, along with alarming rates of suicide.

The reasons for these changes are many and complex, and so must be addressed on many levels. One group working to address these problems from a wholistic health perspective is the Southcentral Foundation, an Alaska Native owned healthcare organization. Southcentral Foundation's vision is a Native community that enjoys physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness; its mission is to work together with the Native community to achieve wellness through health and related services. One visit to the site showed happy staff and clients in an environment celebrating native heritage and values in the art and architecture, traditional healing services, and models of care.

I found another group working to address the wellness issues of people and places of the region at the Alaska Federation of Native’s trade show: the Nunamta Aulukestai.

Nunamta Aulukestai means Caretakers of the Land in Yup'ik. The group is made up of eight village corporations that have come together with this common goal of carefully managing the future of Bristol Bay. We are the people who live here year round. Our people have lived here for thousands of years. At the forefront of caring for our land is stopping the development of an open pit mine, Pebble Mine. This mine would sit precariously at the headwaters of the Kvichak and Nushagak Rivers. These rivers are the largest sockeye salmon producing rivers in the world. Millions of fish come back every year to spawn. Native people have been subsisting off of these fish for thousands of years. To put this resource at risk for an unsustainable resource such as gold is not only foolish but it endangers the livelihoods of the residents, animals and plants that live here.

The Nunamta Aulukestai shared literature that included the technical background of the proposed pebble mine, salmon ecology 101, DNR reports showing declines in the majority of Bristol Bay salmon species, and a flyer titled “Protecting Subsistence in the Age of Mega-Development.” The flyer captured my eye with a photo of a painted, pink, protest sign stating, “YOUR LAND LOVES YOU. LOVE IT BACK.” Across the room was a coalition of mining proponents.

I thought about the work of the Nunamta against the proposed mine on a trip north of Anchorage to the Eagle River. There my traveling companions and I witnessed a rare sight- a grizzly bear catching and eating a spawning salmon. Bears are the largest of the many species that directly or indirectly benefit from salmon runs. As our brown grizzly feasted away on his prize, I wondered how his relatives in the Bristol Bay watershed would fare if the mine went through.

Salmon aren’t the only marine species in trouble. Along with such stars as the endangered leatherback sea turtles and stellar sea lions, there is downward trend in several whale populations. The Oct 15, 2009 Turnagain Times headlined, “Cook Inlet beluga population declining; Scientists alarmed by recent count of endangered whales.” Loss of habitat and pollution (from development and mining) are cited as two key reasons for population declines.

Protecting endangered and threatened species is an issue of food sovereignty and environmental justice. Sustainable nutrition is not just about choosing sustainable foods, but also about choosing to raise our voices against unsustainable resource development and buying less “stuff” made from these processes (mining in Alaska yields copper, gold, molybdenum- all used in many industrial processes such as refining petroleum, making plastics, stainless steels, flame retardants, light bulbs and agricultural chemicals.)

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom line:

We do not live alone on this fair planet of ours. Personal and environmental health depend on each of us understanding how our choices affect the people and places of the world. For info on choosing sustainable seafood, see prior post form April '08; Finding Sustainable Seafood. For a great video on how our seemingly harmless little purchases impact the globe, see the award-winning online video, the Story of Stuff.