Author’s Note: “The Alaska Native Health Board (ANHB) is the statewide voice on Alaska Native health issues. Active for over 40 years as an advocacy organization for the health needs and concerns of all Alaska Native people, ANHB continues to emphasize the importance of self-determination in healthcare services and encourages wellness and healthy ways of life in Native communities through policy change.” ANHB Website

In August 1990, I began my Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate program at the School of Public Health, University of Hawai’i, USA. The following summer, I headed off to Alaska for my field research project, working with the ANHB to study and produce an analysis of issues, policies and programs affecting Alaska Native health.  The document served as the initial briefing paper for a joint Federal and State review of the geo-political, economic, environmental, cultural, psycho-social and other critical issues affecting Alaska Natives.

Field Research

Buckled in next to the pilot in a two-seater helicopter, we flew to a gravel strip alongside the scant row of houses on a wide bay across from the Kenai Peninsula. Port Graham, an Aleut village of 200 people, was hosting a first-ever youth ‘Spirit Camp’ organized by the Alaska Native Health Board, with 30 teenagers from seven communities participating.

It brought back wonderful memories of my YMCA youth work over the years in the USA and abroad. Led by Don, a gifted and charismatic Native youth leader, they addressed the various pressing social issues and youth concerns with creative, engaging activities and discussion, including a powerful drama performance on the problems of alcohol abuse.

Flying north to Kotzebue village above the Arctic Circle in ‘the land of the midnight sun’ we watched the sun drop to the horizon to the west over the Bering Sea and then rise again – never setting. Then, by car we followed the gravel road through a wide and lonely expanse of low-lying hills to Nome where I was hosted by a local family and their 16 sled dogs.

Driving on to the village of Teller, we picked salmon berries, learned about ‘honey buckets’ from the community health workers, and then drove to the end of one of the few remaining roads in this part of Western Alaska, through spectacular rolling hills, past sparkling clear streams draining distant snow peaks and emptying out into the Bering Sea to the west.

Then following a hectic week back in Anchorage typing up field notes, we flew to the sizable community of Bethel, located on the Kuskokwim River in Western Alaska to visit their hospital, aptly named the “Yellow Submarine” due to its tubular shape and color.

Continuing by light aircraft from Bethel, we flew over vast stretches of barren, misty tundra to Kipnuk village on the Lower Delta Region of the Kuskokwim River where we were searched for drugs upon arrival – except for one passenger who refused to be subjected to this thorough and somewhat invasive procedure, and left immediately on the return flight.

One by one, the rest of us were taken into a small shed next to the airstrip where we were instructed to remove our outer garments and footwear while the official went through our bags – including my notebook page by page – looking for ‘micro-dot’ doses of illicit drugs.

Each of the 229 federally recognized tribes in Alaska is essentially a separate ‘sovereign’ entity or ‘nation’ with the right to make their own laws and be governed by them. As such, local tribal ordinances in some communities have mandated thorough searches of passengers on all in-coming flights. These procedures are viewed as an essential part of the on-going battle to keep drugs out of their communities.

In Kipnuk, a tiny shamble of roughly built, weather-beaten wooden houses sporting TV satellite dishes punctuated an otherwise barren landscape. A solitary child rode his bike along the small patchwork of village boardwalks that straddled a sea of rubbish immediately below. The flat, mushy summer tundra stretched as far as the eye could see under the cold, misty grey sky.

Flying on to Alakanuk city on the Lower Yukon Delta we enjoyed spectacular scenery by light aircraft – flying over thousands of mirror-like ponds and squiggly waterways flowing through the multiple shades of greenest tundra feeding the Yukon-Kuskoquim Rivers and flowing out to the Bering Sea and on to Siberia.

An occasional white tent marked a riverside fishing camp. Moose and herds of Caribou moved across the vast expanses stretching to the horizon.

Anchorage

By mid-August, the first snow had dusted the earth. In just one more week, I would be enjoying Hawai’i’s balmy breezes and inviting seas. But it was time to decompress. Travelling around Alaska and meeting everybody for interviews was exhausting and stressful, and the whirlwind trip had taken its toll on my health. I had come to the conclusion that short-term intensive consultancies were probably not for me.

Just short, quick investigative visits in and out of a given community, and still expected to somehow absorb a sufficient understanding of the often complex situations. I also missed the sense of commitment to the place and the people as I had experienced on longer-term projects, like in Samoa and Thailand. But overall, it had been an extraordinary experience – very special. And I hoped that my input would result in a useful contribution towards addressing the formidable and on-going challenges affecting Alaska Native health.

Indeed, the people I met were exceedingly warm and gentle, and perhaps the most spiritual people I had ever known. When asked to describe themselves, it was always a ‘circle’ – balanced and in harmony with the universe.

But it was time to leave Alaska, and I enjoyed my last bike ride in Anchorage along the coastal trail between rain showers, breathing in the rich, moist cool and invigorating air, alive with green growth everywhere. I would miss it when the sun is out, but not the damp chilling rain, or the blustery north wind whipping across cold grassy marshes.

All so very beautiful – wildlife roaming freely. But I was ready to get back to Hawai’i’s warm sea breezes and refreshing swims in the clear, sub-tropical waters. At last, handing over the finished document — with glowing evaluations from the Alaska Native Health Board and the Alaska Federation of Natives — I was content, and ready for a good rest.

The Crash

I felt it coming after returning from Alaska in August. And it all stopped abruptly after losing Nit in December – she had married a Thai. Then the parting of friends at graduation, coupled with having lost Jessie when she married the year before, which symbolized a severance from the perpetual high of the past decade or so. The high and wide wave I had been riding for the first 18 months back in the USA had finally crested and crashed.

Eventually, I began to come out of the long bout of depression, culture shock and life-phase re-evaluation. But the painful sting of lost relationships remained – the consequence of living a transient, temporary existence everywhere – and forever negotiating that fine line between stability and stagnation.

So at last, it was back to the good life in Hawai’i – taking it all in. Three all-you-can-eat buffet meals each day, biking to the beach, swimming in the sea, stressed mainly from the busy social life, but most content to be in the library with my nose in the literature.

The view up into the mountains from my study room was spectacular. Misty, mid-morning showers brightening into rainbows, arching across the valley. Then suddenly, the semester was over, but more critically, the all-you-can-eat student meal plan was over as well! 

Stay tuned for more stories, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.

Author’s Note: “The Alaska Native Health Board (ANHB) is the statewide voice on Alaska Native health issues. Active for over 40 years as an advocacy organization for the health needs and concerns of all Alaska Native people, ANHB continues to emphasize the importance of self-determination in healthcare services and encourages wellness and healthy ways of life in Native communities through policy change.” ANHB Website

In August 1990, I began my Master of Public Health (MPH) graduate studies at the School of Public Health, University of Hawai’i, USA. The following summer, I headed off to Alaska for my student field research project with the ANHB to study and produce an analysis of issues, policies and programs affecting Alaska Native health.  The document served as the initial briefing paper for a joint Federal and State review of the geo-political, economic, environmental, cultural, psycho-social and other critical issues affecting Alaska Natives.

Alaska

It was time to tug on the muck-lucks, smear some whale blubber on my chin and head for the Klondike! Based in Anchorage for my Master of Public Health (MPH) degree summer field project with the Alaska Native Health Board, I traveled by road, sea, and air — including two-seater light aircraft with bush pilots — to Native communities throughout the state. I met with tribal council members, visited village health clinics, and interviewed local health workers and their clients to gain a better understanding the impact of public policies, programs and other critical issues affecting Alaska Native health.

Anchorage is a modern city with big, broad streets, some busy highways, but with a distinctive, wide open frontier ‘cow town’ feeling. The local bars are dark, windowless holes underground with billiard tables and sawdust floors — an efficient escape for anyone wishing to detach fully from the world. Alcohol abuse is a devastating problem in Alaska and it was depressing to see this in an otherwise healthy environment.

Neatly paved trails wind through the well-planned, eco-friendly city, and offer cyclists or skiers — depending on the season — a pleasant and practical alternative to the main motorways. Breathing in the rich, moist, cool and invigorating air, I enjoyed daily bike rides through dense forest along Cook Inlet, named for the famous explorer Captain James Cook. Sharing the bike trail with an occasional moose grazing in the late afternoon sun dazzling across the water, the world was alive and fresh with lush, green growth everywhere.

Beautiful when the sun is out, but cold and damp in the rain, with the blustery north wind whipping across the grassy sea marshes at low tide. Long summer days — sunglasses on at 10 PM. The sun still high and glinting off the water with spectacular sunsets over the snow-capped Chagrach Mountain Range – splendid in the clear, fresh evergreen-scented forest.

June was a bit nippy for this island boy, 45-55 degrees F. At 60 degrees, painfully-white sunbathers stretched out on a muddy beach were hopeful in the midday sun. But by mid-August it was snowing and I was ready to get back to Hawai’i’s tropical sea breezes.

Weekends on the Kenai Peninsula with my friend Bill were refreshing getaways from work and the city. Half Athabaskan Indian and half Russian, Bill’s mixed heritage is typical of many Alaska Natives. Bill worked with the Indian Health Service in Anchorage and was also doing his MPH at the University of Hawai’i School of Public Health. His cabin, which he had built himself, was one of the few buildings in his home village of Ninilchik.

The only other building in sight was a large, simple structure with a smoky all-night bar and country music dance hall on one side, and an 24/7 cafe/diner on the other. Separated by the bathroom, convenient transfers could be made from one venue to the other and back again, depending on the time of day or night.

So, it was exciting times in center-town Ninilchik Alaska, with mere hours between late night beer drinking with the sleepy country and western band and late morning coffee and breakfast in the attached diner. A one-stop, all-purpose gathering spot for local residents.

Driving south from Anchorage past Portage Glacier, the town of Homer, also known as the “Halibut Fishing Capital of the World” was a total zoo with all the RVs, ‘shoestring’ budget campers and fishermen lined up elbow-to-elbow along the Kenai River.

Bill took me to his family reunion and to several other Native potlatches – gift-giving feasts organized by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the USA. At these potlaches we enjoyed tons of tasty baked and smoked salmon, halibut, and seal meat, served up amid the splendid panorama of snow-peaked mountains with rivers rushing in spring run-off, and volcanoes rising across the inlet.

Colorful Native dancers moved to the mystical beat of huge drums at the annual ‘Spirit Days’ festival in Anchorage, which brings together Native tribal groups in traditional costumes from throughout Alaska and the ‘Lower 48’ States.

With the rain coming down, oldies playing on the radio, I was happy as a clam in my cozy rooftop apartment overlooking Cook Inlet. Away from academia, I was thoroughly enjoying my research project on ‘real world’ contemporary health and development issues, in a cross-cultural setting and all on my own time schedule. My only worry was that I might become too engrossed in it all and miss out on enjoying this beautiful place.

Fortunately, I am totally addicted to swimming. So my daily bike rides along the coastal trail to the University of Alaska pool were not to be missed. It was simply magical pedaling along the coast through the pine-scented forest with the late afternoon sun dazzling across the water — draining the new green covering the mudflats at low tide.

But the real fun began when I started my field work in Native communities throughout the state – travelling across vast empty stretches of land and sea to tiny, remote and often stunningly beautiful locations to meet and interview local health staff and community members for my research project.

Stay tuned for ‘Back to School: Alaska (Part Two)’, coming soon!

You can read more about Jim’s backstory,  here and here.