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Teaching teenagers in Alaska about how to harvest wild food is practical in a state that imports most of its food.

And it can be fun.

I was just like sitting here and I felt like little boop, boop, boop, boop on my arm, like on my line.

And I was like, my gosh.

How do classes on catching and processing fish and game from Alaska's waters and land help students gain confidence in self-sufficiency?

We'll discuss it right now on Alaska Insight.

Good evening.

Tonight, we'll take a look at some unique ways of teaching Alaska students about science and history through hunting and fishing.

But before we get to that discussion, here are some of the top stories of the week from Alaska Public Media's collaborative Statewide News Network.

23 year old Denali Brehmer received a 99 year sentence on Monday for the 2019 murder of 19 year old Cynthia Hoffman near Thunderbird Falls, north of Anchorage, Brehmer 18, At the time, recruited other teenagers to help her bind, sexually assault and fatally shoot Hoffman for an Indiana man.

Darin Schilmiller, who was posing online as a millionaire Schilmiller was sentenced to 99 years in January.

Both he and Brehmer have also pleaded guilty in federal court to related child pornography charges.

A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit brought by former Alaska State Senator Laura Reinbold against Alaska Airlines.

Reinbold was banned from the airline after disputes over masking during the COVID 19 pandemic.

U.S. District Court Judge Joshua Kindred dismissed all claims brought by Reinbold, who represented herself despite not being an attorney.

Kindred said in his order that Reinbold failed to properly state her claims, including alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Alaska's constitutional right to Privacy and her rights under the US Constitution.

A man from the Kenai Peninsula died in late January from the Alaskapox virus, according to the State Health Department.

The death was reported in a health bulletin last week.

In it, the department noted the man who died was immunocompromised and was the first person to die from the virus.

Alaskapox was discovered in 2015 and primarily infects animals, including red squirrels.

An epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control said she expects infections to remain rare, adding there is no evidence of person to person transmission.

You can find the full versions of these and many more stories on our Web site.

Alaska Public dot org, or by downloading the Alaska Public Media app on your phone.

Now for our discussion this evening, a topic that many Alaskans will identify with harvesting Alaska's bounty from the land and water the food Alaskans eat often travels thousands of miles by barge or truck.

But an after school program in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough aims to give students the skills to fish for their own meals, even in the middle of winter.

As Alaska Public Media's Tim Rockey reports, during a recent ice fishing outing, one lucky angler went home with dinner.

A group of teens are getting ready to go ice fishing.

The Denaina that lived in this region where amongst the richest of all, the Denaina because they didn't have to travel far because they got to fish, they caught fish year round before they get going.

Instructor Kevin Vaca does a safety briefing.

We're going to be using the rods that we built last Friday and an important checkup.

You guys want to grab hot chocolate?

You're more than welcome to the adults.

Help students punch holes in the ice and bait every hook with a piece of shrimp.

I keep feeling nibbles, but it what fish won't get it.

The instructors hope that teaching the Denaina practice of ice fishing will encourage students to take ownership of their next meal.

Vaca tells students they might pull a rainbow trout or arctic char from the lake.

I think they're a big part of our culture here in Alaska, whether you're Alaska native or not, everyone fishes out here onward and upward.

A nonprofit based in Palmer hosts this ice fishing course.

Education about food security and sovereignty in Alaska is becoming more common.

In December, a Chugiak high school freshman biology class spent two days processing a moose.

Most of the meat was donated to the Alaska Farmland Trust estimates that 95% of food consumed by Alaskans is imported from the Lower 48.

Indigenous Alaskans have always harvested nearby plants and animals for food, and although subsistence activities may slow down in the winter, wild food sources are still available.

If you know where to look.

We think it's important for students to realize that they can do this as a person and it's super easy for them to get into.

All you need is a little piece of wood and some strings and some fishing line and a hook, and you're able to go out and fish and put food on the dinner table for your families.

It's been about a half hour since Hooks went in the water and no one has gotten so much as a bite.

I'm not sure if continuous jigging helps or if just a little more efficiencies, but it's starting to look like everyone might go home empty handed until we go, we got one.

Kiana Tassie pulls a 14 inch rainbow trout from the ice.

The only fish caught by anyone in the group.

I was just like, sitting here and I felt like little boop, boop, boop, boop on my arm, like on my line.

And I was like, my gosh, I got to more.

Is this the first time you've ever caught a fish?

Yeah.

Never got ice fishing.

What's first time I caught a fish?

Tassie takes home a meal that wasn't shipped here in a memory she won't soon forget.

In Wasilla, I'm Tim Rockey.

What a fun story.

Joining me tonight to discuss harvesting from Alaska's waters and lands and the importance of teaching these skills to students is Kevin Toothaker.

Kevin is a workforce development and cultural activity coordinator for the Knik Tribe.

And Brian Mason is a science teacher at Chugiak High School.

Welcome, both of you.

Thank so much for being here.

So that was fun to watch.

Ice fishing.

Kevin, I want to start with you.

Tell us about the cultural events that you attend throughout Mat-Su Valley and what you're helping to teach at these gatherings.

What sort of the idea is?

Well, thank you for having me.

Truly, we're here visit to go and share anything that's related to the culture and the history of the designer in the Mat-Su Valley just so we could create more of a cultural identity so folks can understand that there was a thriving society there in the upper inlet long ago.

Yeah.

So.

So just sharing culture and just helping to teach about that.

You said the design of people fish differently than Inupiaq.

People talk about these distinctions and what your talking and teaching about them.

I grew up doing fishing and I didn't realize there was different ways of doing it.

Well, I was kind of like I was sharing with with the students that up north, like my mom was from Cleveland when she would go fishing for Tom Kite and stuff, they would use to two sticks when they fished and they would use the use the sticks to pull the water up and pull the fish up out of the hook.

And then it would shake it off and then the fish go going the side and then they wouldn't have to take their gloves off or anything, and then they wouldn't lower it back down to the water and then just bring it back up.

And that's brilliant.

And then with the designer, it was I don't know how different it is between the different cultures and stuff, but to tonight I have jigging sticks as well and it just uses a different means.

But yeah, I was teasing the students that they had to hold their mouths to different stuff because were to try different fishing methods.

Brian You combined ideas from a world discovery curriculum with Alaska Studies and applied for cultural education harvest permits.

What does this involve?

Talk to us.

Tell us a little bit about the permit and your efforts to get that going in school.

Yeah.

So the Alaska Department of Fish and Game offers these cultural education harvest permits.

I mean, as the name implies to help educators that are trying to teach cultural practices.

So within our own school, as you mentioned.

So my biology class is teamed up with a Alaska studies class.

And in that class they learn about various Alaskan cultures, cultural practices, subsistence in addition to Alaska's land and wildlife.

And then, of course, as a biology teacher, there is the anatomy aspect of it.

So this project is really just and the goal is to try to meld the two worlds, right, to understand that the interplay between Alaska, the place we live, the people who have always lived here and who still live here, and of course the ecology of moose and anatomy and tying everything together along with hopefully also providing students with those that may eventually want to pursue something as far as gathering their own food with some of the skill sets that would be helpful in doing so.

The moose floaters that we saw in the video story were taken during the third time that you did this process and this was actually the first time that you brought the entire moose into the school.

How do you start with the students even before the moose arrives?

And in also handling the concerns over freshmen being freshmen and having sharp knives, how do you quell the goof off factor right.

That's a great question.

So, I mean, so in the in the days leading up, well, weeks, really months leading up to this as far as the lessons in culture and and the biology lessons that sets the framework for what we're actually going to do.

And when I know that I'm going to be heading out hunting that particular weekend, we discuss what that Monday might look like if I'm successful.

But a lot of it honestly comes down to relationships with the students.

By this point in the year, I generally have a pretty solid relationship with most of my students, and my classroom is a lively place and we like to goof around.

But I make it clear with them that not today, that like I mean, they're encouraged to have fun and enjoy the experience.

And yet, you know, in three years of doing it, I've never had an issue with regards to safety.

They've always stepped up their game and done much better than I think many would expect from a bunch of 14 year olds with knives.

So yeah, yeah, you're quite brave to undertake that project and I'm glad it's working out well.

Kevin.

Talk about the practical side of what your teaching both in.

I know that you teach students how to construct jig sticks of their own.

So what's the effort there with teaching them that skill and how to use them?

Well, actually, my father and I, he actually showed me how to how to develop the jigs sticks with the engine and then wrapping it up there.

But it was truly an an opportunity to go to an evening event.

One time we went to where there were some foster youth there.

We went there to sit there and it's kind of tell them stories as we built them, built the fish, jigging stick with them, and then we'd just kind of ask them how they're doing and then just relate to stories too, based on the discussion we're having with the individuals and stuff.

So each each student be a different story depending on what they're asking about or what they're curious about.

So we'd be able to just kind of go into a different direction and share with them what their what they're looking for and just build some nice connections.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Just visit with them and just make sure they have a good experience so they go outside and in.

FOSTER and encourage going out more and absolutely getting out in the country.

Having a good experience with adults is always good for young people, too.

Tell us about the work of Onward and Upward and what the main effort is for this organization.

Onward Upwards, a tremendous organization.

I believe that they're there.

They do experience learning in that culture with that cultural vein in their in their in their learning, because they work with the Kinect tribe quite a lot in sharing a sharing culture and the history and in a thoughtful manner.

That's sensitive to how how they're the indigenous or the designer lived in the upper and everything.

So they very thoughtful about that.

But they are very they do they do experience to learn.

And this summer they went they took some students out out of Nome and they went and out in the wilderness for like a week or two weeks out in Nome and did a lot of visits out there and and and just just do a lot of them, a lot of connections.

And I can't say experience learning enough, but they just get out there and connect to a lot of the social learning and the emotional learning with that, with their experiences out in the wilderness, because there is a lack, as you had reference mentioned before, of recorded history of the designer that lived in the region.

Are you working to compile what is available and and infuse that in your teaching?

Almost definitely.

I do presentations.

I go to the elementary schools and middle schools and high schools.

I've gone to boards for various nonprofit is to share about the design of history.

Like if there's a specific region, we'll look at the look at the area and see if there's any significance to nine sites in that area.

We've done we've done the presentations like we did a presentation up by Willow, and then there was around Willow.

There's there's the mouth of the desk, a river.

And I didn't know until we started doing this research that that Kroto village, it is at the mouth of the river.

There was a Northcote, a village in the South Kota village, But long before the Russians were up here, there was a fish trap up there up the Dushku River that supported 4000 to 9 in the summer, 4009 in the summer, and that was that was a really urban area in the valley.

Cannock Lake was another area, urban area where there was a lot of villages and then there was a lot of villages along the bluffs, along above that Cottonwood Creek as well.

I think that's the thing that surprised me the most while we started doing the research, is seeing how prevalent that the mine were spread out and then learning more about them and learning about the decline of here in this area was that they were the most sedentary of all, the 1090.

They were the richest of all that the miners.

So they were able to travel the least amount to get their resources and everything.

So as a result, we were raided a lot too.

So in the upper in the people don't realize how much the raids were and stuff with a loot take and alcina they would come up and try to take the resources that we had.

Interesting, fascinating history.

Thank you for bringing some of that to the air tonight, Brian.

Talk about how you distribute the meat.

When you get it all processed, you're cutting it up and then you're sharing it.

And how that sort of fits into what you're teaching about this overall.

Right.

So one of the lessons that I think the students learn in their Alaska studies class was the importance of sharing among Alaska's indigenous people in taking care of people within the community when there is a harvest.

So in keeping with that vein, when we harvest the moose, so each first of all, each student does take home one package to share with their family.

I would probably two thirds of my students have never hunted or fish, and for many of them this is their first experience having a wild game.

So I want it's important to me that they have that experience, getting it to share it with their family.

But then the rest of the meat gets distributed within our community to families within our school that could use some assistance.

And time and again, that is something that students have talked about, really appreciating, having an opportunity to help people out.

And that actually gets back to your earlier question about freshmen with knives.

I think another part of the reason why they really step up their game is kind of twofold.

I really try to stress with them the the seriousness that comes with taking a life, right?

I mean, it's it's a fun day and we have a good time with it, but we don't take it lightly.

Right.

An animal gave its life for this experience and I asked them to respect that.

And they seem to really that resonates with them, but also that this is someone's food, that this is food, that it's going to nourish families in our community, and that there's there's something really important about that.

So I think that helps with the experience.

Yeah, that's such an important point.

The first time I went hunting and shot a deer, I was asked later how I felt about I said I felt a little sick.

Right.

And the person that was talking to me said, That's good.

You should feel a little sick.

You took a life.

So that's a really important part of all of this, is that respect.

Of course.

Brian, you also work with cultural advisors like Yvonne Peter, who is a vice chancellor for a role and Alaska Native Studies at UAF.

How do these folks help also kind of round out this instruction that you're giving to students?

I mean, honestly, they can they can provide a perspective that I can't fully honestly.

I mean, I was raised in Alaska and I was raised in a family that hunts and fish and also commercial fishers as well.

And you know, from my childhood through today, my freezer is full of moose and caribou and sheep and salmon and halibut.

And yet I recognize that those with more direct cultural connections to Alaska and Alaska's indigenous people can provide something that that I can't or at the very least a different perspective.

So in fairness, even Peter, he was invited into this by another man, Ralph Clark, who is the Alaska Strong coordinator.

He's currently based at East High.

So he made that connection and it was fantastic.

It was so great.

And so when he visited with with my class and he did it by video chat and it was actually on the morning of the experience and he was able to see what we had going on in the class and immediately started pointing out some differences in how he and the people in his village prepare a moose and what they do initially after the kill and the importance of those practices.

So one thing he talked about was they would take the head off the moose and point it in the direction of the village.

So that the moose could see in the direction of the people that it was going to nourish.

And that was something that I was never raised to do and was completely new.

And it just provided my students a a different perspective, but also recognizing the value of the practices of the people that have always been here.

And it was just a very, very powerful moment.

And I was very, very thankful that he was able to do that with us.

And really driving home that point that, you know, this is a serious undertaking.

This animal gave itself its life for feeding these folks.

And it's a good reminder for young people so that they remember the seriousness of these undertakings, the the lessons that you're teaching while carving up a moose biology anatomy, of course.

But what else is involved in that?

And so, I mean, I know I could go 100 different directions with this.

I think teamwork is a big part of it because taking care of a moose, especially in a day and a half, is a huge team endeavor.

And I think that's really important, the ones we've already hit on, but it just can't be reiterated enough to the honor and the respect for life and for the place we live in.

The really also, by extension, the value of intact ecosystems and the value of protecting the land that that that we rely upon, and that even those of us that live in a urban or suburban area are still connected to the place that we live in.

I think those are some of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Kevin, I know that you give presentations in schools and teaching the history of the design of people of this region.

How do you decide what to share with others?

When elders talk about the past, especially when sharing stories that have trauma?

Well, I don't tell any of the stories that the elders tell me without their express permission.

Most of the stories I've been telling in our presentations are from Champions Book or other research from Champions Book, or a last kind of research from the libraries and stuff.

But we just really, really wanted the idea behind this was to create more of a cultural identity, create that and create a history of it.

Like, I had no idea there was the last chiefs who sit in the station was a seven foot tall, demanding chief, you know, Miles, a seven foot tall man, and is his name his design?

A name translated to English as he makes himself clear.

Right.

But then there's a what I didn't realize either was Moose were who were Johnny come lately and stuff.

200 years ago.

There was no moose here.

150 years ago there was no Lucier.

Here was caribou that the Upper Mexico Valley was known for this caribou government peak is that the native name is where the horns come from within.

And there were so many caribou there that they had to pull them out with an animal horns and stuff.

So it's really amazing that the lot of that history is stuff that really, really fascinates me.

One of the stories that I did tell me was when her father was in his youth, he used to ice skate from Kinnick to include near a street across the inlet, and that I had no idea that the I mean, she told me that the upper inlet has never frozen ever since the power plants come on land.

But the connectors used to ice skate ran across interest to include now and then.

She repeated also said that there was a Russian Orthodox church that was moved from connect over to the town and Connect was with Diane.

So they moved the church in big chunks and I just assume they moved it around the rows.

But visiting with this elder, she said that they moved them over in big chunks straight across the ice to include in their dress something else.

Yeah.

So, you know, you talked a little bit about place names and when you think about how the design a place names connect to the people in the place and often what happened in that place and how that differs from most naming that takes place today for mapping.

How do you talk about that to students and and the differences and, you know, people just naming things to put them on a map as opposed to people who name them for very specific purpose?

And it's really fascinating.

And I think that's a part that really, really inspired me up to when I was learning about it, because I learned that they're the they didn't have maps, they didn't use maps.

There was no map to the naming process itself was the maps, because so that there was a the most recent one is Red Lake is the design name for Richard Lake is where object is lowered into the water.

That's the name of the lake.

It's not Richard Lake object where the land is lowered into the water, but it's fed by the object that is lowered into the Water creek and it's right next to the hill that is by where the object is lowered into the water lake.

And so it's all connected in that area right there.

So the whole is related to that area.

There's another place by Crow to Creek where it was where we run in fear trail, you know, and that through the trail, they were rated so often that that's when they were rated, they ran up that trail.

And me, I mean, it was right next to the Run Creek and stuff as well.

So it's right.

This is just really related in the process.

Okay.

So for both of you, beyond knowing how to cut up a moose or catch a fish, what do you hope this work ultimately does for young Alaskans, both indigenous and non-native Alaskans?

For me, for my kids, I think just this is what needed to be in America.

My kids are I'm have my my, my daughter's a quarter and my grandkids are an eighth.

So what we did, whatever we could do to try to help create that that connection to their heritage, I think is very important.

And I think residing in the Matsu Valley is the I still believe is the fastest growing village in Alaska, with more people coming from rural Alaska and coming to settling in the Matsu.

So we have folks that are coming out there from in from from all over the state of Alaska again.

And so it's our job to try to really make them have a connection with the tribe.

I mean, my my the Connect tribe, my heritage is from Utah, so the Inupiaq heritage.

But my children really knew the Connect Tribe area.

So whatever we could do and having that connection, that cultural connection to look at the programs and the camps and anything we could do to try to help share the history is very important.

And and, Brian, your thoughts there, your efforts at beyond just the practical side of this, what are you hoping this leaves young Alaskans with, I guess, mostly just a a more profound connection with the place they live and the people that live here.

I think there's a oft cited joke that Anchorage is only 15 minutes from Alaska.

And, you know, I've had students that have lived here for a time and maybe haven't experienced much of Alaska beyond the urban and suburban area and much of Alaska's culture.

And, you know, a lot of the things that come with the place we live.

And this is obviously just a small part of it, but I think it's maybe an important part for some students.

And then as for the practical side, I was thinking about this when I was watching your your video that started the show.

Learning how to hunt is a daunting endeavor.

And I was raised doing it.

And for somebody that might want to choose that, how do you even get started?

So I do hope that for a students that might want that, that it gives them some opportunities.

Well, thank you both so much for being here.

This evening is really a great conversation.

I appreciate your time.

For Alaska students who didn't grow up in families that garden or hunt and fish for their food, the lessons and how to properly harvest the bounty from Alaska's land and water is valuable beyond just filling the freezer.

It's also a lesson in ethics and respectful use.

And for students who have been taught how to hunt, fish and gather these classes, affirm the importance of understanding the history of using wild resources and honing skills to provide food for yourself and your family.

That's it for this edition of Alaska Insight.

Visit our website, Alaska Public dot org for breaking news and reports from our partner stations across the state.

While you're there, sign up for our free daily Digest so you won't miss any of Alaska's top stories of the day.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Laurie Townsend.

Good night.