The election is only a few days away folks! I said I would tell a story everyday about a positive project or program that I initiated until the election. I also say a bit everyday about what I envision for the future. Todays story: A long time ago, back when I was in college, I had a dream about this old man, and he was talking in Gwichin to me. He was teasing me in my dream. I didnt understand hardly any Gwichin at the time but I understood him perfectly in my dream, it was really weird. The next day it was the weekend and I went to the library, I searched online and randomly found a recording of my great grandfather Sam Alexander, I listened to the tape and it was the same voice as the one in my dream. What a powerful experience. I thought to myself, I have to understand what hes saying, so I started to learn Gwichin with Lillian Garnett. Around 1999 I put together a proposal to start a Gwichin language archive in Fort Yukon so that more people might have experiences like I had where I felt really connected to my language, culture, and ancestors. After failed attempts and grants, and generally failing a lot, I formed Dinjii Zhuh K’yaa with Lillian, Mary Fields, Rosa Negrita, Freda Joseph, and Paul S Williams Jr.. I requested the Armory from the National Guard, and received usage for free, wrote an IMLS grant for heat, and electricity which was awarded. I cleaned the building and repaired the Toyo stove, and set about collecting Gwichin Language material. Then I went to Fairbanks and completed the digitization of the Gwichin collection at the Alaska Native Language Archive. Kathy R. Sikorski had completed the cataloging of the collection years earlier which was the actual hard work in my opinion. I mostly worked on digitizing the documents. Essentially, we made everything that has been written or recorded in Gwichin available to anyone with an internet connection. We also have this entire digital collection here in Fort Yukon at Dinjii Zhuh K’yaa. Recordings of hundreds of Elders are right here. Place name maps, books, photos, and even funeral programs. We have had Gwichin language table hosted by Marilyn Savage. Thankfully a lot of the digitization had been already completed by Stacey Baldridge (who also came to Fort Yukon to teach me about archiving! Mahsi Stacey!), and Wendy Camber, and we had a lot of support from Gary Holton too. So, we now have a ton of material and recordings of our Elders available right here in Fort Yukon. What I would like to see for the future is that we establish a short range FM radio (theyre really cheap and easy to install), which will broadcast all of the hundreds of hours of recordings that we have at Dinjii Zhuh Kyaa so that people can listen to these stories right in their own home or out at fish camp. We would just play these recordings on a loop so we wouldnt have DJs and stuff like KZPA, but I still think it would be cool. We can do the same thing with video, for about the same price, have a Gwichin language TV channel. There is a group called Radio Free Berkeley which provides kits for about 5,000.00 (for both TV and radio). Which isnt too bad, when you consider all of the other costs (like electricity and programs) are all ready paid for. I also want to see a daycare established in our community where our language is promoted and utilized. Lastly, I think we need to support recognizing our traditional place names, like getting Draanjik recognized, our original Gwichin name is much more beautiful than black river. I am proud to have submitted the application and that it was approved by working together with the village and people of Chalkytsik. I would like to serve as your positive voice on the Council.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 05:38:10 +0000
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