Nothing can stop StoryCorps Alaska facilitators from bringing the StoryCorps experience to communities all over the State…not even a volcanic eruption! In spite of Mount Redoubt’s continued blasts, spreading ash debris throughout the airways, Facilitators Doreen Simmonds, Lisa Phu, and Elise Pepple finally made it to Bethel after many failed flying attempts. In collaboration with the Bethel Senior Center and the Bethel Council on the Arts, recordings began the week of March 22nd, 2009, alongside the Cama-i dance celebration.

Bethel, with a population of about 6,500 people, is home to Cama-i Festival. Cama-i (pronounced chew-MY), which means “ a warm, genuine hello” in Yupik is a three day festival that honors, celebrates, and shares the Yup’ik Eskimo tradition of dance. 22 dance groups attended this year’s event, with dancers aging from 2 to 92. All in all, approximately 1000 people joined in the celebration. Facilitator Doreen Simmonds explains, “This is not a competition or awards. The only awards are dedications to elders. This powerful experience is a celebration of a shared but varied culture.” Groups travel from all around the state, as well as internationally, to take part in the common language of dance.

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Joan Hawley-McGrath, 84, and her son, Jeff Hawley (“of 58 years,” Jeff says), came to Unalaska’s Burma Road Chapel to record their story. Jeff, a StoryCorps alumnus, called us to schedule time so he could interview his Mother.

Arriving punctually for a change, Jeff pointed out that his mother was in town. I asked Joan how many wake-up calls Jeff needed in the morning before school. She cupped her left hand along the side of her face and boomed in a low and serious tone. “Jeff, this is your last call.” Both chuckled and made their way to seats by adjacent microphones.

Warm smiles, kind remarks and jokes continue through the microphone checks. Both have that immediate familiarity that stems from their genuine concern for whomever they might be in contact with. They are true listeners who place one at ease by their mere presence.

Joan describes her childhood home, where she eventually returned years later with her children after she separated from her first husband. “I would help Mom hand out sandwiches to hobos that came from the train.” Her description of the carefully made sandwich placed in a neatly folded wax paper pocket and into a brown bag vividly captures the generosity of her family that must have made a great impression on Joan, as she has obviously modeled the trait to her own children. Joan recalls a sign on the door, put there by the recipients of the generosity, that indicated her home was “a good place” that would help those who she called “hobos” – educated doctors and lawyers who had lost their jobs during the Depression. In reflection Joan mentions that those times were not so unlike today.

From outside the door I strain to listen to the phrase Joan made following recalling her father’s words of advice. He told her that there is something that any person she meets can do better than she could. He told her to focus on the good in people.

Jeff and Joan recall their love for Christmas. Joan managed to make Christmas special, surprising, and loving – “poor” or not. As a single mom with three children Joan recants the family motto: “It’s us four against the world.” They had each other, then and now. Being together as a family, enjoying the gift of each other’s company, is Christmas for Joan and Jeff.

“This is a very special Christmas in Alaska. I love you so much Jeff.”

The Anvil City Science Academy is a charter school with forty-four fifth through eighth grade students. This year, A.C.S.A. students will create a play inspired by the lives of Nome residents. They used StoryCorps as a way to record and save those stories.

Here are the beginnings of some of the stories shared during their project:

Lawyer Kirsten Bey moved to Alaska and started dog-mushing all because of a chance car ride between Valdez and Anchorage. As a child she didn’t even particularly like dogs. Now she considers herself lucky to lead the life that she lives.

James Agloinga grew up in the village of White Mountain. He considers how education can mean different things: in his family it meant learning how to hunt and help the family, while for his daughter it has meant learning academic and professional skills, such as how to use a computer.

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Banner Creek is a neighborhood 12 miles outside of Nome. Facilitator Anahma Saito lives there with her family. This weekend StoryCorps Nome moved to the country to record her neighbors’ stories. Banner Creek became a neighborhood when a group of friends moved out of Nome in the 1970′s looking for a place to live where they could raise their dogs and mush in open country. Many residents continue to mush including StoryCorps participants Marianna Mallory, 10 and Maisie Thomas, 11 and Conor Thomas, 53. And many of the stories involved mushing.

Though some residents have running water and internet, none have phone lines. In the winter everyone parks their cars up on the Kugorak Road and snowmachines or walks home. If you want to know what people are up to, you just look towards the road. In between interviews, we’d have coffee with participants and more than once, people noted the whereabouts of their other neighbors: “Nope the Mallory’s didn’t go to church today, too cold, or, I thought I saw your truck over here and thought I’d say hi.” Resident Margaret Thomas explained, “It gets really interesting when someone in the neighborhood starts seeing someone new.’

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One of the things Alaska is known for is its vast abundance of big, hearty, “ruff and gruff” men. While they no longer outnumber Alaskan women fifteen to one, they do very much still exist. Two of them came to StoryCorps Barrow on Saturday and showed that Alaskan men can be tough, kind, and sentimental all at the same time.

Eric Estes brought his co-worker and friend, John Long, to StoryCorps for a couple of reasons. One is that John has a wealth of knowledge about Alaska. After all, John was just six-years-old when he sailed on the SS Aleutian through the Inside Passage and arrived in Alaska. The year was 1947, twelve years before Alaska saw statehood.

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When Ben Greene described his wife, Deborah, as “the stunningly beautiful but somewhat irascible redhead,” it was clear that true love was flowing within the room, throughout the C.E. building of the Ukpeagvik Presbyterian Church, and in all of Barrow.

The Greenes not only have a profound love for each other, but also for the wilderness, which is why they choose to make their home in Alaska. They were living in Anchorage when Ben got the opportunity to move to Barrow and work for the North Slope Borough Planning Department, an opportunity so unusual there was no way he could turn it down.

“After all,” says Ben, “how many people do you know are given the opportunity to live amongst an Inupiat whaling community 300 miles north of the Arctic circle? You get to see a very unique slice of life and you get to participate.” Ben and Deborah have been in Barrow since May.

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As a preface to the official kick-off date of StoryCorps Alaska, our team in New York set out to get the ball rolling a little early. Elise Pepple, the Coordinator of Outreach and Public Programs at the Public Library in Gustavus, Alaska, signed on-board to help us gather some initial interviews. Using StoryCorps recording equipment, designed for interviews much like those that take place in our booths, Elise created her very own StoryCorps “booth” to record the stories of Gustavus residents.

Gustavus is a city of 429 people set on the shore of Icy Strait, 36 air miles from Juneau, Alaska’s capital city. Gustavus is a unique community of individuals with a wide array of lifestyle choices and accommodations, from one room cabins with no plumbing to five star homes. With geologic and geographic changes to Gustavus over the years have also come social and demographic changes. The gateway community to Glacier Bay National Park, Gustavus is unique in its landscape and in its people.

In the planning stages of Elise’s endeavor, she showed a picture of the StoryCorps MobileBooth to a friend who commented that the Gustavus Public Library didn’t feel quite as “hip,” so they set out to find and make their own Gustavus StoryCorps booth. “If Gustavus is rich in something, it seems we are rich in ex-lodge buses,” Pepple remarks. She quickly came across a 21-year-old resident named Elm, who had recently bought a bus to live in. Pepple explains, “He said we could borrow the bus if we could move out the 20,000 pounds of scrap metal that were living inside and get it started. A couple of hours later, the bus was sitting in front of the library.”

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