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.

The Yuyaret Dancers group shown here is just three years old, and is comprised mostly of young people. This group hails from Bethel, and was a favorite among the crowd.

Atxam Taligisniikangis is a dance group from Atka, Alaska, a very small city about a thousand miles west of Anchorage on the Aleutian chain. They dance barefoot and are adorned in particularly beautiful outfits. They revived their dances just 20 years ago.

Almost 90 years old and barely over four feet tall, Mary Ann Sundown still knows how to please the crowd. The Scammon Bay Dancers are the host group for Mary Ann Sundown. The group leader is her son, Harley. Scammon Bay is 120 miles west of Anchorage on the Bering Sea.

Mary Ann Sundown is a well known singer and dancer, and became famous for her Eskimo dancing adaptation of the Macarena at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention. On the opening day of Cama-i she danced a song about her father, who had sores all over his body that no amount of medicine or attention could heal. As a last resort, he had his dog lick the sores – and they healed! At the end of the dance, Mary Ann Sundown raised her head to the ceiling and howled like a dog, pleasing the crowd to no end – especially with the faces she would make. “Pamyua!” the crowd would yell.

“More!” More indeed!

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.

Linda Gologergen doesn’t recall reacting strongly to Alaska becoming a state. She was a child at the time and her home in the village Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island was physically very far from where those decisions were being made. She does remember school lunches, the records her father brought back from the Indochina War, and the barge that arrived once a year to bring supplies to the island.

Becka Baker’s real name isn’t Becka. It’s Edna. She never liked the name and vowed never to give her children names they wouldn’t like. Her son Klay has three names. She explains how he got them.

Most students chose subjects or events that have shaped Nome’s story. Subjects ranged from historical events, like the relocation of King Islanders to the city of Nome, the history of the William E. Beltz School, and Alaska Statehood, to significant regional pastimes such as dog mushing, flying, crabbing, and gold-mining. Students chose community members who have lived through these experiences. Sometimes those community members were complete strangers and sometimes they were relatives. Many interviews focused on the history of these events, through the lived experiences of the participants.

One of the highlights for me was visiting the middle school classrooms at the beginning of this project. In two sessions, students interviewed each other with questions they thought they’d like to be asked. By the time interviews had begun, the questions had developed even more. Some were straight forward: Who are you? Some were specific: Can you tell me about a highlight in your experience as a pilot? And some were unexpected: Did you ever consider having a mascot? Did work on the Pipeline freak you out?

In keeping with the students’ goal of the StoryCorps Anvil City Science Academy colaboration, it was a “not-boring experience”.

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.’

Banner Creek’s listening booth consisted of the one-room cabin where Anahma gave birth to her daughter last year. Setting-up consisted of pulling the recording equipment (and the generator to power it) over to the cabin by a sled.

Neighbors walked, skied, and snowmachined to the cabin’s front door to share their stories. Recording highlights included hearing the youngest members of the community describe what its like growing up in Banner Creek. Another highlight included a man who walked in silently with is wife, sat down, and began speaking with these words, “I’m gonna tell you about the love of my life.” What followed was a love story for the books. The Banner Creek recordings concluded with StoryCorps’ local radio producer being interviewed by her seven year old daughter about one of the most meaningful moments of her life: her daughter’s birth.

Having spent not a wit of time outside all weekend, Anahma and I took advantage of the full moon on Sunday night for a midnight walk. It was clear from that late hour why people would choose to forego certain conveniences in order to live in this place. StoryCorps participant Conor Thomas had concluded his interview saying “a good mush goes a long way.” And so does a good view.

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.

John’s stories can often be seen as historical accounts. He remembers seeing Anchorage for the first time in 1947 when the city was made up of just three streets. “It was pretty primitive compared to what it is today,” he said. At the age of seventeen, John joined the Territorial Guard, now known as Alaska’s National Guard, in Ketchikan.

In 1963, while serving on the National Guard, John had the honor of holding the Alaskan Flag over the head of Alaska’s first state governor, William Egan, as the very first ferry ship of the Alaska Marine Highway arrived. Since John’s mother had been a precinct chairman in Ketchikan, Governor Egan would go to their house for dinner when he was in town. John said Governor Egan had a photographic memory, “He was quite a remarkable character. He was a great governor.”

John worked as a pipe fitter in Alaska for twenty years in many of the state’s industrial plants. He worked at a pulp mill in Ketchikan and one in Sitka, at all the refineries in the Kenai, and worked on oil development in Deadhorse. John also helped build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. This involved sixteen-hour days and seven-day weeks. “I like to tell [my grandkids] that I built the Alaska Pipeline all by myself,” joked John. “The other guys just stood around while I did the job.”

Alaska, as a state, is unique in that it’s still home to many people who, throughout the past 50 years, have literally helped build it. John is an example of one of these people.

The other reason Eric brought John to StoryCorps is a reason many people use StoryCorps – to express appreciation. Eric commended John on his personality. “You’re such a happy-go-lucky guy. And you do have a sympathetic ear, I’ve noticed, with the other co-workers. You try to help a lot and you pass on your knowledge. Hopefully I’ll be able to pass on more of my knowledge.”

Eric also took the opportunity to express respect. He marveled at all the hard work John continues to do, work that’s mostly done by younger men. “You’re a sixty-eight-year-old man and you’re still doing it,” Eric said to John. “To tell you the truth, I’m amazed that you’re still out there fighting this. Most people would just give up but you haven’t and I admire you for that.”

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.

One of their wilderness adventures since living in Alaska was paddling from Valdez to Whittier, a trip they had been dreaming about for years. In 28 days, the two traveled over 300 miles and came across a plethora of wildlife.

On another adventure, Deborah and Ben were hiking the prominent Wolverine Peak located outside of Anchorage when they encountered a huge brown bear. Deborah says, “She was so close you could see the guard hairs on her body.” Ben adds, “It wasn’t as though we were looking at a bear, it was as though we were studying the intricate detail in the bear’s eyes.” The bear pursued them for a little while, but Deborah and Ben managed to escape unharmed.

Being in Barrow has not stopped Ben and Deborah from being active. Even in the harsh and cold conditions, the two still manage to explore on their cross-country skis, their bikes, and even on their kayaks in the Arctic Ocean. They’ve already spied bowhead whales and grey whales, Arctic foxes and snowy owls.

Ben says one of the most important things in his life is to celebrate the wilderness, which means playing in the wilderness and exploring. What’s important to Deborah is her personal relationship with family, friends, and Ben. Together, what’s most important to each of them is beautifully and naturally combined.

“Wilderness is an incredible anecdote to whatever ails us,” says Ben. “Maybe when we’re not doing that well, it’s just because we’ve spent too much time on concrete and under fluorescent lights.”

Deborah responds, “May we always be there for each other to get each other out of the house, out of the buildings and into the grasslands, the tundra, the mountains, the rivers, the creeks, the ocean,” and Ben replies, “I’ll keep chasing you.”

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.”

Elise reported that, for the most part, Gustavus locals had not heard of StoryCorps. The public radio station there airs StoryCorps clips at 4 AM! Elise explains, “It seemed like either the whole town might show up, or no one at all.” But by the end of StoryCorps’ stay in Gustavus, some 30 interviews were recordedófriends, couples, and family members shared the stories that shape their lives.

Elise describes her experience best, “Whether tacitly or explicitly understood, many of the stories told during StoryCorps Alaska in Gustavus oriented around the connections people here have to this place. While at times, I explicitly stated, ëyou do not need to make this about Gustavus,’ even in my own interview, I found myself speaking of the complex and beautiful pull the community of Gustavus has had on my life.”

She continues, “As the person recording these stories, I’m pretty sure I lucked out the most. I’d crouch behind the wood stove, mouth agape, as people I knew expressed what is both beautiful and harsh in life. Listening confirmed for me the mission of this project: everyone has a storyómoments that have been surprising, hysterical, and poignant in their lives. All you have to do is ask.”

“All told, there was laughter, tears, partial nudity, and the confirmation that people in Gustavus shape remarkable lives of independence and sincerity.”

Visit www.storycorpsalaska.net for more information on StoryCorps Alaska.