At the end of the line

 By Stephen Penner, 2nd year MDP student

The Yup’ik communities that I have travelled to and the Yup’ik people that I have travelled with have shown me another side to what it means to be “Indigenous.” The YK Delta (Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta) homeland of the Yup’ik sits literally as west in the west that you can go out of sight to the average Alaskan and invisible the rest of the USA.  Most Yup’ik communities are fly in, outside of a few exceptions, and are served by small (6-8 seater) planes that arrive without a great deal of regularity.  20,000 Yup’ik people live in 56 villages that span this immense territory- as vast as Nebraska or equal to just over 2.3% of the size of Canada.

Bird on a wire

The Yup’ik people are part of the Inuit and Inupiat (Alaskan Inuit- a term not as commonly used but assumed by academics and scholars) family.   The Yup’ik are considered  a tribal nation and are part of The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.  ANCSA is a sort of modern treaty- interpreted to a Canadian context- funding both the non-profit and the for-profit entities within the Yup’ik and the 4 other distinct Alaskan tribal territories.

Fishing boat

I had visited many Northern Indigenous communities before my first visit to a Yup'ik community. It felt uniquely remote.  In contrast, I feel connected to the south while traveling in Northern Canada; hamlet offices display the communities' connection to the rest of Canada, the RCMP, and Co-op/North West Company and the Arctic Rangers being prominent reminders of the North/South connection. The Alaskan community remains deeply proud of its Yup’ik culture and roots, eminently respectful of its Elders and has created a culture of inclusion to visitors like me.

The work that chose me for my final MDP placement was to re-connect and re-engage with Dr. Stacy Rasmus a researcher from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I first encountered her work while attending the model Arctic Council last year. I was simply floored at the role that she played in empowering communities to deal with a host of health-related problems.

That being said, my path was not entirely clear when I arrived. I spent the first week digesting Qungasvik (Yup’ik for tool kit) and gaining book knowledge in regards to how I needed to walk with respecting the Yup’ik story, before engaging with community. And understanding the power of this tool.

The Qungasvik is a community-built response and a community-delivered suicide and alcohol reduction program.  It promotes youth sobriety and reasons for living. Qungasvik was built out of a suicide epidemic in Alakanuk, another Yup’ik village, and that village has seen an almost complete reversal in suicides since the full implementation of the toolbox. 

The Qungasvik provides communities with connections to Elders, to stories with resources, readings, land based activities, videos and more.  The tool kit is used by a community response team and is built on a culturally relevant platform.  As an outsider, I can never understand the Yup’ik experience, but I have come to deeply appreciate the learnings, objectives and goals of the tool kit during my short time in Alaska.