For The Wild - InTheField： KASYYAHGEI on the Law of the Land ⧸149

00:00:00.000 This program is supported by the Calliopeia Foundation.

00:00:04.580 Calliopeia honors all life is sacred and works to heal global issues at their root causes.

00:00:11.480 The projects they support hold a common vision for a future built on love,

00:00:16.140 reverence, and responsibility for our shared home.

00:00:19.940 Their visionary generosity brings impactful projects to life.

00:00:25.140 Hey for the wild community, Ayana here.

00:00:27.480 I'd like to thank the city of Bend, Oregon for generously supporting our work as storytellers.

00:00:34.120 I love the experience of watching the seasons transform the landscape under a blanket of fresh

00:00:39.160 snow. It's a magical time to slow down, give thanks, and reconnect with the land. Bend offers

00:00:46.700 amazing winter activities like snowshoeing in the crisp air of the magnificent Three Sisters

00:00:51.720 Mountains, which have been shaped by ancient volcanic and glacial activity. As we tune into

00:00:58.160 this winter's energy, we're thinking about the opportunity to refresh our spirits with

00:01:02.680 responsible and safe adventures. Bend, Oregon is a member of Pledge for the Wild, a group of

00:01:09.180 mountain towns helping those who are passionate about nature to give back to local nonprofits

00:01:14.660 that care for these beautiful places. If you plan to visit Bend, we encourage you to support

00:01:20.080 local businesses and give back at PledgeWildBend.com. That's PledgeWildBend.com.

00:01:27.100 Welcome to For the Wild podcast, In the Field edition. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:01:51.380 in the field is a new bioregional place-based storytelling series that for the wild has been

00:01:58.760 co-creating for the past four years recorded on the road in living rooms on the river and around

00:02:06.240 kitchen tables in the field features intimate conversations with land offenders whose voices

00:02:12.360 spring from deeply rooted knowledge and commitment

00:02:15.500 it's been thrilling to see last week's pilot episode making waves across the interwebs

00:02:31.460 and we encourage everyone to listen and share it if you haven't done so

00:02:35.540 it features wanda kashutahakulp the clinket matriarch from the village of hoona in so-called

00:02:42.660 Southeast Alaska, who shared with the world her powerful testimony for the Tongass National Forest,

00:02:49.100 the unceded territory of the Tlingit, Haida, and Shimshian peoples. Today, we pick up the

00:02:56.040 conversation with Wanda's dear friend and longtime partner in justice, Kasayage. The Tongass, which 0.90

00:03:03.740 holds most of the ancient temperate rainforest remaining in the world, currently faces the most

00:03:09.180 dangerous attack in recent history as the state of Alaska and National Forest Service attempt to

00:03:15.540 revoke protections on 9.2 million acres of unparalleled splendor, pandering to the gasps

00:03:22.700 of a dying logging industry. We hope their stories make the forest come alive for you,

00:03:29.260 as they have for me, and move you to stand up for one of the most precious living libraries

00:03:35.280 left on this earth. Please visit our website at forthewild.world to make a public comment

00:03:42.420 today, and add your voice to keep roadless rule protections in place. Now let's begin.

00:03:48.760 Hi, hello, thank you so much for having us over.

00:04:08.580 Kasayage is a respected Tlingit knowledge keeper, a mother and grandmother, a spruce

00:04:27.820 root basket weaver, and a fierce protector of her community and village of Huna.

00:04:32.560 In the 1980s, Kisayage brought a lawsuit against the National Forest Service for logging in Huna,

00:04:40.660 and since then has continued to stand with unwavering integrity and courageously speak truth to power.

00:04:49.180 Wanda had sung Kisayage's praises years prior, but it wasn't until last year, 2018, that we finally got to meet.

00:04:58.660 After a string of emails back and forth and misconnections,

00:05:03.380 Kasayake and I happened to unknowingly ferry to Juno on the exact same day.

00:05:09.140 The next morning, Molly, March, and I hopped in the car and drove to her son's home,

00:05:15.000 where we sat around the kitchen table enwrapped with the conversation that you'll hear today.

00:05:19.680 Oh wow, what a garden!

00:05:23.400 Wow, are you kidding?

00:05:24.860 Do you want to sit on the couch or the chair?

00:05:31.860 I think I'm going to sit over here so I can look out the window.

00:05:34.860 Would you want to wear a lapel?

00:05:37.860 Yeah, go ahead.

00:05:39.860 And if you would just have a pocket or a place to put that?

00:05:44.860 Oh, technology.

00:05:45.860 I know, huh?

00:05:47.860 Oops, what did I do?

00:05:52.860 Okay, well, I heard you talking about the salmon. I'll introduce myself. My name is Kasaya Geh. I am raven. You know, there's either raven or eagle in our clan. That's the main breakdown. So I'm raven, and the family breaks down a little bit more.

00:06:11.560 I am a dog salmon, and the family breaks down a little bit more, and I'm a crow.

00:06:19.740 So to let you know that we have that connection, the salmon connection as well.

00:06:27.840 And I think absorbing our clans from the land,

00:06:33.520 every clan that we have is from the land, or the ocean, or the air.

00:06:41.560 And our names have meaning from the land.

00:06:46.560 If you really want to learn, I mean, even if we really want to learn who we are,

00:06:53.560 the connection is always to the land, the air, the water.

00:06:57.560 So I appreciate people like you that come around

00:07:02.560 because we feel like we fought a battle.

00:07:06.560 You win the battle, you lose the war.

00:07:11.560 It was part of, I'm sorry, I'm emotional.

00:07:18.560 Hanlon versus Barton.

00:07:21.560 I'm Ernestine Hanlon Abel.

00:07:24.560 My Uncle Eli Hanlon was part of it too.

00:07:28.560 And the whole approach was to make sure our grandchildren continue to have our way of life.

00:07:39.700 I don't like the word subsistence because our way of life is not at all in any subcategory.

00:07:49.180 We live, we have only the best.

00:07:54.620 Look at our food. Look at our land. So wealthy, but we're so poor.

00:08:05.160 though i'm not of the land that is now called the tongas i know that my people are also of a place

00:08:24.140 that is cold cloud covered and the once new salmon across the reaches of time and space

00:08:31.920 and culture, we connected to each other's boundless love for the forest, as daughters,

00:08:37.720 sisters, and nieces of these great beings and beyond human lineages.

00:08:43.560 Bobbing between memory, story, admonition, and plea, Kusayaga has so viscerally brought 0.97

00:08:50.660 to life the history of the Tongass, the monstrosity of resource extraction, and the beauty and 0.88

00:08:57.320 sustenance of this moss-cloaked landscape.

00:08:59.860 I ask that you listen to these offerings with a reverential imagination,

00:09:06.840 care, and curiosity for the landscapes that lie between her words.

00:09:17.440 When we brought a fish home, we didn't eat the fish that day.

00:09:25.760 The law says you let the spirit go back.

00:09:29.860 and you tell the spirit that we're going to feed my family and the fish is better

00:09:38.860 anyway the next day and same with the deer when my dad would go hunting they'd

00:09:45.100 take the the head and they'd turn it to where the Sun would set and they'd tell

00:09:51.260 the deer go ahead and watch the sunset and we're gonna take you home and feed

00:09:56.980 my family. So there was a lot of reverence. It was paying attention to the spirit world,

00:10:06.340 like being able to go out to the tree, being able to go out to the glacier, and when they

00:10:14.400 have something to say to you, you could hear it, you could receive it.

00:10:24.980 There's a lot of things going on in the world, and I feel very sheltered.

00:10:30.860 I feel like I'm secure in the arm of our ancestors.

00:10:41.480 Huna means protection from the north wind, but I feel protected in many ways.

00:10:48.100 But as we sit here and feel protected, there's a lot of things going on with our forest.

00:10:54.640 a lot of things going on with the water, the cruise ships, and the glacier is melting.

00:11:03.940 It's making significant differences in our lives.

00:11:10.280 This is the hottest summer we've had ever.

00:11:14.800 It's alarming.

00:11:16.640 It should be alarming.

00:11:19.480 I guess what keeps coming to my mind right now is we're the canaries.

00:11:27.180 What do they call them, you know, the mine and the canary?

00:11:29.260 The canary and the coal mine.

00:11:30.260 Yeah, we're the canaries.

00:11:32.700 We could speak for the animals.

00:11:36.520 They need a voice.

00:11:38.980 But we've been made voiceless just like the way the animals have been made voiceless.

00:11:44.920 like you, that's going to make it work. We're being heard. The deer, the mountain goat's

00:11:53.280 going to be heard. Thank you. I use mountain goats for my weaving. Mountain goats come

00:12:02.320 down in the springtime to get their salt, because it was predictable to see them come

00:12:07.560 down the mountains. Oh, it's time for them to get their salt. My dad fished up in Glacier

00:12:13.780 Bay. That was his fishing area. And he said as cruise ships got more numbers up into Glacier

00:12:22.660 Bay, the mountain goats stopped coming down because they set a certain haze of smog on

00:12:32.540 the mountains, and the mountain goats would not go past that smog. They'd stay up. And

00:12:38.660 I finally decided to come through the smog and get the salt anyway.

00:12:44.080 Would you mind sharing with us what it was like to grow up in Hoona in your younger years there?

00:12:53.120 Oh, sure.

00:12:54.240 Growing up in Hoona, there was only two cars in the whole village.

00:13:00.040 One was an old model T-Ford that somebody brought in, and the other one was an oil truck.

00:13:08.660 The kids played most of their games on the street.

00:13:13.240 All the men were fishermen.

00:13:16.540 There was a crab cannery there, so the women worked there.

00:13:21.160 And we spent a lot of time in the woods because that's what we had around us.

00:13:28.260 The woods are the beach.

00:13:29.360 the summers were light

00:13:33.140 so you know

00:13:34.020 we got our cue

00:13:35.780 of what time to go home

00:13:37.000 by just how hungry we were

00:13:38.860 and a lot of times

00:13:41.000 we could just go get food

00:13:42.660 from the land

00:13:43.560 berries and sprouts

00:13:46.580 and different things

00:13:48.460 we just put crackers

00:13:50.500 in our pocket

00:13:51.280 and go take off in the woods

00:13:53.800 and be gone all day

00:13:55.320 climbing trees

00:13:57.400 I feel real connected to the trees.

00:14:02.400 I grew up with a really large family.

00:14:04.400 I had seven siblings.

00:14:08.400 My dad was a saner majority of his life,

00:14:12.400 and then later on in his years he became a power troller.

00:14:18.400 But there was never a time that we were hungry.

00:14:24.400 our freezer was always full if anybody felt a little ill he'd go get a seal

00:14:32.020 because the seal is so healthy and you'd feel better we got tired of fish we go

00:14:40.160 oh fish again now I just love fish it was definitely a village life if somebody

00:14:50.620 needed something, they were taken care of. The homeless situation that's so

00:14:59.300 prevalent in the cities, we still don't really see that in Hoonah. And like I

00:15:07.600 said, you know, there was always the raven eagle. We were always

00:15:12.380 aware of who we are, and if you're a raven, if you help the eagle out, that

00:15:17.620 would be you know that was that was what he did the law of the land the law of the

00:15:25.840 land when you pick berries you didn't eat it while you were picking you wait

00:15:31.540 until winter time we picked a lot of berries had encounters with bears and

00:15:42.400 there was no men around and no guns around and we talked to them in Quinket

00:15:46.500 and my mom was praying they left so I really believe that there's a respectful

00:15:54.240 way to deal with our wildlife. I keep coming back to that. It's just a matter

00:16:02.160 of respect. I'm wondering like when did you see things start to shift? What was

00:16:08.940 the progression to growing up and then where it is now? When did you start to

00:16:15.000 see a shift and what did that look like in your village of Huna?

00:16:19.480 The biggest shift was with the logging and there was a definite line between loggers and fishermen.

00:16:28.840 Village and loggers and the attitude there was a definite I don't know how else to say it but

00:16:39.720 But there was a definite logger attitude that came in to the town. 1.00

00:16:44.340 A lot of disrespect for young ladies. 1.00

00:16:49.280 Because they felt like they needed jobs, they gave up fishing. 1.00

00:16:53.720 They gave up the way of life to make a nickel.

00:16:59.680 And that's what it is.

00:17:00.980 It was a boom and bust.

00:17:03.380 So people stopped fishing and having their traditional connection to the land

00:17:09.080 to make a nickel, and that really started to divide the community or shift the way people

00:17:16.240 related.

00:17:17.240 Uh-huh.

00:17:18.240 Because of the attitude that came with the loggers, a lot of the meetings, the 10-year

00:17:25.220 meetings, you know, there was a definite divide, and they had to continue with their

00:17:32.000 belief system even though they saw the demise.

00:17:37.840 It just fits corporate America.

00:17:42.400 So the smokehouses, we used to have a lot of smokehouses all over the place, fish smoking

00:17:50.360 all over the place.

00:17:51.360 There's only about two or three smokehouses that I see going now, so we aren't.

00:17:59.560 Now for the tourists, the people are willing to give up their whole summer to work for

00:18:07.460 a few days when the tour ships are in town and our people are the last ones hired and

00:18:14.500 the first ones fired for the nickel

00:18:21.540 okay so here we are in juneau alaska and so you're on the the seaborne yes and where have

00:18:27.780 you traveled through well icy straight point yesterday we went into huna okay how was huna

00:18:33.060 Quint, different quints.

00:18:36.060 They just killed a grizzly bear.

00:18:38.060 Very, very friendly people.

00:18:40.060 The grizzlies are coming down because the streams are drying up

00:18:43.060 so the salmon are not getting up to the mountains.

00:18:46.060 So the bears are coming into the town.

00:18:48.060 It was near the school.

00:18:50.060 There was a bear near the school and they killed it.

00:18:53.060 You can understand but it's still sad.

00:18:56.060 But the people were really friendly and they were really nice and welcoming.

00:19:00.060 it's the weather i just can't understand that the weather's so beautiful we were expecting

00:19:04.300 it to be rain all the time i know i was expecting white skies yeah and drizzle

00:19:11.500 and we haven't had it unfortunately i've had a terrible cold since i've been here we've just

00:19:16.780 done a wonderful trip now with a young lady there to see the whales okay yeah we saw quite a few

00:19:22.300 whales you know okay and do they serve you salmon on the boat yes yeah there's a choice there it's

00:19:28.860 It's on the menu if you didn't have everything.

00:19:30.440 I haven't had it yet.

00:19:32.960 Farm salmon isn't good.

00:19:35.480 It should be wild, really.

00:19:37.040 There's quite a selection of seafood on there, isn't there,

00:19:39.140 with the caviar and the halibut.

00:19:41.220 I had a halibut once,

00:19:43.000 and the caviar, they just give you a small little bit.

00:19:47.320 But I think you can have it any time, I think.

00:19:50.560 Like champagne, you can have that any time you like.

00:19:54.740 There's been a lot of seafood.

00:19:56.680 last night I think they had four or five different preparations of salmon and not

00:20:02.800 including the smoked salmon on the thing they had a big salted salmon that was

00:20:06.640 really pretty and very weird but it was pretty but I didn't need it

00:20:26.680 In the 1950s, industrialized logging began in the Tongass and sparked four decades of high-intensity clear-cutting that resulted in an estimated loss of 70% of the massive trees along shorelines and streams, where wildlife overwinters.

00:20:45.260 logging destroys salmon habitat in several ways old-growth trees act as giant water towers

00:20:53.580 releasing moisture into the landscape in dry times and maintaining a moist microclimate within

00:20:59.780 their canopies where mosses rotting wood humus and soil fungi act as a thick sponge that feeds

00:21:07.760 the streams the removal of these trees obliterates this ensemble and the delicate strata of the

00:21:14.920 forest floor are upended by heavy equipment. Logging roads carved into hillsides disrupt

00:21:21.720 the flow of water on a landscape and cause salmon beds to fill with sediment, suffocating

00:21:27.100 the juvenile salmon. Research currently underway is finding that the fungal populations of

00:21:33.320 a watershed, which is mostly destroyed by logging, exudes a chemical signature that

00:21:38.900 gives each stream a unique flavor, helping salmon navigate home. Many more dots are yet to be

00:21:46.600 connected by science, but we know that salmon provide essential nutrients for virtually every

00:21:52.580 aspect of life in these forests. Claiming to protect salmon habitat, Forest Service regulations

00:21:58.940 require that loggers leave a minuscule 100-foot buffer along salmon streams, while vast stretches

00:22:05.820 of the forest above are cleared away. The native corporations have no such requirements,

00:22:12.780 so logging often plows straight across stream beds. Timber operations in Huna, in particular,

00:22:20.120 picked up in the 80s, wiping out traditional hunting and foraging grounds and seeding deep

00:22:26.040 social divisions within Kasayage's community. Concerned about these changes on the land and

00:22:32.380 in her village, Kasayage began to organize with others from the community to sue the Forest Service.

00:22:39.440 One day, at a gathering at the local school cafeteria, Wanda overheard Kasayage speaking

00:22:45.500 about the lawsuit. They began to chat, and then, as Wanda puts it, the rest was history.

00:22:52.660 She was my partner the whole time that we were doing the Hanlon versus Barton,

00:22:57.600 those 10 years and having to go to those meetings we'd be carrying all those

00:23:03.000 books around with us having meetings but it was me and Wanda and she had a 0.70

00:23:09.900 typewriter before computer days she'd be sitting there typing more letters but

00:23:19.380 yeah we were we were the we were a team I liked working with her I can't

00:23:24.840 remember the year, but the Forest Service had started a log in Arantuna, and I brought it up

00:23:36.560 as a concern because I was weaving, and I was seeing these tremendous changes, and these big

00:23:43.960 plans, and red ribbons all over the place. In the Hanlon versus Barton case, Kasayage and other

00:23:52.000 plaintiffs built their argument around the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act,

00:23:57.680 or ANILCA, a 1980 law that purported to uphold native rights to hunt and fish in Alaska.

00:24:04.460 They argued that industrial logging and road development threatened the populations of

00:24:09.960 Sitka black-tailed deer, and thus their traditional way of life and long-standing

00:24:14.380 culture of harvesting wild foods. The courts, however, found the plaintiffs' claim to be

00:24:20.200 insufficient, and ultimately sided with the Forest Service. Legal strategies for conservation

00:24:27.080 got a second wind when the roadless rule was passed in 2001, a law with significantly more

00:24:34.100 teeth than anilka. Considered one of the most successful conservation measures in history,

00:24:40.540 roadless rule protected 58.5 million acres across the country from road construction

00:24:46.080 and timber harvest. This federal rule, however, is once again on the chopping block, as vultures

00:24:53.600 of industry circle the precious, still-humming ecosystems, flowing creeks, and talking trees

00:25:00.380 that remain standing. Anelka, for whatever it's worth, we tried to use Anelka, I believe,

00:25:10.660 802 for subsistence and used like a deer model to show that our way of life is

00:25:23.300 going to be truly endangered and irrippable. It took ten years of my life.

00:25:32.080 I didn't realize it was going to take that long.

00:25:37.720 And that's the other thing is the Forest Service words are not meant for people like

00:25:45.240 us.

00:25:46.700 They're meant for people who have jobs and sit behind desks to translate what they write.

00:25:56.040 But it was easy enough to see the red flags and start working through it.

00:26:02.440 So you spent 10 years in a lawsuit with the Forest Service to say, stop logging.

00:26:10.680 This is our livelihood.

00:26:12.000 This is our connection.

00:26:13.000 Protect this area, protect that area because of the deer, the fish, I mean, you know, and...

00:26:21.340 Was it successful for you or did they end up not...

00:26:24.440 You know, subsistence was put in the back burner—it was just put in the back burner

00:26:31.440 because that's how the laws are.

00:26:34.360 Apparently, it wasn't strong enough of a law, and so the strong law that they needed,

00:26:42.560 they wanted to work with that they felt would have a grip was the roadless, addressing roadless.

00:26:51.340 And so we own the—I shouldn't say we because I don't admit to be part of the corporation.

00:27:00.020 It's an entity.

00:27:02.340 Anyway, they own a lot of land, and one of my concerns is because we are so small and

00:27:14.100 so isolated and all this log and opened up this land,

00:27:18.260 I believe there are Brennan tailings in Tohuna.

00:27:23.780 Tailings being the waste for mines that contain heavy metals and toxic chemicals.

00:27:29.380 I can't say for sure. I can't put my finger on it, but there is an extreme high rate of cancer

00:27:40.580 just within our community.

00:27:43.940 And there was this boat I lived that I could watch come in.

00:27:49.060 And it didn't deliver groceries.

00:27:51.020 It didn't take anything away, but it would drive a truck off.

00:27:55.960 And they would always do it in the middle of the night.

00:28:00.340 I can't say for sure.

00:28:03.780 But I, you know, if that's one thing that we could probably see,

00:28:09.740 what else is going on that we don't know about. We're the forgotten in the

00:28:18.420 villages. We're the forgotten and, for example, when the money goes, the money is

00:28:25.880 first taken out of the villages. When the money comes, we're the last ones to get

00:28:31.540 it. So why would our kids want to come back? That's my biggest resource extraction that

00:28:43.760 I want to point out. Our young people. They're not coming back home. They don't want to.

00:28:54.380 Our houses are breaking down.

00:28:57.640 We see our money go to the tourists.

00:29:02.960 For the cruise ship, we got a $10 million dock.

00:29:08.620 The cruise ship is given more and more permission to eliminate all their waste into our water.

00:29:17.140 And you know, besides that, that ugly disease that they put in the water, they also come

00:29:25.380 real sick.

00:29:26.380 They come personally sick and they're supposed to be quarantined.

00:29:31.240 They even came with measles a few days ago.

00:29:34.820 Our people never used to get sick in the summertime.

00:29:39.500 We're having sick people.

00:29:41.100 We have people with cancer. 0.93

00:29:44.560 people are I'm sure already the average age of a Tlingit woman I've passed but

00:29:55.220 I'm almost certain it's lower with the cancer that's going on and the drugs

00:30:03.120 that are available drugs aren't just in the city resource extraction our young

00:30:13.440 people, they're doing a good job. I have a great-granddaughter. She's two years old.

00:30:22.320 Her name is Ernestine. She makes me really happy and gives me reason to live. I don't

00:30:33.640 see her very often, but I have a lot of hope for her. But at the same time, I want a bubble

00:30:41.380 rapper, you know, protector, teenage years, murdered an indigenous woman, missing woman,

00:30:55.140 hardly addressed, but the pace is picking up. 0.93

00:31:00.940 That's the resource extraction I'm thinking about at this point.

00:31:06.060 young people, our young kids, my granddaughter. We need to have a safe

00:31:13.680 place for them to come back. If they want to come back home, I don't think that's

00:31:21.600 asking too much. When I first got in touch with Kasayake, she asked what I wanted to

00:31:28.920 talk about and I answered resource extraction. Before we began the

00:31:34.500 the interview, she reviewed an old receipt with notes scribbled in pencil, and told me that she

00:31:41.300 didn't know if she had anything to say on the subject. As she told her story, I realized that

00:31:47.760 my desire to understand resource extraction, in terms of logging and mining in Southeast Alaska,

00:31:54.460 was an all-too-small container to hold the complexity of what I was hearing.

00:31:58.280 extraction goes far beyond material industry extraction is an attempt at erasure poisoning

00:32:06.720 of deep cultural roots and places of belonging forced abandonment of endemic languages and

00:32:12.920 erosion of pride across generations and so how can we support the process of healing in these

00:32:20.520 fleeting moments between us becoming conversant with the key components of the imperial history

00:32:26.480 is a place to begin. One of the most pivotal and consequential events at the interface of

00:32:34.520 settler-Indigenous relations in Alaska was the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement

00:32:39.940 Act, or ANCSA, in 1971, which we introduced in the previous episode with Wanda. In true colonial 0.99

00:32:48.400 spirit, ANCSA, quote, extinguished Alaska Natives' rightful use of the whole of Alaska,

00:32:53.880 in exchange for one-tenth of that area, 44 million acres, plus a $962.5 million seed fund

00:33:03.300 for a new system of Native corporations. Since Alaska doesn't recognize sovereign tribes,

00:33:09.940 it imposed a corporate system on the supposed beneficiaries that requires the commodification

00:33:15.940 and ongoing extraction of wealth on Native lands. While hailed as a generous civil rights concession

00:33:22.980 by colonial governments.

00:33:25.140 The elders we spoke with told a very different side of the story.

00:33:29.280 ANCSA has had a detrimental effect on the landscape

00:33:32.060 and social well-being of Indigenous societies across Alaska.

00:33:38.020 ANCSA passed in 1971.

00:33:43.080 I distinctly remember it.

00:33:44.800 I was pregnant with my son.

00:33:47.260 He was born three months too late,

00:33:49.740 so he's called Afterborn. 0.54

00:33:52.980 Isn't that disgusting?

00:33:57.880 Anyway, one of the elders was talking in Tlingit and my dad told me that he was saying that,

00:34:07.080 you know what they're doing? 1.00

00:34:08.780 They're going to divide us.

00:34:11.700 Now that money is going to be in the picture, beware.

00:34:18.300 And what they were trying to say that they couldn't form into words.

00:34:24.340 We've become a corporation.

00:34:27.400 We are a tribe.

00:34:30.340 And now we've become a corporation and it's not going to fit us and it hasn't.

00:34:36.600 It's been the most ill-fitting thing that has ever been forced on us.

00:34:42.180 There's definitely lines drawn.

00:34:45.900 Corporations are entities.

00:34:48.260 Corporations don't have souls.

00:34:51.300 We already know that.

00:34:52.340 This is corporate America.

00:34:55.340 And they have a lot of leeway.

00:34:59.780 While we were dealing with the Forest Service

00:35:04.240 and how they were logging, they were criticizing us

00:35:07.680 because Hoonatotum Corporation and Sea Alaska Corporation

00:35:13.680 were logging.

00:35:15.260 And the way they turned the corporation over to the tribe was they turned certain parts of the land and it was already designated as to be logged.

00:35:32.920 Hoonatotum was one of the first corporations to log.

00:35:35.760 And the state of Alaska did not have any laws to protect us.

00:35:47.760 And so when Sea Alaska and all the other native corporations did their login, they had permission

00:35:57.480 to log all the way down to the water.

00:36:01.200 had permission to log all the way down the creeks. So, you know, the laws all

00:36:09.960 didn't get passed until the corporations had already done all their logging. So

00:36:16.020 you look around Hoona, everywhere you look is logged. And yeah, they cut right 0.99

00:36:28.180 down to the creeks. They cut right down to the water. And like the Forest Service is saying that 0.62

00:36:35.220 they're working with the natives when they're actually working with the corporation. So I really 0.99

00:36:40.020 believe that they're trying to put roads in because Sea Alaska just announced that they can't

00:36:45.780 log because they can't access their logs. But if the Forest Service puts roads in,

00:36:51.220 then they could access their logs. But it hasn't even come up for public discussion

00:36:56.900 our public commons and they're already moving in all the road equipment, their road building

00:37:02.260 equipment in Hoona. There's no logging companies because it's a relic anymore. A lot of the loggers

00:37:11.140 got old and so they're going to have to start a whole new crop of loggers. I mean, you know,

00:37:15.940 there's no benefit, no profit. What was really nice to see was a protest about the roadless rule

00:37:27.780 with SEAC and WECAN. We were really encouraged because there was a lot of young people,

00:37:35.460 and a lot of young people involved. I do not have faith in the Forest Service. I do not have faith

00:37:42.340 in the federal government. But I have faith. Is that thunder? That's so unusual. You and

00:37:56.160 all these younger people, we haven't lost hope. Yeah, the world is in drastic change,

00:38:07.580 But we're going someplace. We're going someplace.

00:38:11.080 There's bad people out there.

00:38:13.560 Yeah, granted, there is.

00:38:16.580 There always has been, hasn't there?

00:38:22.300 But as Maya Angelou says, I shall rise.

00:38:27.860 The summer of 2019 broke all temperature records in Alaska,

00:38:33.300 adding to the hardship of salmon in warming oceans and contracting streams.

00:38:38.760 Embedded deep in these forests are a few select trees

00:38:41.820 that contain traits that may allow them to survive a hotter world.

00:38:46.300 And when they fall, they take with them the seeds of future forests.

00:38:51.100 These primeval depositories of rare genetics

00:38:54.560 must be safeguarded as an elixir of continued life.

00:39:02.420 Oh, oh, oh, oh, man

00:39:16.500 These hard times have failed

00:39:18.820 This is the last time I've come back

00:39:23.080 To this year's place

00:39:25.000 Peace and purpose

00:39:27.800 Yes, you gotta draw from within

00:39:30.400 Come let's meet all the world

00:39:34.080 So we're up again

00:39:36.340 All I need

00:39:39.900 Do you feel built your light

00:39:42.940 Reminds me that love is not far from sight

00:39:47.440 Where are you?

00:39:52.560 I hope as we all sound human

00:39:55.000 Hey, believe me, rubble, feel so insane

00:39:59.180 The biggest connection that I have

00:40:20.980 has come through weaving.

00:40:24.480 As I started to weave, an elder came up to me

00:40:27.820 told me that the spruce tree is my grandpa it made sense it didn't make

00:40:36.100 sense at first but as I went out to harvest my roots as I was on my knees

00:40:45.520 and crawling around through the moss I could hear my ancestors I could hear my

00:40:54.640 grandma's I could hear my grandpa's I could hear them all talking and then the

00:40:59.380 trees told me we knew all your ancestors not just your grandma from the

00:41:08.680 generation ago we knew all of them so I asked about them and they told me about

00:41:13.480 it does it make sense yeah you know it's so infuriating to me I couldn't hold my

00:41:20.320 tongue at this meeting the other day with these bureaucrats saying oh we'll cut the forest and

00:41:27.920 it'll grow back it's a renewable resource the new forest is just the same as the old forest

00:41:34.400 you know i'd be curious to ask you what is lost when these forests are cut what's the difference

00:41:41.840 Well, in order to be even, for example, where I get my spruce roots, it has to be an open

00:41:52.340 area with a lot of moss, no blueberry bushes, no ferns, nothing, just moss.

00:42:02.740 It just doesn't happen that way.

00:42:05.920 takes hundreds of years of trees falling to make that canopy. It's a canopy that we get.

00:42:18.480 I'm glad I remembered the scientific word. So we get that canopy. So when we get a new tree that

00:42:27.760 comes back it comes back with all these ferns with blueberry bushes everything else there's no

00:42:36.100 old trees to fall down to help create a canopy we will never have our canopies again and the

00:42:45.660 canopies are valuable for my spruce roots so I could weave baskets it's really central for my

00:42:54.760 asked that weave in. My dad talked to me about when I got roots, and the first thing he said

00:43:01.880 was that they send messages to each other through their roots, their root system. He told me not to

00:43:15.800 bother these roots that look like a whole bunch of hair around it, just to leave it alone.

00:43:20.920 and so he kept giving me instructions after instructions and when he's going through that

00:43:28.360 process it's best to just listen and so after he got through talking i finally said i have one

00:43:37.100 question he says what's that i said why do i need to leave that root alone with all that hair around

00:43:43.360 it i've seen roots like that he said well that's all the other trees around there that's sending

00:43:50.800 it's medicine to it because it got sick and so you have to let it heal okay that

00:43:59.440 does make sense about the 80s mm-hmm that was before science even realize

00:44:12.340 what this oh I think they they have so much to learn they I wish my dad could

00:44:17.560 have been here too. He's a welcome encyclopedia. His favorite thing to tell everybody is we're part

00:44:25.460 of the ecosystem. What Kasayage's father was describing was what Western science calls the

00:44:34.520 mycorrhizal network, the fungal superhighway running under our feet, linking together virtually

00:44:41.100 all plants and trees in a forest. When the first science report described this wood wide web in

00:44:48.200 1997, it was one of the most paradigm-shattering and consequential discoveries in the history of

00:44:55.320 ecology, and is still a burgeoning area of research. That Kasayake had long grasped this

00:45:02.840 very specific knowledge of the mycorrhizal network, distributing nutrients and information

00:45:08.400 throughout the forest was really not that surprising to me. Western science is only

00:45:14.420 recently catching up to the oral teachings of Tlingit and many other indigenous societies,

00:45:20.260 and hopefully this vindication will impart some humility within the ivory towers.

00:45:28.160 Clear-cut logging would never be conscionable in light of this understanding. Overfishing

00:45:34.120 would be impossible with the sensitivities of honorable stewardship. Even harvesting

00:45:39.940 berries and collecting roots for weaving would always be done with a fullness of understanding

00:45:45.540 and spiritual knowing of the forest. Kasayage beaming while drifting through memories of her

00:45:52.200 father reminded me that we need this earthly knowledge firsthand to thrive. The first time

00:46:00.220 In that we ended up in Huna, there was a galloping glacier that destroyed the whole community

00:46:08.660 in a lot of area.

00:46:11.100 They sent some men around to watch the weather and decide where we were going to move.

00:46:18.320 And the weathermen came back and they said, Huna, da-da-da-da-da-da, and it meant protected

00:46:25.360 from the north wind.

00:46:27.600 But we always continued to go back to Glacier Bay because it's our home.

00:46:33.640 We have smokehouses there.

00:46:36.280 We had dwellings there.

00:46:38.900 We never buried our people. 0.53

00:46:41.660 We cremated.

00:46:44.760 And so, you know, there's no remnants of bones like they like to look at.

00:46:53.400 Glacier Bay, in my dad's time, became a national park.

00:46:59.820 And while he was continuing to go up there and hunt to seal and get their mountain goat

00:47:08.360 and fish, there was never a boundary.

00:47:14.600 There was no lines for my dad.

00:47:19.420 And so they continued to work in their smokehouses, but through time, with the National Park,

00:47:26.560 they were met with guns and told to stay off the land.

00:47:31.460 And when he'd go get seagull eggs, they'd say, well, Mr. Hanlon, we're going to have

00:47:37.460 to arrest you.

00:47:39.460 And he'd say, put the handcuffs on, I'm going to feed my kids.

00:47:45.180 There was a few people who said, we're going to continue to hunt, we're going to continue

00:47:49.540 to gather food, we're going to keep on going.

00:47:52.840 These National Park people came in and had a meeting with our elders and laid out a map

00:47:57.820 and said, show me where your high usage areas are.

00:48:05.300 And so they start marking in, this is where we get our seal, this is where we get our

00:48:10.360 seagull eggs this is where we get our mountain goat and all the areas that were marked became

00:48:21.100 wilderness we were not allowed to go there they told us we can't come there anymore my dad called

00:48:29.200 it the last phenomenon of squeezing this out of Glacier Bay and you know who kept that park so

00:48:38.020 Oh, nice for them.

00:48:42.100 Thank you.

00:48:44.140 We've been the caretakers.

00:48:45.680 We've been the one that preserved this land the way it is.

00:48:49.380 I had interviewed somebody from the Sipka tribe,

00:48:54.700 and it was interesting because he was telling me about subsistence

00:48:58.460 in a sense that, well, one,

00:49:01.340 and I'm just going to go through a couple things that I've learned

00:49:03.360 so that you could tell me if these things are true

00:49:05.600 and what your thoughts are.

00:49:06.860 indigenous native subsistence and rural subsistence are in the same block native people don't get a

00:49:15.140 better chance at subsistence the other thing he had mentioned was the sports fishermen they get

00:49:22.220 priority because they pay a lot and so again subsistence gets less than one percent less

00:49:28.820 well less than one percent the laws around subsistence are getting stricter and stricter

00:49:33.960 he said you know before one person could go out for a few families and they could collect

00:49:40.780 many buckets let's say of you know shellfish at a time and they might be collecting for their

00:49:46.700 auntie and their uncle and their family and they would collect it all at one time and they would

00:49:51.420 that's how they would fill their freezers and also the locations are changing so somebody has to

00:49:57.280 maybe be in a boat for 45 minutes with all that gas that's very expensive they can only get one

00:50:02.800 buck at a time. Subsistence is not prioritized, especially with Native people, because I'm

00:50:09.180 just getting pieces. We're the criminals. We're always in the court. In the courts, we lose,

00:50:16.120 lose, lose, lose. Nothing has ever been given to us. So here we go to court. We're always

00:50:23.020 watched. We're always watched. Taking how much they're taking with this, they're taking

00:50:28.320 that. Maybe he shouldn't make a few dollars for gas. This guy is going to

00:50:38.160 court pretty soon on the 8th in Sitka because he made some money for gas. And

00:50:43.740 they're saying you can't do that with subsistence. Well, where do you draw the

00:50:47.880 line. The other frustrating part is every time I go into the airport, there's boxes

00:51:00.000 and boxes and boxes and boxes of fish on a daily basis sent out of Alaska by the

00:51:08.340 tourists. If I could only have one of those boxes in my freezer, I'd be set for

00:51:14.580 the winter. What are they doing with our fish? It's more than the fish. It's also spiritual.

00:51:28.340 Indigenous sovereignty isn't really a threat. It's more like having a say on our food,

00:51:37.780 Not having a state trooper fly to our communities to arrest our men like that for our food.

00:51:51.440 Sovereignty is not excluding people.

00:51:55.860 Sovereignty is very inclusive, so I don't think anybody should feel threatened by us

00:52:03.320 having a say.

00:52:06.440 The state and the federal laws and rules that they push on us, we know it's not fair.

00:52:19.460 And we're living in a time right now, I mean, you know, it's like a cuss word to say Trump

00:52:25.960 anymore.

00:52:29.680 But we are in perilous times.

00:52:34.600 And as an indigenous woman, I have never felt so bad because of who we are and what we stand

00:52:48.960 for.

00:53:04.600 You know, like I keep saying the law of the land, the real strict law was raven did not marry raven, eagle did not marry eagle.

00:53:30.180 and one time I came home from school I was really sad I was being bullied that

00:53:38.040 day and my dad was trying to encourage me and one thing I really remember him

00:53:48.340 saying was lift your chin up girl I want to tell you something your mom and I

00:53:59.800 a raven and eagle her mom and dad my mom and dad the generations before all the

00:54:10.240 way back to the beginning you have no reason to hang your head you go out

00:54:19.240 there and you hold your head up high I'll never forget that and one of the

00:54:26.500 The things we do is we have this gusulia'e song, it's calling out, they call you out.

00:54:36.560 And everything that we do is through the mom, everything is acknowledged through the mom.

00:54:48.520 And so when they do that callin' out song, that's one time that you get to acknowledge

00:54:54.340 your dad.

00:54:56.980 And so my dad is Eagle Shark, Mushkitaan.

00:55:01.820 And so when they say Mushkitaan yetki, I make sure that I come out and really dance, because

00:55:12.560 I'm letting everybody know that my dad is

00:55:15.800 Moshkitan, proud of him.

00:55:42.560 I love that balance. I love that balance and I love the fact that we pass

00:55:50.120 everything including our clan through the mom. Everybody knows who their mom

00:55:59.060 is. So my mom is Raven Dog Salmon. I am Raven Dog Salmon. 1.00

00:56:09.960 I go to the senior center for lunch. It's our social time and last week this young

00:56:20.280 man came in and each one of them had a bag of ground deer meat to offer us. It

00:56:31.080 made them feel really good to let's let's keep this going. We have a young

00:56:38.940 dance group. They're on beat and they know what to do. They do all the calling

00:56:47.160 out, they do everything. So you know, yeah, we're strong, we're strong. There's a few

00:56:54.060 things that make it easy for us to live and breathe.

00:57:00.600 While I was en route to the Tongass several years prior, a tire blew out on my old Dodge,

00:57:11.420 sending the rig flying off a steep embankment, and after gyrating in the air, it landed upside down,

00:57:19.300 pancaking my camper. The vintage Avion was built of riveted aluminum, like an airplane,

00:57:26.300 and it tasted flight in its final moment.

00:57:30.640 My dogs and I squeezed out of a smashed window

00:57:32.960 to find ourselves in what had been the top of a maple tree.

00:57:37.400 When its thick limbs gave out,

00:57:40.160 they cushioned our fall and surely saved our lives.

00:57:44.000 And since that moment,

00:57:45.740 my devotion to trees has taken on a kind of direct indebtedness.

00:57:51.620 When Kasayike shared the story that follows,

00:57:54.400 her covenant with the forest became so crystalline and palpable that it fused with my own.

00:58:02.040 She was on a flight from Juneau to Huna.

00:58:04.620 The pilot had just been transferred from Portland and had never flown Alaskan skies.

00:58:10.780 Despite the fog that morning, Kasayage could tell they were off course.

00:58:18.000 She wasn't going to Huna anymore.

00:58:20.180 She was going like towards excursion towards the mainland.

00:58:24.400 But it was real foggy, and I thought, oh, she must know what she's doing. 0.98

00:58:29.460 And then I heard the lady beside me go, ah!

00:58:32.260 And then I looked up just as the wind hit a tree, and we were coming towards a tree,

00:58:38.880 and that propeller hit it, and that tree fell down just like a weed eater.

00:58:45.060 And then it hit the second tree, and that tree fell down like a weed eater too.

00:58:49.540 And I saw the third tree come in, and I don't remember anything after that.

00:58:58.440 When I was in the plane accident, there was a moment that I became conscious for a while.

00:59:10.840 And there was a spruce tree sticking out of a cliff, and I was in that little part of

00:59:17.920 plane that was sitting in that tree was holding me up. Don't ever forget that

00:59:26.860 your grandpa is the spruce tree. Thank you grandpa. I came to again. I was on the

00:59:38.660 ground. I don't remember. My arm was broken. This one was stuck and my legs

00:59:46.780 were stuck I don't know I was way broken and I knew I was in shock you know

00:59:54.820 there's something horrendously run with you but you don't feel it I heard people

01:00:04.120 getting rescued. Then all of a sudden it was quiet. Hello? Hello? Hello? No answer.

01:00:23.120 Oh, my gosh. They left me here. Is anybody here? Am I by myself? Hello?

01:00:39.240 And the way it turned out, I found out later, was that the only way they could access us was

01:00:47.180 lowering people and all the equipment from a helicopter.

01:00:53.280 They couldn't come up from the beach.

01:00:56.060 I thought about the plane,

01:00:58.100 a symbolic pinnacle of human ingenuity and command.

01:01:01.800 Falling out of a clouded sky,

01:01:03.400 I thought of the machine's dismembered aluminum skeleton,

01:01:07.960 Inca Sayageh still alive,

01:01:10.460 held in the arms of her ancestors.

01:01:12.100 and so they rescued three of the people the pilot died and I started to panic oh

01:01:26.740 god I just don't want to go through this with a sick dad sick means daughter my

01:01:40.420 dad was gone for seven years, he started talking to me. I always knew you listened to me. He told

01:01:50.180 me not to cry because automatically when you're by your dad, daddy, I wanted to cry. He told me

01:02:01.640 it wasn't a good idea. I had 13 broken ribs, so I guess it wasn't a good idea. But what he left

01:02:09.580 with me he says you're gonna be hitting brick walls and I want you to remember

01:02:17.080 don't forget mind over matter so it stuck with me when I hit those brick

01:02:30.620 walls it was mind over matter he stayed with me and talked with me for a while

01:02:39.680 and then I after a while he says oh sick I gotta go and then I heard them

01:02:46.620 yelling Ernestine Ernestine can you hear me they were coming back to get me and

01:02:52.100 apparently they had to cut me out but I also wonder if they just kind of thought

01:02:58.140 I wasn't going to make it, because I was really, really broken.

01:03:04.220 Everything said I shouldn't have made it.

01:03:07.700 And I really believe I am a resilient woman, and I give credit to our land.

01:03:18.260 We get our strength from the land, the water and the air.

01:03:27.660 And that was their thought was I kept thinking about my little Ernestine.

01:03:35.120 The resilience that I see that comes through the generation, what my mom had to put up

01:03:40.800 with, what my dad had to put up with, with these changes, as we had to live in these

01:03:46.360 two worlds.

01:03:49.760 The resilience that comes with it.

01:03:54.120 But we're breaking down.

01:03:57.240 Our bodies started to break down because the earth isn't healthy.

01:04:00.860 Our bodies aren't healthy either.

01:04:05.300 Kasayage later told how survivors on the ground

01:04:08.080 had built a fire to signal to the planes zigzagging overhead in search of the crash.

01:04:13.800 She laughed at the thought of being saved by smoke signals,

01:04:17.920 in the age of GPS technology no less.

01:04:21.420 To find something to smile about.

01:04:23.640 A bit of peace in the quirky ironies of clashing worlds

01:04:27.640 speaks to a resilience of spirit anchored in an ancient forest floor. 0.92

01:04:34.060 As Kasayakeh warned, to destroy the Tongass is a direct assault on her people.

01:04:40.460 With a rush of clarity, these words bring into focus the urgency of an inclusive political and conservation strategy.

01:04:48.420 protecting the tongas will require sustained resistance through advocacy and action with a

01:04:55.320 sacred network of symbiotic life and indigenous stewardship at the center which means funding

01:05:01.440 which means a seeding power and building strong alliances from the ground up to unite a defense

01:05:08.560 like the cycle of the dog salmon that swims back up the creek

01:05:13.440 it's time for the young generation to step up and take the weight off the elders

01:05:18.420 You let me speak my soul. Thank you. Not much people understand what I'm saying,

01:05:31.740 especially when the trees talk to me. But I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged. I know that I could

01:05:45.060 look back on my life and say yeah good things happened and good things will continue to happen

01:05:54.560 and I'm gonna feel good about my granddaughter growing up I'll put your I'll put her in your

01:06:03.360 hands. Thank you. She's real precious. She's real smart too, of course.

01:06:15.040 No doubt. We'll fight for her. Thank you. 0.68

01:06:21.520 Each of us in our own unique way must continue on while remembering to reach

01:06:27.280 back, listen, touch the ground, return home,

01:06:32.080 and offer gifts at the feet of our great teachers, as Kasayage has offered us such unfiltered sincerity.

01:06:40.580 As we go forward, a big part of the deep listening that we are calling into our movements

01:06:44.880 is about undoing our savior mentality.

01:06:47.620 As we stretch into creative new realms of resistance and daring acts of land defense,

01:06:54.140 our collective rising will be anchored in conscious web weaving and allyship, or not at all.

01:07:00.940 We must move together, separating and rejoining like a braided river, constantly revising

01:07:07.940 our course, strengthening relationships with indigenous leaders like Kasayake, with long-standing

01:07:13.880 activists in the region, with each other, and the communities of the forest and sea.

01:07:19.360 The most immediate action step you can take at this time to protect the primordial heart

01:07:24.580 of the temperate rainforest is to submit a thoughtful public comment to the Forest Service

01:07:29.740 to keep roadless rule in place.

01:07:32.460 We urge you to make a public comment today

01:07:35.240 by visiting our website at forthewild.world

01:07:38.880 or click on the details tab of this episode.

01:07:42.540 The deadline for submitting a public comment

01:07:44.840 is December 17th, 2019 at midnight Alaska time.

01:07:51.020 What prayers do you wish to release

01:07:53.420 into the river of reciprocity?

01:07:55.580 What can you give of your resources,

01:07:57.800 your gifts, your spirit, your brilliance, to this moment of unraveling and becoming.

01:08:05.820 We request that you support Indigenous stewards of the Tongass by making a direct donation to

01:08:11.320 Kasayage for many years of activist work, public service, and ongoing community organizing in Huna

01:08:18.080 and beyond. Please visit our website at forthewild.world or click on the details tab of this

01:08:24.560 episode to make a donation. Lastly, please follow and reach out to long-standing groups in the

01:08:30.780 region, such as Sitka Conservation Society, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Last Stands,

01:08:38.180 Lynn Canal Conservation, Audubon Alaska, and Earth Justice. Dive deeper into this listening

01:08:44.580 journey on our website, where you'll find behind-the-scenes cuts, bonus content, and our

01:08:50.260 short mythopoetic film, When Old Growth Ends. Tune in at forthewild.world slash whenoldgrowthends.

01:08:58.340 thank you for listening to for the wild podcast in the field edition i'm ayana young

01:09:21.140 the music you heard today was the crow nation blues man

01:09:24.660 i'd like to thank our wonderful podcast production team aiden mccray carter lou mcelroy erica

01:09:39.560 eckram aaron wise francesca glassbell hannah wilton march young molly lebov melanie younger

01:09:48.520 and vera lumme

01:09:49.680 Before they come for me

01:09:53.120 Baby, I gotta run

01:09:59.180 Guess I don't know

01:10:05.720 Don't know right from wrong

01:10:19.680 You

For The Wild - December 13, 2019

InTheField： KASYYAHGEI on the Law of the Land ⧸149

Episode Stats

Transcript