Salmon is Everyone

President Obama's first stop on his Alaska trip was to a roundtable with Alaska Native leaders.  Don't think Native leaders everywhere didn't notice.  Among other things, it is of enormous significance to them and usefulness to the rest of us that President Obama is actively listening to and enlisting Native peoples in efforts to address the causes and effects of the climate crisis.  The President said:

Since I took office, I’ve been committed to sustaining a government-to-government relationship between the United States and our tribal nations. We host tribal leaders in Washington every year. I’ve visited Indian Country at the Standing Rock Reservation and the Choctaw Nation. This week, we're going to be visiting two more tribal communities here in Alaska -- in Dillingham and Kotzebue.

And in fact, by the end of my time in office, I’ll have visited more communities -- more tribal communities than any previous sitting President, which I feel pretty good about -- in case anybody is keeping track.

Returning Denali 's indigenous name, the mountain known officially as Mount McKinley until yesterday, was a symbolic act of great significance, first to the Native communities, but also to Alaska.  Denali is derived from the Native Koyukon language, and means the Tall One or the Great One.  It is the mountain's traditional name, and has been for 10 to 20 thousand years.

Our non-Native culture may not be able to remember anything from a decade or two ago, but Native cultures, through stories, ceremonies and traditions, continue ties to all of its past.  President Obama noted this as a contribution to the discussion.  (Richard Nelson's books, particularly Make Prayer to the Raven and The Island Within, make specifically Koyukon wisdom accessible and relevant to the modern non-Native world, in this global crisis.)

The discussions in Alaska dealt with the problems of rural Native communities dealing with high energy costs and the clear and present dangers brought by climate change.  These impacts are felt in Alaska as nowhere else (yet) in the US.  Alaska and the Arctic are experiencing global heating at twice the rate as the global average.  Alaska may well be the future for the lower 48.

 The round table also touched on other important (and related) issues, such as:

"My administration also is taking new action to make sure that Alaska Natives have direct input into the management of Chinook salmon stocks, something that has been of great concern here."

Down here on the North Coast of California, a victory was achieved as the last legal challenges to the federally mandated increases in water flow from the cold Trinity River were turned back, and millions of salmon may be saved.  The efforts to have the flow increased were led by tribes, such as the Yurok (the largest indigenous tribe in California) and Hupa.  They have joined their traditional knowledge with expertise in the relevant sciences, and they had quantitative evidence in the language of science that could not be ignored, except by politics.  In this instance, they prevailed.

This past Sunday the reading of much of Salmon is Everything was held in HSU's largest theatre, and it was full--very unusual for a Sunday afternoon, and nothing more elaborate than a reading and talk.   Following the salmon die-off in 2002 on the lower Klamath, the play was created over two years as a collaboration between HSU theatre professors, Native professors and administrators, but largely by Native students (who got stories from their families) and non-Native students and community members.  Its first production was in 2006.

From the discussion Sunday it was clear that with the perspective of time, this process ten years ago was enormously important within Native communities.  One person in the audience said that without the efforts that started with this play, the focus that resulted in this year's victory would not have been achieved.

For the audience of Natives and non-Natives, this reading was another step in a positive ongoing relationship. For the audience of students--particularly first years in the STEM program--the reading and discussion afterwards could be an inspiration that can guide their academic careers and perhaps stay with them for the rest of their lives.

This reading followed an appearance by Anna Deavere Smith in Klamath, on the Yurok reservation last Monday.  Though her emphasis was on education, she performed one character directly pertinent to these issues--a fisherman who talked about the meaning of the salmon and the river to the Yurok culture.  For a little more about both events, go here.

Native cultures here realize in a specific, particular way that to save the salmon is to save themselves.  In different ways, in the context of the climate crisis and the ecological crisis of global dimensions, it is true of all of us.