Trip 5 Days 1-7 The Waiting Game and Alaska's Wild Winters

Where to begin?

This is my fifth year, and 5th trip to Kotlik, I think... I'm almost a permanent resident, but only in my own mind. I come here to work with the community Elders in language documentation and preservation and my objectives are as varied as there are Eskimoan dialects (that is to say there are a lot and they differ drastically). My goals for the community are to build a Kotlik specific dictionary and grammar to aid in the revitalization of the dialect. My goals as an academic, are to gather the data to write a dissertation on Demonstratives, receive my Ph.D and become a professor. This latter objective is the most pressing and urgent, the former is more lax and dreamy. Then, as a professor I hope to continue working in this great community amongst others on the Eskimoan languages which are in my mind the greatest languages in the world. They're expressive, elegant, and full of little gems. I love their structures and the way they derive meanings, I also love the cultures of the people who speak these languages. And I love the people.

I work specifically on an Eskimoan Language known as Yugtun, or Yup'ik, spoken in southwestern Alaska. The language is spoken by about 10,000 people across 68 villages. In 17 of those villages the children are still learning the language as their dominant language, in the rest the transition to English is well underway. This means the language is sliding towards extinction across most of the region.

-----Pictures and Maps to be added when I'm Home and have a better internet connection which can handle uploads----

This region is the Kuskokwim-Yukon Delta and is pocked by rivers and lakes twisting though the sporadicly forested hills and onto the tundra eventually reaching the sea. Hunting and fishing still dominate the region and the culinary highlights include bearded seal, beluga whale, king salmon, moose, arctic goose, and swan. These facts together should help paint the picture of small nomadic tribes navigating this land by qayaq and dog-sled using spears and bows to hunt, and woven baskets to forage for a plethora of berries and greens. The drums are flat but deep and the dancing tells stories of the great hunts or of the spirits. Today, of course replace qayaqs with motor boats and dog-sleds with snow machines.

I work in the village of Kotlik, about 8 miles up the Kotlik river which is the Yukon River's Northern Mouth. The area is flat with small shrubs but beautiful colours, in the summer. There is no wood so the driftwood floating down the river in the fall must be collected to help heat the houses and build the sleds and qayaks. In the winter the river freezes solid and the land becomes much more accessible. The area is below sea-level and when the high tide comes in the village is prone to flooding which in the winter turns to ice. The village is home to about 700 people today.

So, why do I work in Kotlik you ask? Well, I knew I loved the Yup'ik language and I was looking for a field-site to do some documentation work, as field linguistics is the best kind of linguistics: the adventure, the exploration, the freedom, the discovery! I was eventually directed to go to Kotlik where the dialect had never been truly examined before but only around 40-70 people spoke it anymore, all elders. So I went to Kotlik and since have been working with the elders to make a record of this unique dialect.

This dialect – Norton Sound Kotlik – is interesting as it is on the boundary (as is Norton Sound Unaliq) of the Yup'ik and Inuit Eskimoan languages and thus it shows influences and traits from both. The Norton Sound region furthermore is the homeland of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole from at least 4,000 years ago. As such the Kotlik dialect also shows conservative features. During the Russian and Early American periods the dialect and people remained isolated and had less detrimental contact from these dominating cultures. All together the dialect is quite distinct from the standard dialect spoken on the Kuskokwim of which almost everything has been written.

Pre-1960s the dialect was known as the Pastuliq dialect. There were at least 5+ villages which spoke the dialect: Pastuliq, Pastuliar, Canillaq, Kotlik (Qerrullik), Bill Moore Slough (Kangirkilnguq) and Old Hamilton (Nunapiggluugaq). Each village had about 50 residents, a one-room school house, a store, and a variety of winter or summer camps. In the 1960's the Bureau of Indian Affairs built a large school in Kotlik for a reason nobody knows (i.e.: Kotlik is below sea-level, Canillaq which was 6 or so miles upriver is on a ridge and a better place for a permanent village really... the school was built for assimilation policies). After this people started to dog-sled their children to school everyday. And eventually moved here, thus leaving the rest of the villages as ghost towns, the ruins of which can still be seen today to some extent. This leaves Kotlik as the last remaining community speaking the Kotlik dialect. The Kotlik elders the last people to have lived in the old villages as kids, and today as the last speakers of the dialect. Thus the need for documentation is urgent. Especially as the region's migration out of the villages and into larger towns is still occurring today. So between social change, normal language change, and language endangerment this dialect has been very dynamic over the last half century. Hence my work and presence here.

Going back to the beginning I have now been working here for 5 years and have spent nearly 1/6 of that time in this village. I am happy to say I am friends with many of the elders, have recorded numerous stories, conversations, and hours of the Kotlik dialect in general. The end of my current academic goal is with every visit drawing ever nearer and I have a great start on the impossible task of writing a dictionary and grammar for this great dialect.

For this 5th field-trip, I left from Edmonton on Thursday February 8, 2018 and was scheduled to arrive on the 9th. I arrived on the 15th.

I go through customs in Edmonton, take an hour and a half flight to Seattle, have a 9 hour layover, then a 5 hour flight to Anchorage, have an 8 hour layover. During this final layover I sleep on an airport bench outside the interstate check-in counter until I can check-in at 9am. Ravn Alaska, the little interstate carrier, operates a handful of Dash-7s which have a capacity for 30 passengers and they give out cookies during their flights! They are also notoriously bad at operating flights on time but I usually get to Kotlik on the day planned even if I have to switch carriers and go on a round-about trip. This time after being on weather hold (the flight can't fly due to poor weather but isn't cancelled yet) for 4 hours they cancelled my flight and told me I'd have to spend two nights in Anchorage before they could put me on a flight. Instead of stressing I figured I would take the opportunity to, after 5 years of flying through, finally see anchorage. So I got a Hotel, hopped the bus and went downtown and explored and ate reindeer sausage pizza. I also got to go have an architectural tour of the museum and check out the fantastic Smithsonian Arctic studies exhibit for half price! The next day I went on an hour long bus ride and then a 20 min walk to the Alaska Native Heritage Center only to find it closed during the winter even though the website and brochures say nothing about that. So I went back down-town. Without a car and time to do wilderness adventure there’s not much to do in Anchorage but it was a fun time anyway and I got good food and time off. The next day I went back to the airport and checked-in again and YAY everything is good and we're off: Anchorage – Aniak – St. Mary's.

We arrived in Saint Mary's ready to get on the last bush plane seating 5 people going: Alakanuk (20 minutes) – Emmonak (10 minutes) – Kotlik (7 minutes)... But Alas due to a snow storm followed by two days of freezing rain and warm weather coming in over the cold sea ice there was a thick layer of freezing fog which grounded all flights. In addition, there were strong winds. So after 4 hours on hold they cancelled all flights and I got stuck in St. Mary’s, but eh I've never been there before! There are two lodges – more like airBnBs in St. Mary’s. Both unreasonably, bankruptingly expensive (the repairmen/businessmen who usually fly though put it on the company card and not many people come to a village of 500 in the winter - not to mention no tourists ever, even in the summer). So one other guy, who worked with ANICA, and myself choose a lodge and got a ride up the road about 6 miles from the airport to the village; and on the top of the hill with a great view is a little house with 1 bedroom and 2 more beds in the living room, 1 bathroom with running water! A small kitchen and satellite TV but no internet anywhere to be seen (nor in the airport). Overall a cozy, comfortable, homey place to spend a stormy winter evening for a load of dough.

The next morning it was back to the airport through the fog to be put on weather hold again. At 3:30pm the flights were cancelled and it was back to the lodge. At 6pm Monday a severe Winter Storm alert was issued in the area until 6am on Wednesday. All Flights Tuesday Cancelled. On Tuesday I read a bit. We walked down the hill through the snow, though the temperature wasn't too bad, to the AC store (tiny super expensive grocery store) and got food then spent some time exploring St. Mary’s and taking in the views. There are still pine trees in St. Mary’s and the village is built across two big hills. Its quite pretty and was worth the stop. But beyond the store, school, houses, and State trooper station there's not much to do without a snow machine and trapping line. On the plus side, unlike Kotlik which is boardwalk and ATVs, St. Mary's is gravel road and truck (and ATV). St. Mary's roads are also connected to Mountain Village up river and Pilot Station fairly close (30 min drive if plowed). Kotlik from here is 5 hours by snow machine by the way and there is no road access. On Wednesday morning it was back to the airport through the freezing fog. We could barely see the road near the airport even though it was perfectly clear near the lodge. Hopes dashed. The Coast is still shrouded in fog from the storms and the temperature differentials, and the airport in St. Mary’s is no better. At 2pm flights are cancelled and we go back to the lodge. Thursday morning! From the window its clear and no wind, but I'm running low on grant money already and one more day then I turn around to Anchorage (which has also had all its flights to/out of the area cancelled) and go home. The road to the airport is fairly clear. The airport is fairly clear. You can see the sun rise!! The pilots are hopping about. The big (8-10 person) caravan to Bethel takes off, the first flight in 4 days! All four of the small village hopping planes (2-5 persons) are pulled out of the hanger and de-iced with the cutest little de-icing truck ever. My bag is checked-in! I'm taken to the plane, I'm the only person still trying to go upriver but I also still have 20 days planned and the other two stuck with me were supposed to have already headed back. And we're in the air flying over the hills and rivers, leaving the hills behind is the tundra and rivers, and 35 minutes later we come to sliding stop atop the frozen ice rink of a runway in Kotlik! I have arrived! Finally!

So once I got through the village to the school, I checked my emails, downloaded some work from Google Drive so I won't be without it again, just in case, as I am now terribly behind schedule for some of my papers, and I did some budgeting. The next 2.5 weeks will be really tight and I'll likely have to go out of pocket because that lodge took all my money. But Ce la Vie, its Alaska in the Winter right?

I then went to say hello to everybody! I greeted all of the elders I work with and all of my friends and now have between 3-5 recording sessions already lined up for the next few days. So if just one of those happens this trip will be justified. And just saying “hi” to elders again and having conversations with them is a major part of these trips so its all good I guess.

So far that has been my day. Its been a great day! It also looks like there's an Eskimo Dance this evening I can go to and also one everyday this weekend as they're practising for Potlatch... Sadly I miss Potlatch by 5 days, because they moved it to the week after I leave :( I planned to be here for it but oh well another year I'm sure, because my flights home are already booked and I'm not dealing with that craziness.

I miss everyone at home but thus is the awesome life of a field-linguist sometimes and hopefully I come home with a lot of great new data to parse and analyze between sledding with Tlats'ux and J's Birthday...!

Piurra (stay as you are)!