There’s nothing like the Elders and Youth Conference, anywhere. It creates a time and space for young people to talk with their elders about serious issues – but also to learn how to speak their Native language, sew skins, cut salmon, and share stories.
The gathering is the traditional prologue to the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, which starts on Thursday. But the Elder and Youth Conference started on a somber note at the Dena’ina Center in downtown Anchorage on Sunday.
Roy Agloinga, president of the First Alaskans Institute, said the storms that have devastated coastal communities in Western Alaska weighs heavily on the heart.
“Whole communities have been evacuated. Some families have lost their homes,” Agloinga said. “The floods and high winds are actively impacting our communities.”
The First Alaskans Institute is the main sponsor of the Elders and Youth Conference, which draws more than a thousand people.
Agloinga says many will be directly affected by the destruction from the remnants of Typhoon Halong.
“That’s a reality no one should face,” he said. “And yet our people have always faced the elements, not with fear but with resilience. Our conference theme this year speaks to this.”
"Qapiŋaiññiġlu Siqsuniġlu Kiŋuvaaksraptignun. Perseverance and fortitude for the future generations,” said Agloinga, as he called for the whole state to come together and help.
“It’s easy to feel distant, but I ask you to lean in,” Agloinga said, “because while the storm may be hundreds of miles away, the people affected are our neighbors, our friends and our family.”
And with that, Agloinga returned to the opening day ceremonies, known as “The Warming of the Hands,” which stems from the tradition of inviting travelers to come in from the cold and warm their hands.
Agloinga says the start of the conference is also a time to warm the spirit and renew connections to one another – a reminder of the shared responsibility to help each other through difficult times.
The Kingikmuit group was the first to take to the stage on opening day. Although their members live in Anchorage, their roots are in Wales, an Inupiaq community on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula.
There were a range of elders and youth in the group -- the youngest, a baby, whose mother set him on the stage to watch the dancers. At 87, Sophie Nothstine was the eldest. She was seated on the stage and carefully led to the center of the dance floor, when it was her time to perform.
Her son, Greg, says in Native culture the ties between elders and youth are an ancient bond -- forged by the beat of the drum -- a symbol of continuity that children seem to be drawn to, as if by instinct.
“It might remind them of being in the womb,” Nothstine said. “And then they see their parents enjoying themselves. They take it in. They internalize it. Then it grows into your soul.”
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who was there to welcome the delegates and their families, said that she too connects to the sound of the drum.
“I can’t tell you how good it felt to be sitting in the audience and to feel the drum in your chest, literally, going into your heart. I’ve missed it.” Murkowski said. “There is an authenticity that comes with everything that happens this week -- between the Elders and Youth, and then soon towards the end of the week at AFN.”
She called the two gatherings a living entity that pulses with the heartbeat of the state.
“You've got to have that heart moving through. You've got to have that coursing up and have it going down,” Murkowski said. “The pumping that comes together is this melding that you see here at Elders and Youth.”
“It is the richness with those who have led the way, combined with those who are stepping in, with an optimism and energy that makes the magic,” she said.
That magic is hard to define. You see it in the smiles of elders, when they watch the youth, who wear their regalia with pride and introduce themselves in their Indigenous language. They often include the names of their parents and grandparents, to telegraph a connection that transcends time and gives meaning to their world.
