The October storm that heaped destruction on the Southwest Alaskan coast has also brought an outpouring of support. Alaska writer Don Rearden has teamed up with his sister, Beth Hill, to do their part, and to help others do the same.
A donation of any amount will get you a digital copy of Don Rearden’s book, “Moving Salmon Bay.” But Rearden says it’s about more than raising money“
It’s keeping the needs visible and finding a way for people to get direct relief,” he said.
The money will go to Bethel Community Services Foundation for its Together We Will Weather the Storm fund.
“What matters is community”
Rearden worries about the hundreds of people who have been forced to leave not just their homes but the world they know and love. Rearden teaches writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage. But having grown up in Bethel and other Kuskokwim River villages, he knows how that transition to urban life can sap the soul.
“Once you live in a community where someone sees you, looks you in the eye, says your name, acknowledges your humanity,” Rearden said, “then you come to town, and people don’t look you in the face. They don’t say hello. Yeah, you just feel invisible.”
Rearden has raised thousands of dollars since he launched his campaign. And while he says his efforts might seem small and insignificant amid such widespread devastation, he hopes it will help to keep those who can’t go home in our hearts and minds.
“What matters is community,” Rearden said.
Far stranger than fiction
Community is what Rearden explores in “Moving Salmon Bay.” It’s the story of a fictional village on the verge of falling into the ocean because of climate change.Rearden has had an eerie pattern of writing about things before they come to pass. His book “Raven’s Gift” was a fictional story about a deadly disease that swept across Southwest Alaska, written years before the COVID-19 pandemic. He wrote the first draft for Moving Salmon Bay more than 15 years ago.
“The reality in October just seemed so much more horrifying,” Rearden said. “I didn’t imagine families in houses floating away, spinning like some crazy Wizard of Oz scene. I didn’t imagine anything that terrifying.”
But the book does make palpable the intimate connection between the people of Salmon Bay and the land. It's that connection which Rearden’s sister, Beth Hill, celebrates in her art. One of her pieces graces the cover of Moving Salmon Bay and will be raffled off to donors.
Hill painted it not long after she was hired to do a series of murals for the school in Kwigillingok, one of the communities devastated in October’s storm.
The lifestyle is irreplaceable
Hill visited the village four times to fully understand the seasonal rhythms of harvesting seals and other subsistence foods.
“It was a really incredible place. The food and the lifestyle,” Hill said. “It’s so incredible that we have that. Just to see it and showcase it was an honor.”
Now she says, it’s an honor to give back. She says it’s important to recognize that while buildings are replaceable, the lifestyle is not.
“They are so connected to the land,” she said. “It just breaks my heart.”
The same is true in Kokhanok in Bristol Bay, where Hill lives and develops programs for teaching Indigenous languages.
Although Kokhanok is farther inland than the villages hit this October, she says it too is experiencing the threats from a warming climate, which has already affected the community’s ability to hunt and fish.
Both brother and sister hope the donation of their art will serve as an important reminder that we are all in this together.
“We’re just one disaster from being in this exact situation,” Rearden said.
