The Alaska chapter of Safari Club International took a group of Kipnuk men subsistence hunting in November, an excursion that might come as a surprise, given the historical clashes over state and federal management of subsistence hunting and fishing grounds. The hunters were evacuees from a storm that ravaged the Western Alaska coast, unleashed by Typhoon Halong. After more than a month of being couped up in shelters and hotel rooms in Anchorage, they were happy to accept the invitation. But what transpired turned out to be more than just a hunt.
John Sturgeon, a longtime Safari Club member, says his group felt it was the right thing to do — to help hunters displaced by the storm, whose families depend on wild fish and game.
“The Safari Club and the subsistence people are much closer together than most folks would think,” Sturgeon said. “We’re hunters. They’re hunters.”
Sturgeon, a past president of the Alaska Safari Club, helped to organize the hunt. He says the Safari Club has the resources to help, with about 1,200 members statewide -- more than any place in the world.
“This is something we can do to help, especially at Christmas time.’” Sturgeon said. “So, we’re hoping this will make a few people happy.”
A hunt and feast to remember
What started out as an effort to help five hunters, snowballed quickly. When the Safari Club realized the evacuees didn’t have the right clothes or gear -- which they either lost in the storm or had to leave behind – one member dug into his own pocket to outfit them for the hunt. Club members loaned them guns and scopes. The Safari Club also bought them hunting licenses and chartered a boat from Whittier to Montague Island, where the men took nine Sitka black-tailed deer.
“We were hunting deer on a beach, which I never ever thought I would be hunting,” Darrell John said.
It was the first time he had gone hunting since a storm surge swept through Kipnuk, lifted his house off its foundations and carried it more than three miles away.
“When I was gutting deer, I knew my family was going to eat something,” John said. “Made me feel like I was providing for my family again.”
Although John never imagined he’d go hunting in a such a faraway place as Prince William Sound — so different from the vast tundra and wetlands of the Western Alaska coast — he suddenly felt more like his old self.
“It made me feel like a man again,” he said.
When the hunters returned, they wanted to share their catch with other storm evacuees. Suddenly, plans mushroomed into a feast to feed more than 200. The Safari Club collected donations of wild fish and game, which included a seal from Kodiak Island.
The scent of home
“Seals have a strong scent, so that was the first thing I smelled,” said John’s wife, Lacey, when she walked into a big kitchen at Alaska Pacific University, where preparations for the feast were underway on Dec.18.
“The seal that was baking. It smelled like home. I just breathed in,” Lacey said, as she laughed. She and other women from Kipnuk came to help prepare some of the dishes for the feast, but there were also community volunteers like Chef Amy Foote.
“We’re braising the whole seal with the bone on,” said Foote as she pulled the steaming roast out of the oven. “We’ll cook it all day, nice and slow, until it falls off the bone.”
The seal had to be skinned and butchered, but one of the volunteers figured out how to do it. There was also elk stew, with meat donated from a hunt on Afognak Island, north of Kodiak. Chef Amy decided to add more Worcestershire and pepper to enhance its flavor.
The deer meat the Kipnuk hunters harvested went into huge pans of shepherd’s pie, topped with a fluffy, orange layer of sweet potatoes.
Food helps families reconnect
In another corner of the kitchen, Margaret Terrant volunteered to oversee the fry bread brigade.
“I was told by my elder to come here and make fry bread,” said Terrant, as she dropped pieces of dough into hot oil and fished them out, when they turned golden brown.
Elizabeth Smith, a Kipnuk elder, kept her supplied with dough. She has the strong, practiced hands to knead it into assaliaq, the Yup’ik word for fry bread.
Elizabeth said her hotel doesn’t allow guests to cook in their rooms, so she it felt good to be back in the kitchen.
“I miss my cooking,” she said. “I’m missing walrus, seal meat.”
But more than the food, Elizabeth misses family.
“We’re all scattered here in Anchorage,” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing my family. My family is together again.”
Although the volunteer cooks won’t go to the feast, Terrant is happy to help with the preparations. She says the trauma from the storm and its aftermath is still fresh.
“I know it’s going to be a very healing experience,” she said. “I’m looking forward to them getting together, being complete together as families.”
For Kyle Tripp, the new president of the Alaska Safari Club, what started out with nine deer harvested from Prince William Sound has turned into something bigger.
“This has been free of politics. We’re neighbors helping neighbors. We’re building partners,” Tripp said. “I have a group chat going with five people, I would have otherwise never met.”
Tripp says it’s likely to be a long time before the Kipnuk hunters will be able to go home and subsist, so Safari Club members hope to share knowledge about hunting and fishing grounds near Anchorage. But Tripp says the relationship goes both ways.
He says the Kipnuk men are expert hunters who can teach them a lot about how to subsist, such as using as many parts of the animal as possible.
“To have that first-hand experience from someone that’s been doing it for generations, I think is awesome,” Tripp said.
But while there’s wild game, there’s also the game of politics.
Safari Club, long history of opposition to federal subsistence management
Before the holidays, the Alaska Federation of Natives blasted out an email to its members, with an urgent call to oppose the Safari Club’s latest package of proposals to the U.S. Interior Secretary.They include a plan to reduce the size of the federal subsistence board, as well as change the composition of regional advisory councils. If that happens, AFN says, tribes will lose their voice. The Safari Club has also asked the U.S. Interior secretary to overhaul federal subsistence management policies, which AFN President Ben Mallott says threatens the traditional rights of Alaska Natives to hunt and fish.
Two worlds come together
But that’s a battle outside the bubble of this kitchen. For now, Lacey John shows Safari Club members how to make Eskimo Ice-Cream — or Akutak. She uses her hands to whip up Crisco and sugar. After 20 minutes of work, it finally turns into a creamy froth. Then she adds frozen berries. Traditionally, Akutak was made with seal oil or other animal fats.
You hear a lot of laughter from the Akutak makers. The women share funny stories as they work. One encourages them to pick up their big stainless-steel bowls and sit on the floor — and stir the mixture just like they would at home in the village.
But this is Anchorage, where two worlds have come together to share what matters most.
“Made with love,” Lacey John said, as her hands kept working the Akutak. “Made with love.”
