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Poop Cupcake posted:I was in Alaska staying with some friends in early July, in Meadow Lakes. It's a few minutes outside of Wasilla. Alaska is an incredibly beautiful state. Anyways, I'm up in Alaska as well. Nice to see some other goons make due up here. I'm out in the Valley - referenced earlier by Kazak_Hstan - which is kind of a generic term for all the crap between Palmer and Willow. It's a lot like the rural South scooped up and dumped further north in places. My two cents on a few topics that have been here, real quick - - Joe Miller is pretty far out there. It should be noted that Lisa Murkowski won on a write-in campaign versus Joe Miller and the Democratic candidate, because enough people liked Murkowski or felt that the idea of Miller representing the state was terrifying enough that they didn't vote Democrat and jotted down Murkowski's name instead. - Weed is all over the place in the Valley. Technically, you can have a limited amount appear in your possession at home and it's legal, but the moment you smoke it, appear to use, or take it outside the home, you are breaking the law. Still, it's very popular and I know several people who more or less make a living out of it. Mr. Pibbleton, I don't mean to shove in my trash opinions, and I actually have a question or two for you. - I might end up teaching Alaska Native Studies over my career. I've gotten a lot of horror stories, and some cool anecdotes, from my Professor out at the uni. Anything you think I should include that you think is really culturally important, or, failing that, rad stuff that will help get students involved? (For instance, my Professor taught me what a seal poke was and showed us where you could find one at the Anchorage Museum - it's hidden out the way. When I did my student teaching and we went on a field trip, I sure as hell dragged my students there, showed them the seal poke, and explained how it worked. Seal pokes are cool as poo poo, and it helped them stay involved while looking at the exhibits.) - How badly did the Exxon-Valdez gently caress things up for you guys up there? It could be before your time, but you likely talked to some people about it.
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Aug 29, 2014 06:38
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Poop Cupcake posted:A good friend of mine lives up there. We met in college (in Florida, of all places), and now he's back in Alaska. His family moved there when he was pretty young. I'm actually shipping up a couple boxes to stuff to them today, mostly home-made hot sauces and blueberry preserves. On a side note, produce can be brutal to buy up here, especially out of season. Mr.Pibbleton posted:I heard about someone bitching about getting a coke when they wanted a seven up and had asked for a coke regional term meanings can be pretty varied. Also Alaskans often have trouble getting Mt Dew flavors other than original or diet, I think for like a decade people couldn't buy livewire in Anchorage and code red is only occasionally available. 
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Sep 7, 2014 03:04
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I gotta tell you, the strawberries out of his garden were better than any Florida strawberry I've ever had.
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Vegetable posted:Have you seen the movie Into the Wild? It's about a college grad who takes a road trip to Alaska to find himself and winds up dying there. How do you feel about people like that? Do you kinda sorta empathize with their romantic ideas of Alaska? However, Alaska is more than capable of loving you up. Most everyone up here is aware of that. I've lost friends who went out on adventures and saw one little thing or another go wrong and end their lives. These were competent, intelligent people, people who had prepared as best they could but who saw something just go horribly wrong. You can easily still appreciate the beauty and awesomeness of the state, but after you see the aftermath of a moose going through a car or have friends never return from kayaking, you certainly are considerate of the risks of living in Alaska as well. McCandless willfully disregarded the risks and failed to prepare on his journey, and lost his life for it. It's hard to feel pity when everyone up here knows people who have died to risks they prepared for and this guy bites it without having done much, basically. There's also a sort of bitterness I pick up in regards to McCandless, in that he represents that class of people that feels instantly able to handle the wild and has a head full of romantic ideas of Alaska - it's a little annoying for outsiders to take your home and its hazards and bounties for granted. But that's just from the people I've talked to about it. It's a lot of Alaskans, mind, but I certainly can't speak for everyone.
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Sep 7, 2014 04:11
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Aethersphere posted:I am just wondering if Alaskan Natives suffered from a residential school system like the First Nations here did up until the 60s? What are historical relations like between Native and non-Native populations? Not all of the schools were like that - though many of them were godawful - but he also said that even friends he had that went to better schools were forced to not use their language and were often tracked directly into a vocational path, regardless of skill, talent, or disposition. You could also be sent out to boarding homes - these operations were not monitored too closely, and there was a lot of trouble. Not just abuse, mind, but just teenagers being teenagers in a new and lonely place, or a family being filled with plain assholes. It was equally lovely with where you could be sent, with students sometimes being sent to a larger town in the region or being sent to the lower 48 under a sort of vague idea of "ehhhh they're all Indians, right?" The whole thing eventually got slammed down in the Molly Hootch case, where a number of Alaskan Native students and their parents sued, arguing that the current system amounted to educational discrimination. The final settlement was pretty damning of the whole system, and essentially laid down how big a school was to be provided in a village, relative to the number of students and other factors - no longer would students get tossed all over the place, but instead you'd have a school right in the community. If you want a more in depth breakdown of the abuse, this article provides more information. One of the lines - about it being safer in Vietnam than Beltz - comes from my professor or one of his close friends. I heard it repeated in person, though I forget who he attributed it to. For the Molly Hootch case, I recommend this as an excellent rundown. As for the historical relations, I honestly can't speak too far back. I do know that, in 1945, the territory did pass an Anti-Discrimination Bill (in large part due to the advocacy and lobbying of Elizabeth Peratrovich, who laid some sick goddamn burns on the Legislature when some dudes starting talking about "savagery" and the like, and Alberta Schenck, who pulled a small-scale non-violent sit-in sort of deal off in Nome and helped shove discrimination back into the public light again) which nominally ended racial discrimination. However, we all know that there is a big gap between signing a bill and what happens on the ground - while the Territory and State could, and did, enforce its laws and regulations, there was still a poo poo ton of racism. My aforementioned professor had a whole string of colorful names he would be called trying to board a bus by a driver up in Nome. Mr.Pibbleton is right about current relations (in my experience) though you still get racial tension between Whites and Natives depending on where you're at (or even what side of Anchorage you're in.) In my experience, it's almost always directed from old Whites to Natives, normally relating to Natives drinking too much, eating weird things, or bitching about "WHY DO THEY GET FREE HEALTHCARE?" Sometimes it takes a more sinister turn, like when you get store security profiling Alaskan Natives and shadowing them through the store. I think it's a portion of the older generation that just hasn't moved on, since I hear it very little from younger people. As an aside, I recommend Alaskool for anyone interested in Alaskan history, specifically with an emphasis on education or race relations. A lot of excellent people contributed to building that site. Von Humboldt fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 08:30
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