Tuesday 21 April 2015

TEK in tanana


I survived my first trip in a small plane Tuesday, although some here wouldnt even call it a small plane. It was a two-propper with six passenger seats, and it was just me, a photographer, and someone going out to the village for the same reason we were -- for Tananas new wood-fired boilers, which residents hope will wean them a bit from pricey diesel fuel. We sat between flats of apple juice and the pilot, who wore blue jeans and a baseball hat and flew with one hand on the controls and one draped over the empty co-pilot seat.
The plane was loud as hell and moved around enough at 5,000 feet that you felt like you were flying. Not sure how to convey that, but a jet feels like a bus, and this felt like a motorcycle. Youre out there -- 5,000 feet above the spruce, the snaking river, and some low, snowy mountains. The plane flew fine, of course, but the inside was just beat up. One replaced seat, trim falling apart, etc. If it was a couch at the dump, youd leave it there.
Tanana was wonderful. I went to Barrow in September, and that was technically my first time off the road system, not counting Juneau. But this was different. Trying to set up interviews, I kept hearing, "Sure, give a call when you get in. Ill be here." Theres nowhere to go. People are at home, at city hall (a two-story log cabin), or maybe down at the senior center, or the washeteria. (The last was new to me -- its a laundromat, water source, and shower facility, as most of town isnt connected to the city water and sewer system.)
People drive around -- theres roads and pickup trucks -- but overall, its quiet. You could tell if an airplane was arriving.
We flew out for a celebration of the wood boilers, but had a chance to talk with some folks about fish and climate change. Mostly fish. We talked with Pat Moore and Lester Erhart, who both fish and keep kennels of about 45 sled dogs. Pats daughter is racing this year, as is Lesters son. They catch thousands of chum salmon for the dogs each year, and feed them to the dogs dried or fermented. We talked with Stan Zuray and Charlie Campbell, who fish and run dogs. Theyve both been in town for many decades, and probably know more about their piece of the Earth than most people know about any piece of the Earth -- Stan takes his dog team when he goes out on his trapline because dogs (and his skill using them) are more reliable than an old snowmachine. Theyre both white, and when I ask Charlie about climate change, they joke about TEK, or traditional ecological knowledge, and their ability to offer it. The term generally refers to the knowledge of people like Pat and Lester when that knowledge is compiled with more scientifically collected data.
I told them all I was there to listen first, and I was, but I still felt a bit like I had come looking for evidence that climate change was affecting fish. Read some of the big reports, and it sounds like fish are getting or will get completely screwed in Alaska. For these guys -- the ones living it -- climate change was just one, hard to identify issue, and its connection to fish laughably inconclusive. Youd have to know, among other things, how Yukon River water temperatures have changed over the years. No one really knows, because theres only scattered data. Pats TEK says this year was a little wierd, but previous years havent really shown any trend. Youd want to know how many king salmon were infected with a disease thats been linked to warmer waters. Pat says as many as 30 percent. Lester says one or two fish a year.
And on and on.
The hospitality was amazing. And thanks especially to Stan for sharing his king strips, canned salmon, and daylight hours when two tires needed fixing on his old Volkswagon without an engine.
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