<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Yup’ik elder Helen Ivan stands in a meadow in Akiak. (Yolanda Ramos/AKPM)</figcaption></figure>

John Ramos, a seventh grader in Akiak, a village in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, learned radio reporting skills with his class in collaboration with Alaska Public Media. In this story, his grandmother Helen Ivan talks about growing up in the Kuskokwim River area.

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Helen Ivan is an elder from Akiak. She’s Yup’ik and she mostly speaks Yup’ik. She has seven kids; some are adopted, and she’s a grandmother too. When she was in first grade in Akiak, she didn’t know how to speak English. 

“I didn’t know how to say, ‘I want to go bathroom,’” Ivan said. “I’ll go over to my brother and say, ‘How you say ‘qurqatartua,’ and he’ll say, ‘please, may I go use the bathroom,’ and when I walk to the teacher, it’ll be gone. All I know was ‘please.’ So, before I started peeing in my pants, I just walked out the door and went to the outhouse. They had no flushing toilets, like they do now.”

Back then, when she was growing up, they had no phones. So, when they wanted to give a message, they had to run out to the person’s house and run back.  

“While you’re eating, when an elder say, ‘I forgot to go tell so and so, could you tell him to come,’ and just before we went out, they used to wet the post, the chair or the wall, and they said, ‘if you come back while it’s wet, you’re a fast runner,’” Ivan said. “So we went straight to wherever they told us to go and come back and it’ll be still wet. But I think now, when it’s dried, I think they used to put more moist on the post.” 

Hunting is important here in Akiak because the food we hunt is better than the food at the store, and because it provides food when you’re in the wild. And it’s a way for kids to get food for their family. Ivan’s children and grandchildren go hunting and she said she used to go wild camping when she was younger. 

“In fall, they hunt for get beavers, rabbits, get ready for moose, for the winter food,” Ivan said. “And they didn’t used to have housings. They built mud houses- four posts and then put from the ground. They patted up and they put stove in there. And igloos are for emergency shelter. Winter time, when they get lost, they make igloo for protection. Some people may say we’re hardship people, but we’re not. We go with the flow.”

Elders in Akiak have way more advice than younger people. Ivan said if you keep away from alcohol and drugs you can have way more things you want. My grandma gave out advice to young people. 

“You say you want to be a nurse, if you want to be a teacher, you go for it,” Ivan said. “You stay away from alcohol and drugs. You study as best as you can and participate with other people that have work, and ask them how. And if you need help, ask them for help. You got to listen to your elders, because they have more knowledge.” 

My grandma likes to spend most of her time cutting fish for food. She likes mostly dry fish and moose meat. She lives with her husband, daughter, and adopted daughter, and she said her house is always full of kids.

This story was produced as part of Alaska Public Media’s Community Wellness Project, a collaborative initiative with rural Alaskans to talk about what wellness means to them. Some stories are told by community members working as citizen reporters. Unlike other journalism projects, participants have input in the editing process and give consent to the final version of the story. People who are interviewed may receive small honorariums for sharing their knowledge and time. Citizen reporters are paid for their work. This project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

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