Glacier Bay National Park
Bucket
List Blog #3
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
I had gone to bed early Monday
evening in anticipation of the early arrival at Glacier Bay National Forest.
There are no roads leading into the country’s largest wilderness aA nd only 2
cruise ships are allowed in the area at a time. Glacier Bay is a homeland, a
natural lab, a wilderness, a national park, a United Nations Biosphere Reserve,
and a world heritage site.
In the 1600’s there was no Glacier
Bay – only a huge sheet of ice flowing from the Fairweather Mountain Range –
the tallest coastal mountain range in the world. At the base of this dormant
sheet of ice the indigenous Tlingit made their homes harvesting salmon at a
summer fish camp and making their homes there during the winter. From spring to
fall, they traveled extensively harvesting the resources they would need to
sustain them through the long winter. In 1750 the massive glacier broke loose
and forced them from their homeland. The Glacier receded five miles leaving what
is now known as Glacier Bay. As the ice melted the resilient Tlingit returned,
claiming Glacier Bay as their homeland. Today 800 Tlingit live in the village
of Hunta that was given to them by the federal government and there they live
telling their stories and teaching their children the Golden Rule – respect.
I was privileged to speak with a
Tlingit woman who proudly told the stories of her people. The Tlingit are a
matrilineal society and live in societies divided into two moieties; these are
the Raven and the Eagle. The child’s moiety is determined by the mother and all
the children live in individual clans again named after animals. Children of
the Raven Moiety must marry in the Eagle moiety because all the children born
in the Raven moiety are considered brothers and sisters. There are no cousins.
In this way, the balance of the Creator is preserved.
Tlingit believe in a Creator they call God,
but they believe every living thing has a spirit that must be respected. Therefore, when a plant or animal is used,
nothing of that plant or animal is wasted. In addition, the Tlingit take only
what they need to survive – nothing more. In this way, they have survived for
centuries, but they do believe in science and technology. “Knowledge is power,”
said Mame, our narrator and storyteller during the Glacier Bay cruise. “We
send our children to school but they learn who they are from the family
traditions in addition to technology.” Boarding schools and the movement to
“kill the Indian but not the man” robbed Mame’s generation of her native
language, but she is learning it as her children become fluent in it and gain
strength and pride from being an Alaskan Native. As I listened to Mame,I was
again reminded of the place the indigenous people of North America have in our
bigger society. They can teach us the things we have lost that continue to
challenge our country today – strong family ties preserved through totems and storytelling,
respect for everything, and sustainable
living in a world where consumption and the use of fossil fuels is destroying
the land.
Ranger Jack gave a presentation about the
value of the wilderness and the thing that stood out for me was the value that
the wilderness had in preserving human well-being emotionally and spiritually
as well as physically from all the wonderful natural herbs and medicines there
that the indigenous people have known about for centuries. As I listened to the
thunder following the cracking of one of the giant Glaciers, I thought about
these people who lived here long before the Europeans came and are still here
proudly leading the way for us back to a more harmonious relationship with the
Mother Earth and all her creatures.
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