ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | Exhibit
List
| PDF Version
ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
HEARING
Nome, ALASKA
SEPTEMBER 21, 1992
Bertha Adsuna
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: I'll go back on the list
and see if there's anybody else that's showed up here. Josie
Weyionanna? (Pause.) Albert Ningeulook?
(Pause.) Dazee? (Pause.) Bertha Adsuna? Okay. (Pause.) Go ahead.
MS. ADSUNA: I don't even know where to start. (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Well, you could mention your
name and. . .
MS. ADSUNA: Bertha Adsuna, Nome. Lived here for,
oh, for 50 years. I know I'm always wondering why we can't do
any fishing like
other people, because that's what we lived on all our lives.
And then when you can't get so many, you can't -- and the people
that get it want to sell it for so much, you can't afford to
buy. It makes it real hard for us to live on White people food
all the time.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: You can't even live on it.
(Laughing). Yeah. (Laughing).
MS. ADSUNA: I know. (Laughing).
Being as old as I am, you can't live on that and store-bought
food, but we have to, because we
haven’t been able to do any hunting, because of Fish and
Game stops you from hunting; and you can only get so many things.
Just like when you have to set a net, the only
time we used to do fishing when my parents were alive, as soon
as the fish start
running, we start catching them while the weather's nice. And
then we go on to the river. When the fish go to the rivers,
we get them from the rivers, too. And it doesn't make any different.
That was when it was Territory, before it become
a state. I think that's where all the trouble come in when Alaska
become
a state,
There's so many rules and regulations that we didn't live
by to begin with, and a lot -- to this day, I thank my father's
not alive to fight against what he believed, 'cause he would
have been in a lot of trouble if he was alive today and wanted
to hunt the same way he used to when he was young, and get
all the food he can gather for the winter.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK:
Okay, I think that Nome is at the forefront of how the direction
of subsistence is going, and from what I
can gather on the testimony, a lot of people are not too happy
about the direction in -- that it’s going. And it's real
good to hear from the elders' perspective, too, that it is, indeed,
need -- a food that is needed, and you can't deal with limits
and weather, so. . .
MS. ADSUNA: Yeah, and the way they open them
now is -- was in August sometime, and it's no time to dry them
anymore, because
of rainy season. And besides the fish gets too old by that
time they go up the river.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you.
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