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
Robert Fagerstrom
(On record.)
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: We're back.
It's 11:30 at the Alaska Natives Commission hearing in Nome.
Next to testify will be R -- I
better get your name right. Robert Fagerstrom. I know him as
Robbie. (Laughing.)
MR. FAGERSTROM: Well, good morning, and
my name is Robbie Fagerstrom, and I would like to -- first to
thank you for this opportunity
to address the Alaska Natives Commission at this hearing in Nome.
I represent the Citnesok Native Corporation, and we've got 2,200-plus
shareholders, of which 60 percent live in Nome, and 40 percent
live elsewhere.
I enjoyed leading up to this, where we had two
working meetings with our elders, and -- at Citnesok; and, first
of all, I --
they were worried about their testimony being in written form;
and I said:
"Well, the best thing to do is just speak
from your heart."
And to go along with speaking from your heart,
I thought maybe one of them would speak in the Eskimo language
that would have
to be translated, so (laughing)-- and I think they can speak
better that way coming from their heart, because I think so often
English is a hard language for anybody to master. I went to school
for 12 years, and I still have a difficult time with it.
But
I think there's three or four major points that I'd like to talk
about this morning, and if -- you've heard some of them
from our elders that did testify. Well, I think number one is
our family values, and that's categorized into many different
sub-titles or issues. It's respect for the elders; it's the language;
it’s our tradition and culture that is best taught by ourselves
at home. And for an example, subsistence fishing. That's where
you learn how to hold the net; how to chase the fish into the
net; and there's a lot of -- it's pretty technical, and it gets
us a (indiscernible) for survival.
And I think it's best learned
at home, our language and our culture, like Margaret stated that
you can go to school and it can --
have bicultural programs, and I think it's best learned at home,
where it's fluent and it’s in your own environment; whereas,
in school I think so much the Western ways is structured.
With
our problems in rural Alaska and Nome here, I think one of the
main thing is economics. And I think if we had better
coordination by the state and federal governments on projects.
And I think this ties in with the alcohol and sex abuse, where
what would you expect of somebody who didn't have a job and you
were living on AFDC, food-stamps? I mean, how would you feel
yourselves? And then, most of all, you'd -- from the Western
way, you'd take the easiest thing to get rid of those problems,
and that's programs about drug and alcohol abuse.
And maybe what
I'm leading up to is I know one year over at White Mountain --
and I could probably be corrected, but I believe
that there's three or four different projects going on at the
same time. The reason why you have these projects all the same
time is everything is budgeted; they gotta use the money, or
else they lose it. Maybe what we need to do is take a look at
those type of regulations, both state and federal, to where they
could spread out the projects in three or four years, and you
could keep everybody locally hired; you could have forced accounting.
It's these type of concepts that we need to look at in order
to help with the economic development within our region.
I know
subsistence is a cash economy, but you still got to have money
to buy gas; you got to have money to buy bullets, rifle,
and chose other things; but I think to help solve these problems
that we face, number one is the economic picture has to be satisfied
first, before we can carry out anything else.
And to go along
with that, about, three or four years ago, Citnesok in Nome here
and other state and federal agencies and other organizations,
both tribal and nonprofit, we were all appointed to a technical
committee. And this committee's mission was to expand the 3-to-12-mile
gold mining out in the Bering Sea. And I thought that was a good
process, where the governments, both state and federal, got into
industry; got into profits and nonprofits and tribal governments,
and those other social nonprofit-type of organizations to work
together to solve mutual problems. And I think this is a way
to be more effective, where there's economic development or etcetera,
or looking at the issues. And I think Jake Ahwinona had a great
point where we're always under study; we're always doing this
plan, that plan; but there's no end result; there's no follow
through. And that was one of my comments the other day is you
come here to Nome; you go to other cities and villages; you hear
this testimony, but whatever comes out of that?
(Pause.)
And really I think, basically, you know, what's
expected of the Native people. We've been into the Western culture
the
last 200
years. We're going through kind of a cultural shock. And I think
what Margaret said is, you know, what's best for us might be
-- in the eyes of the government, might be what's broadest to
this problem, but we're ultimately here and now.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: I like your third point down, involving all agencies
where economic development is prevalent, setting
up a plan and doing something. I was just going to mention, when
we deal with economics and providing a job, the Red Dog Mine
when it was set up up north, the City of Kotzebue didn't plan
for increased income by the workforce, and then the need for
land and property, the need for a home. And they found themselves
with half of their shareholders, half of the workforce living
in Anchorage, because the market didn't provide -- or something
like that. I think that when you involve all of the agencies,
some of that might not go.
On the issue of force account, I wonder
if the State has decreased their acceptance of such a thing and
that is acceptable?
MR. FAGERSTROM: I don't know,
but I think what we need to be is creative in our vision to work
across all
these regulations,
where you keep -- look at the total picture from the legislature
all the way down. There must be a way where we could work these
out that would give more opportunities and keep more money in
the villages for that economic development then. I guess what
ultimately ties into these whole issues is that we as a Native
people have to work together. I know there's issues where we
feel more comfortable here in Nome about development, because
we've been -- part of our growing up has been with the dredges,
where we're more workable, or we understand working with development.
But I think, in general within rural Alaska, I think there's
always been a doubt about how industry can work within the environment
and working with the subsistence way of life; and if nothing's
going to be done where we're shutting everything down, there
won't be any work for anybody; and they look at the existence
of Nome where it's a service and a transportation -- and just
in thinking if it wasn't Nome, maybe it would have been Golovin
or Council; but we were fortunate to still have some gold left
in the area, so -- but I think that's -- we've got to cut across
all the indifferences that we as a Native people have to start-working
together for common goals, instead of us having our own little
bureaucracy the way Native politics is run. That's throughout
the whole state.
(Tape Changed to Tape #4.)
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you, Robbie.
MR. FAGERSTROM:
And just in closing, I guess I'd like to stress that, through
this process, I hope that there would be follow-up,
and we as a Native people just have to start working together
to choose some comm -- we all have common goals --
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay.
MR. FAGERSTROM: -- so. . .
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK:
Okay, I'll work with our Executive Director on follow-up. As
soon as I found him, his eye lit up and so he
-- we -- I think that's a challenge that the Commission -- Mike
is trying to get our Commission so that it's not one of those
throw-in-the-dust Commissions. And we're trying to make an impact.
We've had quite a challenge, and we've been working on it, trying
not to be a Commission that is from the top down, but acts from
the grassroots up. I'm hoping that’s the Commission that
comes out of this whole things.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: Yes, and
what effect, if any, would you say perhaps the Davis-Bacon
Act has had on the economics of this area, as far as employment
you
see?
MR. FAGERSTROM: Well. I think that it can run both
ways. You know, usually when you look at a project, you bid it
at a
certain
cost; and if you're forced into paying higher wages, I'm
not saying that's good or bad; but I think, in general, this
is
where there's so many big issues out there. It's just so
compounded and complex, how they're inter-tied together; but
when you
normally
look at a business decision, it's based on what you know
and what you have to pay; and there's got to be a profit in there
for everybody. It's got to have a trickle-down effect. I'm
not a union person, but I think the unions are good; and
I
think
it does have -- it -- I mean, it brings in a salary to the
employees; but as long as employees are Natives, I'd say
that would be good
then. But, there again, you've got to have qualified people
to work the jobs; and how do you get that when you don't
have the
experience? So, you know, your hands is forced into getting
into an apprenticeship with one of the unions, or going into
the military
or relocating outside of the region where you're living to
get -- gain the experience. So those are all multi-issues
and problems
that we could probably meet a week about and not get anything.
I'm just trying to point out the highlights and concerns.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thanks, Robbie.
MR. FAGERSTROM:
Okay.
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos.
