This year’s Alaska Federation of Natives convention began at Anchorage this Thursday. It is the biggest group of Indigenous people across the country with people from all over the state. The theme for this year’s conference is “Our ways of life.”
Delegates this year had the chance for two key speakers: the president who is retiring of an Alaska Native corporation and an Iditarod champion.
AFN Board co-chair Ana Hoffman gave the keynote addresses and emphasized how each addressed what the conference was about.
“Our traditional ways of living for us as Alaska Native people are centered on land as well as subsistence” Hoffman said. “And that has kept us alive in our role as Alaska Native people for thousands of years. We continue to follow that tradition across all of the country.”
The keynote speech was of Sophie Minich, the outgoing president and CEO of CIRI. Minich claimed that she’s attended the convention for more than more than 25 years. The only thing that has remained constant is change and the way Alaska Native people react to it.
“As Alaska Native people, we want to not just be able to survive, but also prosper,” Minich said. “It is not exaggerated to claim that our future relies upon our capacity to work with one another.”
Minich addressed a variety of issues that affect Alaska Native communities, including the effects of climate change on subsistence, addiction to drugs along with missing and killed Indigenous women girls, women and two-spirit individuals.
“Overcoming the common challenges facing us requires clear goals, consensus, collaboration, coalition building with respect, dialogue and courage,” Minich said.
In keeping with the theme of changing, Minich discussed her mother, who was a Gwich’in Athabascan female who was raised within Fort Yukon. Minich’s mother was required to attend boarding schools located in Nenana in the province of Nenana and Eklutna at the age of 13 after her mother passed away from tuberculosis.
“Like many other people her life style, her culture was wiped out,” Minich said. “Pride that she had in her Athabascan tradition was wiped away. Stories she learned from her parents and lived through within the village were shoved to the bottom of her.”
Despite her mother’s inability to celebrate her culture when she was growing to be a teenager, Minich said her mother took both of them in tribal membership in the wake of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Minich was able to excel in a leadership program designed for Alaska Native students and worked for CIRI for over 30 years, including as its president and CEO for the past 10 years.
The keynote speaker ended his speech with a discussion of the future and the ways in which Alaska Native people would need to make use of new technology and innovation to safeguard and preserve their way of life.
“We are working now in order to create a sustainable future that will last for seven generations,”” Minich said. “Preserving our way of life depends on our collective capability to invent.”
Minich was then followed by the third AFN keynote speaker Ryan Redington, the 2023 winner from the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The race this year was notable because of the three Alaska Native mushers finishing in the top three including Redington being followed by Pete Kaiser of Bethel and Richie Diehl of Aniak.
Redington is a descendent of a long line of dogs mushing royalty. His great-grandfather Joe Redington Sr. was popularly referred to by the name of “Father of the Iditarod.” When he was 10 an age, Ryan Redington and a companion even attempted to follow his grandfather along the trail for three hours behind, without additional equipment or food for dogs.
“We took a dog for a walk without asking, and we could have avoided it,” Redington said. “And it was enjoyment. We didn’t get to see grandpa.”
Redington claimed that the race had been calling his name since an early age as was the goal of his to win the bronze medal adorned by his grandfather’s image.
“To achieve the outcome of my dreams come true after 16 times spread in 22 years. sprinted through finishing line Nome in the midst of eight full days 21, 12 mins and an hour on the trail.” Redington said. “I finally got the trophy my grandfather won.”
Redington claimed he had discovered two things when winning the 1,000-mile race in March.
“Number one The trophy weighs 101 pounds not 90 pounds,” Redington said to laughs from the crowd. “And secondly I’ve learned that it’s fine to fight and scratch, to learn from mistakes, to recover, and to keep going forward.”
Redington expressed gratitude to those he’d met throughout his time in various communities along the Iditarod trail and also the mushing coaches he admired when he was a kid.
“In the words of one my mushing idols, George Attla, ‘Anybody who is able to get over the top of their issues and direct their thinking towards the proper direction is winning and a winner,'” Redington said.
It is expected that the AFN convention will run until Saturday and Alaska’s two U.S. senators and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland scheduled to give comments on Friday. U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola will be speaking at the event on Saturday.
