Polar Bear, Inc.: The Pain of Change in an Alaska Native Village

it.

Chapter 1

Ivan: The Old Hunter

Ivan had been battered by loss and he knew it. Others were oblivious to their pain, although silently and subtly impacted by it.

He was so ancient that not even the elders could remember when he was young. Fine wrinkles, accented by deeper creases on his forehead, gave testament to his age. Rough hands, molded by decades of labor, fit his tools like a glove; the shape of his body having been transformed by the tasks it had performed for so long. His clothes, worn but mended, were accented with small pieces of Native handicraft. A handmade hat of rich fur fashioned in the traditional style was a trademark. Ivan had handsome features for an old man, but he was usually unkempt.

Ivan was an Arctic Cree, a group of Algonquin living on the Beaufort Sea between Barrow and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Nobody knows how the Arctic Cree got to that place or why they wanted to come. Most Cree live far to the south, stretching out though Canada from the Maritime Provinces westward.

Located thousands for miles from their cultural origins, the Arctic Cree retained habits and customs that made them distinct from the Inupiaq who surrounded them. To this day, the Arctic Cree speak a Native dialect that can be understood by the Cree of Quebec and Ontario, while baffling their Alaska Native neighbors. Ivan took great pride in his Cree heritage.

When sober, he walked erect and proud with a stance that defied his years. Most of the time he was stooped, more from drinking than from weakness or old age. Proper people dismissed him as merely an old drunk. The community failed to recognize him as an elder because he was not viewed as a role model to be emulated. The virtuous pointed to the old drunk as a negative example of how not to act. Keep acting like that and you’ll end up like Ivan, parents warned their unruly children.

Nobody could recall Ivan holding a real job, although he sought causal labor between benders. His great store of knowledge went unnoticed. He was written off as a nobody. A drunk. A parasite. Always getting into some kind of minor trouble.

Attempting to assert his dignity, the old man kept complaining that Ivan was not his real name, That’s missionary talk, he constantly complained.

The original missionaries set up their camp where the river enters the Beaufort Sea. Noticing the Native people hunted beluga whales in the ocean inlets near the settlement, the outpost was named Beluga. Although the giant bowhead whales are more famous, the small belugas could be easily caught by herding them into shallow waters and trapping them.

Once the missionaries were in place, a whaling crew joined them, and a trading post was established. Contact with the outside world began. As the village grew, a sizable number of Arctic Cree were attracted to it and gave up their nomadic existence. This was the first permanent settlement these people had ever known. For untold generations, their ancestors had traveled widely as hunters and gatherers, harvesting food in a cycle that relied upon a profound understanding of their world. The women could predict when the Salmon berries became ripe and knew where to harvest them. The migrations of caribou and whales could be predicted by those who lived close to the earth. Being nomadic, small bands followed the food in an age-old pattern. The Arctic Cree had never been tied down to one place.

Ivan’s parents, unlike those who settled in Beluga, continued to live a nomadic way of life, only visiting the village to trade. Standing apart from the new ways, the family followed the game on foot and with the aid of dog sleds. Life was hard, but good.

Back before the Second World War, it was still possible to live according to the old ways that dated back to ancient times. The few remaining nomads acquired modern weapons, but the ancient rhythm of life remained. The flow of the seasons, the ripening of berries, and the migration of game provided a structure to life. Guns made the hunters more efficient, but men still stalked the herds on foot and hauled the catch back using the muscle power of men and dogs. Sharp metal knives were more precise and easier to sharpen than those made of stone, but people still skinned the animals and tanned the hides in a manner that went back before recorded history.

The nomads accepted the practical tools of the outside world but they did so on their own terms. More disruptive borrowings (including village life, the Christian religion, and new ideologies) pushed those who became sedentary to reject the old ways. That didn’t happen to those who clung to the tundra and retained the old nomadic way of life.

Ivan and his family used trade goods, such as guns, to strengthen their heritage, not to replace it. These new items were merged into the age-old patterns of life by people who lived as their ancestors. Today, the subsistence way of life remains in the far north, but the hunters are settled in villages. Part time jobs and seasonal work provide the cash needed to finance the hunt. After all, outfitting a subsistence hunter requires a lot of money. Snowmobiles and ATVs are expensive, but have become essential tools for those following a subsistence way of life. People have become addicted to the cash economy if they admit it or not. Ivan was raised much closer to the earth. As a child, he never embraced the sedentary way of life that civilization demands.

The old legends and mythic figures (gifts from the ancestors) were still vital and strong in Ivan’s world. Along with them came a reverence for nature that, as time went by, was increasingly undercut by Christian dogma. The Bible, for example, affirms that God wants mankind to subdue the earth; Ivan, in contrast, was raised to be a part of it. As many nomadic people the world over, he looked at the animals as brothers and sisters, believing the generous animals gave themselves to mankind: allowing themselves to be caught. When successful, Ivan never took credit for his achievement. Just the opposite, he praised the animals for being kind and gracious. Those of us who spend time hunting with the Arctic Cree of the North Slope of Alaska can still get a taste of such beliefs, but today it is diluted by contact with the outside world. Ivan, keeping the faith, held these beliefs to the core of his heart in a strong, powerful, and unadulterated way.

This was Ivan’s life until he was about 14. One day a white man visited their camp to trade. A few days later his mother started feeling poorly. Then his father. Both became terribly sick. He and his brother also fell ill. In those days, diseases brought by outsiders were the scourge of the far north. Because the Native people had no prior contact with these European diseases, they had no resistance to them. A common cold could kill the strongest and the fittest.

Everyone but Ivan died. He was close to death and unable to care for himself. For days he struggled to keep driftwood on the fire so he wouldn’t freeze. Because he was too weak to move the corpses, his dead family lay around him in the tent.

Eventually, his fever broke and his strength began to return. At first, he felt better, but still weak and barely able to walk. Little by little his vigor returned. Ample food was on hand so all he had to do was rest and keep the fire burning as he slowly recovered. Resting in the tent with his dead family still in sight was all he could do until he gained the energy he needed to move to a new camp.

Ivan had heard stories of other epidemics and knew that if he went to the village with even the slightest touch of illness, he could kill the entire town. As a result, he kept his distance. The sorrow subsided once he relocated his camp and didn’t have to look at his dead family any more. Those ugly deaths would haunt him for the rest of his life, but during his struggle to stay alive he didn’t realize it. Ivan had a knack for survival.

As the years went by, however, the grief he faced in those times came to haunt him. Maybe that is why he drank too much. That’s what a lot of people thought.

Eventually spring arrived and Ivan’s health totally returned. It is almost impossible for one person to live on the tundra as a nomad, so he had to find others if he was to survive and make a new life for himself. By now his supplies were running low so he packed up what he could carry, hid things he might need to reclaim later, and set off for the village of Beluga where a sizable Arctic Cree population was located.

The Presbyterian Church was the dominant feature of the community. In order to encourage conversion to Christianity, they encouraged the local people to settle there. The early missionaries were a colorful lot, braving hardship as they lived a rugged life, dedicated to God, but eager for adventure. Simultaneously, they were champions of Christ. Based in the village, they traveled as itinerant evangelists, braving the trip to remote places helping people in practical ways in order to subtly plant the seeds of their God. These missionaries, far from fundamentalists, combined social Darwinism with the liberal religious sentiments of the Victorian era.

When Jesus first reached the Arctic Cree in the late 19th century, these forward thinking Christians believed in progress and in the perfectibility of mankind. Human effort was required, not merely divine intervention. By combining a notion of personal responsibility with the concept of the survival of the fittest, a gospel of progress proclaimed that salvation was the fruit of sound decision making, and hard work. Not only did the missionaries seek to bring the Christian faith to the tundra, they wanted to rise the Natives from the squalor of barbarism and embrace a civilized existence.

All people, the missionaries proclaimed, possess the ability to take control of their destiny and work in ways that achieve God’s vision for them. That this was true for the Arctic Cree, just like everybody else.

When primitive people embraced the advances of modern civilization, the missionaries reasoned that the will of God had prevailed. That was the evangelical goal; help people transcend the old ways by simultaneously picking up the cross and merging with the modern world.

Decades after those early years, this dogma of God and progress continued. Those who loved the old ways were depicted as being at odds with God because by rejected the progress, they rejected the good life that the Lord offered. When Ivan settled in Beluga, this view was powerful and dominant.

Spring whaling season was just beginning when Ivan straggled into Beluga. Boats were being prepared for the assault on the giant bowhead. People knew Ivan. He and his family came to trade every year. He initially didn’t tell anyone that his family was dead. He was sure the disease was out of his system, but feared he would be banished if people knew he’d been exposed to a killer plague. Many years went by before he told what had really happened. Until then, he kept that hurtful secret to himself, receiving comfort from no one.

Ivan explained his presence by claiming that he just wanted to give up the nomadic way of life and settle in the village. Many others had made the same decision, so his explanation was accepted at face value without suspicion or probing questions. Everyone knew he was a good hunter with a keen eye, so he was quickly recruited as a harpooner by one of the whaling crews. Many of the whaling canoes imported Inupiaq harpooners because they were more skilled than the Arctic Cree. As a result, local hunters were highly prized and respected. Using his own homemade spears, fashioned out of bone, Ivan brought success with him and quickly gained acceptance as a member of the community. Sometimes he went out whaling with other Arctic Cree. Sometimes he was recruited by the Whites who also sought the whales. Everybody knew he was a fine hunter.

Success brought Ivan a chance for popularity; young women were attracted to the strong man from the tundra who was adept at bringing in whales. But Ivan was distant, probably as a result of the horrors he had seen when his family died. He was friendly, had his share of sexual adventures, but didn’t bond with anybody.

After taking a whale, Ivan would thank the dead creature for its generosity and honor it. Although everyone admired his skill, many in the community made fun of him for doing so. They had begun to reject the traditions of showing respect for the whale. The White whalers who sailed in their giant ships were successful and they did nothing to placate their quarry. The missionaries emphasized how wrong headed Ivan’s thinking was. The whales are part of God’s bounty, they insisted. Out of his love, God gave them to the people. God was generous, not the whales.

And reflecting the liberal tradition of 19th century Christianity, the missionaries pointed out that hard, organized, and industrious work, represented by the whaling crews, brought success, not the bigheartedness of the animal that was killed.

Ivan never was converted to Christianity, but he learned it was a good idea to keep his opinions to himself. He still praised and thanked the generous whale, but did so quietly and in his own way. Hoping to convert him through flattery, the head missionary named him Ivan, stating the name was appropriate because he was a great hunter who brought the image of the Russian hero, Ivan the Great, to mind. Against his will, the name stuck. Nonetheless, Ivan never joined the Church and he never accepted a Christian identity although, as a practical matter, he had to answer to the White name that was forced upon him.

In those days, young Native children were sent to boarding school. Once there, every effort was made to strip them of their Native heritage. The whole idea went back to Richard Henry Pratt, founder of Carlisle Academy in Pennsylvania, a school (or rather an indoctrination camp) for Native youth. Pratt’s slogan was Kill the Indian, save the man. By this he meant that although the Native people were noble and had a great potential, their culture and traditions held them back. The solution was to stamp out the old beliefs and attitudes, while simultaneously providing the skills, ideas, and perspectives of the modern world. Such a view fit perfectly with the theology of the liberal Christians who urged people to struggle upward and onward.

The plan was to remove Native children from their community, by force if necessary, and raise them in a boarding school where they would learn White man’s ways. More than that, students were systematically made to feel ashamed of their heritage. When students arrived, they were stripped of their native belongings and, typically, were forced to stand at attention, as these artifacts of their old life were burned. This was followed by years of indoctrination far from home. Students who spoke their Native language were severely punished. Many of these people eventually found themselves caught between two worlds and unable to function in either.

Ivan was spared that experience. By the time he arrived in the village, he was about 14, a little too old to start school. He, furthermore, was already set in his ways. Everyone knew Ivan could not be molded to be a civilized pseudo-White. Anyone could see that he was strong willed and would be a disruptive force in the classroom. Everybody agreed that attempting to school him would be useless and lead to disruptions. Ivan was one of the few of his generation who avoided the boarding school.

Being spared the exile of indoctrination, no doubt, helped Ivan maintain his Native identity. His parents had given him a name and that was what he wanted to be called. That was who he was. The missionaries insisted that he be called Ivan. Some of the older folk honored his wishes, but as the years went by they died off and fewer and fewer could speak the old language. English had taken over and became the only language that most of the younger generation could speak. After a while, only a handful of people knew Cree. So, against his wishes, the old hunter came to be known as Ivan, his White name. First the missionaries enforced the Ivan identity. Then it was his own people.

Ivan’s family was dead but, at least initially, he was in contact with the few nomadic remnants who maintained the old ways. Some, like himself, had settled in the village. Others, still living on the tundra, came to the village to trade. As the years went by, fewer and fewer people practiced the nomadic way of life; as a result, a terrible sadness swept over those who cherished their heritage and didn’t want to give it up. Ivan felt the pain, although from afar. Loss after loss took a cumulative toll within the