Virtual Subsistence
The World is my Backyard

In a New York minute everything can change. Much like my life changed when I moved from Alaska to the 'city that never sleeps'. From the immaculate nature of the Chugach Mountains, Yukon River and Bering Sea to the urban tundra of sky scrapers, enclaves of business and cultural capitals and the nation's foremost trendsetters. From 'the great land' to arguably the 'greatest city on earth'. An Eskimo to the world, last year, I made a giant leap from Anchorage to New York. The determination of Yup’ik peoples to survive in harsh Arctic conditions had given me the strength to survive on streets of New York.

I am Yup’ik. Which translated into English means "real people." We derive from western and southwestern Alaska. I am a descendant of indigenous peoples who made decisions and changes within the cycle of life based on experience, knowledge and skills. Subsistence means to maintain life and my ancestors nourished and sustained themselves following nature, seasons and animals. Ingenuity, intelligence and inventiveness have given Alaska Natives the strength to survive in the north for over 10,000 years.

Traditionally, Yup’ik people were fluid, mobile and adaptable, spending the spring and summer at fish camp and then joined others at village sites for the winter. The subsistence lifestyle of Alaska’s real people are more than a way of life, it is a healthy way of sustaining oneself from the animals and the land. It is a deeply-rooted tradition with a sharing obligation and distribution responsibility of the harvest with the community. It also involves a commitment to teach the next generation about the work.

Today as a modern Yup’ik, traveling is in my genetic material. It was cultivated early in my life by moving from Mountain Village to Anchorage when I was seven years old. From there it rocketed, I attended thirteen schools for compulsory education in Anchorage and blasted like a missile to the East Coast for secondary school. I’ve taken that itch to move a step further and launched around the globe. I’ve been to England, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, and Norway, lived in Switzerland and most recently moved home from New York.

If globetrotting was a sport, I’m game. Traveling promises exposure to different cultures, languages, landscapes, sites, scents, food and lifestyles. When I move, my life revolutionizes in every aspect. I must adjust to the simple things, learn my way around, make new friends, and find the post office and neighborhood grocery store. I have to explore, inquire, investigate, scout and adventure around my new elements, like my ancestors did adjusting to the environment and ecosystems. Chinatown was my home on Manhattan's lower east side and beyond my doorstep was a whole new world with different smells, sights, sounds and signs.

In Chinatown, on the streets of Mott, Mulberry and Canal and along East Broadway were Chinese grocers and fishmongers. On Canal Street were a gazillion Chinese street vendors selling imitation perfumes, watches and hand-bags and more than 200 Chinese restaurants. The population in Chinatown is between 90,000 and 100,000; quite the opposite from where I grew up on the banks of the Yukon River in Mountain Village with a population of 800 founded my great-grandfather, Chekohak.

Despite being 5,000 miles away from home, I maintain a connection to my cultural roots by listening to indigenous music, reading books about Alaska Native cultures, eating Native foods and watching Inuit films and talking and writing to my maurluq (Yup’ik to English translation is grandmother), going home at least once a year and trusting in ellam yua (spirit of the universe). I believe that wherever you go, there you are. You can take the Native out of the village but you can’t take the village out of the Native. I might be considered a “city Native” but I know who I am and where I come from.

The world is my backyard and I am an evolving Yup’ik with an itch to move. I love fashion, meeting indigenous artists, watching films like the Journals of Knud Rasmusson, writing and traveling. I believe wherever I go in the world, there will always be a lesson I can bring home. Alaska Native peoples creativity, knowledge and inherent technologies are incalculable. To hunt and gather from the land by supplying fuel for seasonal equipment such as four wheelers, out-board motors and snow machines is quantifiable and subsisting the city or in the village is priceless.

by Trina Landlord

 

Trina Landlord has worked on indigenous issues locally, nationally and internationally. Her work on Alaska Native issues earned her an internship at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Trina recently completed a fellowship at Alaska House, a cultural embassy in New York City. She is of Yup'ik Eskimo ancestry from Mountain Village.