Applying Place-based Education
As an elementary school counselor, one of the responsibilities I am charged with is the teaching of a wide variety of social skills to young children. It is expected that school counselors follow empirically developed curricula to their students, and I would like to figure out how to mesh the concepts that I currently teach with traditional Alaska native knowledge and understanding of social expectations. Though much of the emphasis in this Place-Based Education course has been on the scientific, environmental aspects of a place, my interest lies in the social aspect and how modern life can be lived according to codes that are centuries old.
Many teachers have access to resources from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network which outline traditional ways of knowing, traditional expectations for social behavior, and other indigenous cultural processes. In my attempt to incorporate place-based education more thoroughly next year, I will look to these resources for parallels between the social skill curricula for which I am responsible and their native counterparts. For example, I am planning to order a CD designed for teachers, entitled Creating a Community Elders' Calendar by Cheryl Pratt. It is described as "A teacher resource for documenting indigenous knowledge and intregrating respect in place-based education." Since "respect" is a critical theme in teaching social skills, I will find parallels in which the information presented in the CD can be integrated with existing lessons.
I will consult with the native Alaskan education coordinator for my school on how best to bring other critical threads of traditional knowledge into the counseling program. Currently, I have several times throughout the school year when I incorporate such things as "life lessons" that can be gleaned from stories and legends. Though I try to use common Tlingit stories and their critical meanings, I will focus this year on tying those meanings to life in a modern world.
I also intend to invite local elders into my school community for sharing oral traditions and stories that provide a native Alaskan interpretation of such counseling topics as conflict resolution, respect, healthy choices for mind and body, setting goals, and personal growth. Perhaps we could come up with a series of documents (ie: posters?, powerpoints?, brochures?) which would be useful to other school counselors in the Juneau School District.
These are thoughts in their infancy about how I, as an elementary school counselor, can incorporate the wealth of tradition and knowledge which underlies Alaska native social structures in the place in which we live - Juneau, AK.
Auke Bay View
An Alaska State Ferry passes by Auke Bay
Friday, July 9, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Photo on Google Earth
If you choose to "fly" to Lena Cove on Google Earth, and if you enable the ability to view pictures, you can see a picture entitled "Lena Spring Sunset" that I took in May and recently figured out how to upload through Google's Panoramio application. I just can't quite figure out how to link to it. That particular photo isn't showing up on Google Maps, just in Google Earth. Hmmmmm - may play with it some more.
Google Link
I've figured out how to link to Google Maps in order to show where Lena Cove is in the Juneau area. Check it out, here, or in the list of related links.
Lena Cove location
Lena Cove location
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Camel's view, continued
In 1979 I was in high school, but hadn't outgrown the beach. I enjoyed the crashing of the waves in winter, watching the snow melt off the Camel as the waves splashed and licked around his body. The water around him might freeze slightly as the tide went out, but the cove never froze. During the winter the boats and crab pot bouys were gone and the cove looked barren. Only the ravens and eagles remained, but weren't actively seeking food. Bears and deer were gone and Camel huddled down against the cold North winds. There were rarely any picnicers at the Rec Area, only on rare warm weekend afternoons. Camel could see us heading up the driveway in the dark to catch the school bus, wearing our reflective clothing or carrying flashlights. Camel could see us loading up the family car with ski gear on the weekends. Eaglecrest was in it's infancy and my Colorado-born parents were thrilled with the possibility of teaching their children to ski. Camel could see the snowmen we built, watched as we decorated the house for the holidays, and waited patiently outside while we ate chicken noodle stew cooked in the fireplace.
In 1982 I returned for the summer from my first year of college "down south" and eagerly looked out over the cove. Camel rested there, though I no longer ran to the beach to collect rocks or shells, no longer grabbed a fishing pole to sling Pixies at the Humpies. I still admired the view, though. Sometimes I'd peer through the telescope to see if any friends were hanging out at the Rec Area. I usually worked in the summers and didn't have time to wander the beach or even go out on the boat that my parents usually had moored there. I didn't have time to sit upon the Hat or Camel's back anymore.
As I finished college and became a young career woman I had even less time for the beach or the cove. Camel watched my sister become a teen and my young brother teach himself to fish from the shore, launch his small boat for trips out to Aaron Island, watched him and his friends pitch a tent on the lawn and camp out. Camel watched him befriend a crow who would come to his name one summer, watched him learn the bear tracks around the Humpy spawning stream, and watched him grow into a young man who loved the sea.
I left the cove and Juneau in 1989, with the draw of Colorado in my blood. I said goodbye to my family, the Camel, and the cove and took off for the land of cowboys and mountains. Sadly, I wasn't at the cove when it claimed the life of a dear neighbor in December, 1990. Frank Maier was a Lena Cove original in my mind, and when the cove took his life, I was sad for my family and their traumatic experience in helping with the recovery of his body. I'm sure that Camel cried tears that day.
It wasnt' until 1991 when I came home for a visit, bringing my new husband from our home in Colorado, that I began to pay attention to the cove again. I noticed that the tide didn't come up as high as it used to, the rocks that once outlined a path to the water had shifted and the path was no longer obvious, just a hint of what it had been. I noticed that the grasses around the Camel were different than in my childhood and that dandelions were everywhere. They had never been down on the beach before! I noticed that at the very lowest low tide, there was at least
10 more feet of mudflats than there used to be. The changes had been gradual, but when I took the time to look, I could see them. Camel was still there, but was his hump higher than it used to be? Why did the grasses look so much taller? Hat was the same, but the tide no longer encircled it regularly - just once in a while. And the fireweed patch! It used to be just a few plants, but now it was most of the beach.
By 1996, when I came to back to Juneau with my second son as a newborn and my older son as a toddler, I noticed that the Alders hung so far out over the house and the planted Maple trees in the yard were no longer twigs, but were sturdy, thick-trunked mature trees. I began to see the beach as a Mom... "be careful, don't fall on the barnacles", "wear your coat, it's raining", "don't wade out there too deep", "wear your boots", "take OFF those muddy boots!" Camel must have been smiling inside to hear me talk to my children, all the while remembering how often I didn't follow my own mother's reminders. I taught my children to recognize the sound of the eagles still living in the tree above the house, to know the difference between a crow, a raven, and a seagull. We watched for seals in the cove, counted the fish jumping, and beachcombed for pretty shells each summer. I'm sure Camel enjoyed the return of children to the beach, as all the neighborhood children were grown by then.
By 2001, my now 6 and 8 year old sons had visited the beach every summer of their childhood and were learning to love Grandma's Cove, as they called it. My older son, who had been born and living in Colorado around ranches and ditch water all his young life once said when he was about 4 years old, "that's a Big Ditch!" when he saw it from an airplane, so occasionally they'd call it Grandma's Big Ditch. They had learned the important names of Camel and Chinaman's Hat, they knew when the blueberries and huckleberries would be ripe in the back yard. Though they were Colorado boys, they knew a Pink salmon from a Silver and knew which lures to toss out into the cove to catch a fish. They knew what a "double ugly" was and how to pick the Devil's Club thorns out of their hands. Camel must have delighted in seeing the boys squat down for hours over the tide pools around his belly, peering at the critters within, trying to catch Sticklebacks and Blennies. We spent much of that summer on the cove and since I could take my eyes off my sons then, my appreciation for the cove began to deepen and I noticed more changes. The number of houses around the cove had exploded. Where was the old familiar blinking red light above Lena Point? Why had the tree line along Lena Point changed so dramatically? What had Camel been seeing the last 15 years that I had missed? Where did all those moorings and crab pot bouys come from? Where was the once-rushing stream to the North? It seemed like just a trickle of iron-filled water now. Where had all the trees on Lena Point gone? My longing to return to the Cove began to stir and I wanted my children to have at least some of the Alaskan childhood that I had had.
It was 2004 before my husband and I uprooted our family from our Colorado ranch and took off for our Alaskan adventure. I wanted to get home and he wanted a change of career, so it was time. Oddly enough, we decided to explore some other part of Alaska while our children were still young and chose to live in Wasilla. For me, it was coming home to Alaska, for him it was a career move and change-of-pace, and for the children, it was part of an adventure. The cove and Camel still called, though, and we found ourselves paying for airfare, tanks of gas, and ferry tickets to get to Juneau a couple of times a year for family visits. By this time, there was a new baby - a nephew to me - at the cove peering out the window learning the names of Camel and Chinaman's Hat, and a niece on the way. My appreciation for the cove, the water, and the beaches of southeast deepened while I lived up North. The Ted Stevens Research Center had begun to take shape, carving a dramatically different tree line from Camel's point of view, there was a new "cut" of road above Auke Rec which dramatically increased traffic speed and flow on the highway above, the family home now used "city water" instead of a feed from the now almost-extinct stream to the north, the salmonberry bushes were almost gone from the driveway and where had all the blueberry bushes in the backyard gone? Were there really fewer bushes than in my childhod or was it just my adult eye that realized there never were really very many? I still don't know.
Camel was at my side when the cove gave me a horrible scare in 2006 when I THOUGHT it had taken the life of my younger son who was out kayaking. I always watched carefully when he was kayaking and instructed him to stay close to shore and take a route only toward the Rec Area, not toward the mouth of the cove. Once I turned my back to go into the house briefly and when I looked again his bright yellow kayak was gone. I could barely see what appeared to be an upside down kayak just underwater near the Rec Area and it was shifting, appearing to contain an upside-down kayaker struggling to get out. I panicked, screamed for my father and brother nearby to launch the raft, but I knew if he'd been underwater thus far and would still be under when we could reach him, it would be too late. At the peak moment of my panic, my brother's much sharper eyes saw my son safely in an upright kayak glide out from behind a tall stand of grasses near the Humpy spawning stream. What I had thought was an upside down kayak was only a large rock, covered in golden shifting seaweed, that had just been covered by the rising tide. I fell into my brother's arms in relief and will never forget how quickly the water can take a life.
In 2007, the call of the cove and the Camel were overwhelming me and I was pestering my husband to leave Wasilla and move to Juneau before our sons were grown and gone. Our younger one was 11, going into middle school and the older one was nearly 14, going into high school. The dream of giving my children the chance to experience the cove fully - in all its seasons - might finally become a reality. When my Colorado-living father decided to buy a modest boat for fishing the waters of southeast AND we went in on the purchase, the decision was made. The boat would be moored on the family bouy at Lena Cove and we would move to Juneau. The Camel watched as we came across the mouth of Lena cove with our sons, vehicles, and entire household in a u-haul on the Fairweather from Haines one June day. I'm quite sure Camel even muttered an "I Told You So" as we pulled into the driveway to live at Grandma's house for a few months until we found a Juneau home of our own.
Now, in 2010, the cove is once again my home to some extent. We live on the forested side of Glacier Highway near the turn off to Lena Rec Area, so I am only a short walk with the dogs from the head of Lena Cove. I can't see it from my home, but I can feel it. I am frequently at my mother's house and admire and/or photograph it often, in all seasons. My now 14 and 16 year old sons have the hearts of Colorado cowboys, but have gained the wisdom of Alaskans for the local flora and fauna, and have an appreciation and understanding of fishing and boating in Southeast. They pull crab pots, troll for salmon, and fish down deep for halibut. They can wield a fillet knife and know where the blueberries are. They hunt for deer and bear with their father and bullet down the slopes of Eaglecrest in the winter. Camel watches them as they do chores at their grandmother's house and smiles when he sees my younger son run down the beach with a fishing pole at the first sign of Pinks returning to the cove. This spring, Camel observed the oddity of that same son deciding to become a cold water swimmer. In March, he donned a full wet suit and began to swim in the cove, pulling his older brother in a raft with a lead line around his waist. After six weeks of training in Lena, he swam across the Gastineau Channel - to meet a personal goal. Camel watched as we dug for clams this winter, watches as my neice and nephew are old enough to venture out onto the beach alone and as the neighbor's grandchildren now come to visit the cove.
In a geophysical sense, Camel has risen farther out of the water than he was 35 years ago. The mud flats of the Rec Area at a superlow tide now stretch closer to being parallel with Camel more than ever before. The familiar rocks have shifted slightly and I believe that my observations are in line with what I once read about in Alaska magazine: glacial rebound. I believe that my unofficial and highly unscientific thoughts and memories could be documented somewhere by photos and measurements, and I would venture to bet that the beaches of the cove have lifted somewhat. Even the highest tides don't surround Camel anymore and they rarely come up around the Hat, submerging it like they once did regularly. The flourishing grasses, weeds, and flowers on the beach tell me that the tides no longer come up as high as they did in 1974.
I am left with more questions than answers: What else has Camel seen over the years? I can only speculate. When was he born, tectonically speaking? How much further will he rise? What did he see when the Auk-Kwan were at their winter home nearby? Did the salmon and crab flourish, providing them with food like it does for us? What was Lena Cove's Tlingit name? Who gave it the current name, anyway? Why do I know so little about a place that has been integral to my life for 35 years? What will happen with the oil seeping out of the Princess Kathleen on the Point? How will the NOAA facility change the cove in time? How many more houses will be built on the Lena Point road, as those lots are sold off? How will that change the treeline once again, and where will all their sewage drain? Will Camel see MY grandchildren play on the beach, or will the family home have to be sold one day? Will the Camel and the cove draw my children back when they are adults, like it has for my brother, my sister, and me?
In 1982 I returned for the summer from my first year of college "down south" and eagerly looked out over the cove. Camel rested there, though I no longer ran to the beach to collect rocks or shells, no longer grabbed a fishing pole to sling Pixies at the Humpies. I still admired the view, though. Sometimes I'd peer through the telescope to see if any friends were hanging out at the Rec Area. I usually worked in the summers and didn't have time to wander the beach or even go out on the boat that my parents usually had moored there. I didn't have time to sit upon the Hat or Camel's back anymore.
As I finished college and became a young career woman I had even less time for the beach or the cove. Camel watched my sister become a teen and my young brother teach himself to fish from the shore, launch his small boat for trips out to Aaron Island, watched him and his friends pitch a tent on the lawn and camp out. Camel watched him befriend a crow who would come to his name one summer, watched him learn the bear tracks around the Humpy spawning stream, and watched him grow into a young man who loved the sea.
I left the cove and Juneau in 1989, with the draw of Colorado in my blood. I said goodbye to my family, the Camel, and the cove and took off for the land of cowboys and mountains. Sadly, I wasn't at the cove when it claimed the life of a dear neighbor in December, 1990. Frank Maier was a Lena Cove original in my mind, and when the cove took his life, I was sad for my family and their traumatic experience in helping with the recovery of his body. I'm sure that Camel cried tears that day.
It wasnt' until 1991 when I came home for a visit, bringing my new husband from our home in Colorado, that I began to pay attention to the cove again. I noticed that the tide didn't come up as high as it used to, the rocks that once outlined a path to the water had shifted and the path was no longer obvious, just a hint of what it had been. I noticed that the grasses around the Camel were different than in my childhood and that dandelions were everywhere. They had never been down on the beach before! I noticed that at the very lowest low tide, there was at least
10 more feet of mudflats than there used to be. The changes had been gradual, but when I took the time to look, I could see them. Camel was still there, but was his hump higher than it used to be? Why did the grasses look so much taller? Hat was the same, but the tide no longer encircled it regularly - just once in a while. And the fireweed patch! It used to be just a few plants, but now it was most of the beach.
By 1996, when I came to back to Juneau with my second son as a newborn and my older son as a toddler, I noticed that the Alders hung so far out over the house and the planted Maple trees in the yard were no longer twigs, but were sturdy, thick-trunked mature trees. I began to see the beach as a Mom... "be careful, don't fall on the barnacles", "wear your coat, it's raining", "don't wade out there too deep", "wear your boots", "take OFF those muddy boots!" Camel must have been smiling inside to hear me talk to my children, all the while remembering how often I didn't follow my own mother's reminders. I taught my children to recognize the sound of the eagles still living in the tree above the house, to know the difference between a crow, a raven, and a seagull. We watched for seals in the cove, counted the fish jumping, and beachcombed for pretty shells each summer. I'm sure Camel enjoyed the return of children to the beach, as all the neighborhood children were grown by then.
By 2001, my now 6 and 8 year old sons had visited the beach every summer of their childhood and were learning to love Grandma's Cove, as they called it. My older son, who had been born and living in Colorado around ranches and ditch water all his young life once said when he was about 4 years old, "that's a Big Ditch!" when he saw it from an airplane, so occasionally they'd call it Grandma's Big Ditch. They had learned the important names of Camel and Chinaman's Hat, they knew when the blueberries and huckleberries would be ripe in the back yard. Though they were Colorado boys, they knew a Pink salmon from a Silver and knew which lures to toss out into the cove to catch a fish. They knew what a "double ugly" was and how to pick the Devil's Club thorns out of their hands. Camel must have delighted in seeing the boys squat down for hours over the tide pools around his belly, peering at the critters within, trying to catch Sticklebacks and Blennies. We spent much of that summer on the cove and since I could take my eyes off my sons then, my appreciation for the cove began to deepen and I noticed more changes. The number of houses around the cove had exploded. Where was the old familiar blinking red light above Lena Point? Why had the tree line along Lena Point changed so dramatically? What had Camel been seeing the last 15 years that I had missed? Where did all those moorings and crab pot bouys come from? Where was the once-rushing stream to the North? It seemed like just a trickle of iron-filled water now. Where had all the trees on Lena Point gone? My longing to return to the Cove began to stir and I wanted my children to have at least some of the Alaskan childhood that I had had.
It was 2004 before my husband and I uprooted our family from our Colorado ranch and took off for our Alaskan adventure. I wanted to get home and he wanted a change of career, so it was time. Oddly enough, we decided to explore some other part of Alaska while our children were still young and chose to live in Wasilla. For me, it was coming home to Alaska, for him it was a career move and change-of-pace, and for the children, it was part of an adventure. The cove and Camel still called, though, and we found ourselves paying for airfare, tanks of gas, and ferry tickets to get to Juneau a couple of times a year for family visits. By this time, there was a new baby - a nephew to me - at the cove peering out the window learning the names of Camel and Chinaman's Hat, and a niece on the way. My appreciation for the cove, the water, and the beaches of southeast deepened while I lived up North. The Ted Stevens Research Center had begun to take shape, carving a dramatically different tree line from Camel's point of view, there was a new "cut" of road above Auke Rec which dramatically increased traffic speed and flow on the highway above, the family home now used "city water" instead of a feed from the now almost-extinct stream to the north, the salmonberry bushes were almost gone from the driveway and where had all the blueberry bushes in the backyard gone? Were there really fewer bushes than in my childhod or was it just my adult eye that realized there never were really very many? I still don't know.
Camel was at my side when the cove gave me a horrible scare in 2006 when I THOUGHT it had taken the life of my younger son who was out kayaking. I always watched carefully when he was kayaking and instructed him to stay close to shore and take a route only toward the Rec Area, not toward the mouth of the cove. Once I turned my back to go into the house briefly and when I looked again his bright yellow kayak was gone. I could barely see what appeared to be an upside down kayak just underwater near the Rec Area and it was shifting, appearing to contain an upside-down kayaker struggling to get out. I panicked, screamed for my father and brother nearby to launch the raft, but I knew if he'd been underwater thus far and would still be under when we could reach him, it would be too late. At the peak moment of my panic, my brother's much sharper eyes saw my son safely in an upright kayak glide out from behind a tall stand of grasses near the Humpy spawning stream. What I had thought was an upside down kayak was only a large rock, covered in golden shifting seaweed, that had just been covered by the rising tide. I fell into my brother's arms in relief and will never forget how quickly the water can take a life.
In 2007, the call of the cove and the Camel were overwhelming me and I was pestering my husband to leave Wasilla and move to Juneau before our sons were grown and gone. Our younger one was 11, going into middle school and the older one was nearly 14, going into high school. The dream of giving my children the chance to experience the cove fully - in all its seasons - might finally become a reality. When my Colorado-living father decided to buy a modest boat for fishing the waters of southeast AND we went in on the purchase, the decision was made. The boat would be moored on the family bouy at Lena Cove and we would move to Juneau. The Camel watched as we came across the mouth of Lena cove with our sons, vehicles, and entire household in a u-haul on the Fairweather from Haines one June day. I'm quite sure Camel even muttered an "I Told You So" as we pulled into the driveway to live at Grandma's house for a few months until we found a Juneau home of our own.
Now, in 2010, the cove is once again my home to some extent. We live on the forested side of Glacier Highway near the turn off to Lena Rec Area, so I am only a short walk with the dogs from the head of Lena Cove. I can't see it from my home, but I can feel it. I am frequently at my mother's house and admire and/or photograph it often, in all seasons. My now 14 and 16 year old sons have the hearts of Colorado cowboys, but have gained the wisdom of Alaskans for the local flora and fauna, and have an appreciation and understanding of fishing and boating in Southeast. They pull crab pots, troll for salmon, and fish down deep for halibut. They can wield a fillet knife and know where the blueberries are. They hunt for deer and bear with their father and bullet down the slopes of Eaglecrest in the winter. Camel watches them as they do chores at their grandmother's house and smiles when he sees my younger son run down the beach with a fishing pole at the first sign of Pinks returning to the cove. This spring, Camel observed the oddity of that same son deciding to become a cold water swimmer. In March, he donned a full wet suit and began to swim in the cove, pulling his older brother in a raft with a lead line around his waist. After six weeks of training in Lena, he swam across the Gastineau Channel - to meet a personal goal. Camel watched as we dug for clams this winter, watches as my neice and nephew are old enough to venture out onto the beach alone and as the neighbor's grandchildren now come to visit the cove.
In a geophysical sense, Camel has risen farther out of the water than he was 35 years ago. The mud flats of the Rec Area at a superlow tide now stretch closer to being parallel with Camel more than ever before. The familiar rocks have shifted slightly and I believe that my observations are in line with what I once read about in Alaska magazine: glacial rebound. I believe that my unofficial and highly unscientific thoughts and memories could be documented somewhere by photos and measurements, and I would venture to bet that the beaches of the cove have lifted somewhat. Even the highest tides don't surround Camel anymore and they rarely come up around the Hat, submerging it like they once did regularly. The flourishing grasses, weeds, and flowers on the beach tell me that the tides no longer come up as high as they did in 1974.
I am left with more questions than answers: What else has Camel seen over the years? I can only speculate. When was he born, tectonically speaking? How much further will he rise? What did he see when the Auk-Kwan were at their winter home nearby? Did the salmon and crab flourish, providing them with food like it does for us? What was Lena Cove's Tlingit name? Who gave it the current name, anyway? Why do I know so little about a place that has been integral to my life for 35 years? What will happen with the oil seeping out of the Princess Kathleen on the Point? How will the NOAA facility change the cove in time? How many more houses will be built on the Lena Point road, as those lots are sold off? How will that change the treeline once again, and where will all their sewage drain? Will Camel see MY grandchildren play on the beach, or will the family home have to be sold one day? Will the Camel and the cove draw my children back when they are adults, like it has for my brother, my sister, and me?
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
TELL A STORY OF A PLACE OVER TIME
"What would the Camel see?" is my version of Clay Good's "What would Raven see?" as I reflect on the story of my years growing up at Lena Cove. The day we moved from the Mendenhall Valley to Lena, I was 10 years old, excited to live on the beach, curious about everything around me when my neighbor, 9 year old Anya, who had lived there all her life told me two very important names. There were two rocks which prominently stood in front of my house that her family had named "Kneeling Camel" and "Chinaman's Hat". Camel was actually two piles of rocks, a small one that formed the camel's head and a larger one that formed his body and trademark hump. These rocks made a perfect resting spot for eagles, crows, ravens, and young girls. The Hat, however, was slightly taller and made a great lookout. It was shaped like a giant triangle with a peak rising out of the high tide of Lena Cove. The Hat is the first place I learned the power of the tide, as I got "trapped" on it from the rising tide when I had perched there to admire the view in the first few days we lived at Lena. I'm sure Camel giggled as Anya paddled a home-made styrofoam raft out about 6 feet to rescue me.
It was 1974. Camel could see Lena Rec Area where Juneau families frequently picniced in the summer sun. The tide usually licked the belly of the camel, tall beach grasses grew out of the rocky, gravelly beach, and a stream rushed out of the forest to the North of our house, separating us from the next neighbor and providing us a source of water for our home. Camel could see there was an eagle's nest in the tallest spruce tree behind our house. Eagles would pause on Camel's back coming to and from the cove, with or without a fish. Camel saw the humpback salmon which spawned in the stream to the South. I wonder if Camel ever knew the children's fear of a haunted cabin back by that stream? For most of my childhood I would only cross the stream in the wide open stretch of beach because I was too afraid of the hauntings up in the deep forest where the stream entered the salmonberry bushes, wound through the Devil's Club, then twisted through a massive steel culvert under Glacier Highway.
Did Camel see the deer that would occasionally drink from that stream? We didn't, but we did see their tracks some mornings. Did Camel see the bear that tipped over our trash cans at night? We didn't, but we did have to clean up the mess in the morning. Did Camel see us in August when we had massive "Fireweed Fights" in which we turned long cottony stalks of fireweed (after the blooms were gone) into swords and smacked one another until we were covered in cotton? Did Camel mind that my little sister and I collected his cousins, palm-sized super smooth rocks, and painted them into artistic creations that our parents called "paper weights"? I think my Dad even used them at his office in town. Camel also watched over us as we waded in the cove and played "house" among the rocks, grasses, and pebbles. When we rafted or floated on air mattresses, strapped tightly into old life vests, Camel watched us make our way home safely.
It was the summer of 1977. Did Camel notice there was a new critter in the house? A baby, Kevin, was born that spring and was the only original family member to have been born and raised at Lena. Camel saw that we tried to raise ducks and geese at Lena, since a portion of the rushing stream to the north had been channelled into a small pond in our yard. The first set of ducklings became food for a wily land otter that had found their cage a tidy place to capture them. We learned how to strengthen the fence against predators and started over. Bar-Too Bunny Barn, now known as Swampy Acres, is where we obtained our second supply of 3 ducks and 2 geese. Snowy, Fluffy, and Cotton were the Peking ducks and Winter was a white goose and Big Bird her gander. We had them a couple of years, where they swam in the cove, rinsed off the salt water in the pond and stream, pecked insects from Camel's back, and eventually became food for the eagles above, another otter, or possibly a neighborhood dog. Winter died of unknown causes and was buried by my sister and her best friend, while I think ol' Big Bird was done in by my mother who had witnessed him pinching one too many children. Once she nearly decapitated him with a 1/2 gallon glass jug of ketchup when he pinched her at a family picnic, though I believe she let him live a little longer... maybe to fatten him up and feed him to us one Christmas when we thought we were eating a Butterball turkey.
TO BE CONTINUED. . .
It was 1974. Camel could see Lena Rec Area where Juneau families frequently picniced in the summer sun. The tide usually licked the belly of the camel, tall beach grasses grew out of the rocky, gravelly beach, and a stream rushed out of the forest to the North of our house, separating us from the next neighbor and providing us a source of water for our home. Camel could see there was an eagle's nest in the tallest spruce tree behind our house. Eagles would pause on Camel's back coming to and from the cove, with or without a fish. Camel saw the humpback salmon which spawned in the stream to the South. I wonder if Camel ever knew the children's fear of a haunted cabin back by that stream? For most of my childhood I would only cross the stream in the wide open stretch of beach because I was too afraid of the hauntings up in the deep forest where the stream entered the salmonberry bushes, wound through the Devil's Club, then twisted through a massive steel culvert under Glacier Highway.
Did Camel see the deer that would occasionally drink from that stream? We didn't, but we did see their tracks some mornings. Did Camel see the bear that tipped over our trash cans at night? We didn't, but we did have to clean up the mess in the morning. Did Camel see us in August when we had massive "Fireweed Fights" in which we turned long cottony stalks of fireweed (after the blooms were gone) into swords and smacked one another until we were covered in cotton? Did Camel mind that my little sister and I collected his cousins, palm-sized super smooth rocks, and painted them into artistic creations that our parents called "paper weights"? I think my Dad even used them at his office in town. Camel also watched over us as we waded in the cove and played "house" among the rocks, grasses, and pebbles. When we rafted or floated on air mattresses, strapped tightly into old life vests, Camel watched us make our way home safely.
It was the summer of 1977. Did Camel notice there was a new critter in the house? A baby, Kevin, was born that spring and was the only original family member to have been born and raised at Lena. Camel saw that we tried to raise ducks and geese at Lena, since a portion of the rushing stream to the north had been channelled into a small pond in our yard. The first set of ducklings became food for a wily land otter that had found their cage a tidy place to capture them. We learned how to strengthen the fence against predators and started over. Bar-Too Bunny Barn, now known as Swampy Acres, is where we obtained our second supply of 3 ducks and 2 geese. Snowy, Fluffy, and Cotton were the Peking ducks and Winter was a white goose and Big Bird her gander. We had them a couple of years, where they swam in the cove, rinsed off the salt water in the pond and stream, pecked insects from Camel's back, and eventually became food for the eagles above, another otter, or possibly a neighborhood dog. Winter died of unknown causes and was buried by my sister and her best friend, while I think ol' Big Bird was done in by my mother who had witnessed him pinching one too many children. Once she nearly decapitated him with a 1/2 gallon glass jug of ketchup when he pinched her at a family picnic, though I believe she let him live a little longer... maybe to fatten him up and feed him to us one Christmas when we thought we were eating a Butterball turkey.
TO BE CONTINUED. . .
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Inuit resilience and adaptability
(photo courtesy of Teachers' Domain website)This is a brief video about the adaptability of the Inuit people - merging traditional and western knowledge. Like the indigenous people of Southeast Alaska, the Inuit have found ways to merge ancient and modern knowledge, though as this video shows, it is a work in progress and has not been easy. Resilience and adaptability, and their limitations, are presented in this video. As a school counselor, I am particularly interested in how cultures maintain the integrity of their traditional values and beliefs, how they pass on "life lessons" in the form of oral stories and cultural metaphors, in the face of western influence.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Thinking of a story
An assignment for this class is to "tell a story of a place over time." I am beginning to think of a story related to the most special place in SE Alaska to me: Lena Cove. Our instructor speaks of the metaphor, "What Would Raven See?". My story, however, is beginning to gel around the concept of "What Would the Camel See?", as a nod of respect to the Camel's Rock near my family's home on Lena Cove.
This is a picture of my niece in 2008 posed in the 10:30 pm sunset on Camel's back:
This is a picture of my niece in 2008 posed in the 10:30 pm sunset on Camel's back:
Thoughts on Place-based Education
When I decided to take this two-day seminar/class, I had no idea how much I would be immersed in reminders of my childhood, nor did I realize how much I'd missed out on learning about this area, even though I grew up in SE Alaska. My knowledge of plants, berries, trees, and shrubs is infantile compared to what I could still learn. Timely reminders to address the forest, the beach, the sun, and all of nature inspire me to continue to pass those words of wisdom onto my children.
What strikes me the most, though, is about language. I think the Tlingit language was suppressed when I was a child in 1960's and
1970's Juneau, though I do remember seeing the dances and hearing the drums and chants during occasional visits from tribal members to school. We didn't learn or hear the indigenous place names, we didn't see the written language, there weren't dual names to local buildings and landmarks. The children of Native descent weren't necessarily encouraged to learn the Tlingit language - maybe in their homes, but not in school or anywhere publicly. This past two days reminded me that those things were probably always there; it's just that they weren't available, obvious, or taught to me. Why? Why not? My best friend when I was growing up was born to a Tlingit mother and Caucasian father. I remember her beautiful Tlingit grandmother, but we learned no words from her. She likely was in the generation of assimilation and had been taught to appear as one of Western culture to some extent.
Here are my thoughts on three of the concepts we discussed on June 7 and 8:
Regeneration: I think of regeneration as providing renewed energy and interest in a project, issue, or social concern. The rise of the use and teaching of the Tlingit language in Juneau over the last 20 years is an example of regeneration, or the regenerating of the value of the language.
Resilience: I think of resilience as the flexibility of a species or culture to maintain it's integrity while existing in the 21st century. It is noted by one of the Tlingit culture bearers in a DVD about Elizabeth Peratrovich and her speech to the Alaska legislature, that the Tlingit people have never been "conquered", but have gone from "repression" by the western culture to "assimilation" into western ways to "parallel existence" with western influence.
Restoration: I think of restoration as the process of returning something to it's original state of being. The example in the STRAW project video was powerful in illustrating place-based education in a natural science setting. The students, and eventually their teacher, worked to restore something to it's original state - the waterways to protect the freshwater shrimp. A number of people at this two-day seminar commented that it would be nice if somehow the herring and sockeye populations in the Auke Bay area could be restored in time.
What strikes me the most, though, is about language. I think the Tlingit language was suppressed when I was a child in 1960's and
1970's Juneau, though I do remember seeing the dances and hearing the drums and chants during occasional visits from tribal members to school. We didn't learn or hear the indigenous place names, we didn't see the written language, there weren't dual names to local buildings and landmarks. The children of Native descent weren't necessarily encouraged to learn the Tlingit language - maybe in their homes, but not in school or anywhere publicly. This past two days reminded me that those things were probably always there; it's just that they weren't available, obvious, or taught to me. Why? Why not? My best friend when I was growing up was born to a Tlingit mother and Caucasian father. I remember her beautiful Tlingit grandmother, but we learned no words from her. She likely was in the generation of assimilation and had been taught to appear as one of Western culture to some extent.
Here are my thoughts on three of the concepts we discussed on June 7 and 8:
Regeneration: I think of regeneration as providing renewed energy and interest in a project, issue, or social concern. The rise of the use and teaching of the Tlingit language in Juneau over the last 20 years is an example of regeneration, or the regenerating of the value of the language.
Resilience: I think of resilience as the flexibility of a species or culture to maintain it's integrity while existing in the 21st century. It is noted by one of the Tlingit culture bearers in a DVD about Elizabeth Peratrovich and her speech to the Alaska legislature, that the Tlingit people have never been "conquered", but have gone from "repression" by the western culture to "assimilation" into western ways to "parallel existence" with western influence.
Restoration: I think of restoration as the process of returning something to it's original state of being. The example in the STRAW project video was powerful in illustrating place-based education in a natural science setting. The students, and eventually their teacher, worked to restore something to it's original state - the waterways to protect the freshwater shrimp. A number of people at this two-day seminar commented that it would be nice if somehow the herring and sockeye populations in the Auke Bay area could be restored in time.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Just learning
I've just made my first blog and I'm going to learn how to post a picture! I think I did it!
Here's how to do a link! Check out Juneau School District
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