A Way From Despair
Decoding the past for a brighter future
The people of Alakanuk knew a spirit of suicide and alcohol and drug abuse walked about freely, scenting the air with its rancid nature. It had just claimed two more victims; unsatisfied, it was looking for more. Sheltered inside the small Yukon River community's tribal hall, elders, youth and parents huddled together in a circle. Some hunched down, faces void of tears, tense bodies pressed against unyielding metal chairs. Others let tears quietly slide down their cheeks. The two recent deaths were the newest heartaches in a long line of many.
The group knew too well the spirit's easy reach into their community. They've carried many to the cemetery, dug many graves. Some knew intimately how alcohol or drugs seemed to dull the pain but deceitfully brought more tragedy and sorrow. From time to time, outsiders had come to the village to help deal with the spirit's long reign, but nothing they brought seemed to last. But in spite of disappointments and heartbreak, the people gathered this day because they still believed things could change. This time the solutions and answers would come from their community, from themselves.
"We had to do something," recalled Josephine Edmund, mother of three, who sat in the circle that winter day. "We had to help our children."
The gathering that day was part of the Center for Alaska Native Health Research's Elluam Tungiinun program, funded by the National Institutes of Health. This research project is testing to see if the values that Alaska Natives have said helped keep them sober and alive could be taught to Alaska Native young people, their families and their communities.
Alakanuk was one of the first Alaska Native communities to sign up to be in the research program and the only one that agreed to go public about their involvement.
"Elluam Tungiinun means 'toward wellness' in Yup'ik, a name Alakanuk chose for themselves," said Jim Allen, who is the project co-principal investigator and a UAF psychology professor. "The community insisted the focus be positive and strength-based. They had ownership. They designed the cultural activities. They planned it. They ran it."
The community Allen describes was not the one Sheila Toomey found in 1987, when as a reporter working for the Anchorage Daily News she went to Alakanuk to write a story about eight suicides that happened in less than a year and a half.
"In a community of 550, eight suicides is the equivalent of more than 3,000 in Anchorage," Toomey wrote. "In a community of 550, every name on the roll of the dead is someone you know …"
Toomey's story was part of ADN's "People in Peril," a series about how Western influence devastated Alaska Native culture, leaving its people in the turmoil of alcoholism, brokenness and suicide.
Lavina Tony
December 28, 2009 2:42 PM
1985 is the year suicide had it's ugly head ram into my life on a very close and personal level. That was the year my older brother Melvin drank and ended his life. For me that was the beginning of a lifetime full of heartache and regret. Pain that still rears it's ugliness when thoughts of my brother surface. Regret played a huge role in all the suffering I endured as a survivor. Because at the time I was about 15 years old, and very impressionable. It took me years to accept the fact that what he did, had nothing to do with my actions at the time. After Melvin, 3 of my biological brothers, some nephews, and numerous 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cousins died the same way. With each suicide, the pain of losing Melvin always resurfaced as if he were the one that just died again. It was such a huge impact, that even I myself had tried to end the pain the same way. Thankfully, I was able to seek help, and overcome the guilt. The most help I've ever encountered, was through my belief in God. Trusting through prayer is what I know helped me out of the slumber my mind and heart were forced to endure. It still hurts to think about all those people that left us that way. The constant reminders of losing them, was too much for me that I moved out of Alakanuk, the only home I knew, the place I grew up in. I'm very thankful for the people alive today, who have taken matters into their own hands, and are doing what they do now. Although I feel that I may not be able to move back to Alakanuk anytime soon, or even ever, I pray for the people who struggle everyday to deal with this. Again, thank you all, and God bless each and every one of you!
Madeline Scholl
September 20, 2009 9:51 PM
This is an incredible story of the power of community. Any community gripped with the diseases of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, etc. could learn life-saving lessons from the work of the people of Alakanuk. As an outsider, a city dweller, a caucasian woman...I wonder what I can do to help support community efforts such as this.
Jennifer Jolis
Sep 12, 2009 at 10:10 AM
It was so good to see this report on the impact of a culture's elders to intervene in the suicide epidemic that seems to have targeted Alaska's Native peoples. I just returned from a meeting in Canada and it seemed to me there that the Canadian Health Service was way ahead of us in finding intrinsic, community based ways of responding to it. This story tells me simply that I am just not aware of what is being done that builds on the strengths of the cultures. Good news.