Alaskan Native Looks to Tradition to Deal with Contemporary Problems
Deenaalee Hodgdon (who uses the pronouns they/them) is a Native Alaskan and the Executive Director of On The Land, an Indigenous media and consulting business that elevates the voices of Indigenous Peoples. Hodgdon has seven years of commercial fishing experience and has been a raft and cultural guide in Denali National Park.
They work with the Arctic Athabaskan Council and represent the AAC on the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation among the Arctic states, Arctic Indigenous Peoples and other Arctic inhabitants.
Deenaalee also works on developing sustainable management of salmon fisheries, and building just economies in Bristol Bay, along the Yukon, and in the larger Arctic region. They are the co-founder and co-director of The Smokehouse Collective, an Alaskan mutual aid network that works to build the resilience of Native people.
ARTY MANGAN: You are an experienced fisher, do you fish on rivers and at sea?
DEENAALEE HODGDON: When I was younger, I mostly fished on the river. In the last six years, I’ve been fishing out in Bristol Bay. I fish in Nushagak Bay, which people also call a river too, but its mouth is so massive that you could be in the middle of the river and it feels like you’re kind of on the ocean or open water.
ARTY: What is it like to spend so much time on the water? How does it affect you emotionally and spiritually?
DEENAALEE: I like that question because you led in with how you both fish on the river and on the open water, and I’ve been a raft guide and I also used to row crew. I come from a people who developed the original kayaks. For me, being on the water is like a process in trust and letting go of control because the water is going to do whatever the water wants to do. There are things a person can do to make themselves safer, like knowing how to read the water, knowing how to read the weather, and having as much knowledge and tools as you can in order to survive while being on the water. But at the end of the day, the water’s going to do what the water wants to do.
When I’m on the water fishing, for example on the drift boats, I appreciate that time in my life because you’re out there day and night, sometimes not getting any rest when you’re fishing around the clock. You have to step up and into a place between instinct and survival skills, as well as utilizing the knowledge that you’ve gained from people who have come before you, whether they’re fishermen in the commercial industry — your captain and crew mates — or it’s ancestral knowledge that comes through your bloodline.
ARTY: South of Alaska, from British Columbia to California, most salmon fisheries are in decline. Are there rivers in Alaska where the fisheries are thriving or at least stable?
DEENAALEE: It’s been amazing to see what the tribes have done on the Columbia River in terms of bringing salmon back. It’s really heartening, and I get excited to think about the work that those tribes have been doing bringing back salmon that have been lost or whose numbers have been diminished.
In Alaska, it really depends on the stock of the species. I would say Bristol Bay is one of the last truly great safe havens for salmon in the world.
The management of the returns of salmon—while not being as good as it could be—has done a better job of ensuring that fish are returning and that the stocks are healthy. That being said, climate change science predicts that there’s going to be species that are winners and losers along the continuum of climate change. Right now, there are two species of salmon that we’re seeing that are winners in climate change in Alaska—pink salmon are thriving in Southeast Alaska and are also thriving in another area of the Arctic.
The other is Sockeye salmon, the main fishery for Bristol Bay, which have been thriving for the last five years. The expected number of return of salmon has declined for this upcoming season. But it’s still higher than expected returns that I saw as a young person growing up in Bristol Bay.
Unfortunately, Chinook or king salmon, the large salmon that are the literal backbone of salmon peoples, are suffering from climate change. The Nushagak River, which flows into Bristol Bay, is one of the last strongholds of king salmon in the world, and they are currently being considered a potential stock of concern. During last year’s Alaska’s Board of Fisheries meetings, the tribes of the Nushagak River were advocating for the sockeye salmon fishery to be adjusted to protect the run of the kings, which usually will run up the river returning home first.
So, it’s a balancing act. Right now, within that entire context, we’re trying to balance the health and well-being of ecosystems and the concerns of the salmon, and halibut, and all these other fish that peoples are reliant upon, alongside an economy that has been extraction based and has been used to the abundance of large returns for the last five years, and that’s the commercial industry—the fishermen, processors, wholesale buyers and the consumers of fish at large across the world.
ARTY: What are some of the climate adaptive strategies that are being implemented in your region?
DEENAALEE: There are a lot of communities right now that are having to go through something called relocation/manage/retreat/protect in place. A lot of communities in Southwest Alaska, like the communities of Quinhagak and Kwigillingok, Noatak, and others up north are having to face questions of how do we ensure that our communities aren’t disappearing when facing things like coastal erosion, flooding, loss of sea ice, etc.
There are relocation programs that move villages from Point A to Point B. And there’s a protect-in-place program that reinforces infrastructure to make it more resilient to the stresses of climate change.
ARTY: What do Native Alaskans have to do to build food sovereignty in the face of climate change?
DEENAALEE: In the Arctic, we are hunter/gatherer societies who are at pivot point with climate change. We are losing ice and permafrost; the very structure of the tundra is thawing. In the context of food sovereignty, we need to use traditional gathering spaces to have conversations about what seeds we need to be planting to nourish our soil as it changes.
Where are our old stories to guide us? The Inupiaq people have stories about when there used to be palm trees in Alaska. How do we bring those stories to the surface so that they can guide the work that we’re doing right now?
There is a future-looking orientation that I’m trying to root into with food sovereignty within the context of climate change. How long do we have and how can we build a fertile soil while doing the deep grieving work of losing our permafrost and losing our boreal forests? And while that shift is happening, we are advocating to ensure that our people have the time and the space to go out and harvest on the land because we know that when we do not have the ability to participate in those harvests, death happens. Our communities are dying when we are not rooted in our traditional harvesting practices.
Food sovereignty for Native Alaskans is to bring that back. It is a work of transition and translation, being able to grieve and have the medicines that we need and the conversations to hold the deep work of being in advocacy spaces to ensure that we support one another to take the time to participate in those practices while we are on the frontlines.
One of the strategies that I’m looking into more is: How do we make adaptations around our food systems and our economies within those food systems, and our relationships that are needed to build a resilient, reliable, ecologically sound and responsive system? To me, that looks like being able to localize where we are getting our food. By local, it would be great if every community had community gardens and had their own co-ops, but that’s probably not going to be the case anytime soon.
How can a region be more food secure in growing and providing for the community? Within the whole of Alaska, how can we make sure that Alaska isn’t just dependent on a three-day supply that comes from the lower 48, but that we have the transportation networks in place and food caches in place so that there is a supply and it’s accessible by community members and isn’t being run by the cash economy?
ARTY: Alaska has unique vulnerabilities in regards to climate change which require location-specific adaptations.
On the personal level, as an Indigenous, queer person, have you experienced resistance or even racism in your work, in your activism or other parts of your life?
DEENAALEE: Yes and no. Yes, we continue to face racism through the system. A lot of times, within the Board of Fisheries or the Alaska Board of Game process, our voices as Indigenous Peoples are not valued; traditional knowledge is not valued. It is starting to gain a little bit more traction, as non-Native scientists are stepping up as allies and giving a stamp of approval that what the elders are saying is validated by science.
Within this world, I’m pretty privileged. Yes, I’m Native, yes, I’m queer. However, I’m light-skinned; very tall, so I have a presence; I’m well-spoken because I’ve been trained in a Western academic institution at an Ivy League college. As soon as I say I went to Brown University, in certain situations, in certain circles, I automatically gain an ear more than, I would say, the average Native person or average BIPOC person. So I would say that I really do function within a lot of systems of privilege while carrying my identity.
I have felt the loneliness of being one of the only Native people within my radio group and my fishing group up until about two summers ago when we had a couple more Native people who were hired on in my fishing group. But advocating for subsistence and Indigenous rights within my own fishing group has been like pulling teeth; it has not been easy, and that oftentimes is because the fishermen coming to Alaska and who are excelling as fishermen have been coming here for the last 30 years and have close relationships with the region and they’re okay with maintaining the status quo. So when you pushback and say, “Hey, would you be willing to step in and change X, Y, Z in order to benefit a more vibrant ecosystem,” a lot of the time there’s pushback.
Those folks aren’t taking the time — and maybe they don’t fully care — to help to create change, because at the end of the day, they’re able to take their catch and the money from that catch and leave the state. They don’t see the bigger picture of the repercussions of their actions.
ARTY: As an activist, how do you keep your body, mind and spirit strong?
DEENAALEE: I think I’ve been labeled activist, but I don’t necessarily consider myself an activist—like I do and I don’t. I think that word has a lot of political weight to it. I just define myself as a community or tribal member who cares and is working to maintain, uphold and assert our sovereign rights, to make our lands and waters sovereign according to our original instructions.
I appreciate the question about keeping yourself balanced and centered — I’m still learning how to do that. I have recently been reminded that if you do this work and you’re not grounded and centered, you get sick. Then you’re not fully able to do the work that you are called to step up into, whether you’re being asked by people or a higher power, or whatever you want to chalk it up to.
I’ve been learning to build and maintain more of a practice around my self-care. Basic things like drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, and eating the foods from the land. That food from the land is not only vital to my physical health, but also to my spiritual, mental and emotional well-being. I can’t really process gluten very well; I can’t process dairy very well. Those are two foods that are non-native to these lands. I am thriving and I’m so much more mentally clear when I’m eating beaver, fish, moose, when I’m eating these foods that haven’t been so GMO’d that they don’t even know what they are.
I also require a lot of sleep. That’s pretty integral to my functioning. And I have to get outside. It’s unfortunate, because the first thing that often doesn’t happen when I’m facing a lot of deadlines and need to be in a lot of meetings is taking the time to get outside. But it’s essential for me to be outside on the land and to participate in subsistence activities. I have also adopted skiing and climbing and biking, more recreational-based activities. If I’m moving my body, I’m in a good place, and that at the end of the day is the most important. I have to move my body and breathe fresh air, and if I can do that, I’m pretty well grounded.
I recently picked up my beadwork again. Keeping my hands busy is important. In the summertime I do that by picking fish and flaying and putting away the fish, or picking berries, putting away food, doing the things necessary at that time of year. But in the wintertime, it’s picking up sewing and beading or tanning and working on moose and caribou hides.
I was just thinking about how it’s time for me to start making some bone tools, because I haven’t scraped hides as much as I wanted to this winter. Those are pretty necessary.
I also do yoga and pull Tarot cards, and keep my mind active.
ARTY: I heard you use the phrase “pleasure activism.” You resisted the label of activist, but you engage in pleasure activism?
DEENAALEE: Yeah. Pleasure activism is a term that was coined by adrienne maree brown in her book titled Pleasure Activism. It’s something that resonates with me. Western Christian-based societies, like the United States, are built on religious rigidity. I was raised with some of that rigidity that denied some of the pleasures of the world like dancing and feasting and having joy and true connection. Through adrienne maree brown’s work and pleasure activism, I’ve been reintroduced and given the word “toolkit” to describe an ethic and an ethos that I would like to live by. Within the world of this work things can be so disheartening and dark. They can feel like how will we ever win against the pressures of climate change and extractive industry. It’s a constant struggle. For example, tonight, I’ll be going to another public hearing for another land grab that is happening in Alaska, in which eight million acres of land are being up for evaluation on whether or not it should be open for mineral and mining, and oil and gas leasing, or whether no action should be taken and those lands will remain with their protections. It gets tiring.
So I think there are things within life, like dancing, feasting with one another–especially around the foods that we harvest together–playing music, singing, stretching, really playing. I started playing volleyball again, which is one of my first loves in life, and it’s integral to keeping that balance. I think in order to do good, we have to feel good, otherwise, we’re just reifying the systems that keep us feeling bogged down.
I’ve done work when I’ve been depressed. I’ve done work when I’ve been angry. I’ve done work when I’ve been sad. Was it my best work? Was it work that I think connected with people in an authentic way? No, not at all. Was I “doing the work?” Yeah. Did it make a difference? Maybe. Was it filled with the love and longevity that it could have been if I was in a good place—not saying I have to be in a good place all the time—but no.
That’s why I am turning away from policy work because in the policy world you have to go through a long and cumbersome process that often doesn’t take time to connect with people before putting together policies that impact their everyday lives.
I’m trying to re-root back into digging my hands in the earth because I love to play in dirt. As a little kid, I dug holes in the garden and made mud pies, and played on the banks of the river. I was more action-oriented. Being in my body — whether that’s fishing or gardening or playing volleyball – enables me to connect with people in my community. Those are the things that are going to weave together our connections in a much more pleasurable way so that we can continue doing the work in the long run.
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