Indie Alaska

Ah hi.

I'll take this one and throw it like that.

I kid, no.

We'll throw them up.

We'll be very careful.

You'll see.

You'll see how we do it.

Uqiquliryarci pavani Jennifer Henry-m eniini.

(Go to a throw party at Jennifer Henrys house.)

It's a party.

It's just, were celebrating their accomplishments in school.

So throw party...

I called it throw party because there's no seal blubber to give.

Theyre grateful.

They're so happy.

It's a celebration.

So it's a throw party.

And then the community gets the gifts.

And that's how it works best for a rural community.

Being together.

Even though we have our individual lives, we know we need each other, at the same time, to survive.

We got to go up and get the rest of the stuff.

It was last year?

Yeah.

Yeah, last year we caught bearded seal, ringed seal, and probably walrus yeah, if we're lucky.

And if we're really lucky, beluga.

So Toksook Bay is located on an we call Qaluyaaq.

In English, it's called Nelson Island, and it's located in the Southwestern coast of Alaska.

The village?

All I could say it has a very beautiful view.

Really beautiful view.

Especially when the sunset hits.

You could see all the colors on top of the sky with the clouds.

And you look at the hill and all the green grasses, whew!

On a calm day, especially coming back from out hunting or fishing, especially that.

We're happiest when they catch something because we know that's something to put in the freezer for the next winter.

(Not this one.

Not this one.)

That first catch, we have to share it with the community, and especially to the elders who need it.

Elders, they give blessings to us.

The more they're grateful, the more blessed we are.

I'd say that its a good place.

Where you see kids playing outside.

and going walking or playing ball at the ball court.

I just go with it and do my work... but I still thank you all.

(laughs) I'm 18 years old.

I'm a senior.

and tomorrow, I'm going to be graduating.

Call Gloria, call Rosemary.

Pick a song.

Text-aqataranka qanrulluki-llu.

(Im going to text them.)

Our students, they came up here Yugtun language first.

So the English language was a challenge.

But everybody learned.

We all learned eventually.

Probably this ones like 90 .

Today, it seems like the students, even though their first language at home is Yugtun, when they come together, their first language seems to be English.

So how do you feel about heights?

Ugh.

(Laughs) Kind of nervous and scared for my future.

Because there's a lot of things that I want to try become, but like, I don't really know what I want to do.

I was thinking about trying to become a Yupik teacher or a social worker to help kids feel better.

The suicide rate here is really high.

I lost five friends actually.

One year after the other.

I was pretty close.

I even played ball with them in high school.

I even lost my uncle through suicide too this year, My four cousins died from suicide.

Most are tired of being strong.

Most are tired of carrying everything that happened in the past.

The suicide rates have gone up for those that finally graduated out of high school and that have no longer support.

I've been working with the school district for 19 years I travel to seven different villages.

With the villages I have, I have a little over 658 students.

That's a heavy caseload for me.

I deal with a lot of depression, mental health issues, thoughts of suicide.

I work with kindergarten through 12th grade.

The graduates are able to give me a call or when I'm in the village, they can come in and stop in and see me.

But most of them after that, they lose the support from the school and they start their own path.

So they're not too sure about talking about their feelings anymore.

Life is just hard sometimes.

Can be.

As I was, you know, losing all five of my friends, I I lost what I loved to do.

My grieving was really bad.

My mom and my dad noticed how my mood was changing.

I almost took my life but somebody brought me back.

I was dead for 5 minutes.

I didn't want to die, but I wanted to at the same time.

I couldn't handle all that pain.

But I got help.

I woke up in the hospital.

The staff members were really nice, helpful caring people.

They kept me company throughout the whole 12 days.

You know how like therapists are like daily they would like check up on you and ask you the same questions.

Yeah, that's what we need to cry out for out here.

Professional therapy.

That's daily.

Before my attempt even happened I still had PTSD.

I'm still coping with my trauma too.

Yeah, I even go out to my friends or one of my family members house and I would talk to them.

And I would cry.

There are extreme situations where they feel what happened to them is too harsh.

Too hard to get over.

And here in Toksook Bay, besides the Elders and ourselves, they don't find what they need.

They need somebody else, like a professional.

They need that person or they need that group or they need that team.

They need the constant everyday therapy, that we don't have out here.

For those who don't understand Southwestern Alaska or even Alaska itself, even though it's the largest state and everybody thinks we have all the money with the oil and fish industries, that's not the case.

Not in Southwestern.

We are off the road system.

It's primarily air.

Isn't it?

Recently, some of the villages just got plumbing Indoor plumbing Prior to that, they were packing their water from the watershed.

Delivering it to the homes.

The honey buckets are still being used in most of the houses.

They do a lot of subsistence, musk ox hunting, moose hunting, halibut fishing.

Because you cant just always rely on groceries because it cost money.

All you can do is just go out there and just keep on fishing, catch as much as you could to store up in your fridge so you could feed your family.

Its what they do, and I admire that myself too.

I like to do that too, for my family.

Our elderly men would tell us how to cope with our sadness is going out, doing subsist.

It's like our peace of mind.

It gives us peace.

We take our sadness out of that.

Our anger.

When my grandpa passed away me and my dad stopped going to fish camp because I don't even know what to do when I get there.

My grandpa used to tell me what to do and what not to do, since he passed I don't like going there no more.

Out here, a home itself is hard to get.

So we still have adults, young adults still with parents, under their roof.

But for me and my kids, we're happy in that situation it's okay because we're helping eachother at the same time to get through this.

Johnny, he was the last one in our family.

He committed suicide five years ago.

We didn't see it coming.

It was a shock.

At first I asked God, to do yesterday again, but then I realized it was a silly prayer.

I turned to God right away.

I knew I wasn't the only one with this big loss, so be strong.

I had to be strong for my husband, I had to be strong for my kids.

I had to be strong for his family, his cousins, his friends, his grandparents, everybody.

At the same time, I know my friends felt the pain for me.

Five years kind of seems like it's over, but it's not.

Not here when it keeps happening every year.

The healing process is taking longer because the memory keeps coming back.

Because before a year passes, somebody does it.

And I see the parents and I feel the pain again.

I feel the loss again.

It's hard to deal with all the suicides.

I'm a volunteer with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

We call it Hope and Heeling week.

It started off ten years ago.

And I had some young students who assisted with me to try to make it more traditional, cultural.

You know, they would use that smoke to heal us, to brush off all the bad things that we carry And everybody would just start drumming, singing for the ones we lost.

So we had some good elders talk that came in and talked and then we talked about a candlelight ceremony.

We're going to have a potluck, then we're going to have a celebration of life dance to end it with a positive note.

Yesterday we did the community walk.

I cried with everybody.

I cried for everybody.

You okay?

I started getting emotional, too but I remembered who I was walking for.

I feel better since there was a lot of people walking with me because that reminded me that I'm not alone.

I still have a lot of energy from that walk.

So I was, later on I was going to call and ask my friends if they can go walking again.

My hope and healing is basically to start the conversation.

Because theres always a chance to live a full life.

A lot of parents did not know how to talk to their kids about death, about how they're hurting inside.

That's the main reason why people kill themselves they don't talk.

I struggled too, myself.

My uncle told me that if I am going through some stuff and I can't talk to nobody, I can always go out in the tundra and start talking to the tundra or the rocks or anything there.

What I say to the kids, when theyre grieving is, its okay to cry.

Tell me a story.

Tell me a good time that you had with the person who died.

Let's talk about it.

And if we cry, we're going to cry and that's okay.

Your story's worth it.

Your life is worth it.

You don't need a magic wand or anything, just talk.

Talking saves lives.

I was panicking.

I was nervous, scared, but I was happy to get my diploma.

I don't know what I'm going to do now, but I'm going to take tiny steps just to see where I'm going.

I'm still learning how to be alone, just trying to enjoy my own time.

I actually am still working on myself I focus on my niece and nephew all the time.

We still are a community of Yup'ik who still survive from nature.

And I don't think that's going to end because we're way out here on the coast.

So our young men eventually realize that they are our resource for survival.

Our young women eventually realize that they are our resource for survival through the winter.

Earlier, I brought in my grandson with me I look at him and I want him to have a bright future.

If parents hold their kids to when they're able to be dependable, thats love.

That gives me hope.