Posted by pribilof on 06/18/2007 5:17 pm

It has been a long cold winter for us people here in Alaska. For a long time, during the months of April and May, it did not seem like it was ever going to warm up. The cold north winds kept whipping down the entire State and hit us squarely here in Anchorage. Finally, however, it has warmed up to now about 65 degrees F. Warm by our standards. But the weather is not the topic of discussion or interest now, it is our Gulf of Alaska/Bering Sea voyage aboard the R/V Esperanza. Finally!

I say finally, because it seems like eons ago that we began prepairations for this trip. For those of you who may not know me, let me reintroduce myself. My name is George Pletnikoff. I am Unangan (ooo nung gan) or Aleut, the name the Russians gave to our people on the Aleutian Chain a little more than 200 years ago. Unangan is the name we called ourselves prior to European contact. We Unangan lived on the Aleutian Islands for a bit more than 10,000 years. I was born on the Pribilof Islands, a group of small islands right in the middle of the Bering Sea. For me, this voyage is a "going home" voyage. I will be heading home to learn more about my people, our environment and our current state of affairs. I will, however, be learning more about myself than perhaps anything else. What has happened to our people in the last 200 years and how has our environment changed are just a couple of questions I will be seeking answers to. And I hope to be sharing some of these answers with you during the next two to three months, and beyond as we look closely at what we find, what we see and what we hear. There promises to be so much to ingest in such a short time. 

Since our 2006 Bering Sea tour, I have since relocated with my family to Anchorage. Its kinda nice to be in the big city, largest in Alaska, but often I feel like a fish out of water because its not home for us. We miss our families, our cultural activities, our traditional foods and especially the closeness of village life with our people. But, due to my work with Greenpeace, I am now a city boy. Its fine for now, but it does get lonely at times. My wife is also from the Pribilof Islands and often feels the same as I do. And she is such a good cook when preparing our traditional foods. Really reminds me of my mother and our family as I was growing up and playing on the tundra of the Pribilofs. Listening to the millions of fur seals, millions of sea birds amongst all the wild flowers and their odor, what a place to be born and raised.

Now we are getting ready for our research. Along with the research planned for the Pribilof and Zumchug Canyons, which I am sure you will learn more about later, we will be visiting the people of the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. We will be traveling to villages with long historic and traditional living communities with names like Kodiak, Port Graham, King Cove, Chignik, Akutan and Tooksook Bay, to name a few. Some of them are Aleutiq people, others are Yup'ik Eskimo and others are Unangan. Such diverse and proud heritages with strong cultural ties to our land and waters surrounding our homes. Many of us, thankfully, still speak our native languages and practise our cultural activities. I am so excited, and increadibly thankful that I am blessed with this opportunity!

As we begin our journey into the Waters of Alaska, I hope to be posting more stories and findings on this site and hope you will spark more interest in me to look for some answers to questions you will have. Truely, the winter has been long, but the summer promises to be one which we hope will help us to learn and share, listen, read and ask. I look forward to meeting you on line and exchanging messages which I know our people will be happy to hear coming from you. Let us bridge a distance between our people and cultures such that we will become life long friends all in pursuit of a single goal to better protect our home on this wonderful planet we call Earth!

Until next time,

George