Elder Voices: Harriet Penayah, Part Two

This series features Yupik elder Harriet Penayah. Listen to the first episode here. For most of her life, Harriet Penayah worked as a health aide in Savoonga. She tended to the wounded and sick within her community, stitching up cuts, transfusing blood, and even delivering twins. There were no doctors in Savoonga. No nurses. But Harriet says […]

Elder Voices: Harriet Penayah, Part One

This episode is the first of a three-part series featuring Yupik elder Harriet Penayah. When Harriet Penayah was growing up in Savoonga in the 1930s, the Alaska native village looked much the same as it does today. “No igloos,” she says, “no sod houses.” Just wooden-frame homes clustered above the black sandy beach. But, she says, […]

Elder Voices: Raymond Seetok Sr.

This month’s Elder Voices celebrates Raymond Seetok Sr, a Kingikmiut elder from Wales. Raymond was born in Wales in 1946. A whaling captain, husband, and father, he grew up with twelve siblings in the traditional Inupiaq way. He speaks about the hardships he faced, and Inupiaq lessons his elders and parents passed onto him about […]

Elder Voices: Winton Weyapuk Jr.

At 62, Winton Weyapuk Jr. is a young elder. But he is a wealth of information about the Inupiaq language and marine mammal subsistence in his native village of Wales. Winton’s passion for preserving Inupiaq and the subsistence lifestyle started as a boy, learning how to navigate sea ice in an umiak skinboat with his father, and […]

Elder Voices: Vince Pikonganna

On this month’s episode of Elder Voices, hear from Vince Pikonganna of King Island. Vince remembers his youth on the island, and along the way, sharing his knowledge of Inupiaq values and customs his elders passed down to him. Listen to Vince tell his story:

Elder Voices: James Okpealuk

James Okpealuk is a skilled carpenter. Throughout his life, the Teller Elder has helped build many houses in Alaska, including homes in Fairbanks, new houses in Nome, and the old school in Teller. But he remembers his traditional home in Little Diomede with a smile: “All sod and rocks…more like a shack. Small, but very […]

Elder Voices: Jacob Ahwinona (encore)

Jacob Ahwinona was interviewed by KNOM for Elder Voices in 2009. He passed away in June of 2012. In his honor, we present an encore presentation of his Elder Voices interview.  

Elder Voices: Rodney Ungwiluk, Sr. (encore)

Rodney Ungwiluk, Sr. was born May 8, 1942 in Gambell and passed away June 16, 2011. In 2009, he shared memories and stories of growing up in Gambell before electric power and lights. He talks about helping his dad hunt seals and the community’s dependence on dog teams.

Elder Voices: Dina Sagoonick

Dina Sagoonick’s life growing up in Shaktoolik as a young girl was traditional, and in the ways that she and her family relied on dog teams, hunting, and trapping, it was a way of life that had sustained her ancestors for thousands of years. And yet her life was also uniquely full of change, a […]

Elder Voices: Frances Wright

Frances Wright turned 94 this March, and when she tells stories, you know she hasn’t wasted any of that time. Born in Council, and raised in Solomon, Frances has vivid memories – and tells amazing stories – of growing up in a household that spoke Inupiaq, of hunting and trapping for food, of gathering driftwood […]