Joaqlin Estus

Every summer, Barbie travels with her family to fish camp to harvest and process fish for winter use. She's shown here cutting up a salmon using a tłaabaas (curved knife) and wearing a betsegh hoolaanee (qaspeq), or summer parka. July 27, 2023 (Photo…

Joaqlin Estus ICT ANCHORAGE — “The foundation of the Alaska Federation of Natives is our people,” said the statewide organization’s President and CEO Julie Kitka, Chugach Eskimo, after a quarterly meeting of the organization’s board held on May 15.…

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — At the National Indian Health Board annual conference this week, health experts said tribal health systems were hard-pressed during the COVID-19 pandemic and are still operating below pre-pandemic capacity. Staffing shortages are…

By Joaqlin Estus ICT Salmon populations on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers have plummeted to record lows and fisheries managers shut down most or all of the fishing on the rivers last summer. At the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in October…

By Joaqlin Estus ICT Considering it is the largest state in the U.S. and home of 229 federally recognized tribes, Alaska has a government system that can be confusing. A panel discussed the respective roles of such entities as Alaska Native…

By Joaqlin Estus ICT The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that Alaska Native corporations are tribes but not federally recognized sovereign tribes. Since then, both tribal and business leaders have tried to sort out what the ruling means for…

Alaskans adopted a new election system in 2021. Let’s compare it with the system still being used in most of the country. Generally in the primary election, political parties — like Republicans, Democrats or Independents — pick the candidates that…

Joaqlin Estus ICT ABC is launching a TV series starring Academy Award winner Hillary Swank as a New York investigative reporter who moves to Alaska and winds up focusing on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. “Alaska Daily” producers hired three…

Joaqlin Estus ICT In the 1950s and ‘60s, the “Native church” in Juneau was packed for holiday services. Seven days a week it housed civic and church-related gatherings. The Memorial Presbyterian Church served a predominantly Tlingit congregation,…

Joaqlin Estus ICT Local, regional, and state resources have been deployed to more than a dozen villages damaged by the remnants of the typhoon Merbok in western and northwestern Alaska. The storm brought high winds, storm surges, erosion and flooding…

Joaqlin Estus ICT In what's been called the largest peaceful redistribution of wealth in the history of mankind, title to 44 million acres and almost a billion dollars was conveyed to Native for-profit corporations following the Alaska Native Claims…

Joaqlin Estus ICT Democrat Mary Peltola, Yup’ik, has been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, making history as the first Alaska Native elected to Congress. She is also the first woman to hold Alaska’s only U.S. House seat. It was a special…

Joaqlin Estus ICT They’re both Republicans in sparsely populated heavily Republican states. One lost in her primary; the other didn’t. What’s deciding the different fates of Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski? It’s likely Alaska’s new…

Joaqlin Estus ICT On Wednesday Alaskans will find out the results of a special election to fill the remaining months of the late Congressman Don Young’s term of office. No one won a majority of votes in the first count of ranked choice votes. So the…

Joaqlin Estus ICT Artist Crystal Worl stood atop a lift some 40 feet in the air in downtown Anchorage last week to observe the horizon, a yellow sun in a blue sky. Paint cans in hand, the artist was meticulously searching for spots of the sun in need…

1 p.m. AK, Aug. 17 With 96 percent of the vote in, Mary Peltola, Yup’ik and a Democrat, shows a lead of 6 points over Sarah Palin and almost 10 points over Nick Begich, both Republicans. Peltola has 58,614, or 38.05 percent of the votes. Sarah Palin…

Joaqlin Estus ICT Voter turnout was low – well below half – in 2020 in some parts of rural Alaska, where Alaska Natives are in the majority. The National Congress of American Indians reports about 38 percent of registered voters in the Northwest…

By Joaqlin Estus ICT The state of Alaska has finally, officially recognized nearly 230 tribes within the state, a move that many hope will improve relations between governments and people. Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy signed House Bill 123, the…

Joaqlin Estus ICT ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Circumstances have been dire this month for some 200 people who were taken on July 1 to an Anchorage campground after a municipal homeless shelter closed. Last week the Anchorage Daily News quoted advocates and…

Joaqlin Estus ICT We all have foods we grew up with, that make us think of home. Salmon is like that for many Alaska Natives. The Alaska State Council on the Arts Contemporary Art Bank recently purchased a painting of a jar of salmon by Danielle…