Culture in Bristol Bay
A unique and wonderful aspect of Bristol Bay is the thriving culture. Even with the introduction of new technologies, new foods and new language to the area, we have still been able to hold on to our culture. This includes making baskets and clothes. It includes hunting for caribou, moose, wolves, and rabbit. It includes fishing for salmon, halibut, trout, pike, and beluga. It includes spending time with family and friends. It includes sharing meals of agutaq, dry meat, and seal oil after a hot maqi. Culture and community are a necessary aspect for a healthy human lifestyle. We need each other and our connection to the Earth to survive. We are not solitary creatures like the polar bear, we thrive in having healthyrelationships to others and to our natural surroundings.
Now, although we don't wear caribou leg boots and use seal bladders as water bottles, many of us still practice a subsistence rich lifestyle. Our culture is very much alive. In the summers salmon flood our rivers. Every town on the Nushagak and Kvichak have smoke houses smoking. Families join together with the common goal of filleting, stripping, smoking, freezing, and canning fish. In the fall the tundra is gleaming with berries so the gathering begins again. Then it's moose hunting season. Subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering is a connection to our culture as well as a connection with our families and friends. It's a way to get outside into the natural world and remember what life was like before microwave food and television. The proposed Pebble Mine threatens our culture. The loss of healthy environment would halt traditions that have gone on for thousands of years.
Now, although we don't wear caribou leg boots and use seal bladders as water bottles, many of us still practice a subsistence rich lifestyle. Our culture is very much alive. In the summers salmon flood our rivers. Every town on the Nushagak and Kvichak have smoke houses smoking. Families join together with the common goal of filleting, stripping, smoking, freezing, and canning fish. In the fall the tundra is gleaming with berries so the gathering begins again. Then it's moose hunting season. Subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering is a connection to our culture as well as a connection with our families and friends. It's a way to get outside into the natural world and remember what life was like before microwave food and television. The proposed Pebble Mine threatens our culture. The loss of healthy environment would halt traditions that have gone on for thousands of years.
