Nome

Why The Native Studies Curriculum Project?

...In 1981, I began my career as a teacher in rural Alaska—a circumstance that no doubt would have surprised my high school teachers and counselors. I am Inupiat, and when I attended high school in northwest Alaska in the early 1970s, teachers and counselors gave me little attention and no encouragement about my future. As was true for many other Alaska Natives at that time, school officials never mentioned college as a possibility for me and even discouraged me when I broached the subject myself...

Give or Take a Century: An Eskimo Chronicle by Joseph Engasongwok Senungetuk
Excerpts of two chapters. Chapter 14: "An Eskimo Family in Nome" and Chapter 15: "Struggle for Survival."

"The Beam in Thine Own Eye" selection from 'Men Of The Tundra" by Muktuk Marston
Abstract: "The Beam in Thine Own Eye" is a first hand document of racial injustice and segregation in Alaska. A young Native girl living in Nome was the subject of extreme segregation and through her fighting back she brought the matter to the attention of the Federal Court.

The Inupiat and the christianization of Arctic Alaska

...In 1890, when the first missions were established in Alaska north of Bering Strait, not a single Native in the region was a Christian. By 1910 Christianity was nearly universal. The foundation for this dramatic development was laid in Kotzebue Sound between 1897 and 1902 by Robert and Carrie Samms, of the Friends Church, and by an Inupiaq Eskimo named Uyaraq, who had been converted earlier by Covenant missionaries located south of the study area. Christianity was spread from Kotzebue to the interior, to the Alaskan Arctic coast, and even to the Mackenzie Delta region of Canada, by the Natives themselves. In this paper I document the course of these developments and present an explanation of why they occurred as they did...

The Education Program of the BIA in Alaska, 1971-1972

...All of the education programs conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska are for the purpose of providing enriched opportunities for Native people to achieve academic, vocational, and social skills necessary for equal participation as productive citizens of Alaska. In carrying out the various education programs in 53 villages, two Alaska Boarding schools, and several schools outside of Alaska, the Bureau cooperates closely with the State of Alaska to make sure that prescribed standards of education are met or exceeded...

Alaska Reindeer Industry

...There were two periods of intensive Native involvement — from about 1895 to the very early 1920’s and again from the later 1940’s to the present day — and, with an intermediate period of extensive involvement. The periods of widespread, extensive Eskimo involvement occurred when Native reindeer stock companies were the prevailing form of ownership institution and during the period of greatest reindeer abundance. During the periods of intensive involvement, private Native ownership of reindeer prevailed...

Out of Harm's Way: Relocating Northwest Alaska Eskimos, 1907-1917, James H. Ducker

...As Europeans explored and exploited America, they encountered the problem of what to do with the Indians who lived on the land. The newcomers' land hunger, superior numbers, and overwhelming economy and technology ultimately pushed the natives aside. Removal and the creation of progressively smaller reservations were the answers settled upon by many whites who coveted Indian lands. Throughout this history of displacement, however, some of those who promoted reservations did so for more noble motives. They sought to preserve natives, if not native societies, away from the evils of the newcomers and to buy time with space by taking the Indians far enough from the encroaching whites that they might learn at a measured pace from friendly missionaries and teachers the rudiments of the expanding culture so they could deal with it on a more equal basis...

Study of William E. Beltz School, Nome, Alaska (1969)

...In October 1969, Mr. James Harper, Director of Regional Schools for the State of Alaska, requested the State Commission for Human Rights to do a study of the William E. Beltz School in Nome. The request arose out of the concern which Mr. Harper and the Commission shared over the suspension of a number of students for drinking offenses. However, both the Commission and Mr. Harper felt that a comprehensive survey of the operation of the school should be made, since the successful education of our Native youngsters is of vital importance to the State, and since a knowledge of the successes and failures of Beltz could be applied to other regional schools as they open throughout the State...

Nome-Beltz High School, 1976