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Welcome to KUACs Alaska Live.

I'm your host, Lori Neufeld.

And it is my pleasure to have Anne Hanley here, with Coming Home-- the Alaskan poetry of Mary TallMountain.

Anne Hanley, you have brought your cast of readers, and directors, and producers, would you mind introducing these folks that you have here for Coming Home?

Certainly, thank you.

I would like to introduce Frank Yaska, who is our director and also the narrator.

Welcome.

Kathleen Meckel, who will be Mary TallMountain.

Great.

Paul Mountain, who will be reading a number of poems.

And Princess Daazhraii Johnson, who will be reading another set of poems.

Wonderful.

And myself, I'll be reading poems, too.

And Anne Hanley, you are the writer of this.

Well, Mary TallMountain is the writer.

You wrote around her story and her poetry, so you wrote the parts in between maybe.

Yeah, great.

Would you like to introduce the first piece that we're going to hear from Coming Home?

Well, first, I would like our readers to tell you where they're from, because that's very important to our show.

Excellent.

So, we'll have Frank Yaska come up first, and tell us where you're from, Frank.

All right.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

My name is Frank Yaska.

My Tanaka name is [inaudible], which means good provider.

And my parents are Wilber Yaska from Huslia and Mary Yaska from Isleta, New Mexico.

I am the director of Coming Home and as well as the narrator.

Welcome.

Hi, Paul.

Good afternoon.

My name is Paul Mountain.

I'm originally from Nulato, and I was born and raised there.

And I also met Ms.

Mary TallMountain back in 1976 when I was a kid.

So I have personal knowledge of the great poet.

Wonderful.

[non-english speech] Princess Daazhraii Johnson.

[non-english speech] I'm very honored to be reading Mary TallMountain's work.

[non-english speech] [non-english speech] I'm Kathleen Hildebrand Meckel, from the village of Nulato, Alaska.

My parents are the late Barney and Edith Hildebrand.

My grandparents are the late Alice and Eddie Hildebrand and Rita and Tony Patsy.

I'll be reading the part of Mary TallMountain using her own words, mostly from men essay that she wrote, but I'll also be speaking from her journals, letters, and stories.

Before I got involved in this project, I only encountered one Mary TallMountain poem in my life.

It was in Writing 211 at UAF.

The poem was-- "The Last Wolf."

It resonated so deeply, I can still feel it.

I was born Mary Demoski in 1918 in the village of Nulato, on the Yukon River.

My mother, Mary Joe Demoski was lower Koyukon Athabascan and Russian, and the soldier, Clem Stroupe, was my Irish and Scots father.

Having sprung from a huggermugger meld of ancestors, I find I'm unbelievably various and interesting, even to myself.

Who but Mary TallMountain would feel the need to write a birth poem for herself some 50 years after the event.

But that was Mary, always observing, always probing her own story.

"The Light on the Tent Wall" for Mary Joe, my mother.

There was light.

Suffused onto canvas through mother's womb.

Her round belly turned the tent wall pink.

There was humming, soft talk about the baby coming.

Women, mothers, warm by the Yukon stove, visiting Mary Jo and her child, I who lay unborn in her cradle of light.

Years came.

I was taken Where there were no tent walls, Where I had to dream my own, And as time passed, often I saw the light on the wall.

No longer pink, it was fire, Its tongues licking the tent wall.

Fire of our life, flickering.

Light returned to where I was, Moving through far places, years.

Not suffused now.

Gone the voices, singing.

Useless wind plucked with chill fingers at the wall.

Often the sound was angry, Hasty, wanted to speak but could not find words.

I overtook it, brought back my dream.

Light dyed the canvas The color of mother's blood Gliding through her womb, Through labored lungs, Through death, and I remembered the color of her blood, Light on the tent wall, Painted by my infant dreams.

Sometimes I still hear angry winds plucking mutely at the wall.

The light is there too, And thinking of the watching women I wonder whether they saw the light on the tent wall.

I saw it plain before my birth And held it a half century.

I will hold it forever.

The first six years of Mary's life were idyllic.

My little brother, Billy, and I, were free and happy.

In winter, we rode behind uncle's curly tailed dogs.

In summer, we played outside like wild creatures, around us was always the infinitely various land.

Ts'eekkaaya-- Spring Camp" In the month of beaver, I watched the night sky, Thinking this was the time of year we made spring camp.

Memories stretch and pull around me, Bark drying on a new canoe.

Hunter sprawled by the fire Out camp red bubbles in grease, Duck soup gurgles in the old black Dutch oven Way off, drifting through birches fat smells drown our mouths.

Mom calls on it, Yelling, we raced to camp, Tumbling brown bear cubs.

Uncle and papa grumble at us In gruff voices I have heard for a lifetime.

Listen, my brothers are singing Bernie squeaks a high note, Makes Billy start giggling.

They wrestle a while.

After supper they make caribou song, Honking on a tin harmonica Echoing cloud voices call over Nulato, Over Kaiyuh, high over Denali, Over Chugach, over miles of islands, Years of dancing, mourning, loving, dying.

Crow feather shadows crawl, Along thin blue edges of darkness.

Great horned owl sails low, Winter gray wings fanned the river, Her yellow eyes blazing, Threaten yeega-- bad luck spirits.

We yawn into our beds Inside a ring of sleeping dogs.

Papa says they keep away wolves.

We snug down furry Billy and I, wrapped in dark music of spruce trees Breath of life flows through our spirits, From forest, flames, owls, wings Our breath is one Under the shining of dark all-- the moon Walking through the sky.

Those was carefree childhood days ended abruptly for Mary in 1924, when the Nulato village council faced a difficult decision.

What are we going to do about Mary Joe Demoski kids?

How old are they now?

Girl six, boy maybe four.

Are we sure she's got TB?

I see two pails of bloody rags outside her door every morning.

I hear her cough way down at my place.

Dr.

Randles and his missus adopted them kids when Mary Joe first got sick.

Let the Randles take them for good now.

Didn't you hear?

Doc Randle got himself transferred stateside.

If Randle's go outside, Demoski kids go with them.

We don't adopt out our kids.

We need those kids here so we can teach them how to hunt and fish.

Kids who go outside never come back.

Who's going to feed us when we get old?

Randle say they don't believe in almighty God.

Please don't stand for that, he says surely.

He says, the children's immortal souls must be the most important consideration.

Kids should stay here.

They got blood relatives here can take him in.

Maybe then Demoski kids got TB already.

I say send them off with Randle's before we all catch it.

The debate went back and forth like that all night.

Mary Joe's father delivered the council's verdict to his daughter the next morning.

Girl goes outside with White doctor.

Mary Joe keeps Billy.

Later, he hunt and fish for his uncle.

And that was that.

Mary, the girl was expendable, Billy, the boy, who could some day provide got to stay in his mother's arms.

A few days later, Mary was standing on the upper deck of a steamboat, looking down at the people on the riverbank.

The whole village was there.

Mary listened to the silence.

No one, not even her own mother would step up to say, I will not let my Mary go.

A flood of feelings, a six-year-old could not name washed over Mary.

She would spend the rest of her life untangling those feelings, separating them out and giving them names.

The silence was finally broken when Billy began to sob.

Mary was incensed.

How dare he cry?

She was the one being sent away.

Agnes Randle tried to put her arms around Mary, but Mary pushed her away.

Agnes's coat was stiff.

Mary only wanted to bury her head in their mother's soft skinned shirts.

I heard the hoarse cry of the steamboats whistle, the shouts of men guiding the Teddy T into the current.

The familiar faces on the riverbanks kept growing smaller and smaller, until even the huddled cabins with their chalk white antlers faded into the distance.

When all of it was gone, I knew my life would never be the same.

I would never get over that, they know matter how long I lived.

"Brother Wolverine" Girl child They took you so far away Upriver I hear The mail boat whistle My heart jumps Waiting for words from you Snaa-- little daughter I miss you When the children shout Down by the slough When I see the leaves of k'eey-- the birches Dance in the wind In pictures you sent You wear the fawnskin parka I sewed with little sinew stitches By the light of our coal-oil lamp Around your face I see The gray rough of Wolverine He has yeega g of power His ruff can stop The winter winds From freezing your breath Into needles of ice-- I give you his fur Wolverine, we call Doyon The Chief, Snarled in my trap Bared his teeth, bit the air It was his last battle He came home with me Brother Wolverine Let your fur warm my girl child Guard her in far strange places Make her fearless like you Do not let her forget us Brother Wolverine Mary asks everyone the same question-- How could my mother not be my mother?

But no one had an answer.

Violent revolt ensued when I was taken from my beloved Nulato and from my mother and my brother.

The adoptive parents brought me to Portland, Oregon, where they put me in school.

One day, they had a pageant at this school and I had to get up on the stage, wearing my fawnskin parka, my face gets hot even thinking of it now.

What an amazing excerpt from the show-- Coming Home-- the poetry of Mary TallMountain?

How did you come up with putting together this story around the life and story and poetry of Mary TallMountain?

Well, when I was putting together an anthology of Alaskan writing with Carolyn Kremers, called the Alaska Reader, I found the poetry of Mary TallMountain and it just stopped me in my tracks.

I loved it and I thought, why don't I know more about this woman?

Then just at the beginning of this year, I got a call from a lady who had seen the Winter Bear website, and she was is the literary executor of Mary's estate and was a great friend of Mary.

And she wanted to know how to get books by Mary in school libraries in Alaska.

So we talked, and the more we talked, the more we realized that we both had the same idea that Mary TallMountain needs to be better known, and have a much broader audience, and especially be better known here where she spent so much time.

It is so wonderful that you approached me about doing this Alaska Live.

I'm so happy you did because listeners are going to be wanting to know more about this show.

Well, thank you for having us.

Absolutely.

We have more.

I know you have more.

Should we talk to Frank, the narrator, before we move on to another excerpt?

Frank Yaska, welcome to KUACs Alaska Live.

How did you get involved with this project yourself?

Were you involved with Winterbear also?

A long time ago.

That's many years ago.

[laughster] Yes, thank you for having me.

Yes.

You bet.

So, yes, I've known Anne Hanley since the Winter Bear Project, and we kicked it off when it first launched and went on tour a couple times with them.

And Anne and I have been getting together several times throughout this past winter.

She approached me trying to get this together and I said immediately said, yes, because I want to do this.

Yes, of course.

And had a lot of planning meetings, trying to get everything, every step operational.

I think you did mention in the intro to this show that you were introduced to Mary TallMountain poetry somehow.

Yes.

How did you get introduced to her poetry?

It was in my Writing 211 class with UAF.

Right, your UAF?

Yes.

And I'm sure I've read some of her poems when I was a kid, but I was a knucklehead as a kid, so I don't really remember much.

But that's when it really resonated with me.

Wow.

So right here on the Troth Yeddha campus, you were introduced to Mary TallMountain poetry?

That's wonderful.

And what does it feel like to be introducing others now to her poetry and her life story?

It reassures me.

Because her words, her poetry, her poems are very relevant today.

And she speaks a lot of truth in what each and every one of us are going through.

Yeah.

So and it gives me hope that an individual that's going through some difficult times can see someone else going through the similar thing and how well Mary did, and uplift them so it's very reassuring to me.

That's really wonderful to hear that her poetry lives on and it is reassuring and comforting to those of us living here in this earthly plane.

Are we ready for another excerpt?

OK.

"Indian Blood" On the stage I stumbled, My fur boot caught On a slivered board.

Rustle of stealthy giggles.

Beendaga-- mittens made of velvet Crusted with crystal beads Hung from brilliant tassels of wool, Wet with my sweat.

Children's faces stared.

I felt their flowing force.

Did I crouch like goh-- the rabbit, In the curious quiet?

They butted to the stage, Darting questions, pointing-- Do you live in an igloo?

Hah, you eat blubber.

Hemmed in ringlets of brass, Grass-pale eyes, The fur of daghooda-aak-- caribou parka trembled.

Late in the night I bit my hand in it till it was pierced With moons of dark Indian blood.

I refuse to go to school because my schoolmates mocked my Indianness.

I hid away in closets and bit my hands in mute rage.

My only friend was a little girl my own age, named Lucy Evans.

Agnes said she was imaginary.

But how could she know all about Nulato?

Unless she was a real girl who used to live there.

She kept me company in the closet.

We talked about everything.

Later, when I turned to writing, I made her an important character in my novel.

Besides Lucy Evans, letters from Billy and Mary Joe were my only consolation.

Two years after Mary left Nulato, her birth mother, Mary Joe, died.

"The Hands of Mary Joe" Her hands lift and tend King salmon Cherish the skin of her child Light his willow buds Thread a needle's invisible eye In dim, flickering lamplight Fingers weave patterns in violet and Amber beads The Brown pearl hands Etched with tiny lines Curled into little cups Stiffened yet with delicate touch Draw a comb of tortoiseshell Through dark silvered hair Hands that float in rhymes Smooth as river drift Attuned to daily music of her hidden life Now life folded in her lap Trembling minutely The hands of Mary Joe await The approaching silence Billy went to auntie's after my mother died, but we kept writing to each other.

Auntie had a big family.

When hunting was poor, their life was hard.

Some days, Billy and uncle trapped all day with only bread and tea to keep them going.

Mary's brother, William Billy, died of consumption when he was 17.

"Prayer wheel for William."

you worked alongside men riding the fish wheel down the trickster tides of summer your boy Hans hurrying, hurrying baskets tossing splashing salmon onto the birchwood raft your cut-up wind burnt hands that loved the violin smelling of fish and woodsmoke.

tall and awkward Indian boy arms too long hair always falling into your blackberry eyes drifting with the river turning with the fishwheel my prayers of you are turning turning.

Mary was overjoyed when the doctor was reassigned to Alaska, even if Unalaska was on a chain of islands in the wild North Pacific ocean, worlds away from Nulato on the banks of the mostly peaceful Yukon River.

The beautiful country of Unalaska lured me into a deep sense of the earth, its touch, smell, its spirit.

The treeless volcanic islands were ringed by jutting mountains.

Hidden meadows in the backcountry were lush with wild orchids, iris, violets.

I still feel the crush of the lost bed of wild violets in the Aleutian hills where one day, I flung myself down in a rapture, finally knowing who I was.

Agnes and Harry Randall had no use for the school system in Unalaska, so Agnes became Mary's teacher.

My education lasted about 12 hours a day.

At Agnes urging, I wrote regularly in a diary, a habit I continued for the rest of my life.

There was a lyric excellence in Agnes that nurtured my early fascination with poems and stories.

I grew up with Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Dickens, Trollope.

The?

Bronte sisters.

A piercing memory returns.

One night in Unalaska, Agnes and I walked along a narrow, pebbled beach, reciting poems to each other.

Especially, I especially loved Wordsworth.

The rainbow comes and goes.

And lovely is the rose.

The moon with delight.

Look round her when the heavens are bare.

Waters on a starry night-- Are beautiful and fair.

[laughter] Just as Mary was beginning to feel she could not live without an ocean on all sides, Dr.

Randale was transferred to the hospital at Dillingham.

Then two years later, he was assigned to a clinic for migrant workers in the Willamette Valley of Southern Oregon.

Those were depression years, and times were tough for my adoptive parents.

But I didn't notice.

I was in high school, and for the first time, making real friends.

I even joined the Glee Club.

Sometimes I could feel my old sense of beauty stirring again.

I graduated at 18.

Ready, I thought, to make my own way in the world.

And then I was in love for the first time, so nothing else mattered.

Excerpt from "Silver Trumpets" for Dal Roberts, 1936.

I think about dancing with Dal At McElroy's Famous Ballroom Waxy shuffle of our feet Where confetti-colored lights wheeled We were eighteen.

He pretended to be Grown up in his tuxedo the Lights turned his eyes indigo His fingers played all the tunes On my wrist He died not three years later.

That's when I really turned wild.

Where were you during those years?

What were you doing?

I've searched through all your writing, but there's not a single word about it.

Well, my second marriage failed in 1945.

I remember because that was the year my Ma died.

You mean Agnes, your adoptive mother?

She went to the doctor for her diabetes, and he told her she had Parkinson's and dementia.

She came home, loaded her pockets with stones, and walked into the Willamette River.

I was the one who had to identify what was left of her fleshless body.

It was hard.

I had to get far away from the Willamette Valley or I'd suffocate.

I ended up in Reno, where I learned how to be a legal secretary by apprenticing myself to one working on divorces.

Strangely, I never got my own divorce.

After Reno, I went to San Francisco, where I worked in law offices.

I was working in a conservative, money-oriented business world, but my private life was a harsh and painful rebellion.

There it is again, revolt, rebellion, rage.

Maybe that's why I began to drink, first socially, and then compulsively, secretly.

I left, jobs without reason.

And while on a job, was entirely undependable.

You turned all that anger against yourself.

Into my 40s, I stumbled along, my work suffering.

Hideous hangovers took hold.

Blackouts added to my guilt.

"My Familiar."

Just off A bustling sidewalk Tonight in Chinatown she Appeared again Wearing a hooded parka Of soft gray squirrel fur Looking at me still and straight Above the people passing Then was gone.

She comes every year, Finds me.

Once her Eyes ebon-dark In a weatherbrown face Gave me assurance Before I traveled alone To a remote shadowed region.

At home I often sense her Feel a flash Of motion behind my shoulder See an angle of light Where there was none before.

Her husky voice speaks In the secret bones of my skull.

I know only this, she Was there when I was born.

I know the eyes, The deep, the timeless, The wild eyes.

One day, I went out in a haze for my morning stinger at the Brown Dog Bar.

I suddenly realized everything was darker than usual.

Why was traffic heavy?

Why was it all going West?

It looked more like 5:00 PM than 9:00 AM.

Then I knew, it was evening, and I don't know where the day had gone.

Disgusted, I went back to the apartment and took a good look at myself.

It was then that I made up my mind to quit drinking, cold turkey.

The nights were the worse, but they gave me the time to think and bolster my firm intention to make a substantially useful life.

Slowly but surely, after I quit drinking, I came back to myself.

I even dared to start my own stenography business, assuming I would fail.

But people hired me, and their friends hired me, and their friends until I had to face it.

I was good at what I did and reliable.

Working on my own like that gave me a tremendous boost.

Look out, Mary.

Get more rest.

Drink plenty of fluids.

Call up your allies.

Why?

1968 is coming.

The winter after the Summer of Love.

No love left.

Nothing but trash and needles.

Watch where you step.

Make war, not love.

Martin Luther King murdered, Vietnam War Raging, city burning.

Zodiac killer on the loose.

All that feverish change outside reflecting the wars going on inside you.

Oh, the breast cancer.

I have it all in my notes-- the surgery, the chemo, the radiation.

I could put up with the pain in my body, but the pain in my heart when I saw what we were doing to each other and to the earth, that pain was too much.

That's when she called the most faithful of her familiars, and he began making his way to her.

"The Last Wolf."

The last wolf hurried toward me through the ruined city and I heard his baying echoes down the steep smashed warrens of Montgomery Street and past the few ruby-crowned high rises left standing their lighted elevators useless Passing the flicking red and green of traffic signals baying his way eastward in the mystery of his wild loping gait closer the sounds in the deadly night through clutter and rubble of quiet blocks I heard his voice ascending the hill and at last his low whine as he came floor by empty floor to the room where I sat In my narrow bed looking west, waiting I heard him snuffle at the door and I watched He trotted across the floor he laid his long gray muzzle On the spare white spread And his eyes burned yellow his small dotted eyebrows quivered Yes, I said.

I know what they have done.

Wow.

[applause] Wow.

Paul, would you mind stepping up here to-- yeah, yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

Paul Mountain, thank you for being part of "Alaska Live" today.

That last poem that you read, "The Last Wolf--" Yes.

--is that the name of it?

Yes.

Do you know the context of that poem?

Somewhat.

She was actually in the hospital.

And she was-- that wolf actually visited her before.

Yeah.

And so she was waiting for it.

And it was in her vision that she saw the ruin of San Francisco, and then the wolf was coming to her in the ruins of the hospital.

That's amazing that that is a part of the coming home story that you're telling here today-- Yeah --of Mary Tallmountain's poetry.

She has such great imagery in her poetry.

Were you ever able to hear her poetry in your lifetime?

Yeah, I was familiar with it.

I actually met Mary Tallmountain in-- You did.

--1976.

She went to Nulato.

And actually, there was her, my uncle Alvin, they came to Nulato at the same time.

And he lives in San Francisco.

He lived in San Francisco.

I think now he lives in San Diego.

Great.

But they were there at the same time in 1976, so I hung out with them quite a bit.

I was just a kid, but I was amazed with them because I knew that they were writers in their own way.

Did it inspire you to write as a kid as she did?

I don't know about writing like she did, but I was always an excellent student in the English.

Mrs.

Simpson was my teacher, and she's the best.

She was the most awesome.

And-- In Nuvado where you grew up.

Yeah.

How did you get involved with this project?

Oh, Frank called me.

Frank called you.

I was always-- I've been in a lot of performances way back, way back in 1900s before the turn of the century.

[laughter] So-- We can say that now.

--it's been a while since I've done any actual performance art.

So this is really good.

I'm really glad that he had contacted me.

Frank Jaska, the director of "Coming Home," the story of Mary Tallmountain and her poetry, so he approached you and said, hey, I've got this part for you.

And-- Yeah.

Did you tell him right then that you had met Mary Tallmountain when you were a kid?

I think so.

Yeah.

But I know I told Ann because she was the one who came up with the idea.

But I think I did-- yeah, I did tell Frank that I met her.

Yeah.

You share a similar last name to Mary Tallmountain.

Paul Mountain is your name.

Is that just a coincidence or-- Well, the story is, she named herself after my grandpa.

My grandpa's name was Matt [inaudible].

And then when she wanted to get the-- because she chose last name Tallmountain.

Then she took my grandpa's last name Matt [inaudible].

But she made it Matt Mia so it'll sound like a woman's name.

[laughter] That's great.

Yeah.

But that was-- that's from her pen-- from her own pen name, Tallmountain.

Yeah.

Her last name was Dymovsky, and then it became Vandal after she was adopted.

Right.

And so her pen name, as you say, was Tallmountain-- Yes.

--and she chose that after your grandfather's name.

That must have been such an honor for him.

See, there is a connection there.

There is.

Yeah.

[laughter] It's an absolute connection in your family.

And you now live in Fairbanks?

I live in Fairbanks, yeah.

And do you travel back to Nulato?

still some?

I go there all the time.

Yeah.

I love Nulato.

I'll never leave-- I'll never stop saying I'm from Nulato.

[laughter] That's wonderful.

What are some of your favorite ways to connect with folks back in Nulato when you go?

Well, I'm a performer, as you can see.

Yes.

But at home, I have-- I'm what's called a culture bearer, maybe.

Yeah.

Because I do a lot of the native singing, and I know a lot of the language.

So people often call on me to do things like that.

And I love singing and singing.

It's my most favorite thing in our language.

Yes.

And your language-- [non-english].

It's called lower Koyukon Athabascan.

Got you.

And you're considered a cultural bearer.

And I hope that that is being passed on to another generation too.

Are there some younger ones that are coming up after you that are learning the language and the singing?

Well, when I was the tribal administrator in Nulato, we had a dance group that was always-- and I encourage the kids to sing.

I would tone my tone my own self down so that they could-- and a lot of them learned a lot of really-- a lot of songs really good that way.

And I bet they learned the language through singing too.

Because our words-- I mean, our songs have a lot of words in them.

Yeah.

It's not just chants, so there's a lot of words in them.

So the kids-- the children learn how to-- what words mean and how you could stay family-- like suha, my older brother, sitklah, my younger brother, innah, my mom, things like that.

And those words are all in the song, so the kids know-- the kids learn those.

They learn it as they learn to-- the dance, they learn the songs, and they're learning the language and the culture.

That's-- Yes.

That's very important.

Yes.

Especially, languages are being lost.

Yes.

But here, you're passing them down and making sure you do that as you visit Nulato.

And oh, that's wonderful.

Thank you.

Kathleen Meckel, I know that-- can I ask you up to this microphone also?

Kathleen Meckel, you are also from Nulato, is that right?

Yes, I am.

So you probably know each other from there, and now your friends here in Fairbanks.

Yes.

You play the part of Mary Tallmountain in this show.

How did you get involved with this show?

You know Frank again, I know.

[inaudible] Three radio listeners, see, they're all turning to Frank.

Yeah.

I needed a favor from Frank.

I was working with the peace and dignity International Indigenous runners that were doing a relay from Fairbanks to South America.

And I reached out to Frank, hey, can you help me out?

And he said, sure, I could do this and this.

Can you help me out?

And he's like, I need you to be in this play.

I'm like, sure.

And then I knew Ann because when I was working at Effie Kokrine teaching seventh grade, the winter bear came into Effie, and some of our students were involved with the original performance.

Oh, that's wonderful.

And you're not teaching at Effie Kokrine anymore?

No, I retired in 2011.

Oh, great.

You're actually here at UAF or have you retired from UAF also?

Yes, I retired from UAF as well.

Well, that makes it easy for you to have a little bit more time for the relay that you just spoke of, and to have a little bit more time for this project too.

That's wonderful.

And so you stayed in Nulato and went to school all the way through-- I went through high school in Nulato, and it was-- when I was in high school actually, that's when Mary Tallmountain was a guest through Liz Simpson, our English teacher in the high school.

She was there for years.

And it was kind of exciting to remember all of that and doing this.

Yeah.

So shout out to Ms.

Simpson out there in Nulato for bringing Mary Tallmountain there and many others, I'm sure.

But it really did have an impact on these young Nulato students.

Did you leave for college after-- Yes.

In the village, the Catholic Church was still very strong, and my high school teacher, Liz Simpson, and the nun with the church, I ended up going to Oakland, California, of all places.

So-- Well, a bit like Mary tallmountain.

You ended up in California, I know, right across the bay from San Francisco.

And did you always have the thought that you would come home too?

Yes.

I wanted to be a teacher in my village, and that was like my dying, burning wish.

And when I got home, when I graduated, all of the teaching positions were taken by people that had gone through the-- they called it Arctic, a rural delivery program with the UAF.

So it was all people from the village, so I ended up taking a job in Fairbanks.

Have you been a part of people's lives that have made that dream come true to go out and be a teacher at the villages?

I feel like yes.

Yeah.

I'm just running through in my head some of-- I'm a little-- Dina [inaudible], she went on and she became a teacher, and she was so happy.

And how many other students went into education in different ways?

Michelle Quillin, I think about her and the amazing job.

That she's doing educating people about Indigenous life and hunting and fishing.

So there's a lot.

Holly Carroll, working for the federal government, doing all of-- on Alaska, rural issues and indige-- urban issues regarding salmon and how that all goes.

So yeah, it's cool to-- That is amazing.

--look back and see that.

Yes.

And what was it like to realize that you were going to be a part of this project as playing the part of Mary Tallmountain?

What was that like to know that you're going to spread the story of Mary Tallmountain?

It was a really rewarding-- just when I saw Ann and Frank told me she was there, I was like a burst of joy just to see her and to hug her.

And you get the flood of how things move in cycles, that this all came to be for a reason.

And to go through the first-- the first session was at a conference that Tanana chiefs was putting on.

And some of the elders that were in attendance, I saw them later at Denakkanaaga.

And they didn't share at the conference, but they shared at Denakkanaaga that they were really-- they loved hearing the story, to see that storytelling goes on in this way.

We have the script and everything else, but it's this person that wrote about Alaska, she was from Alaska, and the whole being removed from her home.

And the elders, they had that boarding school experience.

But later, they got to go home.

And like Mary, she didn't get to go home until she was much older.

Right.

In her 50s, is that correct?

That's many decades between 6 years old and in your 50s to be away from your home.

It's a lifetime.

It is a lifetime.

And she learned so much while she was away, and some hard lessons, and some really good lessons that we heard from the poetry a bit ago.

And you mentioned Denakkanaaga.

They're part of who's putting this on too, and you've been a part of Denakkanaaga with elders for many years now too.

Tell me about that program just briefly.

The Denakkanaaga, it's like a group of elders from all over interior Alaska, and then some from different parts of Alaska that have relocated to Fairbanks.

It's a non-profit.

Sharon McConnell is the director.

She would be here today, but I guess she's a little under the weather, so yes-- She's not feeling well.

But just in my recent involvement with Denakkanaaga, the elders that have gone away to boarding school in our home because they missed out on traditional practices, they're-- we were doing these summer sessions of elders teaching elders where we're revitalizing, like, hide tanning, sowing in different levels for skin sewing, medicinal plants, food preservation.

And it's been really rewarding and healing for all the people involved.

And last summer, we stepped into including youth, like, high school students.

So the goal is for it to become more intergenerational.

Wow.

That is so amazing.

I am so glad that you are a part of that.

And Kathleen Meckel, thank you so much for talking about that, your involvement with this, and it's really amazing.

I wanted to talk with Princess yet too because-- before we get on to the last excerpt.

Princess, do you want to talk about your involvement with our-- Just look at him.

I know I have to.

[laughter] Frank Yaska is definitely behind this.

Princess Daazhraii Johnson.

Did I do that-- Daazhraii.

Daazhraii-- Daazhraii.

Daazhraii-- Daazhraii Johnson.

Thank you for helping me with your-- You're welcome.

--name.

It's very important.

Daazhraii means-- Daazhraii.

Means tundra swan in Gwich'in.

Yeah.

Did you feel akin to them as they are coming through and-- Well, that name was given to me by my late grandmother, Catherine.

Yeah.

Wow.

Do you remember when she gave you that name?

I do.

Wow.

What was that day like.

Pretty special.

I was in my 20s when she gave me that name.

I had another nick-- we have lots of different names, and so they just used to-- she used to just call me big girl because I was always taller and-- [laughter] --yeah, bigger.

But yeah, she gave me that name, Daazhraii.

So I like to use it.

Daazhraii is-- and tundra swan, I think, is better than big girl.

Yeah.

[laughter] I do too.

I love it.

Princess, you are no stranger to KUAC.

I first started working with you when you were a writer and producer for the Emmy nominated, very popular PBS Kids show "Molly of Denali."

So welcome back to KUAC.

Thank you.

And I know that you've been here many times too because you are a voice actor on "The Great North," which is a very funny and touching animated show.

Yes, irreverent comedy.

[laughter] Yeah.

What's the character you play on The Great North?

Oh, my gosh.

Please.

I'm, like, having a total, like, brain fog right now.

You'd play Esther.

Esther, Esther.

That's right.

I should know that, too, because I've been the local engineer, and I've had to make sure we had all the Esther pages.

Esther Evanoff.

Yep.

I'm so glad that you are involved in this project, too.

And Coming Home, the story and poetry of Alaskan poet Mary TallMountain-- how did you get involved with this?

We all know that it probably has Frank involved.

[laughs] Well, there's a saying-- our existence is resistance.

And I think being born an Indigenous person is very political in its nature, given the history of colonization and the very intentional policies of the US government to separate us from our homelands.

And Mary TallMountain was able, in her poetry, to exemplify the very real stories of what it means to be taken from your home and to have all these experiences and take in the world that was very foreign to her and somehow make peace.

And I think that that is something we're all trying to do is make peace with the world around us.

So I think that to me, I resonate.

I resonate with her anger, with her frustration of not being understood, with trying to explain how critical it is that we acknowledge and act on our relationship with our Mother Earth.

So I just am really grateful and honored that I was asked to be a part of this.

And I have been a fan of her work for some time.

Absolutely.

And anger is something that comes out in her story.

And does that have a sense of healing to it, too, or at least an acknowledgment that there is a sense of anger that-- being taken or that the Earth is-- Yeah I mean, I think that-- --and you have healing.

Yeah, I think that it's necessary.

It's all a part of the human experience.

These feelings of rage and anger and grief-- you have to be able to express and acknowledge and be a friend to your feelings and just be like, OK, I'm feeling all these things, but what do I do with these feelings?

And Mary TallMountain put it into her poetry, which in many ways, is able to emotively convey and relay so that other-- the audience can feel a little bit of what it feels like.

That's amazing.

Thank you for being a part of this.

And I'm so excited to hear that last excerpt from the Coming Home.

Thank you.

[non-english] [non-english] And the last excerpt from the-- yeah.

Frank Yaska is back for narration, and we've got Kathleen Meckel.

"Eventually you recovered."

"Had to.

There was too much going on in my life.

I couldn't slow down for cancer.

Shyly, tentatively, I'd begun, in the early '60s, to make small but real poems.

In the mid '60s, the Friars Press began printing them.

Soon, I found myself giving readings.

All kinds of people came.

I was sober, cancer-free, and so, so grateful."

"And then you went back to Alaska."

"A poet friend of mine told writers in Alaska that he had discovered an Alaska Native writer in San Francisco.

Next thing I knew, Alaskans contacted me, grants in hand.

I was to be a writer in the schools, all expenses paid, and I got paid on top of that, I would have paid them for the privilege.

The bush plane hovered, careened, tilted, sideways and down, rattling fiercely.

Dizzy, I looked across the pilot's hands and saw Nulato, its roofs couched, shining in a long bend of the river.

When the two-seater growled and bounced past the whitewashed crosses of Graveyard Hill, everything dimmed before my eyes, my quick tears."

"Once Mary landed, she could see right away, things had changed in the 50 years she had been away.

But the women were still trying to keep the old customs."

"The women in old parkas, snapping gunshot, cold, blue, stubborn lips clamped shut.

The women in old parkas loosened snares, intent and slow.

They handle muskrat.

Yukon way.

Appeased his spirit, yega, bare purple hands stiffen.

Must set lines again.

Night drops quick, black in winterhouse.

Round shadows.

Cook fresh meat soup.

Steam floats.

Skinny bellies grumble.

They pick up skin work, squint turn lamp wick down.

Kerosene almost gone.

Sew anyway.

Oh, this winter is the worst.

Everything running out Not much furs.

They make soft woman hum.

But hey, how about those new parkas we hung up for stick dance?

How the people sing.

How crazy shadows dip and stomp on dancehouse walls.

Their remembering arms rise like bird wings.

At morning, they look into the sky, laugh at little lines of rain, finger their old parkas, think, spring is coming soon."

"I met a whole slew of my cousins from Auntie's family.

So many fiddle dances, so much food.

I was having the time of my life."

"Can I read the next poem?

I've been practicing.

Good Grease.

The hunters went out with guns at dawn.

We had no meat in the village, no food for the tribe and the dogs, no caribou in the caches.

All day we waited.

At last, as darkness hung at the river, we children saw them far away.

Yes, they were carrying caribou.

We jumped and shouted.

By the fires that night, we feasted.

The old one clucked, sucking and smacking, sopping the juices with sourdough bread.

The grease would warm us when hungry winter howled.

Grease was beautiful, oozing, dripping, and running down our chins.

We talk of it when we see each other far from home.

Remember the marrow, sweet in the bones?

We grabbed for them like candy.

Good, good, Good grease.

"When I went up to the school in Kaltag, I met the family of my half brother, Bernie.

He was the son my mother had after they sent her up there to an old man when she was 14.

She ran away from him, but that's another story."

"Soogha Dancing, for my brother Bernie.

Soogha, eldest brother I never knew, the people gave you new clothes.

In spring, they honored men outstanding in Kaltag Village.

At potlatch after giveaway, those honored danced alone, your arms flying, ermine parka whirling, beaver hood like brown velvet, lynx-trimmed mukluks, furs trapped by your friends the women stitched in winter.

Dancehouse drums thumped.

People sang 13 Koyukon songs.

Fiddles strummed.

Wooden ocarina whistled.

You stomped around the floor.

What were your dreams?

Did you see new tall, traders come lying, cheating?

You told the people to keep peace, overlook greed, bad bargains, insults, but hold strong, make friends.

Do you remember mother Earth's lessons of the distant time when the people talked with animals in different voices, played among Alaska's bluebells roses, small spruce trees, Mastodon cliffs?

You danced bright behind my eyes.

Soogha, brother, I see you in that spirit-given spring dancing for the people, arms open like furry wings."

"Mary documented every nuance of the river, the weather, and the people in her diary.

But she came to Nulato to do more than observe.

Mary came to find her mother's grave."

"Tassie Saunders made a picnic for me and Auntie at Graveyard Hill.

We forged our way around and around, through the scratching brush, reading the names carved on the white crosses, visiting people long ago.

The old graves were peaceful in the hot sun.

I felt the loving, kind presences of all around me.

We ate Spam and graham crackers high above the river, beside the Demoski grave houses.

Then we went back to searching.

We looked all day until the mosquitoes got the best of us.

But we didn't find Mary Joe's grave or Billy's either.

Let's go, I finally said."

"There is No Word for Goodbye.

Sequoia, I said, looking through the net of wrinkles into wise, black pools of her eyes, what do you say in Athabaskan when you leave each other?

What is the word for, goodbye?

A shade of feeling rippled the wind-tanned skin.

Ah, nothing, she said, watching the river flash.

She looked at me close.

We just say, Tiaa.

That means see you.

We never leave each other.

When does your mouth say, goodbye, to your heart?

She touched me light as a bluebell.

You forget, when you leave us, you're so small, then.

We don't use that word.

We always think you're coming back.

But if you don't, we'll see you someplace else.

You understand?

There is no word for, goodbye."

[applause] You can find links to more episodes of Alaska Live TV and download audio podcasts of the Alaska Live radio show online at KUAC.org.

Support for the Alaska Live series of live music and conversation on KUAC is made possible by a grant from Design Alaska.

Design Alaska.

strengthening community through support of the arts.