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[Spoken in Inupiaq by Schaeffer]: Hiluugiqpin.
Uvanga Atiga Qataliña.
Nalaugmiutchisiga Jackie Schaeffer.
[Spoken in English by Schaeffer ]: I am Jackie Schaeffer, and I am here with Ahtna Dine'
Wilson Justin, who was raised in the traditional ways of his people.
Wilson, I just want to ask you, how the impacts of climate change, that you've witnessed over
your lifetime, really impact not only your people but the environment.
[Spoken in English by Justin]: Good afternoon, and good question.
It's actually pretty relevant for a lot of what you see, as, in terms of what we would
call conflicts today, or sociological fails.
[Justin:] I can focus in on three aspects of this, what I have saw.
And when you open up a discussion by saying "raised in traditional ways," that will be
part of the discussion.
Because the way I was raised in my traditional societies ended by the time, between the age
of twelve and fourteen, due to outside influences, particularly [background noises] the schools
and educational system and the church-dominated theocracy that came into the village, but
also to a lesser degree, by the military prior to World War II.
And also the question of what the modern job economy means, 'cause that's interrupted the
economy I was raised in.
So, we have to backstep a second [chair squeaks] and say what I saw in terms of changes was
threefold.
First, it changed the way the villages and the participatory sharing economy that I was
a part of by the time I was twelve or fourteen–twelve through fourteen.
It became illegal–illegal to be a provider to the family.
And that means the fishing and trapping laws.
So the first change in terms of climate change was directly related to the issue of the imposition
of values that are not consistent with the one that was there.
How that relates to climate change is pretty straightforward: It took us away from direct
connectivity twenty-four-seven.
When I was eight, nine, ten years of age, there was not a second or time of the day
when I was not aware of what was going on out there.
Whether it was trapping, fishing, hunting–it didn't make any difference.
All year long, even if it's twenty below, I would be out checking snares on the trail
for supper.
The imposition of the colonizing system took all of that and threw it out the door, and
basically said, "You've gotta start over."
And nobody wrote the book on what it means to go to jail, or lose your license, or those
kinds of things.
They just simply said, "You gotta start over."
So climate change, in terms of [Wilson coughs] my own background, was interrupted by the
imposition of a system that had no meaning or bearing in terms of change or climate.
And that brought forth a inconsistency in terms of village, tribal life in my teen years,
where the idea of self-reward [chair squeaks] and entitlement began to take a hold.
In other words, we quit learning.
We quit teaching.
We quit absorbing.
And we quit utilizing this sharing system that we had.
All that happened by the time I started high school.
So, that brings us to the second phase of my outlook, in terms of change on climate
change, which is, in high school, I began to learn that the issue of entitlement and
self-gratification was secondary to the question of identity.
In other words, you could not threaten, move, or in any way shape, or form, question the
Euro-western colony's identity.
If you did, you were a no-good bum.
And I learned this first-hand in bullies.
They would mock me, laugh at me, make fun of me, curse me, swear at me, because of the
way I talked, which was mangled English.
I didn't have enough time to learn English before I got to high school.
But not only the way I talked, but the way I looked, the way I walked.
They would say things like, "Boy, you sure smell like a bear."
Well, I didn't smell like a bear, but that was a point they needed to make in terms of
their identity versus my identity.
In other words, I was little, hardly more than an animal in their world perspective
of bullies.
So in high school I learned that this issue of what we would call ongoing change, ongoing
[background sounds of cups and dishes clanking] activities in terms of learning, adjustments,
and what have you, was convoluted.
It was turned upside down by the Euro-western way of thinking in terms of identity.
In other words, "the only identity you're allowed to have is one that reflects who I
am.
I'm a white man so you gotta be white otherwise you're not part of it."
That is something that I learned by the time I [background noises of chairs scraping on
floors] graduated from high school.
So now let's take a look at the third component of the issue of worldview in terms of climate
change.
The first two are a complete indictment of the fact that the Euro-western mindset rejected
everything of natural value from the two-state era on–intentionally.
So for basically almost a thousand years now the Euro-western mindset has replaced any
kind of attitude towards this planet predicated upon natural forces as being 'wrong.'
That's the identity issue that I ran into.
Which means that climate change cannot happen unless it gets permission from the white man.
Which means that you can't have any kind of change on this planet or this universe unless
you get permission from the white man.
So by the time I was twenty-two years of age or twenty three years of age, that was very
clear to me.
And we still haven't yet got to the idea that the third component, which is basically, how
did I get involved directly with the question of climate change.
And for context, I needed to include those two earlier discussions because context-wise,
I've always been involved in climate change, I just didn't know I was [Justin laughs].
So let's take a look at the question of my involvement in climate change.
When I was about eight or nine years of age, I was listening to a couple of Elders.
They were talking about old stories.
I was in the corner of the house.
And they were talking about what we would call deep time.
And deep time is creation-driven, or the sacred, the sacred component of the development of
the universe.
And one of them, Houston Sanford, he was–they were talking in Athabascan, and by then my
Athabascan was already being jolted and tossed around and treated like some kind of an enemy
by the school system and churches.
So I was beginning to lose the ability to stay connected.
What, here's the thing, this, these stories they were telling, these sacred stories, were
in the original language of the Medicine People, which were [background voices, sounds of a
café with dishes clanging] never talked amongst kids.
It was used in Potlatches and referred to as Chief Talk, and it was used in sacred storytelling
time in December.
And this was in December.
So Houston was talking to this other Elder, and he said, "You know, when you talk to kids,"--this
was all in that language, and I'm trying to follow it, and he said: "When you talk to
kids today you make a big map with them over here, and they have another map over here,
and the two map are completely different.
You can't use either one."
He said, "That's, that's the way our kids are.
They, they raise with this empty map, and they call it 'English.'
And our regular map–the old people call it 'The Sacred Way,'--they can't connect."
They're talking to each other about my inability to understand this.
So, flash forward about ten, twelve years, and I'm sitting round up there listening again
to some of the Elders talk about the question of changes.
My aunt Lena who's still alive in Chistochina--Houston is gone for quite a few years [loud background
voices]–my aunt Lena is in Chistochina, slowly losing her touch with the universe
but still a very content person.
We were out up on the side of the creek, up towards Nabesna, and she pointed down to the
ground and she said, "You see this thing?"
And it's a little round–she said, "That's what them Glacier Caribou eat."
Now Glacier Caribou are now called part of the Mentasta herd.
There's another story, a whole separate story about how the Mentasta herd is now the [inaudible]
Nelchina herd, which are woodland caribou, came into our region.
We'll save that for a future date.
But she said, "That's what those glacier, ice caribou eat.
Those Medicine People, caribou eat this stuff."
Then we walked another ways, and she picked up a little tiny lichen.
And she said, "That's what the regular caribou eat [inaudible; background noises]."
And she said, "And they're both going.
Something, something wrong here.
Both these caribou feed are leaving us."
And I'm thinking to myself, what does that mean?
Leaving us.
Well, fast forward again about ten, twelve years, and I'm beginning to assemble these
things in my mind, and I'm beginning to look at these differences in what I am hearing
and what I am putting together in English [loud background voices], and they don't match.
So, some years later again, I'm talking with my uncle [inaudible] in the late 70s, and
he passed in 1980.
And he said, "You really need, you really gotta go out and watch this stuff," he said.
"It's really changing.
Things are really wrong."
And I keep hearing that from Elders: "Things are wrong."
One of the things he said was, "These leaves are all wrong."
Well, 'wrong' in English can't translate to 'wrong' in Athabascan Dine'.
So I went out and I just started studying.
Ah, I shouldn't use that term.
It doesn't work here.
[Schaeffer chuckling.]
What, what I did was I started watching these things in the springtime.
By 1985, it was very clear to me that we had [loud background voices] two weeks of extended
growing season into springtime and another week into the fall of warm, warm weather.
So when they were saying, "the leaves are wrong," what they're saying is not that the
leaves are wrong, but that the leaves are growing so much bigger, so much faster.
That term 'wrong' comes into context by saying, when you look at the question that the foliage
is outgrowing the ability to stay fed and connected to the water table [background laughter].
Once that became clear to me, I began looking at how the growth of the foliage is impacted
by something called permafrost.
So I went out and looked at the permafrost, and I was flabbergasted to find out that it
had disappeared.
And I said, "Holy cow, where you been all your life, fella?"
[Justin and Schaeffer laughing.]
"You're almost 35 years old and you just found out!"
[Justin and Schaeffer laughing.]
"These things are changing in a way that is explainable!"
So, I began looking at the question of life cycles of permafrost, and that's a whole different
field.
But the point of my discussion here is I went through this process of not only being denied
my own learning, growth cycles, but being told that it was dirty and no good–and wrong.
And then finally I get to the point where I can stop listening to that kind of garbage
and junk and began looking at the question of, how do I connect back to what is being
told to me, which brings me directly into the issue of language conflicts.
Once you get past the idea of language conflicts, once you look at the question of all languages
have a purpose–English has a purpose, it's just the purpose is very small and very convoluted
in terms of entitlement and protection of your rights.
You can't have protection of individual rights in the Indigenous world because that is a
universal theme.
You protect the universe first because the universe then repays the protection with the
gift of protection of your life.
In the Indian world, as a Yupik and every place else, the idea of a language utilized
as a tool to protect yourself is impossible.
It doesn't exist.
It cannot exist.
So we have this issue of language.
I had to come to grips with English not being hostile but not being useful.
That's a very tough step to take.
When a bully comes up to you and spits, spits in your face, you punch him back, his friends
come along and he beats you up, and you chase them down one at a time to beat them up, that's
the way it is with language.
You're not supposed to reply hostile force with hostile force.
It's OK to protect yourself, but you don't go beat up all of the guy's friends.
[Justin laughing.]
We are doing that with the way our, our identities, our Indigenous identity is being processed.
So we are looking at violence begets violence.
Force means more force.
So the language issue today is pretty basic.
We need to get away from the fact that the language that is a part of our life forces
us into conflict.
We need to say "stop."
Climate change is unsolvable until we stop doing what we do in terms of these conflicts,
overlaps of what we would call hostilities.
I'm not doing the hippie thing where I say you've gotta love everybody.
I'm saying you've gotta love the universe more than you love yourself.
And the universe is all about your [background engine noises] future grandchildren.
So basically climate change in my life came in those three eras.
First is the very basic–the very basic take away all of the attributes and values [background
noises of chairs rubbing on floor] of our tribe to try to turn me into something ready
for change.
And then bring the change in in terms of making you mean, wild, hostile.
[Schaeffer chuckling.]
Then you, then it's easy for you to become addicted to yourselves.
I rejected all of those and went to the other, other side of the coin, which is when the
Elders were teaching me something, what they taught me was that to be more, what I would
refer to [as] a part of what is out there–rather than what I want.
That was the basic lesson.
Because climate change in today's vernacular no longer is climate change.
It's a done deal.
The trainwreck already happened.
We're just gonna have to figure out how we're going to speak to each other in terms of not
only rebuilding, but what it is we are going to rebuild.
We don't want more scientists.
We don't want more universities.
We don't want more industrialization, more capitalism.
We want more values.
Values is the key.
When we say values run everything in our life, everything else automatically comes in to
being in terms of benefit as opposed to what we would call impact or hostility.
So, that's my short version of a three-year degree in climate change.
[Justin and Schaeffer laughing.]
[Schaeffer:] Well, quyanqpuk!
And, yeah, the words of wisdom for health and wellness of all people, right?
[Justin:] Yep.
For everybody.
[Schaeffer:] Yeah.
Thank you.