Arctic

Arctic Slope Native Association celebrates 50th anniversary

Last week, hundreds of North Slope residents gathered together at Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital in Barrow to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Arctic Slope Native Association.

So many people attended that those in charge of the event nearly ran out of space to put them.

"We had to keep bringing in chairs to make sure the elders could sit," said Angela Cox, vice president of administration.

And it was elders who took center stage during the speeches and remembrances held throughout the day.

Their words and their stories painted a picture of the early days of the association, when its mission was making sense of land claims disputes and forging a contemporary governmental system for the Slope.

"When I woke up this morning, after [the event], what I was thinking was we had so many dedicated men and women, many of whom are gone now, who worked really hard to get some economy going up here to improve the lives of every household," said Marie Carroll, president of the association. "That's what I went away with, I think, a lot of hard working people in that period when we needed it to make our life what it is today."

The association has grown over time from a group of vehement activists to the nonprofit organization it is now. It manages the hospital and is hoping to expand into the field of elder care in the coming years.

ADVERTISEMENT

But throughout the changes, its long-term goals have stayed more or less the same.

"I think that the important thing to note is that our mission doesn't specifically say we only do hospitals or we are only a health and social services organization," said Cox. "It is to promote the health and well-being of the people of the Arctic Slope. And I think that very much relates to the same things that early leaders were saying because so much of what they were doing was directly tied to the land, which if you ask any Inupiaq person, so much of our culture is tied to our land, to our whaling, to our hunting. It's always been about who we are and our health as a people."

The organization started in 1965, in the heat of the land rights battles that forever changed the face of the Slope and the lives of its people. Three activists, Charles Etok Edwardsen, Jr., Samuel Simmonds, and Guy Okakok, Sr., came together to establish a platform from which to engage in the lengthy and contentious debates that marked those years.

Eben Hopson Sr. was named the first executive director and they held their first official meeting in January 1966 in Barrow.

At the meeting, the people who would make up the first board of directors sat across the table from one another, discussing their plans for claiming 56 million acres of the Slope, based on the land's worth, not its number of residents, according to ASNA.

When oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay shortly thereafter, the association was at the forefront of talks that spanned many years and thousands of miles, from the tundra of Barrow to the halls of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Early board members Oliver Leavitt and Jacob Adams told stories at the celebration of cramped, smoke-filled rooms, where they used to hold under-the-table bingo games to raise money for flights across the country.

"We started out as a people facing some pretty daunting tasks and needing a vehicle or an instrument to address the change that was coming. And that's what ASNA was born to do," said Cox. "But as that battle unfolded and as things played out over time, legislation was passed and that need went away."

The early faces of the association went on to become some of the founders of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation and the voices behind the formation of the North Slope Borough.

"I believe that they wanted to create their own destiny," said Carroll. "They had self-determination. They didn't want somebody else doing it for them. They wanted to take care of themselves. They were fiercely independent people."

As times changed, the association faded into obscurity. But after a while, new needs were identified and it was brought back to life with the same mission but a different direction.

When Carroll first came on board as an employee of the association in 1999, there were about 300 people on a waiting list to see a dentist. Community members were routinely sent out of Barrow for health care the hospital couldn't provide.

Since then, the association has opened a new hospital and hopes to be able to provide increased levels of care, like operating room procedures, in the near future.

"I think the biggest challenge we have now is to keep our families healthy physically, mentally, and emotionally, because things have changed so drastically and there's always other influences coming that are very negative like drugs and abuse of alcohol. So it's very challenging to try and move toward a healthier community," said Carroll. "I listened to a world leader once who said schools and hospitals are critical to a healthy economy and a healthy community. So, I know we need to keep working on that and make the improvements."

Looking to the past is a way to see the potential of the future, "to share with our young folks, to keep the fire burning, to keep our communities healthy and growing," said Carroll.

That's why this year, in cooperation with the regional corporation and the Arctic Education Foundation, the association established two scholarships for local students working in the healthcare field; they are named in memory of Edwardsen and Okakok.

"My vision for ASNA is to have solid ground and financial stability and to be this environment where people are always working towards recruiting our own and growing our own that we now have to import like doctors and dentists, pharmacists, radiologists," said Carroll. "All those jobs are available there and they're good paying jobs. So, my vision is to see our own people there, healthy, and in a great working place."

ADVERTISEMENT

In addition, Cox and a group of employees are working on a project with the Inupiat Heritage Center and Partnow Consulting to write a book about the early days of the association.

They are doing oral histories with elders like Leavitt and Adams, so everyone can have the chance to hear from that small group of people who have been around from the very start.

"I think that it matters that we recognize people before they are gone, that we allow them to tell their story, to share their wisdom and knowledge and experience with us," said Cox.

She recalled one of the happiest moments for her during the anniversary event. She was sitting behind Adams and Leavitt, watching them listen to current leaders of the North Slope speaking onstage.

"You have two of these amazing living legends looking on with pride at the people that they've invested in to take over. And I remember just feeling very happy that we are where we are today, that we still had them and their guidance."

This story first appeared in The Arctic Sounder and is republished here with permission.

ADVERTISEMENT