Anchorage Daily News

Elizabeth Hensley described an Alaska Native community at war Thursday. The fight is a legal one, for control of traditional Native land and hunting and fishing rights, she said, and a spiritual battle against social ills that can be traced back to colonization.

"The war that engulfs us today is a war fought on the battlefield of substance abuse. Self-hatred. Suicide. Rape. Child molestation. This is a war within ourselves," Hensley said, her voice catching as she addressed a packed room at the Dena'ina convention center in Anchorage.

The blunt, raw speech came as the second half of Thursday morning's keynote address at the annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention. The themes are old ones -- the convention has always been a place for villagers to rally for tribal sovereignty and to search for answers to social problems. But this year the messengers spanned generations.

Hensley is 26 years old and the daughter of Native land-rights pioneer Willie Hensley, who gave the other half of the speech.

As the conference began, Gov. Sean Parnell called for more village public safety officers. News arrived midday of federal money headed to Western Alaska to fix rotting village homes, and organizers held a memorial for Lu Young, the late wife of Congressman Don Young.

But first, the Hensleys' speeches struck at the convention's twin themes of history and change.

Willie Hensley is a Kotzebue-born Inupiat who was one of the founders of AFN in 1966. A paper he wrote in college outlined the moral and legal basis for the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

His daughter is a law school graduate and aide for Rep. Reggie Joule, D-Kotzebue. She said federal and state authorities aren't doing enough to protect Native hunting and fishing rights and appeared to call for tribal control over village law enforcement.

"What would happen if each of our tribes created a well-thought out, well-planned system for enforcing law and order?" Hensley asked. "Could any outside force really stop us, 231 tribes, from maintaining peace and harmony within our villages?

After the speech, subsequent speakers talked about her as a symbol of future Native leadership.

"Some of the first people who came up to me were elders," Hensley later said by cell phone. "People who have been devoting their lives to Alaska Native communities, and I think they were feeling hopeful that our generation, my generation, is understanding what they've been fighting for and willing to take up the issues."

Asked if she'd like to run for office, Hensley said she's busy learning in the Legislature.

She started to explain -- "I don't know that I'd want to jump right into anything" -- but suddenly had to cut the call short. Someone had given her the signal. She was needed back on the convention floor.

QUINHAGAK

Following a study that showed as many as 55 homes in the Western Alaska village of Quinhagak are rotting and potentially dangerous to live in, the U.S. Housing Department is giving the community a $450,000 grant to pay for emergency repairs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to announce the grant today, spokesman Lee Jones wrote in an e-mail.

Built in the 1970s, the homes are ill-suited for Alaska weather. An attempt to upgrade the houses in the 1990s only made things worse by trapping water in the walls, according to a report by the Cold Climate Housing Research Center that reviewed 10 of the homes.

The analysis said entry ways on some of the homes are in danger of collapsing, and an engineering firm declared the houses "unfit for human occupancy."

The housing research center reported the findings to Deputy Housing Secretary Ron Sims Oct. 1. The Department says the money is the maximum the village could get under the department's "imminent threat" grant program for Indian tribes and Alaska Native communities.

It'll be used to repair entry ways, roofs, floors and walls, according to the department.

PARNELL

Saying rural Alaska women and children should have just as much protection from domestic violence and sexual assault as those in Anchorage, Gov. Parnell said Thursday his goal is add 15 village public safety officers statewide each year for the next 10 years.

"But there's a problem," Parnell told the convention. "We have 71 positions (now), but only 58 of them are filled."

Parnell supports funding 15 new positions next year if the vacancies can be filled, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

VPSOs are sometimes the only police in remote, close-knit villages, where the job often forces officers to confront family members or friends.

Parnell called on rural Alaskans to help recruit new officers, saying the state has increased pay and benefits to try and attract people to the job.

The governor also announced the state has hired its first rural education director: Juneau school board member Phyllis Carlson.

LU YOUNG

Rep. Don Young's late wife, Lu, figured large in the convention's opening day.

A Gwich'in Athabascan from Fort Yukon, Lu Young died Aug. 1. Her husband, a regular at AFN, took the stage to accept an award on her behalf from Parnell.

"I know she's proud. As I am," Young said slowly and softly. "And she was a leader. She was a fighter. And most of all she was a mother."

The couple married more than 40 years ago.

"I love her, and I always will," Young said.

Parnell said the award is meant to honor advocates for Alaska Native women and children. Organizers later held a memorial for Young. The crowd stood in silence as 12-year-old Alyson McCarty of Anchorage sang "God Be With You" in Yup'ik.

The song was one of Lu Young's favorite, McCarty said.

Read The Village, the ADN's blog about rural Alaska, at adn.com/thevillage. Twitter updates: twitter.com/adnvillage. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334.

How to follow the AFN The state's largest gathering of Alaska Natives begins Thursday at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage. Sessions are open to the public, although seating is sometimes limited. Here's how to follow the action if you can't make it to the convention center: TV: Watch the convention live on GCI Channel 1 today from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the "Quyana Alaska" performances from 7 to 10:30 p.m., according to GCI. RADIO: Listen to the convention live from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on KNBA 90.3 FM. ONLINE: Watch the convention streaming online, and find the daily agendas, at the Alaska Federation of Natives site, NativeFederation.org. KNBA also plans to stream its radio broadcast at KNBA.org.

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