My fellow Alaska Natives, do you know what you can do to change the world
Go home.
That's right, go home.
We are stewards of the land; God put us there to watch the land. We are living in a world that is lost, therefore, when we got caught up in it, we got lost too. If we go home, we retrieve our identity and help our fellow humans find theirs.
So I will remind you of the importance of our homeland.
Three Aborigine children walked across Australia, escaping the boarding school, subsisting off the land, and got back to their grandma in the Northern Territories. When the great Jim Thorpe's dad dropped him off at a boarding school, legend has it, he ran across the mountains and got back to his reservation before his dad did. In Sidney Huntington's book, a Koyukon woman walked hundreds of miles from Yupik land back to her village on the Koyukuk.
See This is how strongly we Natives value our homeland. Home is not only where our heart is, it is where our soul and ancestors live.
We have our issues there's no doubt, but as negative as our villages may be, it's still our home. But now our villages our disappearing. This is the greatest threat the Alaska Native world has ever seen.
The sadder thing is that this is a part of a worldwide out-migration. Chinese farmers and country folk are migrating to the cities in the biggest human migration in world history. The rural world as we know it is disappearing. The world is becoming urbanized.
Why should this worry you
Because nothing against urban folk, but when we live in urban areas it requires more use of modern appliances. Therefore we release more CO2. Carbon dioxide is what's causing the earth to warm.
We now have a great government taking measures to fight global warming, but we can help. We can help by going home.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski told us, "Don't move! Stay in your villages. We will find a way, somehow, we will find a way."
I want my people to go back home and revive the villages. Our ancestors want us to steward the land.
I was offered an internship in lots of Federal agency headquarters in Washington D.C., a position at Merrill Lynch in New York, a place in San Francisco, Seattle, and offered a job at the Tanana Chiefs Conference, but I chose to go back to Arctic Village. I immediately got on some organizations' boards, tried to inspire the high schoolers and lead my tribal government for a while. I plan on returning after I receive my degree.
Your village needs you. You can do what I did. There are lots of things to do in the village; you're just not looking in the right place. E-mail me for ideas: firstpeople27@gmail.com
The earth is now threatened by our fellow humans. By living in our village we will be watching the land and using less CO2. The world needs us to live in our villages.
I am working on a sustainability project in my master's degree studies. As Sen. Murkowski said, "We will find a way." I'm trying to find a way. I am trying to do my part.
The United States has always led the world. So as its First Peoples, let's be leaders to the world -- by going home and reversing the migration.
Pack up, and let's go home. Our fires are still burning.
Matthew Gilbert's home is Arctic Village. His e-mail is firstpeople27@gmail.com.
By MATTHEW GILBERT