4.2: Personal Story

After reviewing Dr. Becker's Blog 3, two ideas that she had in her blog reminded me of home: nature deficit disorder and ecovillages. I grew up in a rural town known as Bethel, which is located in southwest Alaska. The only way to get into our town is to fly in (the nearest city is 400 miles away), and there aren't very many road systems in town. Our "roads" were the rivers and vast expanse of tundra that our ancestors had travelled and shared the unmarked paths with their children. I was fortunate enough to have my grandmother to teach me how to navigate those rivers to get to "fish camp" and other neighboring villages, as well as places we went to pick berries during the summer months.

In the winter months (8 months out of the year), my friends and I had many activities that we were involved in outside. As a child, we never suffered from nature deficit disorder, because we were constantly outside! In fact, after school, even though it would be getting dark by then, we would congregate on one of the many lakes in our neighborhood and cleared any snow off of the ice. We would enjoy making designs, making up games as we uncovered the ice, and afterwards ice skated. We would play tag, freeze tag, even hockey when we were feeling competitive. We created snow tunnels, constructed igloos (which is very difficult) and tried to find the best hills to slid on. Our schools didn't incorporate outdoor activities, because they felt liable if a child were to get frost bitten, so we always made sure we utilized our spare time outside. My childhood was amazing, and the friendships and times spent in nature were the most memorable.

Returning to the idea of an "ecovillage," my family participated in "fish camp" during the summer months that strongly resemble the functions of an ecovillage. In June, my family and I would travel by boat to a family established camp where we had been subsistence fishing with other families for generations. As a young boy, I was always eager to see my friends that I only connected with during the summer months because they lived in villages 30 or so miles away from Bethel. We lived in small establishments without running water and electricity. We spent 2 months harvesting salmon, where we preserved and smoked them for food.

At fish camp, we worked together to gather supplies we needed to survive while also taking care of the fish. It was here that I learned to only take what you needed from nature, that being firewood, specific wood that was needed to smoke the fish, and also to obtain the amount of fish we needed to last us through the winter months (which wasn't a lot). During our down time, I connected with many of the other children and we played on the muddy banks of the river, learning to swim, exploring the forested areas, playing lap game, and even making new games up as the days went by. Fish camp was a very social place where we learned to be sustainable and responsible for what we consumed from nature. Everyone had and shared specific tasks (i.e. hand washing and line drying clothes, cutting the grass, collecting wood, hauling water) and we continue to do this every summer. I hope to share this with my children or friends in the future.