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Testimony

Submitted to the
Alaska Natives Commission
in connection with a hearing at

Nome, Alaska
September 21, 1992

ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage, Alaska 99503

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Witness List | Exhibit List | PDF Version

ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
HEARING
Nome, ALASKA
SEPTEMBER 21, 1992

Bertha Adsuna

COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: I'll go back on the list and see if there's anybody else that's showed up here. Josie Weyionanna? (Pause.) Albert Ningeulook? (Pause.) Dazee? (Pause.) Bertha Adsuna? Okay. (Pause.) Go ahead.

MS. ADSUNA: I don't even know where to start. (Laughter.)

COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Well, you could mention your name and. . .

MS. ADSUNA: Bertha Adsuna, Nome. Lived here for, oh, for 50 years. I know I'm always wondering why we can't do any fishing like other people, because that's what we lived on all our lives. And then when you can't get so many, you can't -- and the people that get it want to sell it for so much, you can't afford to buy. It makes it real hard for us to live on White people food all the time.

COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: You can't even live on it. (Laughing). Yeah. (Laughing).

MS. ADSUNA: I know. (Laughing). Being as old as I am, you can't live on that and store-bought food, but we have to, because we haven’t been able to do any hunting, because of Fish and Game stops you from hunting; and you can only get so many things.

Just like when you have to set a net, the only time we used to do fishing when my parents were alive, as soon as the fish start running, we start catching them while the weather's nice. And then we go on to the river. When the fish go to the rivers, we get them from the rivers, too. And it doesn't make any different.

That was when it was Territory, before it become a state. I think that's where all the trouble come in when Alaska become a state, There's so many rules and regulations that we didn't live by to begin with, and a lot -- to this day, I thank my father's not alive to fight against what he believed, 'cause he would have been in a lot of trouble if he was alive today and wanted to hunt the same way he used to when he was young, and get all the food he can gather for the winter.

COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay, I think that Nome is at the forefront of how the direction of subsistence is going, and from what I can gather on the testimony, a lot of people are not too happy about the direction in -- that it’s going. And it's real good to hear from the elders' perspective, too, that it is, indeed, need -- a food that is needed, and you can't deal with limits and weather, so. . .

MS. ADSUNA: Yeah, and the way they open them now is -- was in August sometime, and it's no time to dry them anymore, because of rainy season. And besides the fish gets too old by that time they go up the river.

COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you.


 

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Last modified May 16, 2011