Last week, KYUK welcomed a new reporter into the newsroom. Samantha Watson, or Sam, comes to the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta from the East Coast, where she’s most recently worked for Vermont Public Radio. She grew up in Great Barrington Massachusetts, known for a few famous alien abductions, and attended the University of Vermont.
Watson sat down with KYUK news director Sage Smiley on morning show "Coffee at KYUK" on Nov. 25 to talk about her background and what drew her to Alaska.
Read a transcript of the conversation below. It has been lightly edited for clarity and flow, and may contain transcription errors.
Mathew Hunter: KYUK has a new person in its news department. Here's news director Sage Smiley to introduce us to Samantha Watson.
KYUK (Sage Smiley): So. 'Coffee at KYUK.' I have my coffee, you do not. Are you not a coffee drinker? Do you prefer that later in the day?
Samantha Watson: I am a coffee drinker. I was just not as put together this morning, but looking forward to my afternoon coffee today.
KYUK: Oh, indeed. I love that KYUK is such an industrial coffee machine – that we literally have an industrial coffee machine. It's a great part of working here. So I guess, to start out with the most basic thing, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you coming to the Y-K Delta from?
Watson: Well, hello everyone, I'm so happy to be here. I am an East Coast gal, so this is my first time ever in Alaska, and up until a couple months ago, I'd never been to the West Coast of the [United States]. So double exciting in a lot of ways. But I grew up in Western Massachusetts, in a rural area — a lot of cows, that's how I often describe it. And I went to University in Vermont, and then I lived in Maine for a little bit. So a lot of ping ponging around the East Coast, but this is my first real time getting to know a very different part of the country.
KYUK: So how did you make your way to Bethel specifically? There are many places you could go on the western coast of Alaska. I mean, Alaska itself, but then also the U.S. So what brought you to Alaska? What drew you to Alaska?
Watson: Well, for as long as I've been doing radio I've been super intrigued about Alaska and the media network here. I also just have always had this impression that the stories in Alaska are huge, and huge in the sense that even the small stories that take place in small towns have a lot of heart and meaning. Because people live out here, it has a little bit more meaning was kind of always my assumption or impression. But yeah, I'd been applying pretty consistently to stations in Alaska, and was kind of at the whims of that, which, now that I'm here, I’m really learning that Alaska is several states in one. So to be in Southern Alaska, Southeast versus Bethel is very different. But I was just super intrigued with this region. I also just have an affinity for rivers. And I think communities based around rivers are just, in terms of the food systems and transportation, have always caught my attention. I just was really drawn to the tundra. I thought that was something, it's something I'd never seen up until a week ago and arriving here, and I'm still seeing and hearing animals I've never seen or heard before. So just the uniqueness really drew me here, and I think also it not being on the road system, I was curious what the food systems were like here, and how people were subsisting, and people who have, I don't know. I just thought there must just be something to the community here if it is completely separate from the rest of the state.
KYUK: Definitely. I'm sure you'll get to discover all those facets of things that you're talking about as you spend more time here. Backing up a little bit, how did you start in radio? What brought you to working as a radio journalist?
Watson: Yeah, so in school I studied English and creative writing. I always loved to write poetry and stories, and I just randomly kind of took up this internship at a small local paper. So I started doing print journalism, and then through the University [of Vermont] there was this audio version, and I just could see the differences. And audio and collecting sound, it's just kind of a whole different ball game. The style of writing is a little bit more creative. And I think you can really focus on people, and there's just something, there's more humanity in audio and hearing someone speak things, their truths, in their own voice. And so I just kind of ran with that. I loved it. I loved being more creative. I also love the newsy side, and I love that it just continued to allow me to have conversations with people and learn about the world and be a curious person, which is how I want to be in my own life. And I just kind of stuck with it. I ended up getting a graduate certificate at the Maine College of Art and Design, the Salt Institute. And that was more of a documentary focus, which I love. And I think I pull that into what I do now, just it's, it starts with and ends with speaking with people and the people. And I've just loved it. I'm also a nerd for mixing things and to every stage of it. I just enjoy it so much.
KYUK: Yeah, radio journalism is so fascinating because it does kind of walk a middle line between print, where you can write in whatever details you want and people can read it at whatever pace they want. You sort of dictate that, but in this creative way where you can hear voice and intonation and how people are feeling about things. And yeah, I love radio. Many people who come to Alaska from outside either had never really thought of it until they came to Alaska, or have had this dream or vision of Alaska for a bunch of their lives. Do you fall into one of those two camps? And if so, which one?
Watson: Yes, as I told you, Sage, when I was a child, I hyper-fixated on the Iditarod in a very big way. I read a lot of books and watched movies. And then my second grade class, we followed the Iditarod. I think that was the year Lance Mackey won. I mean, one of many years, and we just followed every day where the racers were, and we had a little map, and it was just so exciting. And it felt completely far away from the Massachusetts classroom and so was a great place to imagine. I think I wrote stories about the dogs, and then I remember my teacher ordered us all rulers from Anchorage that had the Iditarod on them that I still have somewhere.
KYUK: That’s so sweet.
Watson: Something about it. I latched on.
KYUK: So does that make you extra excited for winter here in Alaska?
Watson: Yes, very excited for the [Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race]. And, you know, obviously the Iditarod is not all that Alaska has, and similar sports, but it was kind of the gateway. So I'm excited also just to report the stories on the edges of things like that and how the community prepares for something like that, which I've heard so much about.
KYUK: Awesome. Yeah, we are, the [Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race] coverage is one of the most lovely and wackiest times of the year here at KYUK. It's just open, free for all, everyone on the radio. And it is an incredible lift. And it's so cool to participate in. The [Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race] is what brought me to Alaska, basically, because I came and visited my aunt and uncle and volunteered at the [Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race] and met radio reporters, and thought, 'maybe I should be a radio reporter.' So it brings people together for sure. So going back to some things about you, I'm wondering, since you're working as a professional radio journalist now, if you have an earliest radio memory, the first time you remember listening to something on the radio, and if you can remember what that was. For me, I know we listened to the radio a lot. It was probably, 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me,' or something like that on NPR. But the first really distinct memory I have is of listening to 'This American Life' episode. I think the one about shrimp and how they can see all the colors.
Watson: That was the same for me. I think it was 'This American Life,' and they're just also such masters of the creating the ‘driveway moments’ that people talk about in radio, where you're listening to a story on the radio, it's so good you've driven home, you're sitting in the driveway, but you keep the car on to finish the story because you're hooked. And I'm trying to remember if there was one specifically, but just, I love that they're little parables about life. And there's one that I come back to, to get re-inspired. It's called 'The House on Loon Lake,' and it's about this guy who, as a kid, he stumbles into an abandoned house, and it's kind of like the jackpot of abandoned houses, and he pieces together in his adult life, like, the history of what happened to these people who kind of had to leave this house abandoned. So good.
KYUK: Wow. I'll have to look it up. Similarly, what was the first story you ever did? And you can define that however you want, whether it's, you know, a story that you told in second grade about the Iditarod, or whether that's as a more professional journalist or as a student journalist, what do you consider the first story you ever told?
Watson: Yeah, that's a good question. I think, when I think back to my roots in journalism, there was a summer before I left for college, and I was 18, and I was working on this farm. It was a family farm, and I just saw the ad in the paper, and I took it, and I just developed this beautiful relationship with the family. I fed the cows, I helped them repair roofs. But while I was there, someone passed away on the farm, and it was just the family's reaction to this I just, I really thought was so kind of bizarre. And I just remember that summer taking notes, like, every day in my car after working I would just kind of write about what happened and write about the family, and just, you know, years later, I've kind of, I was able to write something with that. And I think I kind of understand this family's, this farmer’s reaction to grief, which is to just kind of keep working, and is really kind of beautiful in itself. But that was the first time, when I look back, and I just felt really compelled to get the details down. And it was kind of reporterly, but just maybe also like a diary, but remembering this lived moment is really important, or there's story here, or there's something I'm trying to work out. I didn't even know if I was going to make something with it, it was just a cool process, and to do that years later as well was really cool, too.
KYUK: Definitely. What is your proudest work accomplishment so far?
Watson: One of my favorite stories I got to work on is when I was in Maine. The solar eclipse passed through the very top of Maine, and I went to report a story about the last town in the U.S. that was going to experience it, and it was a super small community, and they were preparing to welcome potentially tens of thousands of people into this town. It's right on the border of Canada; no one passes through there. And I went up about a month before the eclipse, interviewed as many people in the town as I could — shop keepers, town clerks, the people who run the movie theater. And then I got to go up for eclipse day and kind of get the sound of this town that was completely full of people, selling out of food, everything. And, I mean, that was just such a great opportunity to get to be welcomed by this community and embed a little bit. But it was probably the story that was most well received. And it just meant so much. The people in the community were really happy to kind of have this record of what had happened. And they're putting together an exhibit for their history museum, which is quite small, but they were happy to have that to feature there, and it made me think about radio as like anthropological work and history documenting, but it just for it to be received well and to enjoy it so much was very meaningful.
KYUK: Yeah, tiny history museums are so much fun, and that specific story about the eclipse genuinely made me cry when I listened to it. You did a wonderful job with it.
Watson: Thank you.
KYUK: How about outside of work? What do you feel like your proudest accomplishment is so far?
Watson: I recently told you about this. I recently came back from traveling. I did this walk in Spain, the Camino de Santiago, where you hike each day, you sleep in this kind of communal situation. You all make dinner, and then it's this pilgrimage to Santiago. It takes about 33 days, and that was just like a big dream for so many years. And I think that was the first thing I've done in my life that, I kind of took the reins and broke the piggy bank and did this thing that was really important to me. So that feeling of finishing that was huge. But I just, I love walking and living outside and meeting people and making dinner in big groups. It was just kind of this, this just all-around great experience.
KYUK: What was the best day on that 33-day experience?
Watson: There was one where there was, like, this alternate route you could take, and it was through the mountains. The normal route was completely flat. And I got really jazzed by this, so I kind of convinced some friends to do it, and the town we were leaving from was so excited we were doing it, and they gave us ribbons to mark the trees, and we just, we walked, and it was beautiful. And we ate lunch in a cow pasture, and there was this farm dog that followed us for a long time, and we kind of had a dog, but it was beautiful, and it felt like we were kind of helping create this path. And it was just a great day with friends I had made. That sticks out.
KYUK: What are you looking forward to in your time here on the Y-K Delta? What are you most excited to experience, or see, or get to know?
Watson: I'm really just curious to see how life revolves around the river and the stages of it being frozen over enough to drive and become the ice highway, and then in the summer for fishing and for boating up and down, and how people use that as transportation, but also subsistence. So I'm just curious to be here for long enough to see the seasons change and life change around that.
KYUK: Absolutely, and is there anything you feel like you want people specifically to know about you as a reporter or as a person as you start to explore the Y-K Delta and work on telling stories for KYUK?
Watson: First is that I'm just incredibly privileged to be here, and I'm super excited, and already everybody has been so welcoming. I think I love being a reporter because it has so many of the values that I want to have in my own life — to be open and curious and a good listener, and so I always approach those things. And to me, that's who I am as a reporter, and who I am is they're very blended, and I spend a lot of time thinking about that. But when I am on and off the microphone, I'm here to listen, and I'm here to have good conversation and to learn about this place and this community. So yes, always, always happy to talk, and I'm excited to meet even more people in this lovely community.
KYUK: Well, thank you so much for introducing yourself just a little bit to the community of KYUK and the broader Y-K Delta. We're so excited to have you here Sam.
Hunter: That's KYUK news director, Sage Smiley speaking with Samantha Watson, who has just joined KYUK’s news team.
