Having lived in the region for 50 years, Fr. Tom Provinsal, SJ, has been involved in crucial junctures of the history of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. He served as a teacher at the Catholic Copper Valley School, the first integrated boarding school in Alaska. He also got to connect with Albertina Cingyukan Dull, a Nightmute resident who passed away in April 2025 at the age of 106 and whose mother was only a little girl when the original Jesuits, Fr. Pascal Tosi and Fr. Louis Robaut, first arrived in the region.
"So the life of her mother and her own death is almost perfectly aligned with the time that we spent here," Provinsal said. "Through Albertina and her mother, I'm in a relationship with those first priests who were here. For me, that is amazing."
Provinsal currently serves the villages of Chevak, Nightmute, and Toksook Bay. He will be staying in the region until the summer of 2026, drawing upon his half a century of expertise to mentor incoming clergy members on how to effectively serve those in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
When reflecting on his time in the region, Provinsal is deeply grateful to have gotten to learn from the unique perspectives in predominantly Alaska Native communities as a white American.
"Myself being a European mongrel, it's difficult for me to understand the depth of being someone here [who can say] my family has been fishing this part of the river for 10,000 years," Provinsal said. "Well, there's a relationship, then to just in their own language, in relationship to the land, to their food, to the people who were here 10,000 years ago. And that's where you find relationship with God."
While it is bittersweet to leave his communities after so long, Provinsal feels emboldened knowing that he got to play a part in the centuries-long nomad tradition of the Jesuits, as well as getting to learn from and become a part of the connected history of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
"We're not ending anything. We're taking this step, and then you have to take the next step. That's tradition. There's a continuity," Provinsal said. "And so I feel blessed to be a part of that, and I feel blessed to be part of that community. I learned so much about relationships out here. It's not about being popular, it's about being known."
While he recognizes the legacy of harm committed by Jesuit priests in rural Alaska communities, Provinsal does not believe that those issues can be solved by arrest and ostracization. Instead, he emphasized the importance of leading by example in accordance with the Jesuit values and Catholic faith they swore to live by as a means to not repeat the harm of history.
"I know some people who were harmed, well then you be present for them. But if you're really going to be present, you have to have that within yourself, and that's where you have to start," Provinsal said. "The primary role of us as priests is to live the life that we have been called to live as first as human beings, then in terms of our own vows. And if we live that, then we can figure out how to do the healing part."
When recalling how things have changed in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta since he first arrived in the region back in 1975, all Provinsal had to say was, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
As a mentor to future clergymen serving in the region, Provinsal’s biggest piece of advice is to hold on to their authenticity and to actively value the unique strengths of others.
"You live your life according to the gifts that you have been given, whether it's cultural, whether it's religious, whether it's emotional, intellectual, musical, whatever it might be," Provinsal said. "And that's the most fully human way you can live. Jealousy has no purpose."
As his time in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta comes to a close, it is undeniable that Provinsal emerges as a crucial figure in documenting how the Catholic faith has influenced communities across the region. Yet as the times and church have changed, Provinsal’s commitment to his faith and the people he serves has stayed the same.
