Delta Affairs Weekly

The state is trying to expand its Alaska National Guard membership in rural areas. In an effort to do so, the state is encouraging residents to join the state militia. The state started a militia unit in Bethel this past January, and military leaders traveled to Bethel this week to meet with the enlisted.

Over 6,000 Alaskans volunteered for the Alaska Territorial Guard during World War II. Over 1,000 volunteered from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The state is currently trying to track down these guardsmen to issue discharge papers so that they can receive federal veterans benefits. Many guardsmen are no longer alive. In those cases the state is trying to find their families.

This week students came to Bethel to study how people interact with tundra plants. The class is part of an ethnobotany certificate course out of the UAF Kuskokwim University Campus. Students came from Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland, and Canada.

When elders are in the classrooms, kids are more focused and more respectful. Elders are active. And the oldest and youngest members of the community form relationships.

That’s what schools across the state have learned from RurAL CAP’s Elder Mentor program. Almost half of the elder mentors in Alaska are in the YK Delta.

This week we speak with one recipient of this year's Rasmuson Artist Grant, renowned Alaskan musician Phillip Blanchett.

How can the University of Alaska Fairbanks system better respond to sexual assault cases on its rural campuses? That’s what a group of men from UAF came to the Kuskokwim University Campus in Bethel last week to answer. KuC is the third rural campus the men have visited with this questions. The trip occurred just days after an external review called the UAF’s handling of five sexual assault cases between 2011 and 2014 failures. The University of Alaska system requested the review be conducted.

Two weeks remain to submit public comments on the proposed Donlin Gold mine’s draft environmental impact statement, or EIS. This week, we have a two-part episode on the proposed mine.

Part 1: A conversation with Donlin General Manager Stan Foo, NOVAGOLD President and CEO Greg Lang, and USA Barrick Gold General Manager Andy Cole discussing how the proposed mine might affect the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta.

Listen to Part 1: