From the opening remarks to the final hours of the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) convention, talk of Western Alaska and the storm-impacted communities of the Yukon-Kuskokwim (Y-K) Delta filled the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage. That included federation co-chair and Bethelite Ana Hoffman’s sentiments in the convention’s welcome speech.
“Refugees are arriving here in Anchorage,” announced Hoffman. “These are dignified people that had livelihoods, homes with freezers full of fish, walrus, moose, berries, birds, seals.”
While the convention was underway, just a few miles down the road hundreds of community members from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok were evacuated into the city by C-17 plane. They made their way to two of the city’s other convention centers. But instead of craft fair booths and a stage, the Alaska Airlines Center and the Egan Center were filled with cots, bins of donated clothing, and relief volunteers as the spaces were converted into emergency shelters.
Doug Yates III, who has roots in Southeast Alaska and the Y-K Delta community of Tuluksak, attended the AFN convention. He said that thoughts of the evacuees permeated the gathering.
“When anybody speaks about it, you could feel their heart just sink because it's very, very real, and they're very close to us,” Yates III said. “That's also, you know, that's my Yup’ik tribe.”
Yates said that AFN is always about coming together — this year’s convention theme was "Standing Strong, Standing United." But he said that now, in particular, coming together will be part of the long road of rebuilding and healing ahead.
“That's what's gonna make this happen is we have to come together, and that's what our Native people do,” Yates III said. “It also is, like, we all have this fire inside of us, and when we come around our people the fire gets bigger.”
AFN was among the 12 tribal organizations that came together to form the Western Alaska Disaster Relief 2025 Fund in the hours after the initial impact of the remnants of Typhoon Halong. By the next week, during the convention, Native People’s Action Donation Coordinator Laaganaay Tsiits Git’anee announced an update from the Alaska Community Foundation: the relief fund had received over $1 million in donations.
AFN also held a traditional Haida blanket dance to raise money. Attendees danced to the stage to drop cash donations onto a blanket to add to the relief fund.
On the Dena’ina Center’s second floor, convention participants could drop off donations of food, clothing, and hygiene products to be split between emergency shelters.
Adam Hayes organized the donation drive held at AFN. Hayes said that what started as a small idea to drum up donations while people were gathered from across the state quickly exploded over the three-day conference.
“The pace has been overwhelming. So we originally started with six volunteers, and I think we've had 140 people helping in the last two days. And we could use probably twice that many, but we got it done,” Hayes said.
On the third day of the convention, donations spilled out of their designated conference room. At the loading dock in the back of the convention center, volunteers hauled boxes and bags of donations into the back of a truck headed to a larger, temporary storage space.
“There have been Elders taking the elevator from AFN all the way up to the second floor with donations in their hands,” said volunteer Kim Hayes, helping sort the donations brought in by the armful.
Hayes said that though she’s based in the Anchorage area, she’s traveled to the Y-K Delta before.
“I just know that these are our brothers and sisters in Alaska, and they're in total devastation. Their communities have been devastated,” Hayes said. “And I would just hope that people would do that for us if this happened, and it's just the right thing to do, and especially during AFN, when everybody's coming together, it just felt like the right moment.”
Among the 42 tribal resolutions passed at the AFN convention was a formal call for the immediate federal emergency declaration following the impacts of ex-typhoon Halong, and a call for immediate federal assistance.
