Chatter Marks Anchorage Museum

In this episode, Cody talks to Dehrich Chya and Angela Gonzalez about the cultural importance of Sasquatch. Dehrich works at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak and Angela is an Athabascan artist and writer. Dehrich’s perspective is of coastal Alaska. He says that the Alutiiq people call Sasquatch or Bigfoot creatures Aula’aq, and its temperament ranges from being a threat to being a menace to being used as a cautionary tale. For example, parents might use stories of Aula’aq to warn their children away from dangerous areas. And stories of its appearance vary. Some describe it as tall, while others describe it as short, but it’s always hairy and many believe it to be a shapeshifter.  
Angela’s perspective is of interior Alaska. Growing up, she says that talking about Bigfoot was taboo, but that there are certain times of the year — mainly winter — when it’s appropriate to talk about it. Bigfoot is a powerful being, so it’s important to give it a lot of respect. While the curious might seek out stories of Bigfoot, others will avoid them out of fear of inviting that presence into their life. Angela says that it comes down to respecting the land, the animals and the water. Because in order to survive, we must live in harmony with our surroundings; we have to respect the symbiosis that exists between humans and nature. 

Jory Knott is the Executive Director of the Alaska Innocence Project. The Alaska Innocence Project started in 2008 under the direction of Bill Oberly, and it took seven years for them to get their first exoneration — it was the Fairbanks Four case, in which four Alaska Native men were wrongly convicted of murder and subsequently spent 18 years in prison. Jory says that that case involved a number of factors that led to a wrongful conviction, including eyewitness misidentification, incentivized witnesses, confirmation bias, racial animus, misconduct, and bad science. This was the case that got Jory interested in working with the Innocence Project — he was an intern then, but made the decision to go to law school so that he could work there full-time. 
Studies that consider the number of people who have been wrongfully convicted in the U.S. since the late-1980s estimate that up to 5 percent of the prison population is wrongfully convicted. In Alaska, that would mean about 150 innocent people are in prison. Nationally, the average person who is wrongfully convicted spends 12 years in prison before they’re exonerated. And Alaska is among about a dozen other states that do not have a wrongful conviction compensation statute, so exonerees don’t get any money following their release. Even convicted felons receive things like re-entry services, recidivism prevention, education, job services and drug counseling. But Jory says that, despite all of this, he still has faith in the criminal justice system because, for the most part, it gets it right and wrongful convictions are rare.

In this episode, Cody and co-host Aurora Ford talk to Heidi Huppert. Aurora is a former journalist and currently works at Covenant House Alaska; Heidi is the Chief Program Officer at Covenant House. Heidi’s perspective on homelessness in Alaska is unique because, in her younger years, she spent time on the streets of Anchorage. Her mom had a violent and abusive boyfriend and Heidi didn’t feel safe at home. So, one night after an especially brutal domestic situation, she found herself wandering around Spenard, trying to figure out what she was gonna do. She was about 12 years old and she had school in the morning. Because it was open and because it was familiar, she ended up just hanging out at McDonald’s.
She says that, for a long time, she didn’t tell her story. It was just too hard to relive those memories, and the violence and the pain that came with them. But right now, she’s at a point in her life where she sees how much power and strength there is in telling her story. How it can potentially help a young person understand that they might be in the middle of the worst moment or moments of their life, but it won’t last forever. Things can get better. 
Heidi says that the issues of homelessness and human trafficking — another issue that she deals with a lot at work — are ones that we have to care about because they involve young people and they are the future of Alaska. They will one day hold the political, economic and social power. So, if we want our state to be healthy, we have to care about what is happening to our young people. 
 

In the late 1990s, Buddy Bailey became the face of his dad’s furniture business, Bailey’s Furniture. He was 7 years old when he appeared in his first commercial — the crew filming it realized that the furniture itself didn’t have much character, so they suggested that Buddy get in front of the camera. He was a natural — his charisma and affability came easy. He’d chat about furniture and deals, and he’d even spin a basketball on his finger while he did it.
As the years went on, he became a local child celebrity. He continued being in Bailey’s Furniture commercials, and he was becoming a rising basketball star. When he was 15 or 16 years old, he remembers the Anchorage Daily News came out with a list of the most recognizable faces in Alaska and Buddy was number two, right behind U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.
Buddy says the lessons he learned from working at Bailey’s Furniture helped him on the basketball court. In basketball, like in retail, you’re dealing with personalities and egos, but you’re not always worried about money. So, basketball was easy. All he had to do was focus on scoring points and winning. This mentality, as well as his skill on the court, brought him all the way to playing college ball.
Today, he no longer works at Bailey’s Furniture, he quit in 2013 to pursue a career in finance and then in 2020 he founded a virtual lease-to-own business. He no longer plays ball semi-professionally either, but he does play recreationally. He says he’s probably a better shooter than he ever was and a better overall basketball player. He plays one-on-one almost every day at his local gym. He also coaches both of his kids’ basketball teams, teaching them that it’s not always about winning, it’s about learning life lessons and values — accountability, work ethic, the ability to fight for what you believe in, and how all of that will eventually filter over to your family.

Cody and co-host Aurora Ford talk to Josie Heyano. Aurora is a former journalist and works at Covenant House Alaska; Josie is a member of the United States Advisory Council on Human Trafficking, a presidentially appointed position. She was the first Alaska Native person to be on the board. Every member of the board is a human trafficking survivor and advises and makes recommendations on federal anti-trafficking policies. Josie’s perspective and contribution to that conversation is Alaskan. She’s often thinking about rural communities and the human trafficking issues they face — she says that most of the trafficking she’s seen there has an element of substance use coercion, mental health coercion and/or forced drug trafficking. And because of the remoteness of these communities, it could take three days and a float plane and a boat ride to respond to a crime.
 


In 2022, Josie, Charlene Apok of Data for Indigenous Justice, Prevention Now and Ride My Road started a yearly gathering called “The Alaska Data Summit: Translating Data into Action Against Trafficking Exploitation and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives.” One of the missions of the summit is to decolonize data so that, in the future, Native communities can reclaim and own their own data. It’s about taking back information so that it can be used for healing. Josie says that it’s about “making the data tell our stories” and “making it be representative of who we are.” Because data is a universal language, it doesn’t matter what field you work in, we all can understand numbers and their prevalence. So, by creating a universal data system throughout Alaska, information can be shared within the community, paving a path for a deeper understanding and better solutions to human trafficking.

For years, Shyanne Beatty has wanted to move back home to Eagle, Alaska. It’s where everything started for her — her love for culture, language, art and music. Today, she sits on her property in Eagle, along the Yukon River, and she imagines herself as a young girl, running down the river banks with about 20 sled dogs or trapping marten out at 40 Mile or walking to school, singing to herself to ward off any curious wildlife. Reflecting on this, she realized that music has been foundational for so much in her life, it’s carried her and it’s protected her. Radio too. She remembers one Thanksgiving out at 40 Mile, she and her dad were listening to “Trapline Chatter” and they heard her grandparents wishing them a Happy Thanksgiving. The reach of radio had made its impression on her. So, when she left Eagle, that passion for radio and love for culture, language, art and music manifested itself in “Earthsongs,” the radio show she hosted on KNBA in Anchorage. It highlighted indigenous artists, musicians, and it was the first nationally-syndicated show out of the state of Alaska.
Shyanne is in the process of revitalizing her Native language, Han Hwechin Athabascan. There are only four people left who can speak the language, and she says the process of learning it has been difficult because people have been resistant to teaching her. This is because land, subsistence rights, language, culture and even children were taken away from her people. So, the insistence on guarding these things is understandable. To learn the language, Shyanne resorted to a more academic setting, mainly through classes.
Lately, for about six hours a week, she’s been working with her aunt to continue learning and documenting the language. Usually they get together and cook, chatting with each other in Han Hwechin the whole time. And for all this, she wanted to be back in Eagle, on her traditional lands; to have that sense of place and belonging. Because learning and documenting her culture and lifeways is one thing, but it’s also about creating a reservoir of culture that future generations can learn from.