Every summer for the past 30 years, culture camps have been held in a remote forested landscape on Afognak Island in the northern end of the Kodiak Island Archipelago. Better known for youth summer camps, this month from Aug. 1-5 the island hosted the inaugural adult sobriety camp.
The namesake settlement of the Native Village of Afognak, a federally recognized tribe, was devastated by the 1964 Good Friday earthquake and tsunami. Today, Afognak Island, also known as Ag’waneq in Alutiiq, has no permanent residents. Many relocated to what is today known as Port Lions including Olsen’s grandparents, while others moved to Kodiak, or left the island archipelago and even the state altogether.
But in the summer the tribe brings people to the island by boat, bridging past and present, through cultural summer camps.
55-year-old Mike Olsen regularly transports people to Afognak Island on his 18-foot Hewes Craft. He’s a tribal member. Too young to have grown up in the village, but his great grandparents had a house there. He remembers visiting the old village site as a kid with his family.
“As soon as I leave Antone’s and start coming this way, my heart starts going pitter-patter because I know I’m going to a land of where our beginnings are from," Olsen said.
Today, the Tribal Administrator for the Native Village of Afognak, Candace Branson, helps organize annual camps on the island for tribal members and other Alutiiq/Sugpiat people. The Tribe’s campsite has several cabins overlooking a small lake in the forest just feet away from the beach. Branson said the Afognak Native Corporation gifted the property to the Tribe.
“I think this plot of land because surrounding us is archaeology sites and this was Dig Afognak," she explained. "So we did used to dig here.”
Now instead of an active archaeological site, it’s a one-of-a-kind summer camp that includes a banya (sauna), a zipline and most importantly a connection to living Alutiiq culture.
During the last camp of the season, adult campers spent time processing a deer, braiding seal intestine and carving soapstone into seal oil lamps or naniq.
Making a lamp requires lots of scraping, elbow grease and time. But Branson said afterwards the campers leave with a physical piece of culture to pass down and the cultural knowledge of how and when to use it.
“We talk about lighting it in meditation, lighting it at ceremonies, at holidays, at gatherings, making sure to teach each other how to light and tend a lamp is something that generations have not done and haven’t practiced," she said.
These newly carved lamps are unique and different from the traditional seal oil lamp that has been used at the Afognak summer camps for years and is housed in the center of a special yurt.
This is the last summer the current yurt, which has been around for years, is being used. The Native Village of Afognak is putting up a new one for next summer on the same platform to serve as a space for more singing and storytelling according to Branson.
During the sobriety camp, several participants shared their experiences of generational trauma and their struggles with substance use inside the yurt. The five-day camp included regular Al-Anon meetings, talking circles, as well as healing and recovery opportunities through self-expression activities, like making identity boards.
These are poster boards, some decorated with personal photos and painted colors and designs that are unique to the artist.
Elder and master sewer Susan Malutin said an identity board is a way to visibly represent who you are in the same way traditional tattoos do.
“And even today people, young people too, put tattoos on themselves that identify with certain people, with certain experiences and all that has meaning for them, as it did for our ancestors with their tattoos for dancing, for ceremonies," Malutin explained. "Each village had specific, maybe colors or decorative pieces that they used in their beading, the way they did their regalia, their tools. So that’s the same principle, this belongs to you. This is yours. This helps you identify who you are.”
Olsen, the boat driver and tribal member, didn’t participate in this sobriety camp. But he welcomes the new offering and said you can’t put a price tag on its value.
“I think the sobriety camp addition is a beautiful thing," Olsen said. "It’s an emotional part for me because I unfortunately had a sister that passed on because of addictions.”
This summer’s sobriety camp had roughly twenty people participate. Branson says their registration fees were covered by Kodiak Area Native Association.
The sobriety camp wrapped up Aug. 5 and was the island’s last one for the season. Camps will resume next summer.
