Chatter Marks

EP 63 All or nothing with Rosey Fletcher

Former Olympian Rosey Fletcher grew up in Girdwood, Alaska, and remembers having an unconditional love for snowboarding. The riding, the friendships and the competition. There was nothing she wanted to do more and she had aspirations of being the best. So, she worked three jobs to pay for her coaching lessons — the video store in Girdwood, The Bakeshop, and a little restaurant in Bird Creek. As she got better at snowboarding and at competing, she started winning local competitions. Then, when she started winning those local competitions, she was invited to national competitions. When she started winning those, she was invited to competitions where she competed against the best in the world.
She competed for 15 years, from her late teens into adulthood. In that time, she reached the podium locally, nationally and globally. She received silver medals at the World Championships, World Cup gold medals, and a Bronze medal in the 2006 Winter Olympics. That same year — in 2006, at the Olympics — she made a decision to leave the world of competitive snowboarding. It was a quiet exit. She didn’t make a big deal out of it and she didn’t tell anyone. Instead, she savored everything about the experience — the stops at ski resorts, the hotels, the people she met and her fellow competitors. To this day, she doesn’t regret her decision to leave because she accomplished what she set out to accomplish.
She says that her strongest attribute is her perseverance. How whenever she’s faced with life’s obstacles, she keeps going. When she left the competitive snowboard scene, for example, she jokes that she didn’t have any life skills and that she barely knew how to boil water. So, she made a point of learning how to cook. Now, she loves everything about the process of cooking, down to the meditative practice of preparing the food. That same passion goes into her work as a health and wellness instructor. She approaches it like an athlete. She only gets an hour with her clients and she intends to use that time to its full potential.

EP 62 Alaska history from the bottom up with Ian Hartman

Historian Ian Hartman is an Associate Professor and Department Chair at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He teaches history from the bottom up, meaning he looks for how regular, working class people have been agents of change throughout history. This is the opposite of how so much of history has been recorded, which has looked at it through the perspective of The Great Man Theory. The Great Man Theory, as it relates to history, looks at leaders and other perceived great men as heroes and the sole agents of change. Ian points to the Civil Rights movement and the general cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s for shifting our understanding of history.
Ian is also a public historian known, most recently, for his work on the history of the Alaska Railroad and a book he co-authored with Alaska public historian David Reamer about the history of the black experience in Alaska. The book, Black Lives in Alaska: A History of African Americans in the Far Northwest, details how Black men and women have participated in Alaska's politics and culture since before statehood. How Black history in Alaska is almost by default a history of the bottom up. It’s a history that involves racial discrimination, but also involves people mobilizing themselves in the face of that discrimination. How they were, and are, agents who are capable of forging social movements and solidarity. They rose up and involved themselves in the workings of the state. 
His work on the Alaska Railroad will soon be on display — along with the work of other experts — at an Anchorage Museum exhibition titled All Aboard: The Alaska Railroad Centennial. The exhibition highlights crucial moments, technological innovations and human stories connected to the railroad and its operations in Alaska. An interesting fact about the people who originally worked on the Alaska Railroad is that the majority of them came from Alaska. They were already in the state working the Klondike Gold Rush and, when that ended, workers — who were generally young, single men — found more work helping to construct the railroad.

EP 61 Being authentic and a fear of forgetting with Zane Penny

Musician Zane Penny says that every creative endeavor he’s been involved in has led him to where he is right now. It goes back to 5th grade, when his mom heard about an audition for a short film. Zane was interested, but he’d never acted before, so he was nervous. So nervous, and full of doubt, that he almost skipped the audition all together. But then, at the last minute, he decided to go. Everything else has flowed from that moment. More acting gigs, filmmaking, creating music and joining Vitus Collective, a group of young musicians and artists based in Anchorage.
Joining Vitus Collective was an important milestone for Zane. It introduced him to a group of likeminded youth and it also helped him realize the importance of young artists, that their message and their perspective matters. There was a problem though, there was nowhere for them to perform. So, in high school, Vitus began hosting all ages shows. These shows were a success, at times bringing in around 300 people. Reflecting on it now, Zane says that when kids have the opportunity to support their friends, they show up.
A big part of the music, for him, is the fashion that goes along with it. When he was younger, he wore clothes that made him stand out — a hood with bunny ears, tank tops and metal chokers. He looks back on those choices now and he laughs, but he understands that that was his way of expressing himself back then. In fact, he keeps a lot of those clothes around his house to remind himself of where he comes from. The clothes, and other pieces of his past, help him fight his fear of forgetting. This fear of waking up one day and realizing that the world has gone on without him. Everything is different, but he’s the same. He thinks this fear stems from some of his family’s issues involving alcoholism. So, in general, he stays away from alcohol, and instead focuses on the thing that helps quiet that fear, his music.

EP 60 Little, wild places with Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich

Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich grew up in Galena, Alaska, a place that continues to have an impact on her art. You can see it in her beadwork and the masks and sculptures she creates. They represent — among other things — birds, berries, caribou, seals and fish. In fact, when she thinks back on her childhood in Galena, fish are a big part of her memories. She remembers watching them being caught in fish wheels and by people along the Yukon River. She also remembers being told to be mindful of the river because of what it is — this thing of nature that brings bounty, but can also bring destruction if you’re not careful around it. Overall, she remembers the sense of freedom she felt growing up in such a rural place, being one with nature and with wildlife.
She lives in Anchorage now and talks about the importance of little, wild places. How Alaska is known for its size and its scale — its large, open spaces occupied by trees, grass, mountains and wildlife — but little patches of wilderness are important too. They can be an untamed patch of grass that grows on the sidewalk or a lake in the middle of town. Anything that brings you back to the earth, back to being one with a natural environment. 
When Erin thinks about being one with her natural environment, she doesn’t recall one single image. She recalls moments and sounds that create a feeling — like running water or fishing in the rain with her mom. Thinking about this one morning when she and her mom were out dipnetting on the Kasilof River and it was pitch black, there were seals fishing in the water, it was raining and they could see dark clouds on the horizon and an incoming thunderstorm. She says that she felt in-community with the natural elements around her — with the seals and with all the other people who were out fishing.

EP 59 Self-realization, reclamation and embracing their Eyak heritage with Brother Buffalo

Brothers Garrett and Jake Swenson are part of the hip hop group Brother Buffalo. They’re of Eyak heritage, with roots in Cordova, Alaska, but they grew up in Anchorage. As far as their understanding of their heritage goes, they didn’t have much to go on because so much of the culture was taken from their people and documentation of it was either destroyed or spread across a number of museums. So, it was hard for them to figure out what being Eyak actually meant. Their connection to their past was limited and their access to generational stories were few. One connection they remember, though, was having traditional headbands that they’d wear to weddings and to special get-togethers. But then, in 2008, after Chief Marie Smith passed away, the language was declared dead. She was the last fluent Eyak language speaker.
In the last 5 to 10 years, the Eyak language has made a comeback. For their part, Garrett and Jake are learning the language and using it in their raps. They’ve been taking language classes for a few years now. The group meets once every two weeks, learning and practicing the language. In these meetings, Garrett and Jake say they’re learning more about themselves and their people. For them, the whole thing — understanding their culture and creating their music — is about self-realization and reclamation. They call their sound Inlet Music because that’s where they grew up — in Anchorage, surrounded by the Cook Inlet. Except for they don’t acknowledge the Captain Cook part of Cook Inlet because of what it represents — colonialism and erasure. That’s why they named their most recent album “Our Inlet.” It’s a reclamation of what was taken.

EP 58 Alaska cold cases, a family tragedy and the book that helped him process it all with Glen Klinkhart

Glen Klinkhart is a former homicide detective, and in 1981 his older sister was sexually assaulted and murdered at their home in Anchorage, Alaska. She had thrown a party at her house and after everyone left, a nineteen year old classmate returned. To cover up his crime, he burned down their house. He was later caught and sentenced to 75 years in prison.
Glen says that we can intellectualize why people commit heinous crimes as much as we want to, but the reason is ultimately very simple: People do it because they want to. Now, that choice might be corrupted by other things like anger, deviancy, mental illness or drugs, but at the end of the day it’s a conscious choice. The outcome of which is devastating to all those it affects. He says that, so often, the crime perpetrated on someone becomes their identity. It becomes all consuming and can result in a lifetime of guilt and bitterness. But recently, Glen has found ways to let go of those feelings. One of them is digitizing all of his dad’s 35 mm slides. He’s going through so many family photos and it’s giving him the opportunity to see his sister through a whole new lens, as the beautiful young woman she was.
Years ago, Glen was teaching a homicide class and one of his students asked him if having a murdered sister made him a better detective or did it make the job more difficult. He’d never thought about it before that moment, but he’ll always remember his response. He said, “You don’t have to have a murdered sister to be a good homicide detective, but it helps.” That became the first sentence in his true crime memoir, “Finding Bethany.” The book details his upbringing all the way to him becoming a detective for the Anchorage Police Department, with a focus on finding a young woman named Bethany Correira. He says that, in addition to his sense of duty to her and her family, working Bethany’s case — a case that had so many similarities to his sister’s —  also helped him process his sister’s murder.

EP 57 Overcoming trauma and perfecting an artistic process with Ed Washington

Ed Washington says that a lot of his music comes from a cathartic place — not necessarily from a need to be heard, but a need to express. He’s been that way since he was a child. In fact, there’s this video his dad took of him when he was a baby and he’s singing to himself. It was an early moment of something he would continue to do throughout his life, sing himself happy.
Last year, Ed spent a lot of time busking in downtown Anchorage. When he was out there, he sang his songs and he shared stories. He even did it barefoot because he wanted to be one with the city and the people. Connecting with people he encountered was important because he wanted to win them over and make their day just a little better. That’s what busking is, he says, you’re out there giving and not asking for anything in return. And if people feel compelled to pay you or take a picture, then that’s their choice.
For as long as he’s been doing music, he’s been a workhorse, dedicating every ounce of his time and energy to it. It’s something he took pride in — working to physical and mental exhaustion without paying any attention to his personal wellbeing. It took a bad breakup, a broken bone and working through his childhood trauma for him to refocus on his own health. He’s since reexamined old beliefs and techniques. The idea of perfection is a big one. He’s a believer that practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfection, or greatness, is in the fact that you show up and that you practice. The act of practicing is a way of life, and by doing it consistently Ed is seeking to perfect the process rather than perfecting himself.

EP 56 Creating new positive stereotypes with Martin Sensmeier

As a kid, Martin Sensmeier would daydream about being an actor. His older brother helped influence that dream. He had the first laserdisc player and the first flat screen TV in Yakutat, Alaska. So, Martin would go to his house to watch movies with him. He remembers it being such a special event. It was also special to see movies in the theater, but there wasn’t one in Yakutat. So, the only time he was able to go was when he went to Anchorage, Juneau or Fairbanks. His mom would drop him off at the theater in the morning and he’d watch movies all day long. For two or three days in a row, he’d watch every single movie in the theater and some of them he’d watch multiple times.
Growing up in Yakutat, Martin always wanted to play in the NBA or be an actor. It was always gonna be one of the two. The path to being a professional basketball player just involved so much coaching, travel and practicing around those who were also pursuing it at that level. So, acting won out, but it hasn’t been an easy road. Before he made the move to pursue acting, he worked in longshoring, in a logging camp, in construction, as a welder and on oil rigs. He was actually fired from his job in Prudhoe Bay, something he now considers to be a blessing in disguise. If he hadn’t been, he might still be up there waiting on an opportunity or the courage to leave and be an actor.
He pursues acting like he does everything in his life, like a warrior. He’s of Tlingit and Koyukon-Athabascan heritage and says that, in traditional Tlingit culture, young men started their warrior training at the age of seven. They learned how to test their bodies by training, running and hunting. He mentions one exercise where they would sit in the ocean and soak in cold water. Thinking about what it means to be a warrior today, he says it means being responsible, having good values and being an example of what it means to be a good person. This goes for how we treat each other too. Rather than getting caught up in divisiveness, we can break negative stereotypes by creating positive new ones.