Summer Blog Post #1

  When in Alaska, the first thing many people would see are the mountains reaching towards the sky or the endless forests. For me, I saw the deep culture of those inhabiting the towns, mainly the language. Throughout my trip, in every group I was in, our tour guides would be young people who grew up with their native tongues while learning English at their local schools. Even when speaking, they constantly switched out common phrases like “Yes” and “No” to their native alternatives, explaining to us that such a switch in their tongues was normal for the inhabitants. They had their own tribes within the towns, such as the Crow tribe or the Bear tribe, that, although spoke slight variations of the local languages, had lived side by side for generations, praising the younger generations for learning and using their languages. I saw this throughout my experiences in Alaska where even young school children could be heard switching from English to their native tongues.

  One of my first group guides had driven our bus to our canoeing site. Throughout his explanation of the local history, he began explaining the five types of salmon caught in their waters. There was the Dog salmon, the King salmon, the Silver salmon, the Red salmon and the Pink salmon. Although, that’s not what he called them. He instead called them, in order, the Chum (Dog) salmon, the Chinook (King) salmon, the Coho (Silver) salmon, the Sockeye (Red) salmon and the Humpback (Pink) salmon. ‘Chum’, ‘Chinook’ and ‘Coho’ meant ‘Dog’, ‘King’ and ‘Silver’, respectively, while the Sockeye and Humpback salmon got their names from their appearances. The Humpback especially from the salmon’s back shape during the mating season, making local fisherman call it the ‘Humpback’ salmon instead of the ‘Pink’ salmon. Even in times of the extinction of local languages, it is communities in cities like Alaska’s salmon capital, Ketchikan, that teach their young generations to both carry on their native languages and learn the international language of English.