Year-round, Sitka’s bul­letin boards are thick with fly­ers of talks, class­es, per­for­mances. My Hokey-Pokey pres­ence – one foot in the com­mu­ni­ty, one foot out – has often meant that if it sounds like some­thing I’d like to expe­ri­ence, it’ll hap­pen while we’re out fish­ing. The tim­ing of this sign was a wel­come exception:

“Tomor­row night… We’ll actu­al­ly be in town!”

Built in 1914, the Alas­ka Native Broth­er­hood Hall is a green shin­gled hulk of a build­ing. It squats on the cre­osote-coat­ed shoul­ders of tired pil­ings, between street and shore, and hosts the farmer’s mar­ket, com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings, fundrais­ers, and memo­ri­als. Locals refer to it with a gen­tly slurred “Ayne bee,” let­ters exit­ing lar­ynx with the soft spring of walk­ing on muskeg.

I entered ANB with déjà vu. A life­time ear­li­er, I ran a din­ner pro­gram for home­less youth. Teen Feed was host­ed by gen­er­ous neigh­bor­hood church­es, base­ments that fol­lowed exact­ly this lay­out: indus­tri­al kitchen, heav­i­ly-laden buf­fets with vol­un­teer servers at the ready, care­ful­ly spaced fold­ing tables for guests. But instead of ask­ing us to sign in and check any weapons, the bird-like woman at the door opened her cash box.

“It’s $12 for the king salmon din­ner. The gorg­ing table is here, and the tast­ing table is over there.” Clear­ly stat­ed and seg­re­gat­ed for a rea­son: har­vest­ed under sub­sis­tence reg­u­la­tions, tra­di­tion­al foods are ille­gal to sell.

Care­ful­ly hand­writ­ten labels iden­ti­fied each dish and its har­vester. Her­ring Eggs, Sit­ka Tribe. Seal Fat, Vir­ginia Phillips. Gum Boots (Chi­tons), Isabel­la Brady. I exchanged a grin with the man next to me in line, fel­low trav­el­ers shar­ing the won­drous dis­place­ment of step­ping into anoth­er cul­ture, with­out leav­ing Bara­nof Island.

Sea Aspara­gus with Seal Oil, Aguduk (Eski­mo Ice Cream), & Cockles

At the gorg­ing table, I did just that. Baked king salmon heads, hal­ibut, pur­ple pota­toes, veni­son stew, moose sliced like roast beef, her­ring eggs on hem­lock branch­es; I said yes, please to everything.

From the gorg­ing table.

A friend raised an eye­brow. “You’re real­ly goin’ for it, huh?”

I’d crewed for him years ear­li­er. With a freez­er full of veni­son and elk, his wife strug­gled to accom­mo­date their veg­e­tar­i­an deck­hand. His unasked ques­tion echoed between us: You wouldn’t eat the meat I pro­vid­ed, but you’ll eat this?

A fish-slay­ing veg­e­tar­i­an… I became this oxy­moron 7 years ago while crew­ing for my broth­er, when we didn’t take any red meat aboard. A day on Mom’s farm, for­ev­er after known as the Great Turkey Mas­sacre of ’06, took poul­try off my plate. Seafood stayed. If I could embrace the respon­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing a crea­ture from its liv­ing self to my table, I rea­soned, then I could eat it. I don’t enjoy killing fish, but with 24 sea­sons of blood behind me, I can do it quick­ly, with gratitude.

Our table was qui­et, usu­al­ly bois­ter­ous friends shy with the unfa­mil­iar set­ting and food. The oth­er woman, a farmer turned first-time deck­hand, shared my enthu­si­asm. We wad­ed through heap­ing plates, reflect­ing on our own har­vest­ing expe­ri­ences of berry pick­ing and mush­room hunt­ing in the Pacif­ic North­west, and eval­u­at­ing each bite.

“Ooh – that was a real­ly tart berry!”

“I liked the seal; it was like liv­er, but milder.”

Eula­chon, Tlin­git Delight, Cock­les, Chi­ton, & yes, Muk­tuk (Whale Meat)

Then the morsel of truth: I stud­ied the cube of whale meat and ques­tioned my dou­ble stan­dard. Why did­n’t I feel con­flict­ed over con­sum­ing a crea­ture I hold such rev­er­ence for? Know­ing that my white self will nev­er be part of an indige­nous whale or seal hunt, why did this feel okay? More than okay — why did it seem a priv­i­leged oppor­tu­ni­ty, an invi­ta­tion to par­tic­i­pate in some­thing sacred?

Con­tem­plat­ing Muktuk

Ques­tions that aren’t eas­i­ly answered. So I popped that glis­ten­ing morsel into my mouth, a per­fect divi­sion of white and dark, and chewed. And chewed. The fat­ty white – blub­ber – sur­ren­dered, while the ridged black skin resist­ed each bite. Focused on the unyield­ing tex­ture, I couldn’t artic­u­late the taste. My lan­guage – spo­ken lan­guage, ances­tral lan­guage – doesn’t include those words.

Com­mu­ni­ty matri­arch and Alas­ka Native Sis­ter­hood pres­i­dent Isabel­la Brady called for atten­tion. Stead­ied by a walk­er, her small frame was incon­gru­ous to the pow­er­ful ener­gy she radiated.

“Let’s have a lit­tle prayer.” Head bowed, her voice was firm. “Heav­en­ly Father, thank you for this fel­low­ship, as we share tra­di­tion­al Native foods and reg­u­lar foods. Thank you for this great coun­try and this life we live.”

Next she ges­tured to a smil­ing woman seat­ed near­by, bal­loons stream­ing from the arms of her wheel­chair. “It’s Evelyn’s birth­day today, so let’s all sing Hap­py Birth­day to her.”  The packed hall gave an enthu­si­as­tic ren­di­tion, with applause break­ing out after the final “to yoou­u­uu!”  But Isabel­la raised her hands to silence us. Soft­er, with few­er voic­es to car­ry the song, anoth­er melody rose to the rafters. The Tlin­git tones shiv­ered across my spine.

Approach­ing to give thanks, I inter­rupt­ed Isabel­la mid-birth­day cake bite. She was tol­er­ant of my ques­tions, explain­ing that the din­ner was a fundrais­er for Cel­e­bra­tion 2012, ANB’s 100 year anniver­sary. The civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tion was found­ed by Peter Simp­son, a Cana­di­an-born Tsimshi­an man.

“Do you know who that is?” She peered at me sharply, and gave a curt nod at my shak­ing head. “He was my grand­fa­ther.” She ges­tured at the pho­tos on the walls, framed black-and-white por­traits of elders whose grand­chil­dren were now wiz­ened and wise.

I thought again of Teen Feed, recall­ing qui­et kids who found excus­es to loi­ter after din­ner, crav­ing a moment of undi­lut­ed atten­tion. Bel­ly full, spir­it hun­gry. Dis­tract­ed by their loud­er, more overt­ly-demand­ing peers, too often I swept them into the night with pre­oc­cu­pied good­byes. Be well, sweeties.

And now, lin­ger­ing at the bor­der­land of the gorg­ing table, I was that qui­et kid. I want­ed to sit at Isabel­la’s feet and lis­ten — to her trans­la­tion of dev­il’s club and skunk cab­bage rustling in the Ton­gass, of salmonber­ries swelling in the spring and pink salmon spawn­ing in the fall, of rain­fal­l’s many songs and raven’s water­fall laugh­ter. To any­thing she’d share.

Alas­ka Native Sis­ter­hood Pres­i­dent, Activist, & Fry Bread Magi­cian Isabel­la Brady

But pres­i­dents are peo­ple in demand. She was sur­round­ed by a crowd of friends, while I was an out­sider in every way. Cap’n J and I slipped out the door, shar­ing a final piece of fry bread slathered with spruce tip jel­ly as we reflect­ed on the evening.

Joel had strug­gled with his deci­sion not to try the muk­tuk. “I thought about it. But it didn’t sound like some­thing I’d like, and in the end, I just didn’t want to eat whale.”  How indi­vid­ual our hearts’ voic­es are, I thought. The unapolo­getic car­ni­vore shunned the meat of a being he feels con­nect­ed to, while the peskatar­i­an who apol­o­gizes to the fish she kills chowed on down.

I grinned for his inspec­tion. “Do I have whale meat caught in my teeth?”

“Uh… Actu­al­ly, you do.”

My tongue toyed with the sin­gle fiber of black skin wedged against an upper incisor. I felt oth­er­world­ly. A lit­tle high. Was it the rich­ness of the food, the rad­i­cal onset of so much pro­tein? This 33-year old diges­tive sys­tem reel­ing from so many nev­er-before-encoun­tered substances?

Prob­a­bly all of the above. But I’d rather inter­pret that out-of-body sen­sa­tion as the phys­i­cal embod­i­ment of belief. Faith that we become, on some small lev­el, that which we consume.

[Want  to con­tribute to Cel­e­bra­tion 2012? Tax deductible dona­tions, made out to ANS Camp 4, can be sent to Alas­ka Native Sis­ter­hood Camp #4, 235 Katlian Street, Sit­ka, AK 99835.]