In a remote Alaskan village, Brenda Gilbert has been making traditional crafts for most of her life, creating moccasins and barrettes, many with intricate beadwork, to give as gifts or to use for trade. Now, under a new cooperative program, Brenda Gilbert and other Alaskan Natives living far from cities will be able to sell their handmade crafts throughout the world using the 21st Century tools of e-commerce.
This October marked the debut of www.arcticways.com. This project was spearheaded by Professor Steven Dinero, a Philadelphia University professor of human geography, with the help of a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.
Even as a kid, Professor Dinero was fastinated with Alaska. He went there a few times as a tourist to curb his curiosity, but it wasn't until 1999 that he started doing research there. "I have always been interested in community development," said Dinero.
He began working on a project, which was setting up computer camps in Arctic Village in the Yukon Flats School District and in Nulato in the Yukon-Koyukuk School District. Through the National Science Foundation, Dinero was able to buy new computers. These computer camps have taught both web design and e-commerce for Alaskan native children. There was one in 2004, another in 2005, and there will be a third in 2006. Dinero hopes to improve the camps to where they, with the help of the University of Alaska, become available online.
"The children from throughout the school district had to be flown in to the camp," said Dinero. "The Yukon Flats School District is the size of Washington State, and yet has 350 kids. We're dealing with very large regions and each school in the village is not connected in any way."
This project led Dinero to a second project, which was setting up a website where Alaskan natives can sell their handmade crafts.
While Dinero was visiting the remote outposts of Arctic Village and Nulato, he wanted to create a way for the people living there to earn some money from their crafts. In Arctic Village, prices for things are very expensive because everything has to be flown in. Gas is $5 a gallon. Dinero got the motivation to start the website after seeing that everything is so expensive and unemployment is very high. Salaried jobs are few. Jobs consist of teachers and postmasters, and many families make ends meet only with the help of government assistance.
"These people are so isolated," said Dinero. "The Yukon Flats and Yukon-Koyukuk regions are poor native communities that have little access to the resources of the rest of Alaska and the lower 48 states. "We're trying to take advantage of opportunities that the Internet and the information economy offer that don't rely on the traditional road system."
The natives who live in this Alaskan Interior, a huge area roughly the size of the Midwest, are among the most northern band of American Indians. The towns are off-road and remote. The temperature drops to below 50 degrees every winter. There is no running water, no indoor plumbing, but they have satellite dish TV. For hundreds of years, residents lived off the land, hunting and fishing and making their own homes. And although most of these people's food still comes from the land, the culture has become more open to modern ways, and most natives are no longer able to sustain a lifestyle of living off the land.
"This is a classic third world situation," said Dinero. 'They are incomplete. People stay because of the culture, lifestyle and environment, but it's very difficult to make a go of it in these villages. My wife and two children have gone to meet me up there. My children watch Sponge Bob with the native children, but then the native children go off and hunt and trap their food. Our worlds are different, but we understand each other."
In Gilbert's town of Arctic Village, with a population of about 160, people have been using moose and caribou hides, wood and other natural materials to make moccasins, vests, gloves, snowshoes and fish spears for generations. Handmade moose hide gloves with intricate beadwork will cost $200 and up on the website. Traditional Alaskan Native moccasins that lace up will start at $150. Smaller leather items, such as pouches and cell phone holders will cost $25 to $40, and leather barrettes and beaded earrings will cost about $40 to $60. Special orders are also available. "We have a very good start," said Dinero. "There are nice products and a good variety, and there will be more to come."
The website www.arcticways.com is based in Fort Yukon, under the auspices of the Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments. A coordinator will travel to small villages to bring crafts people on board, negotiating prices and forging economic agreements where mostly an informal economy now exists.
"Some of the people are afraid to sell their crafts online because they've never done it before," said Dinero. "Most of the people who make the products have never used a computer. We're encouraging them to take the chance."
Dr. Dinero doesn't expect to make a lot of money off the website, but he wants to bring some hope into these communities, which tend to be depressed, and bring some opportunities for the next generation.
"These products are material culture of the people," said Dinero. "They are pieces of culture, and there is a connection between the product and the culture it comes from. They are not trying to meet a demand for something, but the crafts are very much a part of who they are and they are sharing it with us."