TIPS FOR GETTING FUNDED

Developing your project• Partner with other individuals or

organizations to share resourcesand combine strengths. Onegroup might have experiencewith grant applications, whileanother might bring expertisewith implementation of theproject itself.

• Read requirements carefullyand think about them creatively,rather than in a limiting fashion.Adapt your project idea, asneeded, to be eligible forfunding. For example, if yourplan is to research place namesof a certain area, but a grantrequires an educational or youthcomponent, think about howyou could incorporate that.Sometimes your project ideamay change completely, butcould ultimately be a richerexperience and lead you toeven greater discoveries.

Completing your application• Grant applications can seem

overwhelming. Start early andbreak tasks down into small,workable sections.

• Many funders offerteleconferences with valuableinformation on completingthe application and requiredmaterials. Some also offertechnical support to guide youthrough the process or evenreview an initial draft of yourapplication.

• Before finalizing yourapplication, double-checkthat you have provided all therequired information.

• If funding doesn’t come throughthe first time, plan to tryagain! Ask funders for specificfeedback. You can also lookfor other funders on state andnational levels and adjust yourproject accordingly.

Documenting your project• Be sure to document your

project well, not only so youcan share your results, but soyou can complete the funder’sreporting requirements.Typically, you will need tosubmit a narrative about howthe project was completed,along with a budget reportabout how the funds werespent.

• Take photos along the way,record audio or video clips orparticipants and their responsesto your project.

• Think of the numbers! Howmany hours were spent on theproject? How many peopleattended a meeting or event?How many people could theyimpact in turn? Document thesestatistics for easier reportinglater.

Looking aheadThere are limitless possibilities for valuable projects that preserve, promote and celebrate native heritage. As you develop local, regional, state and even national contacts and resources, keep a list of ideas and wish lists. Whether you want to travel to get training, develop materials for local school children, or take time off of work to pursue traditional native arts, there are funding opportunities available.

ALASKA NATIVE PLACE NAMES PRESERVATION: FINDING RESOURCES, FUNDING PROJECTS, AND FOLLOWING THE LEAD OF LOCAL ELDERSPresented at the 2019 International Conference on Language Documenta-tion & Conservation (ICLDC) by Francisca Demoski, Mike and Anecia Toyukak

EXAMPLESPLACE NAME PROJECT IDEAS

BRISTOL BAY ONLINE!NATIVE PLACE NAMES PROJECT

www.bbonline.bbnc.net

These recent place names projects could give you an idea for your own.Nushagak River VillagesCommunity interviews were conducted to gather traditional ecological knowledge and place names from the Nushagak villages of Koliganek, New Stuyahok, and Ekwok. The data was made available on the Bristol Bay Online website.

Funding: Bristol Bay Native Association, Nature Conservancy, Bristol Bay Native Corporation

Dena’ina Place NamesKaren Evanoff, Lake Clark National Park, and Butch Hobson recorded place names in Dena’ina language. These were added to the Bristol Bay Online website.

Funding: Bristol Bay Native Corporation

Manokotak Place Names Anecia & Mike Toyukak of Manokotak, through the Manokotak Village Council, presented BBNC Land Department with two large maps containing approximately 70 place names documented from the Manokotak area.

Funding: Bristol Bay Native Corporation Education grant to Manokotak Village Council

Culture Camp The community of Igiugig held a culture camp that included both elders and youth. During the camp, the group collected 90 place names and audio clips of their pronunciations. A map of the Yup’ik/English names was developed for the community of Igiugig.

Funding: Bristol Bay Native Corporation Education grant to Igiugig Village Council

Elder Interviews BBNC has conducted interviews of Elders to collect their life histories and information about place names.

BBNC’s Francisca Demoski interviews Yup’ik Elder Alice Downey in 2012 about her memories growing up in Bristol Bay.

Tips for Interviews

Make sure your equipment is working and that you have plenty of memory space and charged batteries.

Take your time. Your interviewee might be nervous. Spend some time making sure they are comfortable.

Prepare questions ahead of time, but be flexible and ready to go down a different path. You will hear some amazing stories!

Bring a Native speaker with you if possible.

When interviewing Elders, take a gift of food or an item you can share.

Get permission for documenting and sharing the story and for using any photos you take. BBNC has sample Release forms that can guide you.

After the Interview Transcribe (type out) the story from audio or video. Keep the original, but also create an edited version for easy reading. Some interviews work best in a Question/Answer format. Others can be worked into a narrative format like the example on back.

Share your work/photos with the person you interviewed.

Alice Downey remembers well what she calls “the reindeer days.” It was the years between 1928 and 1930, and always just after the Wood River had frozen over. The herders – including her family’s Ciisiaq, Boyaq, Mincy and Qutaq – brought the reindeer from Mulchatna down to the back of Snag Point for butchering.

Downey never watched the harvest, but she recalls that the reindeer provided everyone all the meat they could eat. There were no moose at the time, they didn’t come down from the mountains until the highways were built well into the 1940s.

Now 90 years old, Downey spoke about the early days of what is now Dillingham for the Bristol Bay Online! Native Place Names Project, an effort by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation to collect, preserve and make accessible the information about Native place names for the people of Bristol Bay.

Born in Kanakanak on Jan. 3, 1922, to Peter and Annie P. Nelson, Downey said the land now called Dillingham changed names several times during her youth. It was

Nelsonville and when the Nelsons all moved to different places the Olson family stayed and it became Olsonville.

The hospital was always located here. Natives have always called it Kanakanak, which means a sick place.

Choggiung, meaning muddy water, was called by the white people Snag Point before it was named Dillingham. The post office moved to the area in about 1945. In 1944 the Nicholsons moved the Dillingham Post Office out of Kanakanak when they sold their store and moved it to Snag Point. It was called the Snag Point Post Office until 1944, when the town became known as Dillingham.

Downey’s father, Peter Nelson, took a job as a watchman at the Scandinavian Cannery, and Downey lived there until she was 19 years old. The cannery was no longer operating as a cannery but because of a store located here they needed a winter watchman. In the spring time Pete led a mud gang to take the scows and the tugboats out to the deeper water so that the fishermen and set netters could have their fish delivered to the canneries. They burned coal & wood for heat and had to get used to cooking on an oil stove when they were brought in.

When she was 14, she and her mother fished a set net above the cannery while her dad and her brother set netted below the cannery. They picked the fish and rowed to the cannery scow to deliver their catch. Occasionally, one fell into the water, and her dad would say, “Uh oh, there goes 5 cents.”

Downey went to school in Snag Point, where she walked from the cannery across Scandinavian Creek over a swinging bridge, near what is now the boat harbor.

They walked most places. Downey didn’t see a bicycle until she was in the ninth grade. It belonged to Walter Noden. Downey tried it out, and promptly went into the ditch and had to go to school all muddy. After that, she said forget it, she’d walk! They skated and used skis made of barrel staves and a strap.

Later, her husband, Jim Downey, and three others got together to buy the Floyd Smith Merchandise store, which became the Fisherman’s Co-op Trading Company, and eventually N&N Market.

This is a shortened version narrative version of Alice Downey’s story, adapted from a much longer interview conducted in 2012.

Elder Interview: ALICE DOWNEY

Yup’ik Elder Alice Downey at her home near Seattle, 2012.

Reindeer. From “Annual report on introduction of domesticated reindeer into Alaska” (1890)

“You can’t lose your culture as long as you are learning place names in your Native language.”— ROBERT CHARLIE, ATHABASCAN ELDER

MOMENTUMNEW SUPPORT FOR NATIVE PLACE NAMES

Tlax_satanjín – “idle hands”In March 2015, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially recognized a peak near Juneau as Tlaxsatanjín, a decision for the record books. It’s the first geographic feature with a federally recognized name in Tlingit. University of Alaska Southeast professor Lance Twitchell submitted the request for the official recognition of Tlaxsatanjín (meaning “idle hands” or “hands at rest”), a name that’s been used for hundreds of years.

Kusilvak Census AreaNamed for the highest mountains in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the Kusilvak (COO-sil-a-vak) Census Area is the official new name for the former Wade Hampton Census Area. Hampton was a plantation master, Confederate general and South Carolina governor who had never been to Alaska. The name change was supported by local cities, tribes, and organizations as well as state legislators and Governor Walker. The U.S. Census Bureau made it official in July 2015.

Denali – “the high one”In August 2015, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell decreed that Mt. McKinley would be officially named Denali, a Koyukon Athabascan word meaning “the high one.” The name change was requested in 1975 and has been long-supported by Alaskans. However, lawmakers in Ohio – birthplace of William McKinley – didn’t want to lose the namesake and consistently blocked a decision. Jewell used her authority as secretary of the interior to make a decision on the 40-year-old request.

In 1986, Dr. James Kari wrote about the controversy over the name, saying: “The proposed name change to Denali should not be construed as a dishonor to former President McKinley. This name controversy reflects a basic difference in cultural values. Athabaskans, in marked contrast to Euro-American cultures, never name places after people, and it is absolutely unthinkable to them that the tallest mountain in their traditional territory should be named for a mortal.

“Most Alaskans recognize the vulnerability of Alaska’s Athabaskan languages, most of which will become extinct as spoken languages early in the next century. It seems to me that if congress votes to officially change the name of the mountain to Denali, which is the clear mandate of the majority of people who have voiced their opinions, this will create more public awareness of the important of preserving Alaska’s heritage of aboriginal place names.”

Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis – “ancient grazer of the Colville River”In September 2015, the University of Alaska Fairbanks announced the discovery of a new kind of duck-billed dinosaur, a hadrosaur that lived in the arctic. Paleontologists have leeway in dinosaur naming conventions. Most are based on Greek words, typically with references to the geographic area where they were found or characteristics of the dinosaur itself. The arctic hadrosaur Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis (oo-GREW-na-luck) (KOOK-pik-en-sis) carries an Inupiaq name that means “ancient grazer of the Colville River.”

Teedriinjik, Ch’idriinjik RiversElders in Gwich’in villages of Interior Alaska are credited with starting the work that resulted in the official restoration of Gwich’in place names for what had commonly been called the Chandalar River and Middle Fork Chandalar River. In October 2015, the U.S. Board approved the use of Teedriinjik (“shimmering”) River and Ch’idriinjik (“heart”) River. The Native place names had been in use for 1,000 years. Chandalar evolved from a phrase French employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company used in the 19th century to reference the river.

There’s more support than ever for using Native words in naming conventions, with several geographic locations and even a newly discovered dinosaur recently getting the official go-ahead to use Alaska’s earliest languages.

Are there areas near you that are locally known by a native place name, but officially called something else?

BRISTOL BAY ONLINE!NATIVE PLACE NAMES PROJECT

www.bbonline.bbnc.net