Subsistence Sustenance:

A Walk Through of

a Traditional Yupik Eskimo

Diet

Adriana Kernak

Northwest Indian College

Abstract

These true stories from my childhood demonstrate that an active traditional diet is still practiced. In highlighting certain foods that are indigenous to the arctic region I hope to inform and educate people on my Eskimo foods and motivate them to take pride in their cultures that are unique to there region.

Subsistence Sustenance:

A Walk through a Traditional Yupik Eskimo Diet

When the white man came to this country Native Americans had to adapt to his laws, culture and… His food? Native Americans had a region-specific diet. This is just a fancy way to say, we ate what was around us. There was no grocery store or shipping from different places to get all the things we wanted. The region where I grew up is an extreme environment. Life in Alaska’s west coastal region is a formidable area even now. The environment cannot sustain much life, much less population. The only way to live out there is to live off the land and still you would need to supplement you diet with white or “gasaq” foods. I wanted to teach about the foods in my homeland and learn the things I didn’t know.

One of the things I never really put thought into while fishing was the rarity of the fish in our region. In the winter, we use to go fishing for black fish. When I was a kid I had no idea that the black fish were exclusively found in my neck of the woods. They are fat soft skinned fish that we would fish for with traps in the late winter/early spring. The traps were made of two coned-shaped traps stacked on top of each other.

Diagram A) Black fish weir

The weir was placed in a hole cut through the ice. I never knew that they can breathe air out of the water, but that was what brought them to the surface. Towards the end of winter, before the ice broke, the dissolved oxygen in the water would be depleted. The fish were seeking holes in which to breathe (1994, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, Para. 8). It never occurred to me that they breathed air, but now that I remember they would turn their mouths and break the surface of the water. We would keep them in a little bucket in the corner of the kitchen and just grab some as we needed them. I would walk by as a kid and tap the side of the bucket just to see them splash. They would break into a frenzy. The things I did for kicks! My mom would take a mesh strainer and dip a few out for a meal and just drop them in a pot of boiling water. They were fatty even after the long winter.  They would make the best soup, especially after a cold winter. It was one of the first fresh foods of the season.

Another fish that was available throughout the year is Whitefish. Whenever I mentioned it to anyone down here they had no idea what I was talking about. Except one time a Native from Minnesota, or somewhere, knew what they were. I was beginning to think that wasn’t the name for them. My dad would set a net under the ice with staking poles. Whitefish was the best fish for making “Aagutaq” or Eskimo ice cream. Aagutaq was made from fat, fish and berries. My mom would boil the fish, flake it, and remove all the bones then add it to the aagutaq. The reason that it made the best Aagutaq fish is it doesn’t have much fat. The fat on a fish is right under the skin, and that is where most of the fish flavor comes from. She would give the fish fat to the kid that helped made the aagutaq. These days we use shortening and sugar instead of animal fat.

The most traditional type of aagutaq is called aaperrtaq. It is made with pike fish eggs and wild cranberries. The pike eggs are mashed into a paste and the cranberries are added. I like it the way my mom makes it. She smashes the berries as well. It doesn’t look very appetizing, but it tastes great. I think my mom gave it to me when I was very young, because all my other siblings don’t like it. I was the only one born in the spring. I don’t even like it with sugar. I enjoy the tartness.

Fish eggs are one of my favorite foods. Along with the pike eggs ice cream, I like Herring eggs. I can’t get them like I use to as a kid. but when I do come across them I’m in heaven. I’ve had them on tree boughs and I think that is one way that they are harvested. My favorite way to eat them is on seaweed. The seaweed is edible and retains a salt flavor. Most people like it with seal oil but I think it robs it of its natural flavor. I just recently tried flying fish eggs and those are the most comparable to herring eggs. It’s an incredible food like most eggs. On the 2,000 daily calorie diet, 5% of your daily requirement of calcium and iron is in just one ounce of eggs. (2008, Nutrition data)

In the spring, we make our first trip to our summer camp to collect bird eggs. These trips hold a lot of my fondest memories. The first time I shot a rifle I caught a beaver. At that time, my dad was still selling pelts and my grandma loves beaver meat. I made them very proud. I was 7 years old. I will never forget that year. My grandma tried to teach me how to butcher the beaver, and I cut into its bowels. The worst imaginable smell stained the campsite all season.

A few years before was the first time I ever saw my grandma run. There was a swan’s nest in the middle of a bog. All of us kids were too young and the adults were too heavy to make it to the nest without falling through. My grandma stripped down to her slip and leggings and ran to the nest. There were two eggs, so she only took one. All her grandkids laughed and talked about it for years. I can still remember the smile on her face when she came running back with her prize. Swan eggs are huge and their shells are very thick, almost like ostrich eggs. My grandma is less than five feet tall so the eggs looked even bigger. Once in a while we would come across an egg that carried an embryo. I was made to eat many of these embryos as a kid. My grandma would say it would help me carry strong healthy babies.

I remember my Aunt Sally was attacked by arctic terns for disturbing their nest. They will attack you. They pecked her head, and she didn’t even know where the nest was. She was determined to find it. “If I had to give up blood, then they have to give up their eggs” is how she put it. Arctic tern eggs are very small, only about the size of a quarter. Their shells are very thin, so they don’t travel well. We usually ate them right when we found them, raw. Delicious.

Once I caught a live ptarmigan. I was walking along on the tundra and it just slammed into my shoulder. It was dazed, so I just walked over and picked it up. It was so bizarre. I have butchered them, eaten them, but I had never held a living ptarmigan before. I ran to show my dad, and he wanted to just kill it. I had grown close to it in the few minutes that it was in my hand. So, I ran away trying to free it. I threw it into the air but it just landed not far and stayed there. They are notorious for being the dumbest bird on the delta. Funny, that it’s Alaska state bird.

Berries on the tundra are regional. Although you can find these berries anywhere in the arctic region, Alaska is the only place in the United States where these types of berries are found. Cloud berries or “naunraq” are low growing plants found on the tundra. They have one flower per plant which yields one berry. They only stand one to two inches off the ground and are ripe in late July. When they are ripe they are orange, soft, sweet and juicy. I like them just before they ripen, when they are still a little firm and a little sour. Although they don’t freeze well, it is the most common way to preserve them. In about 4 ounces they can have 150 mg of Vitamin C (2009, Practically Edible).  I like them in aagutaq but I like to mix them with a little sweetened condensed milk for a quick snack. I have some in my freezer right now.

I also have seal oil in my freezer. It’s hard to come by. I know some people that live in Alaska who don’t have access to it. I haven’t had seal meat since my trip to Alaska this past January. Actually, the only time I get a hold of seal meat is in Alaska. There is an abundance of seals in this area. I know that there are spotted seals here but do they taste the same? I also know that they are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 1972, when their number was depleted by a state population control program (2003, Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife).  I would like to find out if there is a way to gain rights for Native people to hunt seals. I am sure that Lummis hunted and ate seal. We ate what was in the area, and seals live in this area.

I enjoy eating my traditional foods and any way that can bring me closer to my childhood diet the better off I’ll be. Being Native and living the way we did for thousands for years adapted our bodies to the diet of our surrounding habitat. Native people have been living an Eco-friendly, sustainable, organic and region-specific diet for generations,. To change it now has created many health concerns that can be prevented just by subsistence sustenance.

References

Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game,(1994), Alaska Black fish

Retrieved November 30, 2009, from

HYPERLINK “http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/fish/blackfsh.php” http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/fish/blackfsh.php

Nutrition Data, ( revised 8/20/08), Fish, herring eggs on giant kelp, Pacific (Alaska Native), Retrieved December 2, 2009, from

HYPERLINK “http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/ethnic-foods/8100/2″ http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/ethnic-foods/8100/2

Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, (2003), Trends and Status of Harbor Seals In Washington State: 1978–1999, Retrieved, December 6, 2009, From

HYPERLINK “http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/research/papers/harbor_seals/harborsealtrends.htm” http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/research/papers/harbor_seals/harborsealtrends.htm

Practically Edible, (2009), Cloud berries section nutrition

Retrieved December 2, 2009, From

HYPERLINK “http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/cloudberries” http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/cloudberries