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The people
of Diomede subsist as their ancestors did for centuries, living off the
bounty of the frigid ocean. You’ll find seal and walrus on the dinner
table, as well as crab, shore birds and their eggs, fish, whale meat and
polar bear.
By
tradition, virtually every part of every animal is put to some use.
(Left)
It will be a while before the children of Little Diomede get to enjoy
the village’s swing set.
The
greatest source of cash is ivory carving and other Alaska Native art, at
which Diomeders excel. You won’t find much money in the village, and
the homes are tiny and quite spare. Nonetheless, it is an existence
which they cherish, eking out a living much as their Ingalikmiut (in-GAH-lik-myoot)
Eskimo forebears did.
Jesse,
who snapped these pictures in the last three days of March, spent time
with Mayor Pat Omiak, Sr., who took out his photo album. “It included
pictures of a trip to Diomede by a high-ranking Soviet official as
relations were beginning to thaw in the late 1980s,” Jesse says. In one
of the pictures were several microphones, including one with a KNOM
microphone flag (sign). “It was,” Jesse says, “as near as I could tell,
the same mike I had with me to interview Pat.”
(Left) Diomede mayor Pat Omiak, Sr., uses a traditional drill while making a
bracelet of walrus ivory.
You can
imagine Jesse’s thrill to be invited to spend an evening of traditional
Eskimo dancing and drumming. Some of the songs have probably been
around for centuries. “I even got to play a (walrus skin) drum for the
first time,” he says. The event was a practice, which he found “lots of
fun…They seem so deadly serious when they are performing, but when it’s
practice, you get a sense of how much they are enjoying this and how
much fun it is for them.”
Jesse
observed “it’s easy to go sledding when your entire community is on a
steeply-pitched rock face.” Also, some of the older children were
ice-skating ¾ on the runway!
Why travel to this often
inaccessible bit of rock? There was an opportunity, and Jesse jumped at
it. Of course, the trip wasn’t all play. He interviewed Diomeders, and
developed some interesting news stories as well. Heaving permafrost is
moving houses. Animal migrations are changing.
“But mostly on my village
travel,” Jesse says, “I’ve been focusing on building and maintaining
good relations with our listeners, finding out what they like and don’t
like and generally ‘taking the pulse’ of the community.”
“Diomede is such a different
and unique place that it is hard to see how I could possibly share
anything - let alone a country and a citizenship - with them. (Places
like Diomede give you a sense of just what e pluribus unum
means.) But as I looked at the small community from the air one last
time before it disappeared behind the island, I realized what a
privilege it was to serve a place filled with such caring and thoughtful
people…and how I can’t wait to go back.”
It’s for people like the
Diomeders that KNOM exists. Thank you for making KNOM possible!
Please remember missions like KNOM in your will.
For many years, we have prayerfully placed all bequests into funds
that are used only for major improvements and to meet future
emergencies. |
