“For the Tlingit people, our identity is tied to herring. It’s the largest resource in our waters. It’s our Haa Ḵusteeyí – Our Way of Life. Many of our traditional family emblems even include images of herring.” Tommy Gamble (Tinglit) of the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, reflected on this as he began to envision his herring camps. “Yet due to commercial harvesting, management strategies, or lack thereof, we could be facing a whole generation of people who may never know the taste of herring eggs.” The first Alaska Native Indigenous Training Academy (ANITA) Herring Camp Gamble hosted was small but a rewarding experience, so with funding from Na’ah Illahee, he was able to expand the camp the second year.
Gamble had originally thought they would hold the second-year camps at one venue, but the COVID-19 restriction changed that for the better. The camps ended up being in the field, with the youth and professionals working together in several day-long outdoor minicamps. Gamble says, “I designed field camps that were more impactful than sitting in a classroom based on my experience of sitting in classrooms and not learning anything. ANITA’s focus for Indigenous education is to create meaningful opportunities to engage people so that they can be understood by a five-year-old and appreciated by a doctor. “
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The camp was broken into several minicamps spread over five days. The young people went by boat to witness different traditional harvest areas and to replicate the practice of setting trees to harvest herring eggs on branches. Elders shared specific information about sacred sites they visited with traditional messages about the land, including Tlingit place names. Each minicamp had different teachings from field professionals on separate topics such as herring as a keystone species and food resource, Tlingit territories and trade economies, herring management, alternative conservation strategies, and health benefits. “All of the integrated lessons they learned in one day would take a semester in school,” noted Gamble.
The young people who attended the camp fully understood the importance of why they were there harvesting herring, according to Gamble. “We have to do this to feed the families. We have to do this to keep the cultures alive. We have to do this to save the herring. Even the five-year-old understood that we can’t deplete the herring stocks, so why wouldn’t everybody understand?”
“After 12,000 years of sustaining our lives here, our big noble family, our Tlingit people, were reduced to just one clan mother named Anita who carried all the knowledge of this area forward,” shared Gamble. “We honor her through our name, Alaska Native Indigenous Training Academy (ANITA), knowing that we are keeping more than 12,000 years of knowledge alive.”
The feedback from participants is positive, and they want more ANITA courses brought to their areas The camps have now expanded to include the Rights of Nature paradigm, which will be the primary focus of future ANITA camps in 2024. Gamble adds that ANITA is honored by the support from Na’ah Illahee Fund, and they are happy to support other like-minded individuals and teams. He concludes, “I am honoring my mother through this work. It’s one way of keeping her memory alive.”