by Peter Twitchell
The year 2020 to 2022 has been like an eye-opener to me. It made me look at our behaviors as Humanity a lot closer and gave me more focus on us as people on Planet Earth.
Mankind’s negative behaviors came out of the shadows of darkness into the light for me.
I did not like what I was witnessing with my eyes on the television. I couldn’t help seeing what I didn’t want to see, not just in black-and-white but in living color!
Words like injustice, exploitation of the vulnerable, discrimination, poverty, our indigenous population impoverished and needy started taking on more meaning and there was no value to human life when it came out of the shadows for me.
For example, drive-by shootings and senseless killings. In less than two years 90,000 fatal deaths by drive-by shooters in our United States. Not to mention road rage and angry people with no regard for human life.
There was a good side in the medical field – the frontline workers, fireman, doctors/nurses working long hours, policeman and scientists. Saving lives was their main goal.
Then there was mother nature – the tornadoes, wind storms, earthquakes, fires, man-made pollutants in our water, air, and soil; and explosions of factories, the fraudulent dishonest work of people who would prey upon our precious Elders and disabled men and children, and the vulnerable, in our corrupt world.
Then I had time to reflect on our own life here in Alaska. Since time immemorial we’ve lived with the harsh winter – cold, frigid, and deadly. Since the ice age began.
Alaska’s indigenous people have adapted well to a harsh environment but thanks to the availability of furbearing animals, abundance of fish in our ocean, rivers, lakes and streams, the ingenuity of our people in making nets from roots of trees, fish traps from willows and grass, have managed and survived since time in memory! The wisdom that Creator God Have given our people stands tall and strong in our culture and traditions for a long time to come.
