Chatter Marks EP 65 Anchorage made me who I am today

Crude Conversations

crudemag

Society & Culture

5 • 884 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2023

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Aaron Leggett is the president of the Native Village of Eklutna and the Senior Curator of Alaska History and Indigenous Culture at the Anchorage Museum. He grew up in Anchorage, so his memories of it involve all of the memorable and formative experiences that made him who he is today. The same is true for the other two people joining the conversation, Julia O’Malley and David Holhouse. They’re both longtime journalists from Alaska and from pretty much the beginning of their journalism careers, they were the voice of the people. Alaskans who reported on cultures and countercultures, crime, food and anything else newsworthy that happened in their close-knit community. At its core, this is a conversation about what a place means to its inhabitants. How it shapes and molds them. It’s about why David, Julia, Aaron and myself all continue to try and capture the Anchorage we grew up in, before Alaska was so connected to the rest of the world. For my part, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to capture the essence and the feeling of the Alaska snowboard and skateboard scene of the 90s and early 2000s. Holthouse talks about his memories of the Anchorage punk scene in the mid-90s, another lively and sometimes provocative group of people. Aaron remembers a heavy metal group of Alaska Native guys who wore leather jackets, had long hair and smoked cigarettes. They were metal and they were Native. When recalling these stories, there’s fondness, melancholy and nostalgia — a feeling Julia says is a cousin of grief. That if you become too nostalgic, you might lose track of how to listen to the present moment.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The anchorage that we grew up in just seemed more like, I don't know if cohesives the right word,
0:19.7	but there was more of a shared experience. I mean the fact we're all products of the
0:24.3	anchored school district. Right now, there's this huge shift in the world about where kids get
0:32.6	educated and moving towards private schools or at home learning. I'm not saying there aren't
0:42.0	huge problems, but I just feel like the more we become insulated and the less you know about
0:47.7	your neighbors, the less you care about this place, if that makes sense. And I think what we're
0:54.1	trying to do is shine a light on how can we grow and develop and still maintain. At the end of the
1:03.0	day, despite the fact that Anchorage is a city, we're still a small town in so many ways. And we
1:09.3	have these shared connections. I mean the fact that, you know, I went to school with your brother
1:18.6	Cody and Julius brother Anthony. And I mean, and it all kind of adds to that sense of an identity.
1:30.4	And I think I don't want to see it disappear the way like the fourth avenue theater disappears,
1:35.9	I guess. That was Aaron Leggett. He's the president of the native village of Occlutna and the
1:42.1	senior curator of Alaska history and indigenous culture at the Anchorage Museum. He grew up in
1:48.1	Anchorage, so his memories of it involve all of the memorable and formative experiences that made
1:53.9	him who he is today. The same is true for the other two people joining the conversation. Julia O'Malley
2:01.1	and David Holthouse. They're both longtime journalists from Alaska and from pretty much the
2:06.8	beginning of their journalism careers, they were the voice of the people, Alaskans who reported on
2:12.0	cultures and countercultures, crime, food, and anything else newsworthy that happened in their
2:18.6	close knit community. At its core, this is a conversation about what a place means to its
2:24.8	inhabitants, how it shapes and molds them. It's about why David, Julia, Aaron, and myself all
2:32.5	continue to try and capture the Anchorage we grew up in before Alaska was so connected to the rest
2:38.8	of the world. For my part, I've spent a lot of time trying to capture the essence and the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from crudemag, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of crudemag and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.