Chatter Marks EP 95 Sod housing, Unangax̂ history and correcting Alaska history with Mike Livingston

Crude Conversations

crudemag

Society & Culture

5 • 884 Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2024

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike Livingston specializes in the cultural heritage of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. His background makes him uniquely qualified for this position. He grew up in Cold Bay, Alaska, located on the Aleutians, and his family homesteaded where Trout Creek flows into Cold Bay. He says they didn’t have much money, so they lived a subsistence lifestyle and built their home using remnants left on the island from World War II. At 21, he moved to Unalaska and worked as a police officer for three years, then he moved to Anchorage and was an officer for the Anchorage Police Department for 20 years. In that time, he worked in a number of different departments: burglary, theft, felony assaults, the crimes against children unit, and the major crimes unit. His work in law enforcement and his research into the Unangax̂ region — in addition to a local murder he remembers from when he was 16 — eventually led him to his work with Murdered and Missing Indigenous Persons. More recently, Mike’s been focused on ways to integrate ancient sod housing design into the construction of modern houses. Traditional sod houses were used in the Aleutian Islands and the Alaska Peninsula for at least 10,000 years. They were so energy efficient that their carbon footprint was virtually non-existent. He’s also been working on correcting historical inaccuracies of Benny Benson, the boy who designed the Alaska flag in 1927. The research he’s involved in found that Benny was not of Alutiiq heritage, like it’s been believed for decades, but of Unangax̂ heritage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The boarding school experience for some Alaska Native kids was not that big of a deal.
0:16.0	For other people it was about as dark as it can get.
0:20.0	You may have seen the recent news articles about unmarked graves that they found in Canada.
0:25.0	There was unmarked graves for many boarding school students in Alaska,
0:30.0	including myself, and for me it was you know my my my foot if not my entire body was in the
0:37.2	grave but somehow I was able to to climb out of it and to to continue my life I I I look back at some of the things that I've been able to
0:46.4	accomplish and you know had I not survive the boarding school experience I
0:51.6	wouldn't have been able to accomplish that and
0:53.6	I've learned since then that the goal of the boarding school program began in the
1:00.3	United States in the 1700s or the 1800s was to to paraphrase it was to
1:07.6	to kill the Indian to save the child kind of thing and so at the time it was a very
1:12.2	personal experience but looking you know when I
1:14.0	look back on it with with that perspective it's not so personal it was just a nationwide
1:20.0	program and but again I'm grateful that I've been able to survive and each little
1:26.9	accomplishment I have through life I'm grateful for you know acknowledging that
1:30.8	had I not been able to to crawl out of the unmarked grave and boarding
1:34.8	school that I wouldn't have been able to do.
1:38.4	That was Mike Livingston.
1:40.6	He specializes in the cultural heritage of the Aleutian and Pribelov Islands.
1:46.0	His background makes him uniquely qualified for this position.
1:51.0	He grew up in Cold Bay, Alaska, located on the illusions, and his family homesteaded
1:57.2	where Trout Creek flows into Cold Bay. They didn't have much money, so they lived a subsistence lifestyle and built their home using
	...

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