|
Publicity
" Lone Eagle Flies Again "
IV:
Teaching the knowledge
as
reported by Rhonda McBride
Reprint
from KTUU-TV, Anchorage, Alaska 12-99
"So
what's for lunch?" That's Bill Wilkinson's question
and he gets his answer. In his warm home, a pot
of eider duck soup steams, waiting to be eaten.
It's a rich broth that goes well with stories about
the days when kayaks were a necessity to put food
on the table. At school Wilkinson's the teacher;
at home he's often the student. Today he asks his
wife Mary Ann about her earliest memories of traveling
in her father's Kayak.
"Were
you going across a river?" Wilkinson asks.
"I
don't know," Mary Ann says. "I was inside."
Her
mother Nellie sat in the middle of the Kayak with
her father. Her brother laid down flat in the back,
while Mary Ann was cocooned in front. She could
hear water splashing against the kayak; she watched
it ripple alongside her. She gazed at the light,
shining through the golden translucence of the kayak's
seal skin cover. It's history like this that Wilkinson
loves to learn, words he loves to pass on.
A
group of Wilkinson's students
Wilkinson
teaches water safety in Kwig. Before a river outing,
he speaks to expectant youths who stand decked out
in helmets and life preservers, holding kayak paddles
like rifles at attention.
"Be
safe," Wilkinson says. "Stay in our group areas.
I want you to be cognizant of our rescue strategy
if anyone has a problem."
Kayaking
is now part of Wilkinson's school's physical education
program, and with good reason: Many kids in Kwig
have lost someone to the water. Sometimes, it's
been two or three people. In nearly all these drownings
no life preservers were worn.
"We
ran into flocks of birds out there," Wilkinson says.
He teaches a Century 21 after school kayaking program.
"We were basically kayaking right straight through
and they were just buzzing all around us, like thousands
of birds." The day after the excursion the kids
wrote essays describing how free and independent
they felt on the water.
"The
kayak was kind of the way the culture was defined,"
says Martin Leonard, director of Century 21. "And
really, if you look at the way western culture is
defined, a lot of it revolves around the car. When
you hear folks talk about a renaissance, I think
that's exactly what they're talking about. Here
is a vehicle that was once a centerpiece for the
culture and it's making a revival. It's finding
a place in village life right now. It's fun to watch
that."
Many
kids in Kwig care more about the basketball court
and less about the water around them. That's slowly
changing. A group of youths listen to teacher's
aide Owen Lewis as he recounts boyhood memories
of kayaking and seal hunting.
"All
of the sudden I heard something breathing," Lewis
says. "I looked up and there was a seal floating
between our kayak. A seal, mukluk."
While
the tales are enchanting, the main focus is safety.
Lewis speaks a sentence in Yup'ik, translating so
all the kids hear. "What it means is the ocean,
you will never learn," Owen says. "You know why?
Because it's constantly changing." Kayaking is,
in Owen's words, "respect for nature, respect for
others, respect for yourself." That respect grows
as students attempt to bridge present with past.
"There's
always only so many people in these small villages,"
Wilkinson says. "The more people you have to pull
the walrus out of the river, the more efficient
things become. It's true like that in education.
The more people we have nurturing and supporting
our education, the more efficient it becomes and
the more valuable the whole experience can be."
That's
why kayak education at Kwigillignok isn't just for
kids. There's also an after school program for adults.
Next
Text
adapted from newscasts by Rhonda McBride; photography
on linked subsite by Jeff Walsh. |
