Hope: Tales of the Friendship Flight Era

Passengers board the Friendship Flight in Provideniya to return home to the United States.

During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, contact was cut off between friends and relatives who lived on either side of the Bering Strait. In 1988, after forty years of silence, the grass root activism of many people in the region lead to a Friendship Flight. Dignitaries, press, and Alaska Natives flew from Nome, Alaska to Provideniya, Russia to reignite relationships and open the door for future connections. Susan Steinacher interviewed Bering Strait community members to preserve their stories and feelings about the events of this time, including Lynne Cox's swim from Little Diomede to Big Diomede, the Friendship Flight, and the Hope Race. Listen to discover what made this era of friendship so special.

• Jim Stimpfle

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  Jim Stimpfle speaks on his efforts to make the Friendship Flight possible and what it was like to reconnect with Russian communities on the other side of the Bering Strait.
  Audio Transcript

  Sue: Yes, that wouldn’t be any good. So, um—well Jim, where did it all begin?

  Jim: It all began at the city dump.

  Sue: At the city dump!

  Jim: At the city dump. I used to go out to the city dump when we could rummage through the dump, you know, make an evening run out to the dump, you know, on a nice summer’s evening, and figure out when we could go out to the dump and kind of rummage through the dump. And, um, I noticed that the fires that would burn at the dump, the smoke would roll up and if we had an offshore wind, it would be rolling toward, you know, Russia. And at the city dump one day, I met Kevin Walsh, or Dan Walsh — the senior, the father, and the old-time Nomeite — and he said, I got to asking him, I said, “Hey Dan, what’s happening? Did they used to go to Russia in the old days, you know, what was happening?” He said, “Yeah we had traders, we had boats, and of course the Eskimo people went back and forth.” And I knew about the Eskimo people because my wife, Bernadette, when I first came to Nome, had introduced me to people like Frank Ellanna, and I used to listen to the stories about them boating up to the Diomedes and across. And, um, how, you know, they used to go across and how, you know, people would travel. And this was during the, Nome’s real estate recession, so I wasn’t selling much real estate in 1985, ’84. ’85-’86, and I had a lot of time on my hands, so I just got this bug up my yayhoo that thought, well, wouldn’t it be nice to, you know, reestablish contact across the Bering Strait. So I, um, started to, um, uh, first thing I did was, uh, the Eskimo people told me about the trading they used to do—trading sugar, tea, for goods across the Bering Strait, and meeting people. And, um, so at Bernadette’s class, her bilingual class, we, um, put together some messages, you know, written in Siberian Yupik, Russian, and English, and we had Astrid Smart in Nome who spoke a little, who knew a little Russian. So she came and translated into the Russian portion of the messages. And the whole idea, I actually started in eighty-, in November of 1986, and, uh, the first thing I did was I launched balloons across the Bering Strait filled with mostly air or carbon monoxide from the tailpipe of a car, you know, with, uh, messages written on the balloon. Thinking that something might roll across the Bering Strait and land on the Russian shore.

  Sue: So these were floating balloons, not …

  Jim: Floating balloons, not air balloons, just blowing across in the water, following the currents in the air. And then I went to the weather service and got some helium balloons that they used to launch weather balloons. So I got about six of those and they looked like these huge prophylactics, you know, for an elephant, that would blow up with, um, helium. And so we tied messages, made a little bag and tied ’em onto these huge rubber balloons, and then we put some helium in ’em, but I wanted to put enough helium in ’em that they wouldn’t break, you know—they rise up and break and then drop back to earth, so we weighted them down so they would kind of drift across ….

  Sue: So these were in the air?

  Jim: Yeah, these would be in the air, but would only reach a certain height because the helium expands and it breaks the balloon and then it drops. So we, we got the sugar, the tea, the sewing needles, the thread, all the traditional trading items, put ’em in a packet with these messages of friendship from the bilingual class in about November of 1986. And as the balloons went off-shore, as they lifted and went off-shore, it sort of came down and bounced along on the surface. And it was in the fall, in November, and the Eskimo boats were out hunting seals. And, uh, I saw the balloon go offshore with my binoculars, and then I saw this boat come up to the balloon and grab it and bring it onshore and pop the balloon and drag it into the boat. And I was watching on shore from the jetty area, and then the boat turned around and sped down the coast. I got in my car and followed down the road toward Fort Davis. The boats comes ashore and it’s Tim Gologergen. Tim comes up to me and he says, “Jim, Jim! I just got this balloon from Russia! It’s got this Russian writing in it!” And I said, “Noooo, Tim, no, Tim, I’m trying to send the balloon across to Russia. So it was sort of a comical beginning to this effort to establish contact after forty years. The border was closed in September of 1948. J. Edgar Hoover shut the border down in September.

  Sue: So it was shut down by America.

  Jim: It was shut down by Americans first because J. Edgar Hoover had this thing about communism and the Cold War and the beginning of the Cold War, and the Eskimo people had been running back and forth across the Bering Straits for thousands of years, um, visiting, trading, and there were families on both sides of the border that were connected by marriage and blood. Blood, language and marriage. And many of those families were separated during this Cold War period. The end came in September of 1948 when the border was shut down by the Americans and then the Soviets shut it down, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Just so happened there was a group of Diomeders who were stuck over there who had gone over on a visit and who ended up being held prisoners for about 52 days. And, uh, I had a chance to talk to three of the remaining survivors at the time back in 1987 was Iyapana and um …. Albert Iyahuk, Iyapana, and Oscar Ahkinga. And those three guys had had various viewpoints about how what happened to ’em, and they were not terribly excited about what had, how the border had closed down, and then the no contact for such a long time and then the, they saw the indoctrination about communism and the West and the Cold War and the National Guard and how we became enemies. So when I first started this sort of crusade to reopen the border and to think about ways to go across, um, I made a couple of trips out to Diomede. We put this big sign up that said MIR, but written in Russian letters; we made it as big as plywood. We painted it and we put it on the Native store, facing Big Diomede. And it was sort of my thinking process at the time was to try to attract attention in the press. And I remember the Diomeders were like, we’re not, like, really greatly excited about that aspect of it. But the aspect of wondering what happened to their relatives, what happened to the other parts of their families that they hadn’t seen, uh, in those forty years. And so, kinda coincidentally a couple things happened. Uh, we had the ship called the Surveyor that came to Nome in August of 1987, and that ship was going to Provideniya—the first American ship in forty years to go there. And so we quickly in Nome got together a little task force of a group to extend, um, uh, friendship by writing some letters and sending some things over with the captain. And he did that, and the captain came back with this videotape of Provideniya and the Eskimo dance groups that came to dance on the Russian ship, and this letter from the mayor of Provideniya, Oleg Ivanovich …., who had written, let us be friends, and let us do this, and let us do that. So I took his letter, we got it translated, I made a lot of copies of it and sent it off to Juneau to the governor, to our congressional delegation, and, and so for working from that end of things, tried to get, you know, uh, some, uh, response to, to move forward with this.

  Another event happened that was kind of interesting was Lynn Cox came to swim across the Bering Strait. And Lynn Cox came also in about August of 1987. And she went up to Diomede with a crew of about 18 people and I was part of that crew, and she was attempting to get permission to swim between Little and Big Diomede. She had a film crew with her from Sports Illustrated, but she had no money. And she had no permission. At the very last moment, the Ministry of Sports in Moscow gave permission for the swim. And that event mobilized Diomede. We all got in the boats in Diomede, almost the entire village, we had about six, seven boats filled with men, women and children drinking coffee, and it was the first time anyone had ever seen anyone jump in the water at Diomede and touch the rocks and swim to Big Diomede. It was an amazing event because we just couldn’t believe it! You know, normally you see whales and, you know, walrus and seals off shore, you know, between the Diomedes. But this was a woman, swimming, and she had nothing on but a swimming cap and a swimming suit. She didn’t grease her body up or anything. So Pat Omiak, Pat Omiak was the mayor at the time, and we had permission for two boats to go through, and I had brought along balloons thinking of, you know, the effect of letting balloons—I was into balloons. And we had brought about 300 red and blue balloons I dispersed among the boats. We blew the balloons, up, and as Lynn Cox was swimming through the fog, it was a foggy day, we were throwing balloons in the water behind her so that as we looked behind us we saw this sea of red and blue balloons floating on the fog in the water. And the two boats, the two skin boats, were side by side with Lynne Cox in the center, swimming. She was swimming. Every once in a while she turned over and they’d stick this thermal probe to measure her core temperature because when she jumped in the water on the Diomede side, her core temperature was about 102 degrees from, you know, activity. When she landed almost two hours later on the Big Diomede side, her core temperature had dropped to 92 degrees. When she got out of the water she was totally incoherent, she was met by the Soviet press delegation that were dressed with a white linen tablecloth on a table with a tea service and hors d'oeuvres and caviar and just all this stuff to kind of celebrate this. She was put into this sleeping bag and it took two hours to rewarm her body. Meanwhile, the rest of us, when we went across we were hoping we would all get permission to land on Big Diomede. But the Russians had come out in their boat and the Russian captain put his hands up and he let the two boats go through with the swimmer, but he told the rest of us to stop. We were all smiling and waving at him and he was very stern-faced and put his hands up and told us to stop. So we got on the short-wave radio to Pat Omiak in our boat. In my boat was Moses and Ruth Milligrock, and one of the Soolook boys was driving the boat —Dennis or I can’t remember who was driving the boat. My wife and my daughter Meghan were in one boat, and we were drinking coffee and we were sort of stopped there in the fog in the big swells between Big and Little Diomede. Total fog, couldn’t see a thing after they vanished through the fog to Big Diomede. Got on the radio to Pat, I said, “Hey Pat, when you land, see if you can get permission for us to come.” So they landed and he radioed back to us that, no, the Russians would not let the rest of us come. So we’re bouncing around, we’re sort of drifting out there between the Diomedes in total fog, Dennis starts up the engine and we start motoring through the fog. And suddenly we come up against the island and this huge rock wall, so we think, oh, that was a quick trip back to Little Diomede. And Moses and Ruth are looking at the rock wall and Ruth looks up at the rock wall and she shakes her head and says, “No. This is not little Diomede. This is Big Diomede!” And she panics! And Moses looks up and says, “Yep, this is Big Diomede.” They hadn’t seen it in forty years. They had not been that close since they were kids. And we stopped the motor, we radio back to the city hall and say, “Hey, we’re lost; we’re right up against the Big Diomede rock wall on the north part of the island.” We were actually heading around the north part of the island in the fog. And so Dennis is driving the boat, he stops, the compass is in the front of the boat. And we’re in the fog up against the big rock wall of Big Diomede and Ruth is telling us, “Oh yeah, we used to go here. I remember going here as a young girl picking berries and greens, picking greens. I remember this!” And this is the north end of the island. And so Moses, Moses takes his hand, and he points it out as if he’s parting the sea and says, “Go this way.” And I’m saying to myself, “Jesus Christ, somebody look at the compass!” But Moses doesn’t look at the compass, he just sticks his hand out into the fog and he says, “Go this way.” So we start the motor up and we vanish into the fog—and we end up at Little Diomede, right where his hand said he was pointing back to the city. So we landed. We rush up to Albert Iyahuk’s house and Albert is talking on the radio with Pat Omiak. And they’re telling about, because Pat had a CB radio with them and Pat and Albert are talking to each other about what’s going on. At first, the Russian guards would not let the Eskimo men go up to where everybody — we saw these two Eskimo women from our, our, what when the fog lifts up we see these two Eskimo women standing on the rocks to the National Guard big telescope, or big binoculars, and they’re doing Eskimo dancing, we could hear it on the radio. Uh, Pat keys the radio so we can hear the Eskimo dancing. Albert gets on the radio and says, “Go up to those women. And find out who they are.” So Pat tries to get by the soldiers. And he ends up giving them a pack of cigarettes to get by the soldiers [laughing]! So they walk up the hill to these two ladies and they happen to be Marguerite Aglooklik Siganova from Lavrentia — she’s Siberian Yupik but she’s part Inupiat. And, um, Pat starts speaking in Inupiat to her, and she comes back in Siberian Yupik. Pat can’t understand what she’s saying but Albert Iyahuk is listening. He understands Siberian Yupik. So [pause] he says to Pat, “Get her on the radio so I can talk to her.” So Albert starts speaking in Siberian Yupik to her and ask her who she is. And then they find out that they’re related because they had the same father. And, um, she asked how he is, and who the relatives were. And, uh, that was the first time in forty years that they had actually talked about what had transpired when the border closed in September of 1948. So we’re sitting in the kitchen in Albert Iyahuk’s house listening to all this, and Albert’s translating back into English and Inupiat for the rest of us who are sitting there. And, uh, the last thing we say is, “Get her address!” And so Pat gets her address. And at the end of that day when Pat comes back, uh, the two skin boats come back with, you know, Lynn Cox, we have established for the first time in forty years a contact, a real person, that everyone had, you know, had common relatives with. And so that was the beginning of the, of the connection. My wife took that address that she wrote a letter to Marguerita living in Lavrentia. It took thirty days for that letter to go to Russia, it took another thirty days for Marguerita’s letter to come back to us. So. This was the—the irony of this whole situation was that before the Cold War, people would freely go back and forth in a matter of minutes and hours, and now because of this border closing and we had lost contact for the forty years ------, the Eskimo people who were related by blood and marriage had not been able to establish contact. So, that led to, um, another series of events that, um, made the desire to connect across the Bering Strait more real because now we had the names of two real people. We had the mayor of Providenya, a Russian guy named Olag Ivanovich Kolentin, and we had Marguerita Glooklik Siganova’s name. And from there it was a like a letter campaign and writing to say, listen, let’s reopen the border, let’s do this. And along about in ’87, um, most of my time was spent in letter writing to, to the, our congressional delegation, going down to Juneau to make, to try to see the governor to open the border, and, um, along about the end of ’87, um, I was invited to a mee—I, I, I, there was an Alaska Airlines board meeting in Nome. Advisory board. I asked Wiley Scott if I could come and talk to the executives of Alaska Airlines about, you know, a friendship flight. And so I, uh talked to, I made a pitch at the meeting here in Nome—and there was total dead silence in the room—about flying over to Russia. Nobody said anything. After the meeting, a guy named Jim Johnson, who was vice president of operations, he came up to me and he said, “Jim, I like your idea, let me call you and we’ll take it from here!” Well, at first I was a little suspicious. I just thought it was the like kiss of death, like, they weren’t going to do anything—we’ll call you. But sure enough, he had written four letters to our congressional delegation and to our governor. And the moment that happened, when Alaska Airlines came on board and said, yes, we want to do this, then all that advance letter-writing and correspondence I had done with the governor’s office and the congressional delegation, suddenly it brought it into focus and it gave it, like, this wasn’t some crazy guy in Nome, this was Alaska Airlines that wants to do it now. So it added a whole big context to this question of a reunion of friendship, of establishing, you know, relationships back again that had been closed for forty years. And, um, from there things led to the Friendship Flight and, uh, the Eskimo portion of the delegation was composed of—I hate to say this—a few token Eskimo people from certain villages. But at least they were there. It was a real fight to get everyone on the plane. The plane was divided up. We had three, three people picking names on the plane, to get on the plane. The Alaska Airlines picked the press. They had about twenty seats for the press. The governor’s office were picking dignitaries that would go from the state of Alaska. And, uh, my job was to pick local people and more—most importantly—I concentrated because of how, I what I knew about the Eskimo people having relatives there, I had to come up with a group of people. And it became apparent to me at one time that my list kept getting cut shorter and shorter. And finally at one point I just said, “Listen, if you cut one more person off of my list, I ain’t goin’.” And that kinda got the governor’s office and Alaska Airlines to sit down and realize that the guy who’d thought of this and proposed the Friendship Flight—bad press if he doesn’t go. So we came to a, an even, even split-, three-way split between how many local and Native people will be going, how many press, and how many dignitaries. It was the most agonizing period of my whole Russian opening-the-border was to pick the names of people going. I’ll never forget when John Kimonok – we had picked John Kimonok’s name to go because he had an, uh, the longest relationship. But what had happened was, um, John’s daughter Lena Macalipin had sorta twisted, we hadn’t picked her. Uh, but she had twisted the situation to saying to convince her father that if you don’t take me, the fa-, my father can’t go. And the sad part about it was that John didn’t go because of that strategy. Um, we picked several people from St. Lawrence Island, including, um, uh, a woman who we, we could never get her passport because she was born on the Russian side and she had no history of her birth. And her whole face was covered with tattoos, and she came, she came with us. And I’ll never forget when we got off the plane and, uh, the Russian customs people were trying to get our passports from us and she said, “Well I have no” — she couldn’t speak English, she could speak no English, we had a translator come up and, uh, eventually it worked out they just, they just kinda rolled their eyes up in their heads, they said, “Let her go through, let her go through; look at her face, covered with tattoos, she’s obviously a Siberian Yupik woman, she’s no threat to, you know, to anything.” Ahm, but when that plane landed in Provideniya for the first time, when that Alaska jet took off from Nome, and we headed due west across the Bering Strait—the normal flights to Nome, it’s either through Kotzebue or Anchorage and the plane always goes south or it goes east it if goes to Kotzebue—or northeast. But when we took off and went straight across the Bering Strait, on June 13, 1988, we cross the dateline and it becomes June 14, and we lan-, and they flew that jet less than thirty minutes, we were heading toward the runway in Provideniya. We had dropped down in between the two mountain ranges between Provideniya. Through the cloud cover we could see the jet, see the runway ahead of us, and as we landed and, you know, there was such a thrilling feeling to realize that after forty years, here was a large state of Alaska contingent Friendship Flight that had started with sending balloons across the Bering Straits, you know, watching Lynn Cox swim across the Bering Straits, and the ship, this NOAA ship Surveyor coming back with that letter, items of friendship, cultivated in this big day. Plane lands on the tarmac, we, we all look out the windows at this desolate-looking, forbidden, Evil Empire that Ronald Reagan had told us what communism was all about was this Evil Empire. And we looked at this place, our neighbors of the last couple thousand years, but more recently it was the Russians who were there, and we got off the plane and it was a very organized get-off-the-plane. First the press gets off the plane, and then the dignitaries get off the plane, and the Russians had put up all these little rope fences around the plane, so, and there was this, like this red carpet so the two governors can meet each other, and take pictures. So as we’re all waiting in line behind the dignitaries, we’re all filing off the plane waiting to be re-served (???), I look at this sea of people behind this sort of imaginary line—it wasn’t really a rope—there in some sections, there was all these Native people dressed really nice, and non-Native people, and I’m saying to myself, “What the hell are we doing here standing in line? We got we got limited time. We’re over here for the day, we’re standing in line.” So I said, “Hell! Let’s break ranks!” So I motioned Tim Gologergen and I said, “Tim, let’s go over and meet these people!” So we break off behind the governor’s line of dignitaries, and we just kind of walk over to the line and I speak my one word of Russian that I’d been practicing, the only word of Russian that I know: “Strotspeecha! Strotspeecha!” Hello. I practiced that, I practiced. The only word of Russian I knew was Strotspeecha. And, uh, good bye, dasbedonaia. Those are the only two words I knew: hello and goodbye. So we saunter up to this group of kids and Eskimo people, and uh, I, I, I pull out a Hershey’s chocolate bar and come up to this little girl and say Strotspeechia! And she, handed her the candy bar and shake ha-, she hands me some pins back. And then these other press people rush away from the governor’s line and they all converge on us because we’re meeting for the first time. And, um, uh, Tim Gologergen looks up at this Russian woman across from us, this Russian Siberian Yupik woman, this Siberian Yupik woman. And she asks, he asks in Siberian Yupik, “Who are you?” And she comes back and says, “My name is Neena. I’m the sister of Margarita Glooglcih who you saw on Big Diomede!” [laughs] And I said to myself, “Wow, what a small world!” And they start speaking in Siberian Yupik to each other. No translators are needed. And they’re talking directly to each other, catching up. So all the Siberian Yupik people that were on the plane immediately start to intermix. And then the press rushes away form the two governors, Vasseslov Kovitz from Madagan and Mayor Koolinkin and governor Cowper and Leo Rasmussen, the mayor of Nome, they all rush, I mean uh, John Handeland and Leo was there, and Senator Murkowski was there, and that, and they converge on this meeting, and before you know it, the entire orderly procession that the Russians had tried to impose on us was totally broken down. There was total chaos. Everybody was speaking and meeting each other, and the Russians had, had planned these five busses to take us to the Provideniya, to the big meeting and everything.

  Should I stop?

  Sue: No I’m just checking

  Jim: And, um, they had busses for the dignitaries, busses for the press, and busses for the Eskimo people. And this was a little embarrassing because we suddenly began to see that the way they treat Native people in Provideniya is sort of a racial separation of, of, they try to keep people separated for some reason. I didn’t know at the time what the reason was, but I was a little embarrassing because here I’m married to a Native woman and they wanted us to get in different busses, and I said, “No, I can’t do that, this is my wife, this is my kid,” you know.

  Sue: They were gonna separate you?

  Jim: They were gonna separate us. Yeah they were going to separate us. And then Bernie of course got upset and she said, “NO, no way am I separating,” you know. So, what happened was, once they, they could not separate the American Eskimo people from the Russian Eskimo people from the Siberian Yupik people and the Inupiaq people that were on board the plane, they could not separate us. So everyone just said, “Listen, time is running out. Everybody get on any bus you want!” [laughter] So as it turned out we were all mixed up. We had Senator Murkowski on our bus, we had press, we had Native people—every bus was so mixed up with different people—and we proceeded off to the big house or the, the House of Culture for a big meetings in Provideniya. And from that day, from that moment on, the next twelve hours was spent in, in meals, and feasting, and talking, and speech, and peoples mixing up and talking and that was, uh, a thrilling day for us. And it ended about twelve hours later. We all got back on the plane, and went back to Nome, and we were just totally exhausted! We flew back and it we got back at 12 midnight in Nome on June 14. After that long, long day. So that was how it, in a nutshell, it all got started and, um, and then from there we had a series of more and more exchanges, we worked on the, the visa waiver program through the State Department, and this whole thing took a life of its own until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. And then the economic conditions got so harsh over there that many of the exchanges that we had hoped, whether they be on a friendship, business, trade or whatever, kind of started to slowly stop because the Soviet Union had fallen and the system of order through the Communist system was breaking down over there. It became very difficult to do some of these exchanges. The last time I was over there was in ’92, which was another Eskimo reunion idea with a German film company that, first they wanted to kayak across and I said, “Hey, you know, that’s kind of boring, let’s do something else, let’s do an Eskimo reunion. Let’s go look for relatives of”—one of the things that we didn’t get to do in Provideniya was find all those relatives, all those families that were related by blood and marriage living along the Bering Sea coasts on both sides. Because the Soviets had a policy to move the villages that were once connected to the American side away, and many times they destroyed those villages. And we heard stories where they actually killed some of the older members of that village so there would be no more connections or stories with the American side. And so in ’92 we went across to find some of those people who still spoke Inupiat, who could still understand the Inupiat language. We knew there was Siberian Yupik because that community was pretty much alive. So in ’92 we went across in boats through the Diomedes with a group of people from, ah, various villages, mostly King Island people, uh, some Diomeders, uh, Tim Gologergen came with us again from St. Lawrence Island. And, uh, there was about thirty of us in six boats. And, and there was a dance group, too, that came, a group of dancers between King Island and Diomede, when we came across. The interesting thing in preparing that trip was, when we all landed at Little Diomede, it was a kind of an historic occasion because some of the elders at Diomede said that in, in, in the old days when people traveled by skin boats, they would travel in large group and they would travel to the trading centers in Wales and Diomede and different places. So it was a long time before in 1992, when we all, when six boats landed on Diomede—it was the first time that a large group of Eskimo people had traveled that way by boat. And so it was, uh, there was a lot of singing and dancing again in Little Diomede because that hadn’t been done in many, many years. We, we landed first in Wales, we stayed in Wales for about a couple days with a lot of singing and dancing there. And then we moved onto Diomede, a lot of singing and dancing there, and then we picked up the Diomede contingent and went on over to Lavrentia. We landed on the beach behind Luewelen, place called Cape Deshnev, Belusha Bookta Bay, right around the bend behind Cape Deshnev, and, ah, we landed there in ’92, we were met by the Russian border guards. They were very friendly, we landed our boats, they checked us in, we immediately went to sleep, took a nap, because we made the crossing at about 3 a.m. in the morning, when the seas were dead calm. And then they said, “Well, you’re free to, to anywhere you want to go, your passports say you go. So we had a big, uh, picnic on the beach with Eskimo food, there was no Native people there from the Russian side because we were in a very remote location. We got in our boats and traveled eighty miles down the coast to Lavrentia. We got into Lavrentia about 4, 5 o’clock in the afternoon, I walked over to spoocan, uh, spocan uh, you know the spocan, the office building of the of the ministry, and, and said, walked in and said, “Hey we just came from Alaska, where’s Margarita Gloocolach?” And they got her on the phone, Margarita came out, they were so surprised to see us, they didn’t think we were going to make it. We, we made it, and Margarita had arranged a, a big Eskimo dance and housing for everybody. And so we spent the next day in Lavrentia, and Lorena. And we found many speakers of Inupiat who still spoke Inupiat. And that’s what we were looking for on that trip were the some of the family connections that were moved off of Big Diomede, and were moved—where were they moved to? See that’s what, we had lost the contact. Some of the Diomeders wanted to know where were their relatives that they had remembered. So those contacts were reestablished, and we found families in Lorena and Lavrentia that remembered the people who lived on Big Diomede. So ’92 was the last time I was over there and it got to a point where, um, making these trips became harder and harder to do because of the economic conditions in, in Chukotka and the governor over there, Governor Azara, um wasn’t very helpful.

  S: When did he become governor? Do you know?

  J: Um, when um Magadan Oblast in Anadyr, uh, Chukotka, split off, they declared their independence in about ’91. So he became the governor of the Chukotka region and they broke off from the Magadan, and that’s when things got really difficult on doing these exchanges because at first we’d just do our own visas. We had connections in Provideniya but he took away the visa issuing capabilities. Now the visa waiver for the Eskimo people were always there but it just became more and more difficult, because things went into almost like an economic prison where the value of the ruble diminished so greatly that it was hard to do anything. So that’s it, Sue!

  Sue: [laughter] Would you like a drink of water?

  Jim: (???) I can probably talk for another hour but

  Sue: Go for it

  Jim: I think we better quit maybe 10 minutes. But

  Sue: What do you think it’s meant to, what’s it meant to you personally?

  Jim: Well, personally, it, um, it was, uh, a way, I’d always had a secret desire I think in my early life to be in the foreign service. I’d always felt like I wanted to be a diplomat or in the foreign service. And, um, cuz I grew up in Washington DC, I was thinking about going to Georgetown public s-, you know, foreign service school, I graduated with a degree in history, so I always had a, a sense to do something more than what I’ve been doing. So it gave me an opportunity to, uh, follow an idea through and it taught me a very important lesson: the power of individual people working on a common goal. It taught me that if you’re at the right place at the right time with a great idea and, and, uh, this idea of reaching out in friendship and reestablishing connections, and I learned a lot about the, the Bering Strait region and how people are connected and it was a wonderful experience. And, um, I, um, enjoyed it, I enjoyed it.

  Sue: What do you think’s been of lasting value?

  Jim: Well I think the, uh, the reconnection for St. Lawrence Island has definitely been good. The Diomeders have been a little bit tougher to do, they’ve had some connections but St. Lawrence Island people were able to have many more visits and now they do have visits right now with both coming over. It did, um, bring to bear the hardships that the group living on the Russian side experience, um, in the way they’re treated, and it points out the difference of I guess two economic and two political systems, how they affect people’s lives —not that our system’s the greatest in the world, either, but, it does suggest that many comments we always heard after these trips is, “Man, I’m so glad we live on this side of the border because the economic hardships on the Russian side are so immense.” And the other thing that was so striking was that – was when we always went over there, it was like a time machine. You get in your boat, you drive across the Bering Strait, it may take an hour or two, but it’s like a 20-to-40-year time difference. And I remember our last visit with the group of King Islanders when we went to one of the Chukchi reindeer camps, and we saw how they lived. Many of the the, the guys would say like Francis Alvanna and Sylvester Ayek would say, now I understand what my grandfather was talking about! How they lived! Because we could see a semblance of that time machine where we were thrust back into a prior time of how Eskimo people lived, how Chukchi and Eskimo people lived in the Bering Strait before the coming of non-Native people because they were still doing many of the same things, many of the same tools in their remote camps. And I’ll never forget that comment that Frances Alvanna had said, and Sylvester said, now I understand what my grandfathers went through. Much more. I remember the stories, them telling us the stories. But now I see it. And, and it related to a lot of things that were related to subsistence and hunting and how certain things are done. Ah, when we were with the Chukchi people, the reindeer camp outside of Loreno, in Lavrentia Bay, we traveled to a far end to gather eggs and do some hunting, for birding, and then the Chukchi people killed a reindeer as a feast and how they gave the reindeer, after they killed it, they ga — poured water on its mouth and they gave it some bushes, you know, some leaves, um, some willow leaves. That’s a symbolic gesture toward its spirit. And then we ate the reindeer. And there was, you know, it was a very – and they lived in the yurts in a mobile camp so it was really sort of like, wow, they’re tough, you know, we have it pretty easy with canned goods and stuff, and everything, and blah blah blah. But so that was, um, that time difference element was like a twilight zone. People looked the same, the countryside looks the same, it looks just like the Seward Peninsula, Chukotka looks a little a little different but basically the same weather patterns, the same moon, the same stars, the same sunrise, the same sea currents. You know we’re all used to those things on the Bering Strait on the U.S. side, but when we go to the Russian side the difference is the time element — it’s like going back in time. And that was a startling kind of realization that we could just simply get in our boats and drive back across the Bering Strait and be back in the, another time zone that was 40 or 50 years’ difference. So.

  Sue: … I would keep asking you questions, but I don’t want to make you late.

  Jim: Yeah. I was supposed to meet this other person but, I can be a little late. I guess. Anyway, it was, um, a brilliant, a wonderful time –

  Sue: Well,

  Jim: – to do all this

  Sue: Would you want to go back now? With everything we’ve heard about …

  Jim: No, I’m not so interested in going back, um, because it’s painful, um, to see what I see now. I, I guess in the beginning, I was naïve in a sense of the toll, the economic toll and it’s painful to see. And back in ’88, you know, we had the hope, well, yeah, let’s change this, you know, let’s, let’s do some trade, let’s get some, you know, ferry boat going, let’s do this, let’s do that, let’s get daily flights, and it all seemed to me like common sense. OK, let’s make this happen. But as we went through the bureaucracy of the different forms of government, and the different barriers to why it can’t be done, it became disheartening to see that there’s no way that we’re going to reopen this border in a, in a time fashion that makes sense, that we’re going to live in a relatively easy economy on this side and they’re going to, you know, live in a relatively, a hardship on their side. But, um, all that being said, I haven’t given up, it’s just that I’m, I, I guess I’m more focused on what is it that will make a difference and I’m kind of convinced that a ferry boat system that allows local people to travel back and forth between the villages is a, both a humanitarian business vehicle of transportation that’s affordable, that is based on the weather conditions and allows for slow, gradual development when needed, you know, in other words how do people make a living, how do they support themselves, how does subsistence activities, you know, relate to being able to travel back and forth and meet each other. So, you know, um, the big airplanes and the big tour ships and all that, it’s not going to, it’s not going to work to a large degree, it, maybe to a small degree it might work, but we really need a platform and a ferry boat might be a platform that is affordable for anyone to get on and travel

  Sue: But won’t this take a governor and the government over there wanting it to happen? And it, my impression is, they really don’t. They want to close that door. They don’t want to keep it open.

  Jim: Yeah, that’s been my impression too. But I keep thinking back to how, how it got started, how it felt, and I’m always thinking to myself, there’s always a glimmer or chance that somebody in the position of power will change their mind and say hey, that’s not a bad idea, let’s do it! Because I’ve had that experience before, the “Hey, let’s do it!” That if we can find the right connections with the right players, that we could restart again and start again where we left off in 1988. It’s been almost over 10 years now and we really have made no meaningful change other than the, the, the small token exchanges between some Native people. It’s OK, but it has not improved the living conditions on the Russian side. At all. And that’s so sad to see because, you know, you get to meet people and you live on our side and you shake your head when you go over there because (????), there’s no food in the stores! There’s no opportunity here! It’s like a wasted opportunity for people to be meeting, to, revitalizing by meeting each other and subsisting and making a living. And it’s all wonderful experience because of the, the, the two regions we live in across the Bering Strait, it’s a great, wonderful region that has so many abundance. Yet at the same time, so many, uh, problems. So I haven’t given up but I’m just trying to focus now down on what would do the greatest good the fastest, or in the greatest time. And I’m beginning to think a ferry boat platform would do it. Cuz it’s affordable for local people to travel on.

• Darlene Ahkvaluk

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  Darlene Ahkvaluk shares her memories of Lynn Cox's swim from Little Diomede to Big Diomede and reconnecting with relatives.
  Audio Transcript

  Sue: So I’m just curious what you know I mean thinking back to you know it seems to me that the first the first time that it something happened was when Lynn Cox swam across.

  Darlene: Uh huh.

  Sue: Were you here for that?

  Darlene: Uh huh!

  Sue: Would you what did what was your thought can you think back and remember whether you thought this was something crazy or or something new and exciting, or

  Darlene: I think that uh when she first …. Found out this this lady’s going to come to our village, she wants to swim across. And we’re looking in between the islands and the current and the waters and we’re everybody was wondering what does this lady look like is she fat is she skinny is she athletic or anything? But when she came everybody looked at her, oh gee she’s gonna swim [unintelligible]

  Sue: That’s recording. All those noises.

  Darlene: Don’t make noise! [child: OK] Anyways, um, when she came, I didn’t personally get to meet her but everybody else you know got curious and we’re just looking at her, watching her, and watching her practice swim out here, just in the bathing suit, thought GEE, isn’t she get cold! [S laughs] Well we start have we didn’t have confidence she woild make it with the current. Everybody watch her practice swimming. All across here. And she’d go halfway and come back and uh then we start having confidence she can really make it! And um it was foggy that day she swam across and everybody wanted to follow! Everybody got in the boats and wanted to follow but they got stopped by the border guards.

  Sue: [unintelligible]

  Darlene: The boat came out. And shooed everybody away and told ’em they they couldn’t follow, just only the escort boat. So the only ones that got to go across was the escort boat. Not knowing there was relatives waiting across there!

  Sue: Oh my god. Oh that’s so

  Darlene: They made it across and they told everybody who they met, whose daughter, whose son, they met across there, waiting.

  Sue: They were able to say that that happened? (??)

  Darlene: Yeah!

  Sue: Didn’t didn’t they um [coughs] end up putting having the ladies talk to Albert on the CB?

  Darlene: I can’t remember what they did.

  Sue: Cuz he speaks their language.

  Darlene: Oh yeah I think they talked on the radio. And um

  Sue: Well did you go out in the boats?

  Darlene: No, it was too foggy and Charlie was just just about a year old. I couldn’t, I didn’t wanna go out there it’s too foggy and damp and wet.

  Sue: Now your dad did your dad and mom go across?

  Darlene: Yeah they wanted to go! But they they were in my brother-in-law’s and sister’s boat in Randy and Jeri’s boat, the whole family.

  Sue: Uh huh

  Darlene: in uh that boat Milligrock family were in that boat to go across but they got shooed away

  Sue: Ach

  Darlene: and told they had to turn back which really disgraced my mom and dad.

  Sue: Oh.

  Darlene: Anyway, the people that escorted them Lynn across they told who was at the beach. And that’s when Albert got to talk to em on the radio. And talk about peace and quiet not a peep just listening to each other talk was so neat.

  Sue: Mm.

  Darlene: And um the lady that he talked with said she’s gonna come here. She’s gonna find a way to come here. And the excitement of the boats coming. Lot of boats coming across one summer. There was so exciting. And then

  Sue: Oh, the next summer?

  Darlene: yeah and they came and and at first they were shy! To go to each other until finally somebody came forward I think Tommy Menadelook was the mayor then

  Sue: Mhm

  Darlene: And said, “Don’t be shy! This is America! United States! It’s Alaska! You’re not home over there! Here you could say anything, you could find your relatives!” I guess they had started saying last names and there I remember seeing it on a video cuz I was living in Nome.

  Sue: Uh huh

  Darlene: When they first came. I saw it all on video from my dad he had videotaped everything, and um he would say whose family is who.

  Sue: Really.

  Darlene: And they would meet with there was groups of relatives at the gym, like the Ahkvaluks were with their relatives.

  Sue: Wow

  Darlene: The Ozennas. The Soolooks. Iyapanas. The Milligrocks. In bunches. Catching up with each other. Who’s alive, who passed away.

  Sue: How were they how were they able to communicate?

  Darlene: They start they spoke our language.

  Sue: They spoke the language enough?

  Darlene: Yeah. The uh parents had made it made it so they could know the language here

  Sue: Yeah

  Darlene: So they wouldn’t be no barrier in case they got to come and visit.

  Sue: Well now did your mom and dad did they ever go over to the other side,

  Darlene: Um

  Sue: before the border closed?

  Darlene: In the winter when we first came here in the late mid-’70s late ’70s my dad would go across there

  Sue: Really

  Darlene: With the other men. And visit. And keep in touch with relatives that way.

  Sue: Mm

  Darlene: Cuz some people used to live there. So, when they really cut off the visitation, there was nothing. No more news on who’s still alive [S coughing] and who passed away and all that.

  Sue: I know that when I was just over there, I forget who but some I know that some people asked about your dad

  Darlene: Mhm

  Sue: and I had to explain that he had just passed away.

  Darlene: Uh huh.

  Sue: So he’s certainly remembered over there.

  Darlene: Yeah. Because um my dad had a brother there, an oldest brother.

  Sue: Really!

  Darlene: Yeah, and he looked just like Dwight. But chunkier.

  Sue: That close!

  Darlene: Uh huh

  Sue: Wow!

  Darlene: [To child] No Maggie. Don’t bother. Um, they told us what he had passed away I can’t remember what year he had passed away but they told us he had passed away but his children came across.

  Sue: So they you got to meet with them here?

  Darlene: Mhm.

  Sue: Wow.

  Darlene: And um, one his name is Afanassi who looks just like Stanley!

  Sue: Ohh yes!

  Darlene: Yeah

  Sue: He was uh he’s a dancer

  Darlene: Right

  Sue: From Uelen. Uelen. Right?

  Darlene: Mhm. Mhm. He look just like my nephew

  Sue: And he’s rela, he’s related to, to you guys?

  Darlene: Yeah, he’s my first cousin.

  Sue: Now is he still alive?

  Darlene: Yeah.

  Sue: He is

  Darlene: They [unintelligible] told he’s still

  Sue: Wow.

  Darlene: Um

  Sue: Now, you never went across, did you? But I remember when we went over that first time by skin boat and Vernon went

  Darlene: Uh huh

  Sue: Didn’t you make a phone call over there?

  Darlene: Yeah! I was worried, oh did you guys make it!

  Sue: How did you make that phone call?

  Darlene: I went through any string I could think of!

  Sue: And you made it.

  Darlene: Through the operator, I asked lots of questions. I call I just dial Alascom

  Sue: You dialed Alas

  Darlene: Dialed zero, got a operator, and said, I am calling from Diomede. My boyfriend and his cousins went across with a skin boat on an expedition, and we haven’t hear anything—how they’re doing or did they make it? Where are they staying? You know we have all these questions. And um I said just how do I get to call over there and they’re telling me all these things and I was writing em on a notepad everything. And they’re and I didn’t know they had a uh Russian interpreter in Anchorage! I didn’t know operators they got

  Sue: Ohhhh!

  Darlene: at Anchorage they have operators that speak a different language.

  Sue: Mhm.

  Darlene: To talk to the operator on the other side.

  Sue: But didn’t that call, did you have to go like through Pittsburgh and

  Darlene: Yeah I had to go through

  Sue: Moscow, and all of that

  Darlene: Yeah! Yeah!

  Sue: So your phone call literally went around the world.

  Darlene: Yeah. First had to go Pittsburgh, from Pittsburgh to Moscow. From Moscow I think it went to Provideniya. From Provideniya, I went to Lavrentia. From Lavrentia it went to up there. It made a real big circle!

  Sue: Did you get a hold of Vern? Vernon?

  Darlene: No, I just got a hold of some lady

  Sue: Did she speak English, or

  Darlene: No!

  Sue: So you just got some Russian on the phone!

  Darlene: Yeah! But the operator Alascom operator was so excited this phone call from Diomede went all the way around [S laughing] when you could just it’s just right across actually just like right across the street. You know. I thought this is crazy. Why do I have to go clear across the world just to try to find out how they’re doing over there!

  Sue: It’s amazing. So what did you were you able to figure anything out once you got this Russian lady on the phone?

  Darlene: The Alascom operator was so excited, he stayed on the line

  Sue: Yeah

  Darlene: And translated for me.

  Sue: Oh you’re kidding! Really!

  Darlene: Huh ah! I didn’t have to say anything.

  Sue: So what did you ask, what did you figure out

  Darlene: I told him to ask if you guys had made it across. Are you guys all right. When’s your next day to come across.

  Sue: Are you ever coming home!

  Darlene: Yeah, when are you guys coming home! And uh the the you know the translation guy was everybody’s all right, no need to worry, everybody’s catching up with their relatives, and they’re gonna go home next nice weather. I just whenever is that [laughs]. Oh man that next nice weather could be next month in my mind. Looking at Vernon’s mom watching me on the phone. [S laughs] I just said that they’re OK and they’re looking for their relatives and they’ll come home next nice weather. She said that could be two weeks to a month from now! [S laughs] I said I know! But it can get nice. It will get nice.

  Sue: Well boy I tell ya those guys were so eager to come home after about one night there and all the cockroaches, they wanted to [D laughs] come home! So bad! But we and we left after four days and it was just too swelly we couldn’t get back.

  Darlene: Yeah we got word you guys somebody called here

  Sue: they—you’re kidding! Really?

  Darlene: No! I think this uh

  Sue: Luda?

  Darlene: Yeah.

  Sue: I bet.

  Darlene: I became good friends with her over the telephone.

  Sue: Yeah.

  Darlene: And somebody that I had called I left ’em our number I told the operator to le-, give ’em our number. They called!

  Sue: They called

  Darlene: And said that you guys try to come home, but it was too swelly and you guys turned back. But they’ll try again the next nice weather. They actually called.

  Sue: Wow. I wonder, she must have had to go the complete opposite direction that you did all the way around

  Darlene: Yeah

  Sue: And back again

  Darlene: She did.

  Sue: Wow.

  Darlene: And uh that was so exciting.

  Sue: Do you remember what it felt like when when the boats took off to go across to the other side, I mean and you saw them disappear around the south end of Little Diomede?

  Darlene: I, I was thinking, gee they’re so lucky to go find their relatives!

  Sue: Wow

  Darlene: To let ’em know we’re ok and let us know they’re OK.

  Sue: So you, you were always aware that there were people over there, Native people and relatives, and

  Darlene: Uh huh. My dad told told us never forget we have relatives over there. When they do get a chance to come across, ask for them! Don’t just stand there and look at ’em. If any Siberian Eskimo come across whether it’s your relative or not, invite ’em in your home and feed ’em. Let em watch TV, let ’em watch movies. They love to watch TV! They don’t got TV over there.

  Sue: So did a lot of people come visit at your dad’s house?

  Darlene: I walk in one evening they were catching up with family news, everybody was talking. And communicating. This went on every day! There in the afternoon if my since my dad was on a city council I would need him to sign checks I would go in and get him to sign some checks, and they’d be talking!

  Sue: Oh

  Darlene: And communi-, just keep getting caught up on everything. And pictures, they brought pictures.

  Sue: Did they.

  Darlene: They did. And they uh point out who’s who.

  Sue: What’s been for you personally the most important thing to have come out of the border reopening?

  Darlene: To um get back with family ties.

  Sue: Yeah.

  Darlene: and meet more relatives. And catch up. And you know just keep the family try to keep it together, and keep up with each other, and knowing we are related with each other. It’s I think it’s the most important part is to try to keep in touch without losing it.

  Sue: What would you like to see for the future concerning the border?

  Darlene: Let it keep being visa free and hopefully they could get people to they could get money to hire customs in every village across there almost, or you know three or four custom agents separated amongst the villages so that person that custom agent can just [door squeaks open] go to the next village,

  Sue: Mhm

  Darlene: check them out so they can come across here, and I I’ve got the paperwork in my office, I was willing to do the customs stuff. And the people here were willing to help me. We were going to set up a table out, table right out the water plant to check ’em in. We were gonna have all the paperwork ready for them to sign and stamp right there.

  Sue: Hmm!

  Darlene: And I was willing to do it and other people were willing. Lot of people were willing to help. And asking what do I do right here and right here you know and I and the custom agents had come, I forgot his name. He came here one summer, he waited for the boats to come across.

  Sue: Oh really. Is that when the whale boats came? The six whaleboats?

  Darlene: Uh, no. Um, when they went to Kotzebue.

  Sue: Uh huh.

  Darlene: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

  Sue: Yeah.

  Darlene: And I was trained how to do that, and I showed other people…

• Jim Rowe

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  Jim Rowe describes the complicated preparations for travel across the Bering Strait.
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  Jim Rowe: Of course all of us that were originally involved with it except Jim weren’t invited to go with the group, but that was all right, we still went first, because when we finally got the permission for the Friendship Flight on May 31st, we actually did the flight, but the flight was really used as a forerunner to Alaska’s flight then two weeks later, so the first flight was our flight on May 31st, and we took Bruce Kennedy, who was the CEO of Alaska, and Jim Johnson, who was the Senior Vice President, and we took two Alaska pilots, they’re Steve Day and Terry Smith. That was interesting in itself. The day dawned beautiful, they were all here, and this was still pretty loose. We had still never seen anything from the Russians. All this was second- and third-hand, and people telling us we had this or that permission, but nobody would ever give us anything in writing. Washington was saying that the State Department’s approved it, and you have permission, we’ve talked to the Russians. The Russians supposedly had authorized it. But none of this group, myself as the pilot or all the Alaska Airlines people, had never seen anything in writing. The day dawned beautiful, and it was going to be a beautiful day in Provideniya, and we had no frequencies, no clearances, we didn’t know who we were gonna talk to, when and were we got there. And at the very last minute, our insurance company called up and said you’re not, we know you’re gonna make this flight, and you’re not insured if you go outside the country. We had the FAA call and say, you can’t do this flight, you don’t have authorization to operate into Russia. And we had the State Department calling and saying we had our permission, but they didn’t have anything in writing. So basically I convened the group, and at the time Alaska Airlines had been involved in some funding of Bering Air aircraft, although it wasn’t one of theirs we were using, and I convened the group and I kind of laid it out, well here’s the deal, you know, our insurance company says that we’re not insured once we cross the border, and I said, I own the airplane, and I’m willing to take that risk, that goes with the territory, but I said all of you aren’t insured, so you have to decide that that’s acceptable. And I said the FAA has said we can’t go, but they’re not standing here, so that doesn’t have to stop us. And the State Department says they have authorization but nothing in writing, so, do you want to go, or not? And this is of course the CEO of Alaska, Bruce Kennedy, and the rest of them, I figured they very well could have said no, we need to have everything in order, but every person said, if you’re ready to go, we’re ready to go. So we headed out and took off, and it was one of those spring days where there just wasn’t a cloud in the sky from here to there, and we flew down over the city and came around and landed, and they met us with a little truck to lead us to the ramp, and everybody was out on the ramp, and we didn’t know there was a 3-hour time difference. So we got over there at what was about 7 o’clock in the morning there, but they knew we were coming [Sue: They did.]. And all of the different military divisions of hierarchy were all there in their dress uniforms, on the ramp. There’s one little piece of pavement you know at the Provideniya airport, amongst all the muck and dirt, and they had washed that piece of pavement for us to park on, and they were all out there with all the formalities to greet us, and then they immediately wanted me to come up to the airport manager’s office, and everybody started to divide up into the different people that were there to attend to them, and the first question they had for me was, why didn’t we ever call on the radio? Why didn’t we follow any of their procedures? And it was just, well we didn’t have any frequencies. We never got any procedures. And they were all very cordial about it, and they were mostly frustrated because they had received requests for all this information, and they had passed on everything to Moscow, everything that we could need, you know, maps, phone numbers, frequencies and everything, and none of it had ever got passed on to us. So they were expecting us, and of course the rest of the day we each were divided up into different groups and taken into town, and they had a dinner, and a breakfast set up, and then they had, it turned out to be June 1st over there, which is an international holiday, so all the school kids were dressed up, and they had flowers and they had things going on, and it was kind of a neat day. And I had taken my video camera and you know had been told by the Russian gal that was the interpreter on this trip—American gal that was a Russian interpreter though—that it was forbidden, couldn’t use a video camera and all that, I took it anyway. And when we got there that was the first, when we were getting out of the airplane I asked the people there at the airport, can I take this video camera? And they were all, sure, yeah absolutely. So we got a lot of good footage that first day of the different meetings and things we did.

  Sue: And you still have that?

  Jim Rowe: Yeah, in fact, they used a lot of that—there was a special on CBS about this trip, because Drinkwater(??) went on the June 13th trip, and CBS did a special on the June 13th trip, which was Alaska’s flight went over, which actually became the Friendship Flight, which ended up in National Geographic and all that. He came out, and he looked at my footage, and he arranged with the University of Alaska to copy my tape, because he said mine oughta be an archive tape, you oughta put it somewhere.

  Sue: Has it been archived?

  Jim Rowe: It’s in the drawer with the rest of my videos at home [laughs]. But they did copy it, and the university kept a copy of it, and CBS got a copy, and they used a lot of that footage in their CBS special on it. And subsequent to that there’s been a lot of other trips that were just real interesting and times that we went and spent over there, but that’s kind of how the whole thing got started. And then Alaska did their flight on the 13th, and we continued throughout ’88 and into ’89 to do a number of trips, what’s called Part 91, they were non-commercial trips, like the Young Pioneers and the Boy Scouts and all of that, Nome groups where we donated the airplanes, my kids went over, and our family went over a number of trips. And then we went over there to rescue a couple U.N. people that were over there for the Smithsonian, doing things, and it turns out they had no transportation home. We continued to work with the FAA to try to get authorization. That went on for a year, until the summer of June of ’89, and the FAA was just really slow on getting anything done. For one they didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t how to issue OpSpecs to Russia, they hadn’t issued any before, and there was no really provision anywhere for light aircraft agreements, all these international agreements are bilateral agreements between large carriers. And it really came down to the State Department had scheduled a trip with us in July, right after the 4th, and we still didn’t have any OpSpecs from the FAA to do this flight legitimately, and they were one of the first that could really be a real charter flight that we needed this authorization for, so it was the 4th of July weekend, and the State Department people were going to be here right after the 4th, and I called the State Department and told them we weren’t going to be able to take them because we didn’t have any OpSpecs. And it was like 4 o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday evening, and they were going to be here on Monday, and the weekend was the 4th of July, and they called me back about 20 minutes later and told me we would have our OpSpecs on Monday morning, that the Fairbanks office of the FAA would be working through the weekend to have them done, and we did. We got ‘em, and they showed up, we went on the trip, and then of course everything really took off, as far as a lot of trips, a lot of groups trying to get reconnected and the Native groups throughout the early part of that decade.

• Lana Creer Harris

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  Lana Creer Harris describes what it was like to be in Nome when contact was first made with Russia after 40 years of silence.
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  Lana: When this thing first started we hadn’t been in town very long, and the NOAA ship came through and was headed over, and Jim Stimpfle was running around town collecting things to send over to Provideniya as good-will gifts with NOAA to kind of open the conversation between that side and this side. And that’s the way he saw it. So I was kind of in on the beginning of that, you know, watching it. And then when the NOAA ship came back, they brought messages back from Provideniya and we held a big community, ah, meeting at the Mini Convention Center. And they read the proclamation letters from Provideniya and they read, you know, brought the gifts and there was all that big hassle with the marine mammal, ah, products coming in and yeah, the government kind of started hop-scotching around and finally got to the point where, yes, you can bring a marine mammal in but you have to give it—like the ivory, and give it to the city, and Ted almost really blew that. But anyways, so we get into this big meeting, and—

  Sue: Tell me what year this was?

  Lana: Oh, heck no, I don’t pay any attention to years.

  Sue: OK. [laughter]

  Lana: I truly don’t.

  Sue: It was probably ’88 or something like that.

  Lana: Yeah, yeah. Well we hadn’t been here very long.

  Sue: Well when did you move here?

  Lana: Oh we’ve been here 13, going on 14 years.

  Sue: OK.

  Lana: And, um, so this is the very beginning, this is the first little tiny warming of the ice curtain thaw. And Jim saw them make kind of the chance to start this dialog with. And they did, and they sent us back a letter, and it said we share the same sky and it’s no place for bombs. [becomes emotional, teary] And as a child of the Cold War, of the duck-and-cover years, to hear that was probably one of the most touching things I’ve ever heard in my life. And somewhere in town that letter still resides, that they sent to us. Um, I think it’s probably with the museum. If you want to read the whole thing. But to hear that was just amazing. And so then we watched this, and pretty soon the, the, we’re seeing more traffic back and forth between the two countries. And as a kid I’d never really thought of the Russian people as the Evil Empire. Now I mean I was always able to make differentiation between people and government. So I never really was one of those people that thought Russians were really kind of scary. In the whole, the government was damn scary! But the individual human beings were great. So that was kind of neat. That was the one thing to me that was the most touching was that, that letter, and the fact that they felt that they needed to say that to us. So, pretty soon the thing gets rolling and they start talking about the Friendship Flights. And so Richard and I went down and got our passports with hopes of being part of it. And pretty soon, as it happens, always, the, the, um, people start pulling rank. And pretty – uh most of the people in Nome who would have gone didn’t get to. Now I admit we hadn’t been here long, we didn’t have any ties in town. We would have been a low priority. But some of the people who were on higher priority and should have gone got bumped for politicians and people with connections. And I thought that was really unfortunate. Because it sent a really, I think, a wrong message. And it, it set up a long time of, I don’t know, headline gathering, I don’t know what it was, I never did figure it out. And then, after all of the hoopla went away and we started these small little back-and-forths, was kinda when a lot of people back in town got to meet. And the, another thing I remember was, Debbie Miller who worked for the Nome Nugget hosted, I think there were three doctors, MDs, or something, that came over, and she took the women to the Alaska Commercial Company, and this was when it was in the old building, and it was very cramped, and it was a classic little old wooden-floored grocery store from—you could have picked it up and dropped it in the south in the ’50s and it wouldn’t have been any different. Very, very limited fresh produce section. And one of the women, um, educated, powerful woman turns to Debbie and said, “You can’t really busy these things, can you.” And Debbie said, “Of course we can, in fact I’ve got to do some grocery shopping and I’m going to grab a few things.” “Oh those are just for show, we know that.” And they truly still weren’t sure that what we had was what we truly had. And that was kind of enlightening, too. But we more and more started seeing the, the powerful on their side and the powerful on our side going back and forth. And the only people who were really people-to-people meeting and greeting were the local capital-N Natives in Western Alaska, who were able to find relatives and go back and forth freely. And it’s been kind of a, um, and then after a while the country, the Russian country government started falling apart, was seeing less and less and it’s become like it was before, we just really don’t see any traffic or hear anything or have any one-to-one meeting.

• Edna Apitiki

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  Edna Apitiki, an educator who participated in the Friendship Flight shares her memories while looking through clippings and keepsakes from that time.
  Audio Transcript

  Edna: OK. You know what I found to say is, I was just looking through my mom’s stuff and you know among, in her bag was, I must have put, this is when he was, she was still alive —

  Sue: Wow.

  Edna: —and I found this ticket. And when I looked in it was my commemorative Nome-Provideniya—.

  Sue: Oh my god.

  Edna: —Nome Alaska Airlines flight.

  Sue: Ohh! How did you get to go on the Friendship Flight?

  Edna: Um, I was, I’m friends with Bernie Alvanna and Jim Stimpfle.

  Sue: Ahhh! Oh, way to go!

  Edna: Yeah. Plus they were looking for an educator and I was a perfect one—

  Sue: You were the perfect, and you spoke the language!

  Edna: — and so Jim called me, and Jim called me and asked me, “Hey Edna there’s a, you know, would you like to go on the Friendship Flight—"

  Sue: Ohhh!

  Edna: Plus a student. So I picked a student from Wales so we went.

  Sue: Really.

  Edna: Yeah. Leah Weyapuk is her name.

  Sue: Well, well, what, what memories came back when you saw this today?

  Edna: Ohh, I, oh I was looking over that and I said, “Ohhh.” Every time I remember this I think about my cousins were lost at the Bering Sea too at that time.

  Sue: Mmm.

  Edna: You know junior Slwooko and his sons and um Andy Haviland when he was a teacher here.

  Sue: God, hmm. That’s—

  Edna: I always things about that then and then the uh the first um when I first got to see all those Russian Eskimos [interruption] and when we first got to meet those Russian Natives. But—

  Sue: What was that like?

  Edna: — there were sooo many people there that you know everywhere you would turn uh Natives or Russians, everybody was happy to see each other.

  Sue: That must have been so incredible.

  Edna: Yeah it was incredible. Um, when we first got off the bus uh old lady Jane Antoghame came with us that time, she’s long gone, uh she’s passed away.

  Sue: Uh huh.

  Edna: Jane Antoghame, she was originally from over there. But they had moved here and got naturalized here. And um she’s the one that paired me up with my families, host families. From long ago.

  Sue: When you sta-, when you went over?

  Edna: Yeah, when I, yeah.

  Sue: So you stayed with—

  Edna: So I, no we never, we, it was just a day trip when we went over there.

  Sue: Oh that’s right, that’s right.

  Edna: Yeah. Short. Too short of a trip. And next thing I ran into is this one, it’s a commemorative, uh, executive proclamation by Steve Cowper, governor.

  Sue: Was this from the Friendship Flight?

  Edna: Yeah. Uh from the Friendship Flight. It says, in geologic time we were one land before the waters rose, the Bering Strait was a wide plain, a land bridge which brought humans to the Americas from prehistory we were one people using this strait as a crossroads. Culture, language, and family ties are shared by inhabitants of both shores. Through our recorded history our history is one. Europeans’ first knowledge of Alaska came with visitors to the strait, to this strait. Even before the sale of Alaska to the U.S. in 1867, American and Russians sought to link the continents with a telegraph line. During the World War II our proximity to our neighbor made Alaska and the strait a major supply route. Forty years ago, free travel across the border was curtailed. In the Cold War, mutual mistrust between nations meant local suffering among neighbors and families. On June 13, 1988, a new age begins for the Bering Strait. A flight of friendship from Nome, Alaska, to Provideniya, Magadan, on the opposite shore, brings with it a spirit of reunification, reconciliation and renewal. Now therefore I Steve Cowper, governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim June 13, 1988, as Alaska-Siberia Friendship Day. Isn’t that something?

  Sue: Oh, I never knew that had been done. We oughta celebrate that every year.

  Edna: We should do that—

  Sue: We should!

  Edna: —it was June 13. We should you know make it, make it an effort, and then—

  Sue: Well, [unintelligible]

  Edna: —surprisingly I, I have—

  Sue: Oh my—

  Edna: —no idea some man from Washington, D.C., I think gave this to me. [sound of paper rustling] You know it’s a, it’s a, uh, he, it says right to call collect. So I don’t know who this person, in the [Sue laughs] in the Russian excitement of all this, I found this one, too. Arctic Matthews Jay, N.A. Act, by Jay Mathews, Washington Post staff writer, that’s him, OK.

  Sue: Ahhhh, so this was an article,

  Edna: Yeah,

  Sue: from the Washington Post.

  Edna: Yeah. Uh no for him I mean I think he gave it to me. Because he was using his computer to do this.

  Sue: Yeah!

  Edna: OK.

  Sue: Interesting!

  Edna: Yeah. It says Provideniya, Russia, June 14, trying to end, end forty years of hostility at the only places where the two Super Powers share a border, an unprecedented dele-, delegation of, delegation of Alaskans took a 45-minute flight across the Bering Strait today and overwhelmed this grim, grimy little port [both laugh].

  Sue: Oh well. There goes tourism to Provideniya!

  Edna: I know! Close to Americans for decades. Billed as a Friendship Flight from Nome, Alaska, population three thousand to this Siberian town of five thousand people, 230 miles away, the journey served as a symbolic reopening of the back door between the United States and the Soviet Union. The tightly-packed eleven-hour visit included emotional reunions of long-separated Eskimo families and friends. Intense discussions of new U.S. tourist trips to Siberia, an outpouring of ideas for closer ties between the two areas that once formed a prehistoric land bridge between Asia and America. There were lot of us who thought this wasn’t going to happen or at least not this quickly.

  Sue: Oh, said U.S. – So-

  Edna: Said U.S.-Soviet expert Bob Clark. Perhaps the first state department official to set foot in Provideniya since World War II. Soviet enthusiasm for melting the ice curtain across the Bering Strait went swept away obsta-, all obstacles. The idea for today’s flight of 82 people including Alaska Governor Steve Cowper and Senator Fran, Frank Murkowski originated not with the Soviets, however, but with a Nome insurance and real estate broker, Jim Stimpfle [both laugh]. Go Jim!

  Sue: Yeah!

  Edna: His early efforts to break the Bering wall included launching a weather balloon. [laughing] I remember that—“carrying chewing tobacco and friendly messages. It took two years for public officials to realize his one-man campaign might have a significant result and the Soviets seemed delighted today to celebrate Stimpfle’s personal triumph.” You know, so on and on and on [paper rustling].

  Sue: That is wonderful!

  Edna: Yeah!

  Sue: I’d love to get a copy of this.

  Edna: Yeah.

  Sue: So this person must have been on the flight. Otherwise they wouldn’t have known how grimy Provideniya was! [laughs]

  Edna: Yeah. Yeah, yup. Yeah.

  Sue: Oh my goodness.

  Edna: His name was Jay Mathews, I remember that now.

  Sue: Are you, oh.

  Edna: Yeah.

  Sue: I bet this is when, maybe this is how it got out on the Associated Press.

  Edna: Yeah, he had his little laptop with him that time. Yeah. And another one I found are these, and that caught my eye.

  Sue: So you saved all this stuff.

  Edna: Yeah. I gotta—

  Sue: Well you should. It’s part of history

  Edna: Yeah, I gotta—

  Sue: This is wonderful, you still ha-, I can’t believe they actually printed regular tickets—

  Edna: Yeah, regular tickets for, I guess they had to. And then I had this, look.

  Sue: What’s this?

  Edna: This was my first American you know rubles exchange, you know.

  Sue: Oh my goodness. So for thirty-four dollars and forty-five cents,

  Edna: Yeah

  Sue: you got twenty-one rubles.

  Edna: Yes, 21 rubles, I think.

  Sue: Well, when I remember it was a dollar sixty-seven for one ruble

  Edna: Yeah, one ruble

  Sue: so that’s about right.

  Edna: Yeah. So that’s about—

  Sue: Oh my god.

  Edna: These, these ones, see.

  Sue: Doesn’t that, oh it takes me back.

  Edna: Yeah!

• Margarita Glughih

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  Margarita Glughih, the cultural leader of the Naukan Native peoples, describes the connections shared across the Bering Strait and why it is important to preserve them.
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  Sue-to Translator: What has been of most importance or significance to her in having the border reopened? Margarita: Making close connections, our cultural exchange. This was a big celebration for us, when the border opened. We organized a concert on their side, and they organized their concert. We began exchanging our melodies and dances with each other. It left a very great impression on us, very memorable. S-to T: When they came to Diomede by a helicopter for the Bering Bridge Expedition, did she recognize some of the dances that the Diomeders did? Did they recognize some of theirs? M: Yes. We recognized each other’s melodies. They sang our melodies. When we organized our concert, they probably recorded our melodies (from our CB radio). During the dances, they sang many of our melodies. M: When Lynn Cox accompanied the Little Diomeders, when the Little Diomeders came to the Ratmanoff Island--there were Umeh, Chulyuk, somebody else--I began singing Natuten’s song. They began singing it, too. We were singing together, without paying any attention to the Americans that accompanied them. We were so happy. S: One last question. I always say that [laughs]. It has seemed to us that in the last five years contact has become less and less. How important does Margarita feel that we keep this border open? I assume I know the answer, but I would like to know how important is it and in what ways [should we] keep the border open? M: It is very important. Our lifestyles are similar. We should help each other. Cooperation is the most important Northern rule. Our ancestors always kept their connections. All through their lives they kept these connections.

• Michael Zelensky

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  Michael Zelensky shares what the reopening of the border between Russia and the United States meant to him.
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  Sue-to Translator: OK, let me ask one little personal question. What for him, personally, has been the most significant thing to come out of the reconnection of Alaska over the last twelve years? Michael: The most significant is that I went to Alaska, to the US. This is what I discovered for myself personally--a new world that I didn’t know, and where I could travel now. I found new friends, new connections, and business ties. This is what most important for me, and what will stay with me for the rest of my life. I would like to add that I came to conclusion that we are all people. Are faces look alike, our hands and feet are alike. We should be kind to each other. We should live in peace, friendship, and understanding, helping each other.

• Marty James

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  Marty James shares his memories of visiting Russia with his family after the border reopened.
  Audio Transcript

  Sue: I mean I cuz I just reflect on my own thinking the first time it’s like, that’s the Soviet Union, you know,

  Marty: Yeah!

  Sue: before the plane’s even touched the ground,

  Marty: Oh yeah.

  Sue: looking down. Do you what do you recall or remember of that that first uh

  Marty: Well there was other flights had gone over before us you know and we and it was iffy the weather wasn’t too good and so we waited in Uelen but I I just couldn’t believe it, you know I says, hey I cannot believe we are going to the Soviet Union. Ah you know and uh I had no idea what was gonna happen but it was just just a fantastic adventure, you know, and and I had my number one son you know with me you know, something to share, it was um um one little interesting thing was that when they well they first you looked down you know and you say my god look at the size of those buildings! And look at the terrain you know it looked more like uh like Norway or something you know with fjords and stuff

  Sue: Mhm.

  Marty: and and there wasn’t it seemed to me much tundra, but just kind of like hard rock and stuff.

  Sue: Yeah, much more barren.

  Marty: Yeah. Totally different. The geology was totally different. But the the the size of the place was impressed. But when we flew when we landed there, there was um there was a picture on the hillside uh like actually a silhouette of Lenin. I think it was Lenin. And you know Ernie you know was a little boy he was about fifth grade at the time I think um you know looked and he said Daddy, is there going to be war here? You know and I just, no I don’t think so. They won’t allow there to be a war here and so he wanted to know what there was some letters in Russian on the hillside. He wanted to know what those are what it was said. And I forgot I don’t remember what it said but that struck him and and um but even he uh you know had thoughts of you know what are we going to expect here? You know. So we went in and it was gosh you know you met people! You know and not only just people in the abstract, but real people with families, you know, there’s a mother and a father and a functioning social unit there. And we just walked right into the place and the when we we got there, into the home where we were gonna stay, I was scared to let my kid out the door you know cuz what’s gonna happen, you know and but but um the parents assured me that it was safe, you know. I didn’t know. And that’s all it took. And although those kids – the Russian kid couldn’t speak a word of English, and Ernie could not speak a word of Russian – they went outside. And I don’t know how they communicated but they had they had a wonderful time. I says, look at that, you know. And I think and everybody was so pleased with it because they said, Hey, here’s a generation of humanity that that might even get along with each other! You know? And it was just right, it happened – [snaps fingers] just like that! It just in front of our face. Out they were. They had no cares, they they they totally enjoyed each other’s person. Immediately! And language meant nothing. I said, oh, it was, I I was floating! I was so happy! [S laughs] And the people over there were so human and so, and they were so interested what life was like over here.

  Sue: Did you have translators or how were you communicating?

  Marty: We were very lucky. Not ever – we had a gr – because right across the hall, was the lady who was in charge of this, the Pioneers, and she could she was fluent in English. And and Russian. The main social outlet is other people. And so who your next door neighbor is or who your friend is, you’re like this, it’s a very, it’s a bond. And luckily that lady we stayed with and these people were bonded people. And and she came over, and we were talking back and forth and this poor lady, we forgot you know that she had to translate all this and we were we were talking back and forth and she was translating fast as she could, and so we were learning from each other what you know questions we wanted each to ask each other, and and and information we wanted, you know, impressions and everything. And she was and we almost forgot she was there, we were talking, blblblblah! And I had to wait for a little bit [laughter] and then [can’t understand] that, and then oh, they’d say something in Russian and it would come, but we forgot –

  Sue: That there was this other person –

  Marty: That there was ano – and this blahblahblahblah she she was so. But, we were talking direct!

  Sue: Yeah.

  Marty: And, oh so it was um it was just I just will never have another experience like that, it was there will never be another time. I said hey, you know, they’re people just like us. They have the same fears, the same cares, they have family life, they have problems, uh, they’re, we’re so much the same.

  Sue: I think back to that phrase in one of the Beatles songs, do the Russians love their children, too?

  Marty: Uh!

  Sue: You know and I remember thinking gee you know could they be that much like us?

  Marty: Well you know was a funny thing was, here was Peter was the son of the name of the people we stayed with, the Sirkanofs. And and she worked I think as a ah I think like a secretary, and he was in charge of one of the a headmaster at one of the schools. And they have the one son peter and they had another son who was with relatives in another part of Russia which they seemed to do fairly frequently. Can’t think of his name right now. And uh I never met him. But but Peter, uh, what amazed me was when the mother related to Peter, on just practical matters, it was different than Americans relating to their kids. If I wanted my kid to set the table, I would browbeat him. I say, Set the table! And they would find all the energy in their will and their power and their might and their persuasiveness, whatever, to get out of setting the table. It’s war. You know.

  Andrew: [can’t understand]

  Marty: It’s true. It’s true and it really is.

  Andrew: And it goes the other way, too!

  Marty: Yes. Oh it does. Granted! So . But here, I saw a mother talking to Peter, who was about 12, as a respected human being. I could tell by their body language. And she said, Blahblub? And she asked him if he wouldn’t set the table. He let her know that it needed to be done. There was no fuss, no muss, he went over very in a manly way and he whacked down all the things down, dump bump bup, it was done! He didn’t argue, all the energy, he got it done. And I poked Ernie, I said, do you see this? And he says, Yeees. He understood it. He understood it. I said, I said, this is a lesson in life right here! [laughter] Said, treat your kid like a human being! He might do something in response! [laughter] The kid thought nothing of it, it was the – and he go – ahh. And so, that was a lesson. I said hey, family life in the Soviet Union is alive and well at least in this house. There’s interactions of a very healthy fashion going on here. Of which I never see in the United States!

  Sue: That’s funny.

  Marty: That was just one thing, one thing. We had so many experiences there.

  Sue: How long were you there for?

  Marty: Well I think about two days. But it was we had the fourth of July celebration there,

  Sue: Did THEY have a – they?

  Marty: They helped us celebrate the fourth.

  Sue: Did they understand what the 4th of July meant?

  Marty: Yeah! Because we told. And they had brought over sparklers, some firecrackers, but especially sparklers.

  Sue: Ahh.

  Marty: And the one day that we were supposed to we were gonna go up on this hill and have this big kind of a thing we were going to roast hot dogs, they’d never seen a hotdog, oh! And I had the presence of mind to bring over a Polaroid camera. And that I was a hit! Because for a kid, to snap a picture and something goes zzzzipzzzip!, and out this came the, and they they could watch it develop. They could not believe it. They could not. Ahhh. So. They were learning and, an, and then they had the sparklers, and they there mostly probably kids were in abundance, and women. There weren’t to many men. But we were up on top of this hill and it had rained. All day. By the time we got up there even though it was raining we still had this fire going and they had these sparklers going and they helped us enjoy the 4th of July even though I think it was only the 3rd in the United States!

  Sue: Oh! [laughter]

  Marty: Something like that. So. But they really got into it and I tell ya they um they really went out on all out to entertain us with limited resources to make us feel at home and they really enjoyed our company. It was it was an experience that will never ever be repeated. Because I think if I went back there, again, it would never be the same because the newness is totally gone.

  Sue: Mhm.

  Marty: You know. That was a moment. Just for everybody. It was such a it was such a delight. I mean they had they had a gym they called the gymnasium, it was like a gym, and they had uh contests but they didn’t have like the Russian kids against the American kids, it was the Russian and American kids on one team, and the Russian and American kids on so there were teams against a team.

  Sue: That’s great.

  Marty: But and every and any time any American kid would do well, there was, and that was very well attended by the whole community there was a huge roars of approval and a Russian kid and everybody just went out the roof so a the cooperation that went on there, I mean, you know. [can’t understand] It was, I said, it was like you were not walking on the ground. Everybody’s floating in the air. We’re all four feet off the ground. One thing after the other.

  Sue: It just seems so unbelievable.

  Marty: It was totally bonding. I just, it was just, oh. There was no words to describe it.

  Sue: Do you feel like it’s changed Nome? In any way?

  Marty: Well yeah I think on the long term it has. Um, well yeah. I don’t think it’s

  Sue: Not perhaps that as much as it

  Marty: I don’t think it has I don’t think it’s – it’s not surface. Well we know you know we know that there there are people over there that are connected with us. You know.

  Sue: Maybe we went from being the ends of the earth to the cross – at the crossroads. [laughs]

  Marty: Well just ah I think it’s a unfinished thing. Like an unfinished symphony.

  Sue: Yeah.

  Marty: No more ??? needs to be written. I I I think it will come in time. I think that maybe their situation will improve, that, you know hopefully will improve, and that um that maybe you know Andrew or Ernie or that have been over there will go over and see Gleb and these other and Peter and these others and maybe they’ll maybe another generation will pick up where we weren’t able to carry on.

  Sue: Would you like to go back over?

  Andrew: Yeah, actually um now you mention it they’re doing they’re probably going to do uh an exchange cuz they just did their exchange program you know and we’re probably going to do one too and go to what’s that place called – that we had –

  Marty: Anadyr?

  Sue: Oh, Anadyr? Or Anadyr?

  Andrew: Yeah

  Sue: Yeah.

  Andrew: Yeah. So I’d like I ws going I plan on doing that.

  Sue: who organized this latest I mean there hasn’t been an exchange as such in a in quite a while.

  Andrew: Yeah there hasn’t.

  Sue: Is this Leo and –

  Marty: I Leo seems to be there for sure. Whoever did it I was so happy they did it.

  Sue: Yeah.

  Marty: You know. You know but I’m so tired [laughs]. I would never be able to carry carry out something like that.

  Sue: Yeah.

  Marty: Leo’s good at it. And whoever did it, I’m I’m very happy they did it and I hope I hope more it happens more often. Hopefully there’s a return back again. We need to reconnect.

• Leo Rasmussen

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  Leo Rasmussen discusses how the international sled dog race, the Hope Race, was founded and why it was a valuable venture.
  Audio Transcript

  Sue: All right. Leo, how did the Hope Race come about? Where did the idea come from?

  Leo: The honest truth is it probably came from both sides. Uh, it was a conjugation of a number of uh number of situations that took place uh in 1988 um I primarily went with the Friendship Flight, was sort of a quirk, I had no intention of going because essentially it was supposed to be Native people meeting Native people and tying these families back together again. However, by the time the 88 passengers that got on that plane why there was a lot less Native people than originally intended.

  Sue: Mhm.

  Leo: As it was, Congressman Young and his wife gave up their seat so that myself and the mayor Nome, John Handeland, at that time, could actually partake in uh going there. Uh I represented the congressman, uh, in going to uh Provideniya for the Friendship Flight. Uh, one of the prime causes I was president of Iditarod at that time was to offer the opportunity of a couple of what we thought would be Native mushers the opportunity to participate in Iditarod. That was the beginning of probably both sides thinking, gosh it would be neat to tie both Alaska and Chukotka together again uh through some form of um cultural facility like a dog race. And you want the honest truth, uh, I to this day uh you know Rosemary Phillips had something to do with it, Victor Orloff had something to do with it, I had something to do with it, um maybe the two um people who ended up coming over had something to do with it—I, they can all take credit as far as I’m concerned because it did happen for a couple years. It was a phenomenal thing in putting it together.

  Sue: How do you see a dogsled race um being of benefit to the people – an international dogsled race – being of benefit to the people here and in Chukotka?

  Leo: Well, if for no other reason it happens at a time of the year that everything is on the skinny edge of downhill. It brings people together uh, some of the finest times in Nome’s history were its festivals and its different events that it held during the wintertime when there was no travel or no communication with outside. They did things for themselves. And what finer thing can you do than take an event that drags people from place to place to place into places that nobody ever comes to in the first place? I, having been involved here far longer than Iditarod, I remember what it was like in the springtime. Uh, stir crazy, uh, people, um, from the winter sickness, wandering around just talking, and talking to nobody, stir, you know, over the deep end, um, people committing suicide or attempting suicide, looking for attention, uh, we don’t have that problem. What’s the value of Iditarod? What’s the value of Hope? Well, let’s hope life gets a little better. It sure can’t be any worse than than it was without it. Therein is your answer. Money? Yeah, that comes with it. The mushers take a piece of their history into the future, uh, we had mushers involved with the original Hope Race starting here uh the second year, using their original uh dogs and and their their original sleds. Uh, sledges if you want to call it that, because that’s what they were, the same as, exactly the same stuff that they were using one thousand two hundred years ago. What neater thing could you do than tie the history together as you take people into the future? And keep dragging your history along with you?

• Kate Persons

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  Kate Persons, the winner of the 1991 Hope Race, describes her experience and what she thinks the race meant for the region and sled dog racing.
  Audio Transcript

  Sue: Um, what, what interested you about running the Hope Race in the very beginning?

  Kate: I’d always wanted to see what it was like on the other side, for years and years — really ever since I came to Alaska — and I never dreamed it would be possible. And I guess it must have been in, uh, when was it that I first heard about it … It was first advertised as being this very exclusive event, and only the winners, winners of the Quest and Iditarod were going to be invited. It must have been in um, maybe, maybe in the fall of ’89. And I’d run the Quest twice and had finished sixth and fifth, and I really thought that I could maybe win the Quest. And the reason I wanted so much to win the Quest was to get an invitation to participate in the Hope Race! I mean, I wanted to win it anyway, [laughter] but um when I didn’t win it, it wasn’t so much that I was really disappointed about not winning, it was that I thought I’d lost a chance to participate in this Hope Race. And then, um, sometime after, I guess it was the next fall, it would have been the fall of ’90, um, I got a call um from Nancy Wright who was helping to organize the first race, and she asked if I’d be interested in participating, and it just made my day, it was just one of the most exciting things that had ever happened. And, um, and it was just amazing to me that more mushers weren’t interested in going. But when, and when the racing crowd found out that I was planning to go, um, gosh, everyone was so skeptical about it, and they said, “Oh, I … they’re gonna turn your dogs into hats, you’ll never get out of there with your dogs – unless you have $40,000 to pay your way out, don’t dare go!” [laugh]

  Sue: Really!

  Kate: Yeah, there was just, um, really a lot of skepticism about it being a safe thing to do. And feelings that if I wasn’t jeopardizing my own safety, then at least I was jeopardizing the safety of my dogs. But I don’t know, maybe [laugh] maybe I’m foolish, I don’t know – it never even, it just never even would have occurred to me to have those concerns, it just didn’t worry me, at all. I mean it was just too grand of an adventure to turn my back on then.

  Sue: Yeah. I felt the same way when I had the offer to go. You had to — I mean I did sleep in my sled with all my dogs tied to it one night, with a shotgun in my lap — in Lorena. Because that was the town where these drunks were trying to get at our dogs. I mean it really was true, but, no I —

  Kate: Maybe it was the rumors from, from that trip of yours that, that prompted people to, to have these concerns …

  Sue: Well, it is a consideration. I mean, it was a consideration, it remains a consideration – that you still meet people who will tell you on this trip, oh yeah, I had a dog team but somebody killed them for their coats. So it did happen and it still does happen. But there’s ways, you know, to prevent it and prepare for it. [laugh]

  Kate: Yeah, they probably wouldn’t be interested in our short-haired American dogs for fur coats!

  Sue: I should show you a slide of mine cuz, mine weren’t so short-haired. I didn’t have racing dogs, you know, I had just more traveling dogs, and a few of them had, you know, some nice coats on them. And all of our dogs are clean. Whereas theirs have been rolling around in coal soot. And I have this one picture, this real idiot dog of mine with this lustrous coat, sitting there on my dogs sled, just smiling away, and this guy standing next to him, petting it, with, with this great big dog hair hat on! [laughter] [phone rings]

  Kate: And the weather was terrible when we got there, and we waited there for, for about a week, and none of us really knew whether those helicopters were going to materialize or not! [laughter] And, and it, it was, it was really quite moving when they finally did come whopping out of the fog. I mean it still wasn’t great weather, but when they really did show up in Wales, it was, it was just grand.

  Sue: Did a cheer go up and everyone –

  Kate: Oh yeah, oh yeah, and everyone—I mean the houses in Wales just emptied out. Everybody, you know, came out to watch these things land. And they are such huge machines. They’re very impressive. It took two trips to get us all over there. And then they just shove you inside the helicopters. Nothing is tied down, there are no seats, let alone seatbelts [laughter].

  Sue: And there’s fuel tanks strapped in there on the side [laughter]

  Kate: And these hydraulic lines, you know, just exposed, and people tying their dogs off to the lines and [laughter]. Yeah, safety doesn’t have a high priority. [laugh] And safety precautions.

  Sue: Did some, other than Nicolai Ettynye, who’d won Iditarod, did any Russian mushers come over to start the race, or was that not till the next year?

  Kate: Not until the next year. And then there was, there was that fellow Sasha, who had run the Iditarod, who was supposed to have participated, but for some reason he did not. And I’m kinda hazy, there was some controversy surrounding his decision not to participate.

  Sue: Oh. He was a, a, a white Russian?

  Kate: Yeah.

  Sue: Something to do with the sports committee?

  Kate: Yeah.

  Sue: Well what was your reception like when you got off the helicopters in Uelen?

  Kate: [Laugh.] That actually was amazing. The whole town was out on the ice to welcome us. And, um, you know, we’d had no idea, of course, what to expect when we got there, and what accommodations would be made for us and for the dogs. And there was a lot of snow that year, um, out on the ice, in front of town, where the dogs were to be parked. And they had shoveled by hand these trenches for the dogs, and each team had its own trench where it was protected, um, you know all this done by hand, and it was just this huge maze of lanes, cuz there weren’t only our teams but there were all these Russian teams that were waiting there to join us. Um, and it was very well set up that we stayed in the school, and they had, um, guards that were stationed all night to watch over the teams, and it was lighted, there were spotlights that shined down on this compound, with these guards, watching everything, and all of our ….

  Sue: The Russians had a lot of stake that nobody’s race dogs became hats!

  Kate: Right, right! [laughter] And that was the case in a number of the villages. Not all of them had such protected surroundings for the dogs, but they certainly did there. And then, also we worried a lot about whether we were really going to find our supplies and food drops at all these villages, and there was not I think a thing missing anywhere.

  Kate: Um, actually, after we left Provideniya, it was our first day out of Provideniya, I was ahead of everybody else, following the trail breaker who had a sled upon which the cinematographer was riding. And the trail wasn’t marked, so I was relying on following their distinctive snowmachine track to know where to go. And they took a wrong turn, and they ended up going a long ways from the trail where we were supposed to go, and I followed them off, way up a valley to a reindeer herding camp. And it wasn’t until the end of the day that they realized that they had gone the wrong way, I mean it was dark when they finally stopped at this reindeer camp. Neither of them spoke a word of English. [laughter]

  Sue: Were the other mushers following —

  Kate: No. No. Um, after I had taken the wrong turn, the vizdahode that had carried the race officials had passed all the other mushers, and that driver knew the correct way to go. And everyone else had then followed the vizdahode driver and arrived at the next, um, camp, which was, um, it wasn’t a village that night, it was one of the few places where, um, where we stayed at an, um, I think it was a weather observation station on the, the shore of a large lake. And so everyone else arrived that night, and I wasn’t there. And they were just beside themselves with worry because the trailbreaker and this, the, um, filmmaker and I never showed up.

  Sue: Oh gee.

  Kate: But they figured out, well, she just took a wrong turn. And then, the next day, the helicopter from Provideniya arrived at that camp and told them about what had happened with the people who had gotten into our food-drop bags and drank the Heet. And died. And … the race officials and participants in the race were afraid that my disappearance had something to do with this incident that had occurred in Provideniya. They thought perhaps I had been taken back to Provideniya and was being held because these people had died. And the helicopter also was not willing to go and search for us. So meanwhile, I was at this camp with these two guys that didn’t speak English, and I realized, I mean, I had some sort of general idea from looking at a map that we were not where we were supposed to be, and they made it clear to me that we had gone the wrong direction.

  Sue: Were there reindeer herders out at —

  Kate: No, there was no one else there.

  Sue: Just an empty camp.

  Kate: A nice, nice cabin.

  Sue: Oh cabin, not one of the yurongas.

  Kate: No. No, it was a corral, and there was actually a cabin there. And then the next morning, it was really windy — I mean so windy that you just could not even stand up. And to get there we’d traveled along a river with a lot of overflow and it was just glare ice, and so there was just no possibility of backtracking. And, and at one point that next morning, the trailbreaker and the filmer got into this heated argument and they grabbed each other by the lapels and they were just red in the face, just screaming and shaking each other, and I was scared to death cuz I thought they were going to kill each other or at least get into a bloody fight! And then, they just like dropped it, and patted each other on the back, and everything was OK! [laughter] And I never really did know exactly what they were arguing about. But I sorta suspect that it was the filmmaker giving the trailbreaker a hard time for having gone the wrong direction. But I don’t, I don’t exactly know …

  Sue: So when did you finally get out of there?

  Kate: And so then late that afternoon, the wind died down enough that we back-tracked and found the place where we had gone wrong, and then followed the vizdahode and dog team tracks, um, towards the, the place where we were supposed to go, and we were met about halfway by the vizdahode and race officials, who were very relieved to see us! [laughter]

  Sue: I bet! Oh, god. Were you, were you—I’m sort of backing up to Uelen now—were you excited to see, um, the Chukchi-style sleds and the reindeer skin clothing and all the different, the really different cultural things?

  Kate: Oh yeah. Oh certainly, and it was almost like going back in time to, I don’t know, maybe even before I was born [laughter]. Um, but yeah, they just, they rely entirely just on natural materials that they get from the land for their clothing and, um, for the harnesses for their dogs, for a lot of, their sleds were just cobbled together with what looked like pallets and driftwood.

  Sue: Wow, what a -

  Kate: And the mushers were dressed entirely in fur clothing. And, um, they were really skeptical about our nylon clothing. And one of the guys, actually Gana, the guy in that photograph that you have —

  Sue: Oh, Gani Anaquez …

  Kate: Yeah, um, he said that, um, if he had to dress in the clothing that we wear, he probably would never dare go outside! He just couldn’t imagine it could possibly keep us warm. [laughter]

  Sue: It doesn’t keep me warm! [laughter] Does it keep you warm?

  Kate: Well, what I have keeps me warm. Yeah. [laughter]

  Sue: Interesting. What was their reaction to, um, you know, to bags of dog food and watering dogs and, you know, just the kind of care?

  Kate: Well initially they thought it was just silly and fussy, and, um, they really didn’t understand the concept of watering dogs. Um, their dogs were simply fed chunks of meat or fish. And the idea of cooking dog food and especially brothing dogs just didn’t make sense to them at all. But by the end of the Hope Race in ’92, some of them, anyway, were experimenting with that.

  Sue: Even then.

  Kate: Yeah, uh huh. Yeah, yeah. They were amazed at, at how much more endurance our dogs had, and through interpreters they asked a lot of questions. I mean, they understood that it wasn’t entirely just that our dogs were just superior to theirs. They could see that it had, that we had some secrets that they, um, weren’t aware of. And they were anxious to learn.

  Sue: That’s neat. I think it would be real interesting now, with ten years of them applying those secrets, to do this again, see what’s — what did you think of their dogs?

  Kate: Well, a lot of them, um, they’re beautifully trained. Of course they use them for practical purposes, for hunting and reindeer herding, and so they were, they had just, um, they were incredibly well disciplined. They didn’t need any kind of a hook or hardly a brake. And, you know, when they told those dogs to sit and stay, they were planted. And, um, but a lot of the teams had, were a mixture of breeds, many of which had come from other parts of Russia. They weren’t the original Russian sled dogs for the most part. But there were a couple teams that came from, um, villages way up on the north coast that probably were the original Russian dogs, and they were absolutely beautiful animals. Their conformation, their size, their power, um, those teams really, with the proper care, I’m sure could have competed with the very best of ours. But a lot of the others had very long hair coats, not good conformation for, um, running, would never be really fast dogs. But steady and really dependable.

  Sue: I’ll have to get out my photo album. I’ve took, the last page has got some dog pictures from that recent trip, there’s some you’ll, you’ll get a chuckle out of!

  Kate: Yeah.

  Sue: So. Well do you have any, any, uh, favorite villages along the way that you stopped in, or anything memorable that stood out, meeting, people — gosh, women in the villages, must just — and the men—been fascinated with women mushers, and leading —

  Kate: Yeah, women mushers were a novelty. [laughter]

  Sue: How was that expressed?

  Kate: But for the most part, they were just really interested and, and at least the women were really supportive and excited by the fact that, that in this country, women do things like run dogs. Sue: Um, so what, how was the race, I mean, the country that you saw, was it, you know what were the things that you saw that you hadn’t anticipated at all, and did you have any expectations?

  Kate: Um, I guess I didn’t really have a lot of expectations. I expected the country to be beautiful and it is. Um, it’s a lot more rugged than I was expecting and I was amazed at, um, how much more barren and stark it is from, um, what it is on this side. But what surprised me the most really was the people and that wasn’t even something I was, um, particularly interested in to begin with. I mean mostly, I was interested in seeing the country and, um, what wildlife there was over there, and having this experience with my dogs. But in the end, really, it was the people that captivated me more than anything.

  Sue: Right. What stood out about the people, I mean in what ways ….

  Kate: Well, everyone was just so incredibly friendly, and generous, and clearly pleased that we were there and excited, um, to have visitors from a foreign place, and, um, I think we were all a little frustrated that we couldn’t communicate. Because both sides, we just had so many questions that just couldn’t be asked or answered. Um, but you could just read the spirit of their feelings and, um, it was just a very, very positive experience.

  Sue: Did you stay in people’s homes?

  Kate: Yeah. In many places we did, not everywhere. In some places we stayed in schools.

  Sue: Wow. Well, um, you won the race. What kind of reception did you get in Anadyr?

  Kate: Well there were, it seemed like, several thousand people waiting on the edge of town, um, and there were fireworks, and [laughter]—

  Sue: Oh you’re kidding!

  Kate: You could hardly get the dogs through the crowd of people. The dogs were I think a little bit overwhelmed and intimidated, although it was that way to a lesser degree in all the villages that it was hard to just get through the, the crowds of people. And then, um, people were just so curious about, like, what was in your sled. And so as soon as you’d stop, you’d just be surrounded by this throng of people, I mean just shoulder to shoulder to where you couldn’t even move. And then when you’d open up your sled bag they would just all lean over and you’d just hear these gasps and just sounds of amazement at all this stuff that we were carrying with us. [laughter]

  Sue: Did you, did the Russian mushers carry — all the Russian mushers were Native, right?

  Kate: They were. Yeah.

  Sue: And did they carry a lot less stuff?

  Kate: Oh they carried almost nothing. They just had a little bedroll on their sled with, um, just the bare minimum.

  Sue: Wow. Well what kind of a, I mean what was the celebrations and the awards and honors and all that, and gosh you went through all that without translation at the end of the race? The awards banquet and all ….

  Kate: Oh no, in Anadyr there were some translators. Yeah. Yeah. No they put on, in every village that we went to, um, we spent at least one night, in some places we spent a couple nights, and they had tremendous feasts for us, and entertainment, um, a lot of the entertainment was put on by school children. And I was just amazed you know these schools have—the facilities are just terrible. I mean there’s just so little in the way of just physical, um, what’s the word, just, just stuff. But yet they’ve done so much —

  Sue: Teaching aids.

  Kate: But yet they’ve done so much with these kids. Um, the kids are so creative and they put on these incredible dance performances. And their skills as musicians are just amazing. And it makes you realize you don’t really need all this high-faluting technology and teaching aids to, um, provide a really good education.

  Sue: What do you feel, for you personally, was of the most value out of the Hope Race? You know, where, where did it touch your life?

  Kate: Well it’s funny. It’s, for a number of years afterwards it just, it really was a big part of my life. Keeping in touch with people over there and learning Russian, and I actually thought that, that probably the next, for a while, that the next thing that I would do with my life would have something to do with, um, the Russian Far East—I didn’t know exactly what. But circumstances changed and I moved into other things, and in the long term I guess it’s just a lot of good, wonderful memories.

  Sue: What do you feel has been the value of the race, of having held this international race?

  Kate: I supposed just the main thing is just opening the eyes of people on both sides to what life is like for our neighbors.

  Sue: Would you like to go again?

  Kate: Oh I’d love to go again. I’m not sure that it’s going to be possible but, um, at least in the near future, but no, I’d love to go again.

  Sue: Can you get your team trained up by spring?

  Kate: There’s no way I can go anywhere in the spring

  Sue: Oh, because of work.

  Kate: Yeah. There’s just no way. I hear talk about perhaps there being another Hope Race and it would be a heartbreaker to miss it, but the reality of it is, as long as I’m doing what I’m doing now, I won’t be part of it.