00;00;00;21 - 00;00;06;16 Mike Welcome back to Alaska Voices. I'm Mike DeLue and I'm here with my colleague Suzanna. 00;00;06;17 - 00;00;13;08 Suzanna Yeah. Hi, I'm Suzanna Caldwell. I am the lead science communicator for the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. 00;00;13;08 - 00;00;20;24 Mike And so today we're going to have a bunch of conversations around the theme of health. What does health look like to you in science? 00;00;20;25 - 00;01;27;04 Suzanna I mean, health is so broad, right? It can cover so many different things. And one of the things I really like about these conversations is that we're talking about health and how it fits into the realm of science, which is a lot of the work that we do here, right, of the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. And so it's really great to think about how health is intersecting with all the work we do, even though a lot of it is climate related. But again, like climate and health are so interconnected. We're talking about workplace dynamics and taking care of our physical and mental and emotional well-being. And, you know, that applies no matter what you're doing. It is really interesting, though, because I do think that we often think of folks that are working in these spheres as they're just off in a corner doing their science. And like, we don't really know what that looks like. It seems a bit abstract and outside of the regular quote unquote world. But really, I mean, these folks are just humans, at the end of the day, struggling with things that we all struggle with. So I think it's really a good reminder that, you know, we're all just trying to make the world a better place and that the challenges you face in academia and research, it's the same as it is in other places to. 00;01;27;05 - 00;02;04;25 Mike As the concept of one health becomes a bigger and bigger thing, we're going to hear some conversations that talk about the health of individuals and the relationships with other people, but also the concept of health and the relationship with the environment, and how a healthy environment and healthy people are kind of one and the same. And part of a feedback loop that we need both. And having one helps have the other totally. So we're going to lead in with our first conversation here called Tyonek Grown: Sharing, Harvest and Heritage. One of the OG Alaska Voices folks, Bob Bolton, recorded this conversation in 2018. 00;02;04;27 - 00;02;09;15 Speaker 3 00;02;09;18 - 00;02;18;16 Krista My name is Krista. I am 31 years old and I am a fellow farmer of Tanya who I will be interviewing today. 00;02;18;16 - 00;02;25;12 Tonya I'm Tonya Koloa and I'm 30 years old and I am being interviewed by a fellow farmer, Krista. 00;02;25;15 - 00;02;34;12 Krista Well, Tonya, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind starting today telling me a little bit about yourself and your family where you're from. 00;02;34;16 - 00;05;32;16 Tonya I grew up in a Athabascan village in Alaska, on the west side of the Cook Inlet, which is about 47 miles northwest outside of Anchorage. Being from Tyonek is a good natural land to be from. It's very pristine. And growing up out there. It rose a question in my mind as a young kid as to why we're not growing foods, why we don't farm. Question my culture. I would hear my father talk about his grandmother or his dad, who were also from Tyonek and it felt very passionate with culture, and I just wondered where it went and why we're not so connected to the Earth. I was not able to identify plants out there. I was not able to identify the trees in my own backyard. I was a teenager when I started learning my history. I am a mixed native, as they call it. On my father's side, I am Athabascan, Hawaiian, Haida, Tsimshian. On my mother's side, I'm Aleut, Lakota, Ponca, and Modoc Indian. And when I found that out, I just had that connection to wanting to know who I am and why we were put on this land. A lot of those questions as a young kid was very hard, because I grew up with an alcoholic family. My household was very dysfunctional, had a lot of domestic violence in there. Going back one more generation, Alexandra Stefan Koloa, Athabascan, originally from Kustatan, moved Tyonek. She is the one who grew the garden for the people enough to feed villagers. And at that time TB was going around, flu was killing people, bad waters and people started to migrate to Tyonek from Susitna Station, from Kenai, from Nondalton. That touches my heart very deeply to know that my grandmother grew a garden in Tyonek in the early 1900s, and here I am on the same land, trying to bring back that knowledge and to share it with the youth and to get them involved. I don't think climate change is something we should just wait off until a disaster. I think we just need to be more prepped and figure out, like how far ahead could we get our stock up, our vegetables up for a year worth supply? Could we do that on our own as opposed to always shipping food at to the villages? 00;05;32;18 - 00;05;41;05 Krista Tonya, could you describe the farm operation, like what's on the farm and who works with you? And how did that all come together? 00;05;41;06 - 00;09;34;09 Tonya Yes, the farm I brought my family, my boyfriend and our son down to the village. And I noticed there was a big patch of land that was just cleared. I asked my friend, hey, why? Why is that patch of land cleared? Are they going to build a new building? And she said, oh, the village, they want to do a garden over there. And I looked at her and I said, oh my gosh, they're going to do a garden. That's a lot of land they cleared. Who's going to take care of it? Jeez. And two years later I was helping run it. My biggest gift to that was to involve the youth. Our organization is based out in in Anchorage. So when we got the garden going, we needed people on ground to be able to check water temps or make sure the fans are going in our high tunnels. And when the youth got there, I said, hey, this is your land for one, your tribe, your grandparents made this and they're looking at me like an outsider because none of these children know me. And I said, excuse me no disrespect. I know your mom, I know your grandparents. So let's make it clear I'm a tribal member. I'm not an outsider, and I don't know anything. But I know our tribe wants this. And what they did was made an organization, a tribal conservation district, which I work for. And so I kind of make that clear connection as to things I'm doing, why I'm doing it. As a kid, I felt in the dark. I didn't know what my tribe was. I didn't know what a tribal council was. I didn't know anything about meetings. So I still relay everything I've been taught and grew up with, and I share it with them. And I say it is important to your grandparents. They put it on a piece of paper and signed it to say, this is important, we want to go forth with it. But do you as a tribal member, think this is important to get them thinking, what do I have to give back in the communities? I feel like a lot of the youth exposure for adults are outsiders because of the school districts. And so for tribal member to come back and say, hey, you guys remember the garden? It's almost that time. They're like, Tonya, she's back. And so it's just reminding them, this is a great gift. This is something our grandparents gave to us. My elders, they talk about their elders. And I say to my elders, they ate vegetables. The elders are saying, no, I don't like that. No, I don't eat that. And I look at them and I say, you eat your vegetables. And it's a culture shock because I feel as if I'm not entitled to talk to them in that manner. But yet I have worked my butt off in the sun and in the rain and in stormy days, and flew over on an airplane to grow your food. And I'm going to cook up some fresh veggies and sneak it in your food, and you're going to love it. I grew up on canned food. I honestly didn't know what a green bean looked like until I grew it, and I still didn't believe anybody it was a green bean until they cut it. So being able to just look at my tribal youth and say, you know what? I don't know a dime about this, but hey, let's grab the seed together. Let's put it in our earth and let's water it with our water, and let's just hope it comes back. We're going to come back and nurture it. We're going to defend it because we want it to feed us. 00;09;34;11 - 00;09;43;18 Krista Well, thank you, Tonya for sharing your story and passion for farming and gardening, what it means to you, and especially what it means to your community and tribe. 00;09;43;19 - 00;10;04;22 Tonya Thanks for for being here and putting this together and inviting me to be with you, Krista. 00;10;04;25 - 00;10;09;17 Mike So what did you think of this conversation between Tonya and Krista? 00;10;09;18 - 00;11;04;19 Suzanna I loved it. I mean, I think the work is really amazing. I know that for a long time now, they've been working on building up those community gardens. And it's so cool to hear Tonyaʼs work involved in that. One thing I really love is that, you know, Tonya talks about just how the garden really connects her back to the land, right? And by connecting to the land. There are all these benefits. It's like she's back in the place where she's from, right? She's growing this food, she's connecting with her history, and she's getting fresh fruit and vegetables. Right. And she's teaching kids how to do this, and they're connecting with their community. And it's this whole full circle thing. And so I just think that that's really incredible how such a simple act, you know, just gardening, which they have quite an operation. So it's not just like a backyard garden. This act of growing food and being connected to the earth brings all these other benefits. And I just think that's really wonderful. 00;11;04;20 - 00;12;07;27 Mike Yeah. And to me, it's really interesting to hear the story about this development of a tribal conservation district, because, you know, I've worked alongside and with folks who are advising on or delivering the scientific data that's necessary for these seeds, tribal conservation districts to make good decisions and make planning decisions out into the future. But this is a far more grounded kind of what does it mean to make those good decisions, to have that power and control over your land? And what is that all building towards? It's building towards that reconnection that's building towards eating your veggies, and it's building towards these kids being excited to see Tonya at the beginning of the season. So yeah, that's just so, so beautiful. So back in 2017, Jessie Young-Robertson recorded this conversation between Carolyn Loeffler and Dina Abdel-Fattah, chatting about mental health, another aspect of health here in academia and the sciences. This conversation is titled Overcoming Failure. 00;12;08;00 - 00;12;22;04 Carolyn My name is Carolyn Loeffler. I'm 30 years old. We are in lovely Fairbanks, Alaska, and I know Dina. She's we've known each other for ten years. She's my friend, she's my housemate, and she's also a former boat mate. 00;12;22;11 - 00;12;32;23 Dina And my name is Dina Abdel-Fattah. I'm 28 years old and Carolyn is my friend, my housemate, and my former boat mate on the William Mary rowing team. 00;12;32;23 - 00;12;47;12 Krista What do you think your biggest challenges are going to be, both professionally and personally. You know, you're very early on in this career in this move and as the next few years roll on, what do you anticipate will be your challenges? 00;12;47;12 - 00;12;49;25 Dina I think myself will be one of those. 00;12;50;00 - 00;12;51;03 Krista Tell me about that. 00;12;51;03 - 00;13;27;21 Dina I think it's hard when you're kind of in between two worlds and making a case for yourself personally. Sometimes you feel like someone better informed or more involved in this process of modeling could easily do this better than me. You know, it's one of those like getting a sense of what is your identity as a researcher and your added value. And being able to communicate that both internally and to others is very hard, but also very important. But it does take time and you don't always have those crisp answers two months and two weeks in. Right. And so being patient is also important. 00;13;27;22 - 00;13;58;18 Carolyn I think all people experience it in their career, especially early on, where maybe we've received an opportunity that we're really excited about. But we we feel a tinge of imposter syndrome. How do you overcome that? What would you tell a bright eyed, excited William and Mary graduate today who is interested in sea ice and climate science? What have you learned so far through that self-doubt that would help that person along the way? 00;13;58;20 - 00;15;50;09 Dina It's still a work in progress, but I think what I've learned and what friends like yourself and people that are important to me in my life have always shown me is you're stronger than what you think you are. Sometimes it's incredible when you set your mind to do something and you actually achieve it and you're like, oh, why was I worried all along? Or why did I not think this was possible? And just to be able to be sitting here today talking to you in Alaska in a program that I wanted to do for so many years? I remember I was looking through some old emails a couple days ago, and I talked about this like back in undergrad. I was like, I wish I could do this. I wish I could study, be back in the physics world and be able to study these things, but I just thought it was too far gone. At that point. I had invested in a whole degree and was on this different track, and it just wasn't possible to make it back. You know, you make excuses and you always find a way to not give yourself credit, that if you really wanted to do it, you would find a way. And I think just positive self-talk is the kindest thing you can do to yourself. And just being able to say it's okay, it takes time. You know what you need to do, so why not start? And sometimes that hurdle between I can't do it and I just need to start. It is so long and so hard, but once you actually get on that ball, you are you're on the momentum that you were capable of all along and making that time smaller. And that level of negative self-talk smaller to is really, really important. And I can attribute that a lot to community, you know, having people around you that you trust and believe in you and you can provide that to them and they can provide that to you is really critical, because once you get out of your head and start talking about things, it's clearly obvious what needs. 00;15;50;09 - 00;15;52;23 Carolyn To have a head can be a scary place. Yes. 00;15;52;25 - 00;16;48;27 Dina Very scary place. And so just communicating is really the most important thing, building a network and community of people that you feel comfortable with and that you care about generally because you will value what they have to say and then just really pushing those limits. It's okay to be rejected. I mean, yeah, if you don't make it the first time, that doesn't mean that it's never possible or that it won't happen. But if it really means something to you, then why stop? You know, why not try again? Why not try it differently? So being able to push that boundary for yourself to rejection is totally normal. It happens to all of us, especially in the academic world. How many papers are not published and so forth. But that's okay because there will be papers that will be published. There will be opportunities that come along. And being able to like, grapple with that momentary like, “ahh, did it work out?” to, “ you'll be fine. ” Just keep working at it is something we will probably all work on for the rest of our lives. 00;16;48;28 - 00;17;27;25 Carolyn I like that, you know. I'm glad that you that you brought that up because my next question was going to be around, how do we learn from failure? How do we see failure as an opportunity? And I think you really hit the nail on the head. And that's sort of back. Half of the conversation reminded me a lot of what my grandpa used to tell my dad all the time, my dad and his brothers, and what my dad now tells us when we're struggling is input equals output. Keep, keep going, keep moving forward, keep working towards it and really try to find the opportunity in failure. I think it's important to to remember that we all fall on our face and we. 00;17;28;02 - 00;17;30;28 Dina Really hard, sometimes really hard. 00;17;30;28 - 00;17;43;25 Krista Sometimes really hard. And I don't think that as undergrads or young students that we hear that enough. You know, there's the naive sort of the world is our oyster, which is true, but it also comes with a lot of bumps and bruises, maybe a few lost teeth. 00;17;43;26 - 00;19;01;03 Dina There are points in my life where, in my mind at least failed very hard, and it was really, really hard to come out of those. But being now where I want to be and looking back, I'm glad those happened. I would not tell that to myself in that moment. If someone told me that I would not receive it. Well, probably if it wasn't for those failures, I would not be where I am today. I would not have course corrected to this point, or I would not have pursued opportunities that at that time didn't seem possible. So it's it's okay. And it's one of those things you don't want to hear it in the moment, but you do know it's going to be better. And I think especially that's where community comes in. It's really important to be more than just yourself sometimes and have that opportunity to to bounce back and have people to talk about it with. And and that's fine. And we're human. I think that's something that I would love to see more. Also in the work world is failure is going to be inevitable. And if we keep reprimanding it as a failure versus a mechanism to learn and grow from, it's going to be hard to help people to get out of those, you know, head talks and and frustrations. So being kinder not only to ourselves, but to our community and realizing we're all human and sometimes we just make mistakes. And it depends on how big, sometimes grandiose, of course, but we can definitely make it better. 00;19;01;07 - 00;19;01;26 Carolyn How often. 00;19;01;28 - 00;19;14;05 Dina And. How often. But that's. Where dialog is important, and that's where you can help people grow. 00;19;14;07 - 00;19;34;14 Suzanna They clearly have learned a lot of important lessons, I think already, you know, this idea that like, it's okay to fail, like failure can be great, it can be a learning experience, and it can take you down a path that you didn't even think you were going on. And I think we spend our whole lives trying to figure that out sometimes. And so to have that sort of grounding at a younger age, I think is great. 00;19;34;15 - 00;20;43;22 Mike Yeah, it's kind of part of the process. And I think talking a little bit about positive self-talk and about being able to dig yourself out of those troughs, of putting a lot of effort into something and having something fail or not meeting your own expectations or the explicit expectations of others that sometimes happens, really helps you become better in the workplace for others. These are the stories you tell other people, the lessons you try to teach other people as they're coming up under you, and you move from purely learning to both learning and teaching in the sciences and teaching people. Oh yeah, I had that happen. I failed that thing. I got that letter. I got that incredibly critical response to my paper or to my proposal, and this is how I moved past from that. And this is what I improved. And I would recommend maybe taking these approaches, because then you know that next time I drafted that same thing, it worked. And here you are. So I think that yeah, moving from a negative space for yourself to a positive space for yourself is both good for yourself, obviously, but also good for all of the folks around you who kind of work with you and depend on you and and are learning from you all along. 00;20;43;23 - 00;21;01;19 Suzanna And I also think, like what they were talking about with like having a strong community. Right. And you don't want people who are just like telling you you're good. You know, when you need a little bit of critical analysis, but just having that group of people around that can support you and make sure that you're on the right path, I think that's just so important. And I'm glad that they identified that. 00;21;01;20 - 00;21;31;06 Mike We're going to move into a conversation here around those workspace relationships. So this is a conversation that Jesse recorded with Kira Hanson back in 2023. We're going to talk a little bit about workspace dynamics and personal health. The conversation is called identifying incompatibilities and resolving conflicts in research. 00;21;31;08 - 00;21;44;10 Jessie My name is Jesse Young Robertson. We are at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the Akasofu building. I am talking to Kira. She used to be my boss supervisor, but now she's my friend. 00;21;44;10 - 00;21;51;21 Kira So I'm Kira Hansen. We started off as colleagues slash superviso, and I consider us colleagues and friends. 00;21;51;22 - 00;22;11;04 Jessie There is a budding conversation about mental health in STEM, mental health and academics, mental health, etc. however, there's not a lot of meat behind that argument and it really bothers me. So from your perspective, like how do we start venturing into the conversation about like the academic institution, the science institution. 00;22;11;06 - 00;23;07;00 Kira My background has become as a counselor, very much DBT informed DTS, dialectical behavior therapy. A lot of what I emphasize from that perspective for people is learning to evaluate the facts first. So when we have a feeling and when we're having this problem, is removing kind of our judgments and our emotions to the extent we can at the moment, and then really focusing on the facts. I think we can't really look at a solution until we really see the array of what's really going on, like, what is the problem here? It's really challenging as human beings to put our thoughts and feelings and beliefs aside, kind of, and just look at the facts from everybody's perspective, shall we say, without feeling defensive. 00;23;07;02 - 00;24;18;00 Jessie That's interesting because I was talking to an individual the other day and they were mentioning about a student they were working with. Now, from the nature of the story, it sounded like, you know, maybe a 10% systems problem and a 90% person problem. I think, like if I refer back to my own experience, when is this like a me problem? When is this like a them problem? And then when is this an US problem. You know, mentor mentee dynamics comes up a lot. And so, you know, some of what I've heard from people who are on the mentee side is like, I'm looking for this support, but then the relationships are really toxic. And really that's the word I'm trying to back away from, because what I want to know is what are the parameters that go around it being toxic. And what I'm realizing what we're talking about are incompatibilities. I feel like when people see or an experience in incompatibility, there's all this feeling that goes with it. Like somebody has to be in the wrong here, when really it's okay. It's part of life to be incompatible with a place or a person. And I think where the quote unquote toxicity comes out is if you stay in an incompatibility and the behaviors become disruptive. 00;24;18;02 - 00;25;48;18 Kira I think a lot of us, we just come with different values and beliefs, and those are shaped by our life experiences, what we saw in our family or around us, like some people like, I'm not here to make friends and other people want or believe it should be more like we're a family here. And so knowing that, like knowing what you were expecting out of this relationship to begin with, really, I think shapes that because when it doesn't live up to that, that's when we start struggling, you know, when we are not getting what we think work should look like is when we're like, like, what is this? This is toxic. Yeah. A lot of times we get stuck in this idea of who is responsible for changing and not me. I'm not in the wrong here, you know? And so really evaluating the options for change, which look like, you know, we could do nothing and normally stay miserable, we could change how we feel about it. So sometimes we can change how we look at a situation or just acceptance. So interpersonal skills wise, we can change how we interact with the situation to change our feelings. So once we've exhausted those items, do we need to change our relationship with that system or that person? But I think we rule out or don't know how to do this stuff in the middle. And so we only see stay miserable or leave. 00;25;48;21 - 00;26;30;08 Jessie Whether it's a collaboration or it's a mentor mentee relationship, people like launch into that relationship. They think about it more of like, oh, well, there's this neat project to do, this neat thing to do, what an opportunity, blah blah blah. Instead of like, can we work together? Like, what are the things that are going to like, get in the way of being able to have a productive relationship? Very rarely do those conversations happen until people are like mid-career and they're like, you know what? I need to work with people that I get along with. Like when it goes south, that's when things really blow up for people. And so if I see knowing yourself is one of the key ingredients to developing like a healthy interpersonal relationship. How does somebody do that? 00;26;30;09 - 00;30;14;18 Kira First off, distress. Distress is the level to which we are experiencing any emotion and how uncomfortable that makes us feel as our discomfort grows, our ability to cope and other items decreases. And so a distress scale we tend to look at on a 1 to 10, 1 or 0 being just the lowest, like no distress or little that you've ever felt, ten being the most you've ever felt. Just like absolutely intolerable will we do? First is what does this physically look like? How does it feel in your body? In your brain? What are you doing to some extent with physical items, maybe like rubbing your hands or like clenching your fist stuff? Some people become more like verbal and vocal and like activated and some people become more shut down. And then we look at, you know, next for each of those, what do you do? So going back to those behaviors active versus checking out, when do you begin to feel uncomfortable. Like when is it just starting to be like, oh, can I wish I wasn't in this situation when then on that scale is kind of what we call the cliff or the point of no return. We all have this point where we are just unable to respond well. Maybe we've checked out. Maybe we're like yelling. If we're more of an activated person, like we're not. We're just it's kind of the done. It's just after this point, nothing good or productive is happening. So you kind of create like a box there. You know, if you're low in your high and then looking kind of in between that box is also what we call the danger zone or the beginning of the end. If we really look at when you start tumbling down the hill towards that cliff, when would that be? And then these become really, actually quite useful because then we talked about knowing ourself. We can look at the events. So what puts me in this space kind of further down takes time and and work. But also developing a plan for those. So knowing these are the things I can do to remove myself from the situation or cope in the moment. So I don't reach that point. When I see people like, I'd say maybe more senior personnel get very angry about this, that or the other. It almost comes out as like an entitlement to that anger. I have every right in the world to be this way, and there's no longer any room to be like, maybe we need to take a step back. You have the urge to fire off the email. You have the urge to make the call and tell someone off. You have the urge to, like, burn this to the ground versus creating some distance. Like, you know what? I'm going to wait three days, and if I still have to write the email, I'm going to share it with as trusted colleague who's going to be like, you know, what is the goal of this? Is it to burn it to the ground? Is it to create understanding? Is it to show somebody you're right? A concept I really love from DBT that goes with that is this idea of our feelings are always valid to us. So like okay, like you feel angry and that's am not going to come in and be like, you don't get to be angry. You should. Be angry. Yeah. You don't get to do that. But it doesn't mean that our anger is appropriate for the moment. I think that resources are scarce, right? I mean, a lot of times people have to fund their positions through grants, and what that does is instead of kind of like creating this place where we invite other people in and let me help you succeed. Well, that's competition. 00;30;14;23 - 00;30;42;09 Jessie That's a huge part of this. We get talked to about, like, you should collaborate across the board and do all this stuff. And it's just like, I have people to pay and I have a lab to keep open. And so I think about money all of the time. For a lot of the research faculty, it's almost like you're paying rent to be here. And that's part of, I think, the mental health aspect and the scarcity issue. Is there not enough jobs for the number of higher degrees we're producing? 00;30;42;14 - 00;31;30;19 Kira I feel the same about mental health. I mean, not that we don't have enough jobs, personal opinion disclosure there, but I feel like we don't do enough to prepare people for the reality of working in the field. There are plenty of jobs that those jobs are at a community agency. We have actually less people pursuing their degree because there's actually not a lot of financial incentive, but those people are leaving that do get their degree with some very unrealistic ideas about what they are moving into financially, paperwork, all this other stuff. And so we are like having all these people move through this field, but not actually coming out, willing to fill the needs that are genuinely occurring. 00;31;30;22 - 00;31;58;17 Suzanna The idea of how we interact with each other in a workplace is just so important, and I think we often don't get a lot of tools or, you know, training or whatever on just how to be good colleagues. I think it's often just expected, but I think it's really interesting what they were talking about in terms of like when you're getting angry or, you know, you're calling someone toxic, maybe like step back a little bit and think about what is really causing this situation. What's the root of all of this? 00;31;58;18 - 00;32;19;09 Mike I really like the framing of what is the purpose of this communication? Is it to show that I'm right or is it to smooth over things, or is it to explain something or to be understood? I mean, that's the crux of the work that you and I are doing, which is science communication. Question one what's the point and who are you trying to communicate with in that moment? 00;32;19;09 - 00;32;38;18 Suzanna I really latched on to this idea of toxic. We use that term a lot now, and I like how they're like, we should probably step back from that a little bit, because maybe it's not the person that's toxic. There's just some sort of incompatibility there. And we need to assess what that is and try to figure it out, because we are always going to have conflicts with people or not understand people. 00;32;38;20 - 00;33;40;29 Mike I feel like I've heard a lot of stories from people who are grad students, who are in some of these situations with people who are mentoring them, but that mentor is also the head of their lab. They're in charge of the grant that provides them with their job, in which case a lot of these intermediate steps of how do I change my relationship with the thing that is causing me to stress simply are far harder to enact than they might be if we're standing on something of a level playing field? So there are complexities that can exacerbate the underlying mental health issues towards the end. Really, Jessie starts to get at some stuff that I've learned a lot about, which is that you get your PhD. Congratulations, you're a good science person. Go get a job doing science. You were previously employed to learn how to do good science. You are then employed to 30% do good science, 40% teach, and then like 30% administer grants and write proposals and fill out paperwork and serve on the faculty Senate. And there's just all of this stuff that was not part of your training that you are then expected to do. 00;33;41;03 - 00;33;51;11 Suzanna You have to learn it on the job oftentimes. And yeah, that can cause conflict and it's complicated stuff, but it's good that we're having conversations about this to try to create that dialog. 00;33;51;14 - 00;34;15;26 Mike So we've got someone in this next conversation who was a community health worker for many, many years. The conversation was recorded all the way back in 2018 by Jessie Young Robertson, and is called caring for elders as a 14 year old nurse. 00;34;15;29 - 00;34;19;15 Stacie My name is Stacie. I'm 30 years old. 00;34;19;15 - 00;34;40;00 Helen Peters I'm Helen Peters, I was born 1929. I'm 88 years old. I've had seven children and I adopted two girls together. I have nine children and I have 30 grandchildren. Am I going to start? 00;34;40;02 - 00;34;40;12 Stacie Yes. 00;34;40;14 - 00;37;36;18 Helen Peters Okay. I come from a big family. I was the last of my family. My mother died with baby birth after me when I was a little girl. I remember it was 50, 60, 70 below, but we were dressed for it. Wear fur boots fur parkas. Everything and we'd slide down. Imagine 60 below were sliding down and I never new unhappiness because my father was very active person and he trapped and took care of all of us. And as a mother and a father, he was such a person that never gives you a chance to feel bad or anything, because he was a dancer and he was a singer, and that's what he did. He was a believer and a creator. As long as he was alive, there was always peace in the house. And until 1942, the day of the great flood came and he drowned it. Right after my 14th birthday. I missed my father so much like the whole world has ended. 1942 an epidemic hit that little village and I saw a bunch of little babies in coffins. Even men and women died. At that time. My godmother was a deaconess there, and she used to come to our house and tell me, could you help me? So I go and help her to go to the houses and feed the little babies and bathe them. I don't know how I never got sick, but she had gowns, you know, protecting gloves and things like that. And then when things cleared up, I thought to myself, what could I do? At my age, my grandmother is 100 years old and everybody is gone. And what could I do? It's a three miles to the town and I walk right to the hospital. We only had a head nurse and not a doctor, and she came and she asked me what I was doing, and I tell her I'm looking for a job. At the age of 14, she wrote down my name and then she said, you know what? 00;37;36;19 - 00;39;13;29 Helen Peters You came just in time. She said, we're short of nurses. What my grandmother did for me was to teach me. And then when I went to work, they were amazed what I can do. Elders always were glad for me to take care of them, because I took care of and elder. So I knew. And when she got sick, the nurse told me, go up and take care of her. They brought me everything from the hospital to take care of her. At that time, women and men used to be ready for death. They get their clothes already and have it in a suitcase or something. And one day she said, I want grouse, so I sent somebody out for grouse. She ate that and she told me, wash my hair. So I washed her hair and gave her a bed bath, put clean night gown on her. Evening came and then she went to sleep. She was holding my hand and I went to sleep. I woke up at midnight and she was, she had gone already and that was the way we parted, both her and I. Then I went back to work and then 1970 Episcopal Bishop called my husband. 00;39;13;29 - 00;40;21;16 Helen Peters He was working, helping build a hospital in Nome or someplace, and I was working at home, the Bishop called him and tell him, I'm taking your family to Phoenix. And so he asked him what for? He says, I'm looking for ministers. I'm going to train you and your wife. When my husband came back, we talked about I talked about it. Finally he said, let's take a try. Let's gamble. Was hot. Very hot. And I tell him, I don't think I'll stay here in the summer. He say, neither do I. We'll have to go back. Well, that's in the summertime. But knowing, not knowing what's going to be. My husband got cancer in the brain when I was his idea. He's going to be the priest, not me. But it turned around and I became the priest. 00;40;21;18 - 00;40;54;16 Helen Peters I was ordained deacon 74. I was operating priests in ʼ05. Because I come from that line, a priest, my relatives were all priests, and this song was made for kids, children, my grandchildren, you, my grandchildren dance. You, my grandchildren sing, you, my grandchildren play. I'll sing it. Okay. 00;40;54;18 - 00;42;20;20 Helen Peters [Helenʼs song] 00;42;20;21 - 00;42;42;01 Suzanna Yeah, I was really lucky to meet up with Helen Stafford. It's her daughter. They're both named Helen. Helen Stafford is a retired educator who lives in Palmer. Can you give us an update on how your mom is doing since she recorded in 2018? 00;42;42;02 - 00;44;03;06 Helen Stafford Mom is an Energizer bunny. She will be 97 in June 2026. She has been living in the Pioneer Home since 2018. For the longest time she was very, very active. She made sure she walked every day and then when she could no longer walk outside, she made sure she walked inside the corridors of the pioneer home. Her health has declined in the last several years. Her dementia has definitely progressed and that's been a challenge for us as a family. But mom is still there. She talks a lot about her grandmother, Glasnow, whom she mentioned in the first episode and how she helped raise her and how strong she was, and how she taught her to be clean and to help care for people. And that led her to nursing people at the Tanana Public Health Service Hospital in the early 50s and 60s. Now, of course, with mom nearing the end of her life, she talks about Glasnow every time I see her, how much she loved her, how much she misses her, how much she taught her, and what an amazing influence she was on my mother. 00;44;03;09 - 00;44;08;17 Suzanna Helen, you've had a chance to listen. What are your takeaways? Been eight years since it's been recorded. 00;44;08;18 - 00;45;17;20 Helen Stafford She captured so many significant things that happened in our family's life. She talked about Bishop Gordon calling up my dad and saying, I'm taking your family to Phoenix. That was a surprise for them. But he saw something in my parents. He wanted them to be more involved in the Episcopal Church. And the plan at the time was that dad would be ordained a deacon and then a priest. But mom did mention that my dad got very ill with cancer. After he died, mom went back to Cook Christian Training Center and she served as a deacon not only in Tanana, which is where we are from, but in all of the surrounding villages. As she mentioned, she was ordained a priest in 2004, and now, with her dementia and with being unable to perform those kinds of duties, when I'm with her, I always get her to say the Lord's Prayer and it comes back to her immediately. 00;45;17;25 - 00;45;30;26 Suzanna You know, your mom is such a resilient woman, right? Like she went through so many hardships, especially by a very young age. Where do you think her strength and her like ability to give so much to others comes from? 00;45;30;28 - 00;46;02;25 Helen Stafford It came from her grandma Glasnow, but it also came from Deaconess Stern. After mom's mother died in childbirth, Deaconess Stern took her under her wing, and she taught her from the age of 5, 6, 7, how to care for people, how to take care of babies, how to feed the elders when they were ailing. And then she also taught her how to set the altar of the church. So mom's path was really set for her at a very young age. 00;46;03;01 - 00;46;04;26 Suzanna Was the deacon in Tanana. 00;46;04;26 - 00;46;24;08 Helen Stafford It was called Saint James Mission, so it was located a couple of miles above the village side of Tanana. There was a fort there, Fort Gibbon. The army settled there, and from there they helped lay the telegraph line across Alaska. 00;46;24;10 - 00;46;33;06 Suzanna I didn't know that history. That's really interesting. Helen, I wanted to ask you the song your mom sings in the end. Do you know what that song, what she's saying? 00;46;33;08 - 00;48;57;09 Helen Stafford Yes! She's talking about her grandchildren. So Sasha means grandchild, and she also uses the word Joe Watson. And that means love. Great love. So she's telling her grandchildren to sing, to dance and to play. She talked about her father. She was talking about what a trapper he was and how he took care of everyone. And then not too long ago, one of our relatives from Minto told my sister, Faith, that every Thanksgiving, he and his wife would go by dog team from Tanana to Minto. Not an easy trip and he would have two sleds. His wife would be in the first one and the second one would be filled with food, moose meat, caribou, fish. And they would arrive in Minto with all this food, and then they would have a big feast. It's nice to hear those kind of stories about someone that we never got a chance to meet. She talked about Grandma Glasnow asking her to wash her hair, to give her a bath. And then that night, Grandma Glasnow died as mom was sleeping next to her. Mom is coming to the end of her life. We feel like she is preparing as well and as a family, we know that she's ready. We know that she wants to go. She wants to be with our dad. She wants to be with our sister and all of her family and friends who have gone on before. That gives us peace. It's sad to lose a parent. It's sad. It's sad to think about not having our mom, but we know that she wants to be in heaven. So we're trying to hold each other up and and prepare. In our culture, we have a potlatch after the funeral. Part of our culture is also that any time from a year later to ten years later to 15 years later, whenever the family is ready, they can have a memorial potlatch. But mom has told us many times she does not want to have a memorial potlatch. So we are preparing for this potlatch at the time of her passing. 00;48;57;11 - 00;49;05;16 Suzanna Helen, thank you so much for sharing. I really appreciate it. Your mom seems like an amazing woman and you guys are so lucky to have her. 00;49;05;17 - 00;49;13;06 Helen Stafford You're welcome. 00;49;13;08 - 00;49;15;11 Mike What a way to end the episode, right? 00;49;15;13 - 00;49;49;12 Suzanna We've heard things that were just, you know, very deeply personal and also just about being, you know, a good human in the workplace sometimes, you know, making mistakes, but also just like trying to do the right thing. You know, a lot of these folks, they're all connected to the work we're doing around climate adaptation science. Thinking about the first story we heard about growing a garden, and just with climate changes like wanting to make sure that they have the food that they need in order to be healthy and survive, it's just a reminder of just how important the science is to so many different folks, the ways that it can help, and all the different 00;49;49;12 - 00;49;56;27 Suzanna experiences that people are bringing to the work that we're doing, whether that's like boots on the ground or researchers, you know, doing their work. 00;49;57;00 - 00;50;11;04 Mike Yeah, these researchers are whole humans who struggle in their day to day life and succeed in their day to day life at the same time that they're struggling in modeling or monitoring or management, just as they're succeeding in those spaces as well. 00;50;11;05 - 00;50;35;14 Suzanna The one thing that I've heard through all of these conversations is community, right? And the need for community, whether that's with your colleagues or your friends or your family or just, you know, other trusted individuals in your network and just how that community can really support you, whether it's your mental health or growing a garden or, you know, just growing up and living and making these big life changes. 00;50;35;15 - 00;50;42;20 Mike It's the community and the role you play in the community that keeps you healthy. Thanks for doing this with me. This is great. 00;50;42;21 - 00;50;44;05 Suzanna It was fun. Thanks, Mike. 00;50;44;11 - 00;50;54;16 Mike In our next episode of Alaska Voices, we'll be focusing on the theme of a legacy. We'll leave you with a short clip from Bob Torgerson and Craig Stephenson. 00;50;54;16 - 00;51;17;18 Speaker 14 I applied for a student position at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. Ask, which is a place that I'd always heard about growing up here, that there was like a big supercomputer up on the hill at UAF. And so I applied there, got my job there. It was a bit of a culture shock because having heard about how powerful this thing was working in the office, all you saw were people, like working in terminal windows. 00;51;17;20 - 00;51;26;10 Speaker 14 It's the most primitive thing you could possibly imagine. And it was kind of this magical place where people were getting all this work done just by typing words into this black box. 00;51;26;15 - 00;52;48;17 Mike Alaska Voices is a place for communities to connect through conversation. This podcast was created with support from the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center, and was the brainchild of Jesse Young Robertson and Bob Bolton. The Alaska Kask is committed to providing regionally relevant science for Alaska's changing climate. Alaska voices would not be possible without the efforts of an amazing group of people. Our producer and audio engineer is Kelsey Skonberg of Mossy Stone media. The Alaska Voices team includes Micah Hahn at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Lia Ferguson, Mike DeLue, Suzanna Caldwell, Annika Ord, and Georgia Houde at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. We would also like to thank the musicians whose songs we heard today. Our theme is Arctic Evening by Marcel Dupreez. We also played champ de Tournay, Sol, Chill Out Theme and Together We Are Stronger by Komiku, and I Don't Understand a Thing by Holizna, as well as the following songs with Creative Commons Attribution licenses. Feae, Story and Glimpse of Eternity by Maydën. All from the Free Music Archive. If you are interested in more conversations or information, please visit our website at Alaska Voices. For Alaska Voices, I'm Mike Delue