Chilly start to census count
Lizzie Chimiugak has lived for 90 years in the windswept western wilds of Alaska, born to a nomadic family who lived in mud homes and followed where the good hunting and fishing led.
Her home now is an outpost on the Bering Sea, Toksook Bay, and she has become the first person counted in the latest US Census, taken every 10 years.
‘‘Elders that were before me, if they did not die too early, I would not have been the first person counted,’’ Chimiugak said, speaking the Yup’ik language of Yugtun, with family members serving as interpreters.
‘‘Right now, they are considering me as an elder, and they are asking me questions I am trying my best to give answers to, or to talk about what it means to be an elder.’’
The census has started in rural Alaska, out of tradition and necessity, ever since the US purchased the territory from Russia in 1867. At this time of year, the ground is still frozen, which allows easier access before the spring melt makes many areas inaccessible to travel and residents scatter to subsistence hunting and fishing grounds.
The mail service is spotty in rural Alaska and internet connectivity is unreliable, which makes door-to-door surveying important.
The rest of the nation, including more urban areas of Alaska, will begin the census in midMarch.
Steven Dillingham, director of the census bureau, conducted the first interview yesterday.
Because of federal privacy laws, the bureau would not even confirm that Chimiugak would be the first person counted, even though it was the worst-kept secret in her home town.
After the count, a celebration was held at Nelson Island School, involving local Alaska native dancers and traditional food, such as seal, walrus, musk ox and moose.
Robert Pitka, tribal administrator for Nunakauyak Traditional Council, said he hoped the takeaway message for the rest of the nation was one of Yup’ik pride. ‘‘The world will see that we are very strong in our culture and our traditions, and that our Yup’ik language is very strong.’’
As for Chimiugak, she has concerns about climate change and what it might do to future generations of subsistence hunters and fishers in the community, and what it will do to the fish and animals.
‘‘She is sad about the future,’’ her eldest son, Paul, said.
Chimiugak was born just after the start of the Great Depression in the middle of nowhere in western Alaska, said her daughter, Katie Schwartz, of Springfield, Missouri.
She was one of 10 children born to her parents, who lived a nomadic lifestyle and travelled with two or three other families that migrated together, her son said. Chimiugak and her 101-yearold sister from Nightmute, Alaska, remain.
In 1947, Chimiugak married
George Chimiugak, and they settled in Toksook Bay after the town was founded in 1964. There are five surviving children.
George Chimiugak was a maintenance worker at the airport, while Lizzie did janitorial work at the old medical clinic and babysat. Like other wives, she cleaned fish, tanned hides and even rendered seal oil after her husband came home from fishing or hunting. He died about 30 years ago.
Chimiugak is also a woman of strong Catholic faith, and told her son she saved his life by praying over him after he contracted polio. For her own hobbies, she wove baskets from grass and remains a member of the dance group that performed at the postcount celebration, dancing in her wheelchair.
She taught children manners and responsibility, and continued the oral tradition of telling them stories, using a ‘‘storyknife’’ to draw pictures in the mud to illustrate her tales.
‘‘She is a great teacher – giving us reminders of how we are supposed to be, taking care of subsistence, and taking care of our family and respecting our parents,’’ her granddaughter, Alice Tulik, said. ‘‘That is how she would give us advice.’’ –AP