Elim, Alaska-First Village Trip!

I had the opportunity to go on my first village trip to Elim, Alaska with the News Director Paul Korchin.
We left Nome in the morning August 7th and flew on one of those small planes that holds about ten people.

We went to Elim to attend a village meeting on Uranium mining. There is a Canadian based mining company doing exploratory research on the area, and a Navajo Indian was present to talk about the effects of mining close to his village in New Mexico. His people have seen the negative repercussions from mining that has not been taken care of. People have tumors and other various cancer illnesses. Unfortunately since it has also gotten into the water system and the ground plants their animals also have the toxic substances in their body- infecting all aspects of the food chain.
It was extremely interesting to see how the villagers are responding to this sensitive topic.
I was only there for the day so Paul and I went to the beach area and it was a gorgeous day. The area looked like Washington state coastline.


I really enjoyed going on this village trip. It is neat to walk to different offices in Elim and hear KNOM playing. It helps to realize why we do what we do.
Also, an island called Little Diomede is completely out of phone service right now and the only way for people to communicate is through KNOM's hotlines- which is also pretty neat...