How do you guys live in alaska??? (Anchorage, Fairbanks: restaurants, shops)

[stiffnecked]

Don't start on the teeth. My former partner used to ask my opinion on every single woman in Barrow. It usually boiled down to "well, she's missing a few teeth". He finally found his dream girl. She had all of her teeth. Problem was she was only 15. He came to work the next night with this big grin on his face.

He went and talked to her mom. She gave her consent to them getting married in 2 months when she turned 16. He promised me though, that they weren't going to have any children until she graduated from high school. They did and he remained true to his word. That's no made up story either.....

[rotorhead]

Grind 'em down or rot 'em out, life has always been hard on the choppers for Inupiaq women. In the old days it was working skins, nowadays it's more likely the cola drinks and the wonderbread.

At least the ADA lost their fight against the village dental practitioner program. They have a hard enough time keeping dentists in Anchorage and Fairbanks, let alone Bethel and Barrow. Lets not even discuss the state of dental care in the little-bitty places shotgunned up and down the Yukon and such, they get a visit from the dentist maybe once or twice a year in some spots.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by rotorhead

At least the ADA lost their fight against the village dental practitioner program. They have a hard enough time keeping dentists in Anchorage and Fairbanks, let alone Bethel and Barrow. Lets not even discuss the state of dental care in the little-bitty places shotgunned up and down the Yukon and such, they get a visit from the dentist maybe once or twice a year in some spots.

That's a personal issue in my family. :-)

My daughter Valerie initially set up the legal basis for the practitioner program by working with the State Attorney General to obtain a legal opinion that Alaska Native health care providers (such as YKHC, where she was employed at the time) operate under sovereignty of the tribal governments, and therefore are not bound by licensing requirements of the State of Alaska or the Alaska Dental Association. She coincidentally became Director of Governmental and Legal Affairs for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium just prior to the ADA filing suit, and as a result she was the attorney of record for (and was very actively involved in) the legal negotiations that followed.

The ADA never expected to win in court, and instead believed they could get a Congressional "fix" to override existing Indian Law. They underestimated, by a very wide margin, the ability of Ted Stevens, Lisa Murkowski and Don Young (the Alaska delegation) to both understand the issues and to protect their best interest. And of course informing the Alaska Congressional delegation of the facts is exactly the reason ANTHC has a Director of Intergovernmental and Legal Affairs!

I would also point out that jokes (particularly from Caucasian males) about Eskimo women and teeth might not be funny. It's virtually everyone who lives in the bush that has suffered because of Alaska Dental Association regulations. I am not an Eskimo, nor am I a woman... but it would take at least 29 of me to get a complete set of choppers! Rather than that being only due to Native health care programs, the reason in my case has more to do with how Jesse Carr's Teamster's union tried with only very limited success to deal with the Alaska Dental Association.

The problem for everyone in the bush stems directly from the ADA, and the practitioner program is likely to benefit more people than anything previously done.

[Majik_Imaje]

that the jokes about no one having "teeth" stemmed from how they made their mukluk's.

this was the one main reason of days gone past. now a days, yes the main reason is that soda pop is our perferred water source. This is consumed in huge quanaties in all of the villages.

A case of soda pop is $24 bux. in our house of 5 adults we go through just about two cases a day when we have visitors over. that is mighty expensive at the rates we have to pay.

Here is an example of what was done to make these women loose their teeth in the ol days.. "crimping the front of the bottom of the mukluk boot."

Now a days it is done using special types of pliers. Walrus skin is so thick & tough. incredbly hard and these are worked on while they are frozen.!!



those "crimps" in the front of the mukluk was one of the main reasons that women lost their teeth at such an early age.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by Majik_Imaje

those "crimps" in the front of the mukluk was one of the main reasons that women lost their teeth at such an early age.

That is not actually true.

First, women have not commonly chewed mukluk soles for well over 50 years. Hence none of the old women playing bingo today ever lost teeth for that reason. Equally true is that 30 or more years ago there was very little soda pop in villages. Which basically means that todays women from age 40 to 80 don't fit the pattern you've described, yet most of them (and most of the men living in the bush who are that age) have very poor dental health.

The problem 50 years ago (which is what affects all of the old people today), and the problem for our children today, is an almost total lack of dental health care. That includes a great deal more than just drilling on rotten teeth! Regular checkups by a trained individual who can give parents correct advice about dental health care is essential. Parents who don't know better allow their children's teeth to rot because they simply do not know that feeding kids soda pop is an almost sure way to destroy their teeth!
A proper dental health care system would educate parents about such hazards.

Until recently it was absolutely impossible to provide that care in bush Alaska. I don't know if we can quite do it yet... but we are certainly more able today than we were a year or so ago.

[Majik_Imaje]

this was the one main reason of days gone past. now a days, yes the main reason is that soda pop is our perferred water source. This is consumed in huge quanaties in all of the villages.

Here is an example of what was done to make these women loose their teeth in the ol days.. "crimping the front of the bottom of the mukluk boot."

thank you for pointing all of that out.

I was here 30 years ago, and the situation was the same. and it has nothing to do with "bingo" !!

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by Majik_Imaje

I was here 30 years ago, and the situation was the same. and it has nothing to do with "bingo" !!

You got there right at 30 years ago; but as I said, before that it was very different. You came as part of the oil money boom, and after Ted Stevens had enough political clout to use mail subsidies to support daily air service to villages like Point Hope.

Before that, it was a mail plane once a week (if at all) to most villages. Compare that with the more than 10 each day that Point Hope gets these days! (I've seen 5 airplanes in the pattern at Point Hope, lined up to land one after the other.)

Before the oil money, people didn't have enough money in villages to buy soda pop, and the cost of shipping it to villages was extremely high.

But none of that changes the fact that dental health care in the villages has suffered greatly because the Alaska Dental Association goes to extremes to avoid having enough dentists in Alaska. They want to be exclusive, because it pays better.

[stiffnecked]

I wasn't poking fun at native women. Quite the opposite. They are a tough but beautiful group of women. I used to stop at Sadie Neakok's house and talk to her about how things were done in the "old" days. It gave me a different prespective on how life was in the north country. When I ended my visits with her I always came away realizing that I really didn't know much.

Profiles in Change: Names, Notes and Quotes for Alaskan Women - Sadie Neakok

Barrow, Alaska: Cold Frontier - TIME

[warptman]

Its funny that a person lives in rural Alaska for 30 years and becomes an expert on how people live. I grew up here and I'm 3/4 Yup'ik and I don't know much about how things were. Sure, I get a story from my mom and dad on how they used to live, and they're my heroes on growing up that way. I grew up after all the schools were put in place already and they tell me horror stories on Catholic Nuns and preachers when they got shipped out. I'm glad we have schools in every village now and no real need for boarding schools. Things are so much easy now for the kids growing up out here, we had it good and most don't realize it, be thankful for it. Whenever I see an elder out in public, I make sure to stop by and say hi to them and see if things are OK. Hug an elder, they won't be around much longer.

[karibear]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

You got there right at 30 years ago; but as I said, before that it was very different. You came as part of the oil money boom, and after Ted Stevens had enough political clout to use mail subsidies to support daily air service to villages like Point Hope.

Before that, it was a mail plane once a week (if at all) to most villages. Compare that with the more than 10 each day that Point Hope gets these days! (I've seen 5 airplanes in the pattern at Point Hope, lined up to land one after the other.)

Before the oil money, people didn't have enough money in villages to buy soda pop, and the cost of shipping it to villages was extremely high.

But none of that changes the fact that dental health care in the villages has suffered greatly because the Alaska Dental Association goes to extremes to avoid having enough dentists in Alaska. They want to be exclusive, because it pays better.

The soda pop in the villages may have come in with the oil money, but there sure were plenty of toddlers drinking it 40 years ago in Kodiak, two and three yeard olds with half their baby teeth rotted away. There were dentists in town, too, but it wasn't until a few years later that KANA set up a health clinic, with a dental department. One of the local dentists was mine, and very expensive. I paid a 1,000.00 for a root canal and crown 35 years ago. Turned out that not only was he the best dentist I'd ever seen, he was the most expensive one in the nation. Got written up in Time or Newsweek, I forget which. Then about 10 years ago, another root canal and crown cost a bit more than that, and I thought 'Great, I've got this wonderful insurance coverage now.' Wrong. That's when I found out my wonderful health insurance that was a 20% copay, 80% insurance pay, wasn't that at all. My 20% turned out to be somewhat closer to 1,000.00, because they took a 'customary and usual' charge averaged from a number of different states and based their payment on that, not on the actual charges. Just to top that off, the dentist said 'You know that's just a temporary crown. Come back when you have more money,' Another grand to do what I wanted in the first place? Not in my lifetime!

As for the villages, the dental hygienists and the dentist from the Native Association made regular quarterly trips to them. It didn't help that a lot of the parents used them as bogeymen, telling the kids that if they didn't behave, the dentist was gonna get them.