When you first step outside of the airport in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, you see nothing but snow-capped, evergreen mountains around you.  And as you smile big enough to utter your first, “wow!”, the fresh, chilled air immediately fills your lungs like a vacuum and jolts your very soul.  ALASKA….you’ve finally made it to the land that you’ve only known maybe in your childhood fantasies; and you instantly feel like some adventurer of old.

Just like our ”Deep South,” the good ol’ Northwest has it’s own rural culture.  And amidst all the other excited faces, climbing mountains and snapping pictures at glaciers, it isn’t long before you notice another set of faces–always pleasant when spoken to, and unexplainably comfortable, to the point where many are wearing basketball shorts and flip-flops while you’re all bundled up like someone from the snow-scene in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.  You see these beautiful faces almost everywhere, driving cabs or just socializing in and out of the larger chain stores:  And you can tell they are Alaskan natives; but upon talking to them, they proudly tell you that they are ”Tlingit.”  You ask them about possible bear encounters, and while everyone else trembles, they just chuckle.  And they just calmly shake their head and laugh at non-natives who are racist toward them, as if it were the Tlingits who came along second.  Overall, it is clear that they have close kinship bonds and a tremendous amount of respect for their environment.  They are more than willing to make new friends, but quickly turn away from phoniness.  So then, after meeting some Tlingits, visiting the salmon hatchery, the Mendenhall glacier, and maybe even eating a few raw oysters, and you’ve had a great first day in Juneau.

Then, after spending your first night in Juneau, it’s up at 5am sharp–with no time for hitting the snooze button even once.  In fact, nobody oversleeps for this one.  Why it’s time for the ferry—the seven-hour ferry—so large that it can hold up to four eighteen wheelers.  But don’t trust in any boat, because the rough, winter waters of the Chatham Strait can down even this one!

Now far away from Juneau’s downtown and deep in the Mendenhall valley, everyone moseys around in the dark as they board the large vessel for the ride back to their village–that’s only available two times per week.  You’re going to Angoon–the old village–and you prepare yourself for the reality of being in a place where there’s four brown bears for every person, no doctor, no hospital, and no way out except for a ferry that won’t be returning for five days at the earliest.  But that fresh, chilled air and the excitement over the land, and now even the Tlingits is drawing you more and more.

Angoon has no real ecomony and nothing “touristy” at all.  So unlike a ferry ride to a place like Sitka, you can pretty much count on the Angoon ferry being filled with only people who are from Angoon.  But it’s never really “filled,” because the village of Angoon only consists of some 500 people.  But none of this stops the people from Angoon from being so proud of ANGOON; and they’ll be quick to warmly ask some new face on the ferry, “So, what brings you to my beautiful home?”

This is pastor Aaron:  and on behalf of my older brother, the renowned chief, Cyril George, and innumerable nieces and nephews of Angoon, I’d like to extend a heartfelt Tlingit welcome!

If you’re still reading, it’s because you are interested in becoming a part of this movement:  our efforts in seeking to provide Angoon with luxury—a luxury that many of us take for granted.  The luxury of choice; the luxury of ownership.  Just they way you can “price shop” and choose where to spend your dollar when you feel that prices at one particular place are unfair, we’d like to provide Angoon with the same luxury.  And just the way your creativity can soar in a land where you’re used to seeing people start their own businesses and owning things, we’d like to provide Angoon with the same luxury.  Just the way you can ask your kids what they want to be when they grow up, and no matter how grand their answer is, you can say, “Go for it!”, we want to provide Angoon with the same luxury of being able to hope, being able to dream.  What we’re talking about is the luxury of not feeling like the world is completely passing you by, and not even hearing your loudest cry.  Angoon will always be a remote village; Angoon will always be a beautiful country village; a Tlingit native village…..but by NO MEANS should it have to feel like an invisible village!

This blog will serve to afford you the Angoon, Alaskan experience.  With all types of “gems” and “nuggets” from their past and present, the blogs will be, informative, educational, sobering, and inspirational.