Alaska Insurance

The indigenous village Tatitlek Bligh sits behind Iceland, behind Bligh Reef, where the Exxon Valdez is right. It is an agglomeration of nearly 100 people. Its wooden houses hunker in the eternal rain, Puffing smoke their chimneys, with slatted wooden bridge as the eternal mud. Tatitlek be dry during the year 1983, as such there rowdyism quiet place. People know each other very well. Even the dogs happy to use.

Tatitlek does not seem much changed since the time of its inhabitants is used the waters of Prince William Sound in skinboats. But time has changed Tatitlek. Catastrophiques by messengers strange message.

Ed Gregorieff, resting on its window and watch the appearance of petroleum in the night as she, for the first time on the oil slick in “Good Morning America”.

The scene of Ed’s up has not changed much since its birth in a mining camp 2 miles away, 66 years. A palette Sea Otter forwards and backwards in front of and behind the port, with a stone split open the shell, it takes on its feet. Sternes shock and scuba diving. Evening Russian light illuminates an icon of Mary and Jesus, hanging from Ed’s Wall, to his mother. Ed knows his boats. When he spoke, he saw a large fishing vessel cruising past. “That’s the Moonlight Miss Seattle,” he said.

Ed Gregorieff belongs to a race, people, central and south-west of Alaska for thousands of years.

He remembers Paddling baidarkas, a native of kayaks, dressed in rain during the stomach of a black bear. His parents told him he was an Aleut. One day a man came by the Government in his house, him and said: “I bet you think you are a Aleut, but you’re not. You’re an Eskimo.” The upheavals of the conjecture, it causes the approach Gregorieff, a gentle man with large reading glasses and a shock of white hair, show that visitors to take its opinion by the way. The man did not mention. Ed always receives many visitors. He considers what to say, he spoke, but he believes talk and offers breakfast started.

The villages of Tatitlek and Chinega Bay was clearly affected by misfortune. While the flow of oil detainees Tatitlek’s beaches, much of the tone in which villagers have been hunted and fished sale. Although the cost of living lifestyle is something romantic, some Tatitlek car collection, as Elaine Totemoff, nor salt and maintain and to cook and freeze so that each part of each fish and marine mammals to obtain them. Elaine May, only visitors to the aquarium in Seattle, whose response was clearly based on appetite. The aquarium water creatures of his mouth.

Most people do salt, as Elaine fish heads, but many people fish commercially or to supplement their diet. This year’s harvest of herring was cancelled because the oil. From trade and subsistence costs, fishing for salmon - for humpies, red and dogs - was abandoned in many parts of sound. The birds died by the tens of thousands. The joints have been oiled. Deer were found dead in algae floating oil.

These animals are more than wild animals and over a meal. They bind villagers to the softness of the landscape.

Ed’s family, fish commercially. The whole family - his wife and seven children - loaded up his boat 40 feet and spend the summer fishing. You seined in the sound, gillnetted copper in the river flats, until his wife died some 20 years. “It was a sort of question the family,” said Ed “When the old lady died, I sort of planted himself and never go back.” In recent years, his children made him the seal meat and fish, he implores.

For the last six months, most villagers Tatitlek’s worked on the rubble. Exxon hired almost all wanted to work against him and delivered load of food in the village - eggs, meats, poultry, vegetables, canned. Wages were good comfort in a place where fuel and electricity bills can top $ 300 per month. You must pay and food, winter because nobody hunting or fishing this summer. After the dam break, the State guard against the villagers not to eat their fish stocks and traditional game because of the risk of poisoning on oil.

“I’m old fashioned, in the old style,” said Ed “Young people live in the white man’s world. They are not moving or otherwise. You’re right in the middle. I can not remember if people had no money to buy vegetables. If you had a dish of Poetry pork chops and ribs, that I would take custody of the seals coasts. The younger generation, pork chops. ”

Ed wiegte his cup of coffee with both hands. Fish and Thursday authorities have not advised to eat seafood, he said. “I’m just begun to accept,” he said. “It is still early. If you want something, if you are used and there will not get it … It is also, as you long candy or a Soda Pop. This is the way, that thing is for me. A hunk of meat filling means as much to me, as the main contractor coast means to you. ”

Ed Gregorieff notes that while the hospitality was crucial for survival, where the pioneers left in wildlife Who could booths they need. He is the former Alaska. It is a physical connection to a race of human beings are the real Alaska.