The Alaska Federation of Natives convention, which is scheduled to start Thursday, always focuses on issues most pertinent to local Indigenous communities. This year, a catastrophic storm that battered predominantly Alaska Native villages in Western Alaska is already the center of the conversations.
The remnants of Typhoon Halong over the weekend left at least one woman dead in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Two people are still missing.
“As we gather for this sharing and this collective convening, let us keep in mind those that are in harm’s way and those who are out there to be with them and to help them,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said at the beginning of the Elders and Youth conference, the traditional prologue to the main AFN event.
The storm has displaced more than a thousand people, who are sheltering at their local schools. Meanwhile, AFN and other local Indigenous organizations were looking for ways to help…