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 In spite of a biting minus-40-degree wind chill, 14 villagers knelt over narrow holes cut through
5 feet of ice and harvested a meal from the frigid waters below. Within an hour, using only crude wooden sticks
with 10-foot lines and basic lures, the group had caught more than 250 smelt from the ice-coated Unalakleet River.
Not one fish measured longer than a foot, but the effort showed that even in the dead of winter, this harsh subarctic
region is full of life - both wild and human.
About 800 people live in Unalakleet. On Thursday,
January 20, the U.S. government came to count them, in the kickoff of Census 2000.
Stanton Katchatag, an 82-year-old Inuit, answered
a knock on his door Thursday at 10:50 a.m. and found himself facing Kenneth Prewitt, the director of the Census
Bureau. Mr. Katchatag invited him in and offered him a chair.
Mr. Prewitt,
who rode a dog sled into town at the end of a trip that took him across four time zones, got right down to business.
Pulling out the census short form, he asked Mr. Katchatag his age, how he spelled his name, and his race. (American
Indian or Alaska Native is the term the Census Bureau uses for Inuits, an ethnic designation now preferred by many
of the native people once known as Eskimos.)
Describing
the scene to reporters afterward, Mr. Katchatag said Mr. Prewitt asked for similar information about the only other
person living in the one-story cedar-frame house, Mr. Katchatag's wife, Irene. When the 15-minute interview was
over Mr. Katchatag, whose ancestors were among the first people to inhabit the North American continent, became
the first person to be officially counted in the 2000 census.
Displaying
plenty of excitement but only a vague grasp of population figures, Mayor Henry Ivanoff said, "That means that
over 225 million people will be standing in line behind him, including the president of the United States and the
vice president, including the governors and lieutenant governors of all the 50 states, including Michael Jordan."
As about 20 head counters go door to door to begin
the $6.5 billion decennial tally of the nation's estimated 275 million residents, this remote Alaskan fishing village
will shed its isolated existence for a brief turn in the national spotlight.
"This
is bigger than the dog races," said Unalakleet Mayor Henry Ivanoff, referring to the crowds that come in March
when the Iditarod dog-sled race passes through town. "There has never been anything like this, so we're really
excited."
Organizers
had a community potluck dinner Thursday with U.S. Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt and a ceremony featuring
native dancers. The menu consisted of the smelt, seal, macaroni and cheese and salads.
Even with
the Iditarod's national television coverage, Unalakleet, its culture and its 80 percent Eskimo population of Inupiat,
Yupik and Malemiuts are as foreign to most Americans as the ancient Eskimo languages often spoken here.
Located 400
miles northwest of Anchorage and 150 miles southeast of Nome, the town is accessible only by plane. By any measure,
it is an unlikely place to begin this most bureaucratic of government tasks. Especially in January, when it is
dark for 18 hours a day and gales off the frozen Bering Sea can push temperatures to 60 degrees below zero.
"But
waiting for warmer weather would only complicate things," said Prewitt, "Once there is spring thaw, the
villagers go hunting and fishing, so they are very hard to find ... and travel is almost impossible. The snowmelt
brings heavy mud. The rivers have ice floes, so you can't use boats. Yet they aren't completely frozen, so you
can't drive on them or use dog sleds or snowmobiles," Prewitt said.
If census
takers are to improve on the 1990 effort - which missed 8.4 million people, counted 4.4 million others twice and
was the first in history to be less accurate than its predecessor - success in Alaska is crucial. Only 52 percent
of Alaska residents bothered to return the mail-in questionnaire in 1990 - the lowest response rate of any state
and well below the national rate of 65 percent.
"If our very first enumeration hits 100 percent
in Unalakleet, that will set the standard for the rest of the country," Prewitt said. "We will come back
and let you know how well we did there."
Native American leaders are urging
compliance with the census. For information on how YOU should fill out the census, visit this article.
Census 2000
Learn more about Unalakleet and the Native Americans of Alaska
UNALAKLEET
http://shiva.its.uaa.alaska.edu/native_ed/curriculum/ASD/unalakleet/unalakleet_asd.htm
Natives of the Midnight Sun
http://library.advanced.org/26020/
Alaska Native culture, Indian Natives of Alaska,
Subsistence
http://www.go2net.org/indiancountry/
Yukon Quest...The Challenging
Trail
http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/upk/quest/quest.html
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