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In a typical year, more than half of Alaska’s visitors arrive by cruise ship 1.4 million in 2019. But not this year, and you can blame the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control-ordered shutdown of the cruise industry, coupled with Canada’s port closures, means Alaska’s summer cruise season looks to be canceled for a second year.
But you don’t need a ship to cruise the 49th state. A cruise visits only a tiny portion of the state’s 6,640
miles of coastline and none of its vast interior. And cruise ships don’t sail near Denali, Alaska’s most magnificent sight; at 20,310 feet, it’s the tallest peak in North America.
4:07 Quannah Chasinghorse, a Han Gwich’in and Oglala Lakota fashion model and climate justice activist from Fairbanks, is the most recent face on the cover of Vogue Mexico.
Chasinghorse said her phone started to buzz with messages as soon as the cover photo began circulating online. It hasn’t stopped since. Across Alaska, Indigenous women have told her that it marks an important turning point in how Alaska Natives are portrayed in the fashion industry and in mainstream media.
“I knew people would love it, especially Natives across the country,” said 18-year-old Chasinghorse during a recent interview. “And even, not just this country, like, the world. Indigenous people all over, you know, seeing someone that looks like them. And being represented in that way, knowing that we all have similar stories.”
Credit Kelsey Ciugun Wallace
Wednesday, May 5 is the day set aside to remember the Indigenous women who are missing or have been murdered. According to data gathered by Data for Indigenous Justice, Native women end up missing and murdered in disproportionate numbers. Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, with Native People’s Action, says that this is the first baseline report on the number of murdered and missing indigenous women, and can be found here.
“There is a total of 229 murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Alaska; 149 are in missing status, and 80 of those are murdered,” said Wallace.
Those numbers were as of a few months ago, and Wallace adds that those numbers have since changed since the data was collected. Wallace said that the problem is that in the past when family members brought up concerns about missing Indigenous women and girls in their family, they were met by silence.