Category Archives: Suicide Prevention

Introducing our 2016 Kusko Cast & Crew

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lynxKadey Ambrose (Stage Manager) began in theater and dance as a child. Since then, she’s been continuously involved in the arts in her hometown of Fairbanks. Kadey is most proud of her work with the Angry, Young & Poor Fest, a free local music festival dedicated to building community through the arts.

 

 

James-2 (1)James Bartlett (Technical Director) is a lifelong Alaskan and has been participating in music and theatre since age four. He currently owns and operates Sunnyside Productions, a project-recording studio in Fairbanks.

 

 

Kaleb_headshotKaleb Daugherty (Production Technician) This is Kaleb’s first time working with The Winter Bear Project, but is excited and honored to be able to lend his technical expertise to the show! He has worked on multiple other shows, with Almost, Maine, Kung Fu Hamlet and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Fairbanks Drama Association) being his proudest plays.

 

Skyler Ray-Benson Davis_headshotSkyler Davis (Wolf) is from Anchorage, Alaska. He has never been this far off the road system before! He likes to do a lot of things on the arts side, and feels grounded and balanced, emotionally and physically, when able to be carried away by it. He hopes that he can take his own personal overcomings and faults with mental distress and suicide into the play to bring hope and understanding into your communities with the power of Sidney Huntington’s legacy, and former Alaska writer laureate Anne Hanley’s The Winter                                                Bear.

anneAnne Hanley (Playwright & Producer) is a former Alaska Writer Laureate whose plays have been produced in Alaska and Outside. She is grateful to the late Sidney Huntington for giving her permission to spread his message of education, self-reliance and humility and recommends his book to anyone who hasn’t read it. (Shadows on the Koyukuk by Sidney Huntington and Jim Rearden, Alaska Northwest Books, 1993.)


izzy_headshotIzzy Juneby (Duane), Han Gwich’in from Eagle Village and Lakota Sioux, is a freshman at West Valley High School. He enjoys hunting, running, working out, skateboarding, hockey and spending time with his family.  Izzy feels very grounded in his culture and values, which gives him strength.  Izzy is really excited about returning to the role of Duane and says the topic is really important for the people.

 

David Leslie HeadshotDavid Leslie (Wolverine) is an Inupiaq Eskimo and started theater with the Lathrop High School Ballroom Dance Team. He is now an adjunct professor teaching swing dance at UAF CTC, while also working in film and TV production for national shows. David’s recent works were directing The Rocky Horror Picture Show and choreographing Shrek The Musical. He has toured with The Winter Bear Project previously as a videographer and Wolf.

Aurora Lewis_headshotAurora Lewis (Lynx) (Aleut) Lifelong Alaskan and dancer, Aurora is thrilled to be involved with the Winter Bear Project. After spending the last 10 years shoe-stringing around the globe, she’s excited to be home, enrolled in school, and settling down a bit.

 

yukonSarah Mitchell (Associate Producer) is delighted to be on her fourth tour with The Winter Bear Project, after playing Raven in previous productions. Born and raised in Fairbanks, Sarah worked in arts education for Portland Center Stage in Oregon and locally on Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre’s educational tour of an Alaska Native-inspired A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

 

 

Misty_headshotMisty Nickoli (Miranda) was raised culturally Koyukon Athabascan in the villages of Kaltag and Galena. She now lives in Fairbanks with her three teenaged sons. Indigenous social advocacy has been an important part of her life since her teens. Lately she has been a tireless advocate for justice for the Fairbanks Four. Misty served eight years in the Army Reserves as an LPN. She is excited to be working on suicide awareness as an actress in The Winter Bear.

 

Tom Robenolt PhotoTom Robenolt (Director) first toured with The Winter Bear in the fall of 2013 where he served as Technical Director. Currently, he is transitioning into Artistic Associate and the Education Director at Perseverance Theatre in Juneau Alaska. Tom has directed and acted for Perseverance Theatre, Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, Opera Fairbanks and other companies in Alaska since 2000.

 

 

Jasmine_headshotJasmine Stokes (Raven) is excited to reprise the role of Raven with the Winter Bear Project. Jasmine has also stage managed and costume consulted for previous productions. You can find her working technical theater gigs around Fairbanks, designing costumes for local productions and helping with the Angry, Young & Poor fest.  Jasmine is most proud of co-founding and performing with Fairbanks Fire & Flow, a fire spinning troupe.

Jake Waid_headshotJacob Waid (Victor) is happy to be back in Alaska where he has worked extensively with Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre and Perseverance Theatre. Past roles include the title roles in Hamlet andHenry V. He played Autolycus in The Winters Tale and Brutus in Julius Caesar. He has also played the Title role in Perseverance Theatre’s touring production of Macbeth, which culminated with a two-week run at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.  The play was translated into the language of his Tlingit tribe, a                                                    language only spoken now by about 300 Tlingit elders.

Brian_WescottBrían Pagaq Wescott (Sidney Huntington)  (Koyukon/Yup’ik), grew up in Fairbanks. He just performed They Don’t Talk Back in L.A. Other credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre (2015) and Karyn Traut’s The Realm of Love or Folding Laundry at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

Tough Love on the Koyukuk

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SidneyRecollections of Sidney Huntington
(1915-2015)

By Anne Hanley

On Dec. 11, 2015, Koyukon Athabascan leader Sidney Charles Huntington was laid to rest on a bluff overlooking the Yukon River. The spot was near where he used to run a trap line and not far from the site of his fish wheel. He was 100 years old.

Photo by Karrie Pavish Anderson

Photo by Karrie Pavish Anderson

 

When an elder dies, a bridge between the past and the future is washed away. Sidney’s death leaves a huge, gaping chasm. He knew the chiefs and the medicine men. He knew the animals and the rules for how to show them respect. He knew old ones who hunted bears with nothing but spears and who spoke the old Koyukon high language. He knew missionaries and traders and miners. They’re all gone and now he’s gone too, but, lucky for us, he left a book.

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If you haven’t read his biography Shadows on the Koyukuk, written with Jim Rearden in 1993 and still in print, treat yourself to a good yarn about a good man whose life encompasses a huge swath of Alaska history.

 

Sidney was born in 1915 around the time when the first non-Native settlers were moving into the Country. His mother was a traditional Athabascan woman; his father was a trader and a gold-seeker. “Half Indian,” as he called himself, and half white, he faced discrimination from both sides.

I once spent a morning at the Sidney C. Huntington School in Galena interviewing students about Sidney. They were shy and not as vocal as I’d hoped. As I was leaving, a resource teacher chased after me.  “I have something to say about Sidney,” she said. “I moved to Galena two years ago and Sidney was one of the first people I met. He told me, ‘Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you don’t belong here. If you live here, you’re one of us.” That was Sidney. He would not tolerate discrimination, perhaps because he endured so much of it growing up.

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He had a passion for education. In the early ‘70s, he was part of a committed group that formed the Galena City School District. He then served on the School Board for the next 21 years. He often reached in his own pocket and made loans to young people for education, and, in his later years, he was a familiar face around the school in Galena that bears his name, just being there for the kids. I believe his interest in education grew out of his belief that education is the most powerful tool to overcome discrimination.

Sidney (pictured in the middle) shortly after the death of his mother. To his right are brother Jimmy and sister Marion.

Sidney (pictured in the middle) shortly after the death of his mother. To his right are brother Jimmy and sister Marion.

Sidney had to learn to survive early. When he was five years old his mother died, and he had to keep himself and his two younger siblings alive for over two weeks until they were rescued. That early experience gave him the confidence to face the many ordeals and tragedies that came later.

 

 

Mid-way through his life, he was attacked by the demon that delights in bringing down strong men: alcohol. Once he made up his mind to put that behind him, he never looked back and he never looked down on others going through similar problems. Instead, he dug in and helped.

His gruff, but fathomless generosity is legendary. Everyone in Galena has stories. They say he even gave away his first casket to someone who had a more immediate need for it. When I first met Sidney, this tough-as-nails old man cried when he talked to me about two of his sons who committed suicide. I asked if I could include those personal stories in the play I was writing about him. “If you think it might help even one kid, then go for it,” he said and he never wavered in his support.

Cast photos of Winter Bear Sept 18, 2015 at APU.

Actors Therisa Bennett (Miranda Huntington) and Allan Hayton (Sidney Huntington) perform an emotional scene from THE WINTER BEAR.

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Sidney on the trapline in 1958. Photo: Alaska State Library.

I’ll always be grateful to Sidney and to his family for allowing me to share their private memories on a public stage. Their deep generosity has inspired others to open up and share their stories and that’s what will ultimately change the climate of fear and hopelessness that breeds suicide.

 

 

 

Sidney Huntington wore many hats over the course of his long life. He was a hunter, a trapper and a fisherman. That he was always able to provide for his family was a source of great pride to him. He was a miner, a carpenter, and for many years he operated a fish processing plant. He was a member of the Board of Game for 17 years and received an honorary PhD from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He was an educator, a mentor, a motivator and honorary “coach” to the Galena Boys and Girls Basketball team. He was a writer.

 

 

Sidney Huntington was a lot of things to a lot of people, but one thing he was not: He was not a quitter. He never quit on people. He never quit on learning. He never quit on living. At an age when he had every excuse to rest on his laurels, he kept on writing, speaking, reaching out to challenge people, especially young Alaska Native people, to be better, to aim higher, to survive and prosper no matter what the obstacles.

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Sidney at his home in Galena, circa 2010.

Sidney Huntington belonged to a time when survival took every ounce of a man’s mettle. We’ll not see the likes of him again. But he also belonged to our time and now he’s gone and we will sorely miss his tough love.

Grandpa Sid's Resting Place. Photo by Karrie Pavish Anderson

Grandpa Sid’s Resting Place. Photo by Karrie Pavish Anderson

Galena residents depart the burial site. Photo by Karrie Pavish Anderson