ilat -Family I was born on Kodiak Island, Alaska, where my mother was born and raised. My maternal grandparents are Don and Donna Nekeferoff and my great-grandparents are Emily and Nick Nekeferoff from Chignik and Sandpoint on the Peninsula. We have tribal affiliation with Uganik, which is a region on Kodiak island that did have some villages pre-colonization but by the time ANCSA happened and tribal members enrolled, was no longer a place of settlement. My family is not ancestrally from that region but this is where my Grandpa chose to enroll us. We also are enrolled in two regional corporations- The Aleut Foundation and Koniag. My family ended up in Kodiak during World War 2, when many Alaska Natives in the Aleutian Chain fled their homes to avoid bombing and abuse from foreign and US military operations. My family has belonged to and stewarded the lands and waters of Kodiak for many generations until my parents moved away to raise me and my brothers when I was around 4 years old.

On my father’s side, I am English, French, and have ties to Germany. I haven’t explored the genealogy of this side of my family nearly as much but I look forward to learning more!

My Mountains and Rivers I would consider myself to have been raised by many places- I have lived in Washington, Greece, Hawaii, Arizona, Michigan and Montana. It has been an interesting upbringing that has taught me much about what it means to feel a sense of place and home on the lands you are currently on, as well as the lands that your ancestors inhabited. I think this is an important lesson for many people in our global world today. 

What Else I would say my most steady creative work is the food I create! I love food and I love finding ways to integrate ingredients that I can tell a story about (where are they from?; who cared for them?; how do they nourish body, mind, soul?). I loved cooking for my work with the Indigenous foods cohorts and learning to use ingredients native to the lands of Montana in a way that taught me about the culture and lifeways of the peoples who originally inhabited this land. I love baking and cooking and nourishing myself and those around me! It is like an act of resistance within our broken systems today.

I am currently a PhD student at Montana State University in the public health program in Indigenous and Rural Health. I live in Kodiak Alaska, where I work at Kodiak Area Natives Association in a food security role. I believe that Indigenous food systems hold the answers for what it means to live well, with purpose and meaning and creativity. When I think of Indigenous community health, I think of our food system holding it.

This blog is meant to share some of the adventures and knowledge that I gather as I return home (Angilluni in the Sugpiaq Language).