

Six months after my best season on Denali to date, I found myself in Baghdad, Iraq in November 2003, writing about the U.S. occupation of that country. A career in journalism was born, and a couple of years later that work pulled me out of Alaska.
Returning to Alaska in September 2024 as Home Planet Fund’s Storytelling and Communications Manager was a particularly special homecoming for me. While I’d visited my favorite state multiple times since moving out of it, this time was different, primarily because of our partners.

We stood beside a stream full of salmon, their red backs cutting through the water as they swam vigorously upstream. The periodic splashing from their tails reminded us of their presence, as well as their ancient cycle of return.
Standing amidst old growth forest, myriad shades of green were illuminated by late afternoon sunbeams. Shafts of deep yellow light warmed the damp coolness of the temperate Tongass rainforest during this fall visit to meet with Home Planet Fund’s partners in Southeast Alaska.

Marina Anderson, a Tlingti/Haida leader, shared her knowledge and wisdom generously during the rich and full three-day visit that myself and photographer Julie Ellison were fortunate to have with her.
“We take care of the land and the food, and it takes care of us,” Marina told us. Not long afterwards, she slipped her feet into the nearby stream, crouched down and placed her hand in the water, and held it there while she sang softly to the salmon.

Because it is the largest intact temperate rainforest on the planet at nearly seven million hectares, the Tongass National Forest across Southeast Alaska is known as “America’s Amazon.” Replete with towering Sitka spruce, western hemlock, Alaskan yellow cedar, and western red cedar, the forest is one of the largest carbon reserves on Earth.
Thanks to coves, bays, inlets, fjords, and huge stretches of coastline along the Pacific Ocean, it has a watery edge of 17,700 kilometers while hosting 91,700 kilometers of rivers, streams and creeks. This is one reason that this region is the best spawning habitat for salmon anywhere on the planet, providing nearly one-third of the total global supply of wild salmon.
Salmon are so interconnected to this area that their genetic material can be found embedded in spruce trees 120 kilometers inland. The three largest islands of this magnificent area have one of the highest concentrations of brown bears on Earth, with one every 1.5 square kilometers.
It is this place the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Peoples have called home since time immemorial.


I had spent plenty of time in Juneau back in the day, but our partners designed a schedule for Julie and I that took us far deeper into Southeast Alaska than the state capital.
In the small village of Kake, we met up with Shaelene Moler, who works for Spruce Root as the Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP) Communications Catalyst. SSP and Spruce Root, partners of Home Planet Fund, work to strengthen cultural, ecological and economic resilience across Southeast Alaska.


Shaelene showed us food sustainability projects, a Native cultural healing center that was forming, and many other facets of her work that was truly inspiring.
From there we visited Hoonah, which brought similar inspiration from the work of our partners.
By the time we met up with Marina in Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, Julie and myself were already deeply moved by what we had seen and experienced…yet we were about to be shown yet another layer of place that would leave us thinking about this trip for months to come.
Like the other partners we had met with, Marina’s people have been stewards of this region since time immemorial. She described the Indigenous people there as being part of the ecosystem, making no distinction between herself, the bears, trees, plants, fish, or birds.
Guided by her father’s wisdom—“Being Haida is about the way you do things”—Marina works tirelessly to revive cultural traditions, from totem carving to weaving, strengthening her community and their connection to the land. As program director and long-time member of the Steering Committee for SSP, that is exactly what she is doing.

“Being raised here means you learn from the land, not about the land,” Marina would tell us while grilling us salmon on the beach one evening where she lives.

During another walk in the forest, Marina explained how “everything here is either food or medicine,” and would go on to add, “The only difference between a bear, a tree, and I is that I can type. Everything out here carries spirit, even things that don’t have a heartbeat, including rocks. Everything carries spirit.”
As I learned more and more about how much Marina did for her people and the land and waters where she lives, I complimented her. How she accepted the compliment has stuck with me. “It’s incredible what we can do together,” was her immediate reply.
Marina took us to the tiny village of Kasaan where we met Mike Jones, the President of the Organized Village of Kasaan.


Mike walked Marina, Julie and myself along the trail of Totems just outside the village. Within the edge of the forest, and right alongside the shore, tall and short totems alike line a dirt path. Mike, himself a carver, went on to tell us a remarkable story.
When one of the old totems was moved from the old village site to the current site, one of the eyes on the lowest crest, which is the most important, went missing. That portion of the wood somehow had either fallen off or been knocked off in a storm, and never been found.
When he became president of the tribe, Mike was overwhelmed by the responsibilities and challenges that came with the position. So he took his boat across the large inlet where Kasaan is located, because across the water rests the original site of the village, which had long since been moved to where it stands today.
Once he arrived at the old site, Mike took out his drum and began to pray to one of the chiefs who had long since walked on, asking for direction. “I needed help from the ancestors,” he said. “I was crying and praying, hard.”

Once finished, Mike hopped back in his boat to make his way back across the water. “Right as I was pulling out, the clouds overhead darkened dramatically, and I noticed a large dark water funnel nearby,” he explained. “We rarely see those around here.”
Just as he was arriving back to the dock where his journey started, an isolated storm that formed overhead unleashed a torrent of hail. “It was so intense, my wife came out and took a video of it,” he said.
Amidst the turbulence of the storm, Mike ran to his home, and there on the doorstep of his front door sat the piece of wood from the eye that had gone missing from the totem. When Mike finished the story, we all sat silently within the energy.
Walking alongside the totems, standing in the shelter where totems are carved, and walking in the forest as it meets the ocean, the energy of Kasaan is palpable. Feeling this, at one point I commented to Marina about it, and she replied, “Yes, it’s strong here.”

To me, that is Alaska.
How Home Planet Fund’s partners live and work on the Earth, along with other Alaskan Natives, are the reason for this.
The vastness of Alaska’s waters, lands, and spectacular mountain ranges, and all of the beings living within them, all carry spirit. To me, this is why it makes sense that this place holds the energy it does, and has always been my heart’s geography.
Knowing that partners like Marina, Shaelene, and so many others who work with Home Planet Fund are doing all that they do to care for this incredible part of the planet, every single day, brings me deep gratitude.
Know that every contribution you make to Home Planet Fund, no matter the size, makes a difference.
Together, we are planting the seeds of change and cultivating a brighter future.
In the coming year we are excited to share new partners and new projects as we continue to expand the web of care for the Earth with our partners around the world.
Thank you for being a part of our story.
