I grew up from birth until I was 10-years old in Shaktoolik, a village of about 150 people near Nome. Then, the village council was law and order. And it was obeyed Inupiat style. That was in the 1950s.

In the early 1970s, the State of Alaska decreed that villages were to become 2nd Class Cities, a departure from thousands of years of tried and true village governance. The SOA said if you want revenue sharing, you must follow what we say and do.

From then on, the village council no longer existed, and a “city” council took over turning to state laws as government decree. Village law and order, and thousands of years of experience, was dismantled.

As a child in Shaktoolik, the village council and those on it was the heartbeat of the community and everyone behaved as expected. Elders were on these councils and carried on. In my day, homicides and suicides and violent crimes were taboo and not to be condoned. Things have indeed changed for the worse.