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Elder of the year: A Native's homecoming for change

Published on November 16th, 2009

By CINTHIA RITCHIE

When Alaska Native Federation Elder of the Year Clare Swan left Kenai in 1949 after graduating from high school, she vowed she would never to return.

The traditional village was gone, along with the security that had once come with it.

"So many new people came in after the war, and that was when I began to realize the full the weight of being Native," she said. "And no one wanted to be Native. It wasn't fashionable."

She spent over 20 years Outside, and finally decided to return in 1973.

"I wanted to come home," she said. "Being around my people again felt good. It felt very familiar."

Things were buzzing around the state, too. The Alaska Claims Settlement Act had been signed the previous year and Native corporations were busy gaining strength.

"It was an exciting time," she said. "Yet I was surprised at the amount of prejudice still there against Native people.

She immediately became involved with the Kenai Native Association and later with the Kenaitze Indian Tribe and the Cook Inlet Tribal Council. She went on to help establish the Dena'ina Health Clinic and worked for over 11 years to help the Kenaitze Tribe win the right to have Educational Fisheries.

"That was horrendous," she said. "At meetings perfectly grown-up adults would call us names. It was brutal."

By sticking together and negotiating point after point, the tribe finally won.

"I knew in my heart it was the right thing to do," she said. "It was hard, but it was exciting. I'd do it again."

Swan is currently the board chair of CITC and the committee chairwoman of the Kenaitze Tribal Cultural Committee and is working with and mentoring youths. She's also part of the outer dialect Dena'ina language revitalizing effort. According to her estimates, less than 50 speakers remain worldwide.

"My mother was a fluid Dena'ina speaker and hearing it again, the memories just float up," she said. "It makes you feel whole again."

Swan believes that while things have gotten immensely better for her people, there is still a ways to go.

"There is still prejudice, and I think that there always will be," she said. "You think it gets better and then you realize that it didn't. People close up - it's a fear thing."

She believes her people need to keep working for change by educating and empowering youths.

"The young people have great potential," she said. "I wish for them to be as good as they can be, and to always be true to themselves."

As far as winning the Elder of the Year award, Swan said that like so many other things in life, it was totally unexpected.

"I look around me with wonderment. I had these dreams when I came home in 1973 and I'm still a part of it. That to me is award enough."