Woven Peoples and Place: Don’t be an island, be amongst the people

Introduction by Shaelene Grace Moler

As the year closes and snow settles at sea level, we are reminded that winter is a season of reflection. It is a time for our communities to lean in closer to one another, and the land reminds us to move steadier, more intentionally. It is the time to gather what we’ve learned, honor what holds us, and prepare ourselves for the year ahead.

The Sustainable Southeast Partnership (SSP) is a dynamic collective of people and partners uniting diverse skills and perspectives to strengthen cultural, ecological and economic abundance across Southeast Alaska. This year, our partners came together despite many uncertainties and challenges to champion community priorities, support entrepreneurs, harvest for our youth and Elders, advocate for land health, teach traditional languages and harvest, and more.

In 2025 the Sustainable Southeast Partnership held our 11th annual Spring Retreat in Sitka filling the largest event space in the community with over 80 partner organizations represented. We published our second edition of our anthology Woven: People’s and Place. The Seacoast Trust surpassed its quarter mark reaching $27.5 million in the spring. We hosted two storytelling interns in the Chilkat Valley and Petersburg, and as a team shared stories on our catalysts, the Tongass Forest Plan Revision, bridging knowledge systems, recipes for fireweed jelly and stress reduction, and more.

Angoon held its second annual career fair and Southeast Alaska Fly Fishing Guide Academy. Kake welcomed herring spawn back to their shores after 50 years, broke ground to build a new cultural center, and held a mariculture intensive learning session in partnership with the Native Conservancy and Spruce Root. The Alaska Youth Stewards, a Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska workforce development program, held its second all-crew training in Glacier Bay. Hoonah’s community greenhouse began producing fresh food for the school district and childcare center, recognizing SSP for support in the process, and hosted the Fall SSP Work Planning Retreat. In the Lynn Canal, the communities of Haines and Skagway partnered on the Upper Lynn Canal Local Foods Challenge, a community event in Southeast Alaska promoting local food systems. Additionally, Haines welcomed two new restaurants focused on local foods: Taste of Deishú owned by SSP partner the Chilkoot Indian Association, and Deer Heart, owned by Spruce Root Loan Recipient and 2024 Path to Prosperity Finalist Chef Travis Kukull. In Sitka, our reinvigorated Fish to Schools program achieved its largest donation year to date with 25,000 servings of local fish in local schools. This is only a handful of all that has occurred in this abundant region and network.

In 2020, SSP Partners co-created a set of collective values — principles that continue to ground the work and guide a collaborative path forward, derived from the land, water, and Indigenous Peoples of this region, the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian. These values include:

Relationships First, Balance, Tribal Sovereignty & Community Determination, “Kux̱adaahán Ádáyoo.aánalgein” (Stop, observe, examine, act), Intentional Collaboration, Courage & Follow Through, Growth & Collective Learning, Systems Thinking and Justice & Healing.

These values are written commitments and tools partners use to make decisions, navigate challenges and direct how SSP shows up for our communities. While these values are shared, in practice, they can look different depending on who you ask.

To explore what it means to embrace these values, we’re sharing the voices of three partners who embody them in their daily lives and work. In April we shared about the power of mentorship with SSP Communications Catalyst Shaelene Grace Moler, and in September we shared about values that come from living with the land and building community with Sitka Conservation Society Executive Director Andrew Thoms.

In part three of our “Values in Action” series, we hear from Láaganaay Tsiits Git’anee, SSP Backbone Organization Spruce Root Board Member and SSP Steering Committee Member:

“Don’t Be an Island, Be Amongst the People” by Láaganaay Tsiits Git’anee

About ten years ago, when I was working at First Alaskans Institute as the President/ CEO, we were hosting difficult dialogues around relations between Native and non-Native people. I first partnered with Spruce Root when invited to lead discussions in Ḵéex̱ʼ (Kake) for the SSP. What interested me was SSP’s fundamental goal of fostering connections between people from diverse sectors, communities, and cultures to strengthen and put “Relationships First” and drive transformation in Southeast Alaska. You can’t do that without having difficult conversations, that’s how you fertilize the ground and create the foundation for that transformation. Difficult conversations are where bonds begin. It’s putting the work in a hope that is ever-evolving, embracing diversity, and recognizing the inherent value in each individual. This is how we create a stronger, more connected community.

There are many values I was raised with and if you don’t pay attention, you might miss how they guide you. These values that led our people for thousands of years, continue to influence every moment of my life. When harvesting, we are taught through doing rather than being ‘taught to.’ The younger kids went further out, leaving the more accessible harvesting spots for Elders. For example, you don’t take all of your berries from one location, leaving some for others, and for those plants themselves because they have a job to do besides feeding us. Operationalizing that may look like honoring the value of “Balance” and “Kuxhadahaan Adaayoo.analgein (Stop, observe, examine, act),” pausing, caring for, and learning from your environment and community.

“Don’t be an island, go out and be amongst the people. Let them see your face.” That’s what grandpa Tommy always encouraged— showing up for your community and being present. The wisdom in that value is lifting people up, just by being there, regardless of your role. It’s having “Courage & Follow Through” as a good community member. You can’t always be on your own agenda, you sometimes must let the community lead and just be present and bear witness. We have SSP catalysts that are embedded in our Tribes or organizations who continue to show up for our communities at our culture camps, times of mourning, and potlatches— who harvest for and with us.

I appreciate how SSP is really trying to walk the talk. Hosting convenings that bring people together to grow their relationships and understanding of one another is really important in addition to the work that is actually being done on the ground. SSP is about people coming together to support our Tribes and other community entities, uplifting “Tribal Sovereignty & Community Determination.” SSP is not driving the agenda, it is listening, supporting, and nurturing opportunities that our Tribes and community organizations want, or are leading. Likewise, those Partners are participating in SSP— it is reciprocal.

Láaganaay Tsiits Git’anee is a Spruce Root Board and SSP Steering Committee member. She is Haida/Tlingit, and is from Ḵéex̱ʼ (Kake), Alaska. She is a Tribal Citizen of the Organized Village of Kake. On her Haida side she is Eagle Tiits Gitee Nei, Hummingbird. On her Tlingit side she is Raven Kaach.adi, Fresh Water-marked Sockeye Salmon. She received her BA (BFA Equivalency) from Fort Lewis College, and her law degree from Arizona State University College of Law, graduating with a Juris Doctorate and a Certificate in Indian Law.

“Woven Peoples and Place” is the monthly column of the Sustainable Southeast Partnership.