Happy Holidays from our Spruce Root community to yours!
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Your Spruce Root team has been busy in December. Most of our team were able to visit Yakutat, and plan our 2023 work year.
Yakutat is such a beautiful community and we are so grateful for its hospitality.
Special thanks to the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe for co-hosting a Culture Share Dinner and all the great community members who came out to say hi and share with us.
For everyone that's in our Spruce Root community we hope you have safe and enjoyable holidays. Enjoy the newsletter!
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Looking for last minute holiday shopping ideas?
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The Shop Native-owned, Shop Local gift guide is back!
Spruce Root, Sustainable Southeast Partnership, Sealaska and Sealaska Heritage Institute collaborated once again to take some of the shopping guesswork out of your holiday purchasing.
This holiday season, you can support local and Native-owned businesses and provide your loved ones with wonderful memories and treasures.
Unfortunately, no one is offering the Jason Momoa boyfriend package this year, so I guess I'll settle for warm socks and earrings.
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Business Basics for Tlingit and Haida Artists
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Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska, Spruce Root and Path to Prosperity is hosting a Business and Basics for Artists course for Tlingit and Haida citizens.
Give yourself the gift of starting or growing your business. The deadline to apply is December 15!
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Alaska Venture Fund features Alana Peterson in 'Alaskans Driving Change' series
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(Photo by Bethany Goodrich)
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Spruce Root Executive Director Gah Kith Tin Alana Peterson was featured in an article for Alaska Venture Fund.
Excerpt
With Peterson’s leadership and the work of Spruce Root and its partners, Southeast Alaska has become known for its triple bottom line approach to economic development—one that values profit equally to people and planet. This work can serve as a model for other regions across Alaska but certain ingredients must be in place, Peterson said. The work and the people doing the work must be centered in place. This means recognizing that “Every place is a Native place,” she said, and the importance of having a true connection to the local ecosystem. In addition, the work must prioritize meaningful relationship-building and collaboration. This ingredient, Peterson believes, is essential to catalyzing change. “It is literally the work that no one has time to do,” Peterson said, “but it is the only work that gets us where we need to go.”
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BIA approves fee-to-trust land acquisition for Tlingit and Haida
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The Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs announced only the second free-to-trust acquisition in Alaska since the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs approved a fee-to-trust sometimes called land-to-trust application from the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to place a land parcel in Juneau into federal trust status.
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland announced the approval on November 17 (2022).
The recently approved application was submitted by Tlingit & Haida in 2009. The parcel is located in the historical and cultural area known as the Juneau Indian Village.
In a news release, the BIA said it was the first such acquisition in five years.
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Forest Service signs agreements to advance Tribal co-stewardship of national forests
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In late November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service announced it signed 11 co-stewardship agreements with 13 tribes as part of a commitment to protect Tribal interests in lands they value for culture and heritage.
Three separate co-stewardships were signed to protect culturally significant places on the Tongass National Forest.
- Hoonah Indian Association for forest thinning work that contributes to the long-standing Hoonah Native Forest Partnership.
- Organized Village of Kake for youth stewardship projects that protect burial sites while providing training and leadership development.
- Organized Village of Kasaan for a framework to sustain culturally critical resources and forest products.
“These agreements demonstrate our commitment to working together with Federally recognized Tribes,” said Forest Service Chief Randy Moore. “We are at a unique moment in time where we can make a positive difference in the relationships between the federal government and Tribal Nations across the country. We do this by building trust and demonstrating our commitment to uphold our trust and treaty responsibilities to Indian Tribes with concrete actions. We’ve made a lot of good progress already, and we will continue to embed this commitment within our agency and organizational culture.”
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Spruce Root Team Retreat in Yakutat
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In early December, Spruce Root staff traveled to Yakutat to develop our 2023 work plan.
It's one of the few times a year when most of the organization meets, communicates, and collaborates in a meaningful way in person. Over the course of three days, the various teams created objectives, goals, and a timeline to accomplish much of the work that needs to be done over the next year.
We look forward to the new year and all the accomplishments, partnerships and collaborations to come.
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The Spruce Root team held a MOVEmber challenge, to encourage the team to stay active and participate in meaningful and healthy activities in one of the darkest months of the year. We set a goal for ourselves to reach 400 hours as a team, and we crushed it with a total of 490 hours.
Laurel Stark had the best single-day time with 7.5 hours. And Aaron Ferguson accumulated more than 80 hours of wellness. Some last-minute elliptical work put Leslie Jackson in second-best accumulated hours: 57.25.
Congrats everyone!
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The Northern-most Business Basics workshop
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Spruce Root's technical assistance team was recently contracted by McKinley Alaska Growth Capital (MAGC), a trusted partner and Community Development Financial Institution, to deliver an in-person Business Basics course in Uqtiagvik, AK.
It's not often that we operate outside of Southeast Alaska, but Program Manager for Workforce Development Michael Mausbach traveled to the North Slope with MAGC staff to deliver a diverse and holistic curriculum. Participating entrepreneurs included arctic transport professionals and Inupiak translators.
While we are committed to and rooted in Southeast Alaska, opportunities to connect with indigenous entrepreneurs wherever they are building community and regenerative economies are always a welcomed privilege.
Find out more about Business Basics at spruceroot.org/businessbasics.
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Pilot session of Business & Balance workshop coming to a close
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This week is the final session of our pilot course, Path to Prosperity Business & Balance. Over the past 9 weeks, a thoughtful and dedicated group of five entreperneurs have gathered twice a week to find balance between building thriving community-centered businesses and taking care of themselves on a personal level.
On each Tuesday session of the course, they have worked with our team to tackle a different weekly focus including authentic marketing, generational wealth building, profit-first bookkeeping. On Thursdays, we invited expert mentors to join us on zoom and speak specifically to each weekly focus (shout out to Andrew Juneau, Cayla McCutcheon, Janelle Anderson, and Cynthia Gibson for your time!)
Thank you to these entrepreneurs for showing up for themselves, pushing each other, and remaining dedicated to the visions they are bringing to life. Stay tuned in 2023 to hear more about Business & Balance!
“So far being a member of this course is helping me to navigate small business ownership, while maintaining balance. I really like how each section is broken down and find the attention to wellness refreshing. My big interest in this was business structures, wellness, and gaining a better understanding of the tools available to be successful.”
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- New state-owned Metlakatla floatplane dock nearing completion after weather delays (Raegan Miller/KRBD, Dec. 13, 2022)
- As Arctic gets warmer and wetter, Alaska is slammed by extreme events, report says (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon, Dec. 13, 2022)
- Alaska marine highway board supports bigger budget for 2024 (Angela Denning/Coast Alaska via KTOO, Dec. 13, 2022)
- Juneau kindergartners play paper violins as part of music and Lingít language program (Yvonne Krummry/KTOO, Dec. 12, 2022)
- Fish and Game Advisory Committee Discusses Extending Bow-Hunting Season for Deer (Jordan Lewis/KFSK, Dec. 12, 2022)
- Task force’s final report calls for new rules and more research to address seafood bycatch (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon, Dec. 9, 2022)
- Alaska tribes join with Lower 48 allies to seek protections from impacts of Canadian mines (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon, Dec. 8, 2022)
- Planners to investigate whether some city lands can be opened up for housing (Katherine Rose/KCAW, Dec. 9, 2022)
- Weekend classes aim to give Wrangell residents safe food preservation skills (Sage Smiley/KSTK, Dec. 8, 2022)
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Thank you to all our partners, supporters, donors and communities for continuing to share in our vision for the region!
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Spruce Root is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). Our services for small businesses include coaching, training and lending for startup enterprises, working capital, business expansion, leasehold improvements and other business capital needs. We are a driver of a regenerative economy across Southeast Alaska so communities can forge futures grounded in this uniquely Indigenous place.
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