Rural Alaska blog: The Village : Watch Obama's meeting with tribes online tomorrow

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The Village is a Daily News blog about life and politics in rural Alaska. Its main author is ADN reporter Kyle Hopkins. Come here for breaking news on village issues, plus interviews, videos and photos. But that's just part of the story. We want to feature your pictures, videos and stories, too. Think of The Village as your bulletin board. E-mail us anything you’d like to share with the rest of Alaska -- your letters to the editor, the photos of your latest hunt or video of your latest potlatch. (We love video.)

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Kyle Hopkins

I was born in Sitka, have lived in Kake, Skagway and Fairbanks and joined the ADN in 2005 after writing for the Anchorage Press and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. I started blogging for the paper in 2006 with The Trail, our blog about the governor's race. Then came the Alaska Politics blog. Now I'm covering government and rural affairs and live in Anchorage with my wife, Rebecca. (Update: Our daughter Alice was born May 31. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.) E-mail me at khopkins@adn.com and find me on Twitter at twitter.com/ADNVillage.

khopkins@adn.com

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Watch Obama's meeting with tribes online tomorrow

Posted by thevillage

Anchorage Daily News

Posted: November 4, 2009 - 6:02 pm

Leaders from more than 560 tribes, including many from Alaska, meet with the Obama administration beginning early tomorrow morning in D.C.

You can watch it live here. The president's expected to give opening and closing remarks. Things start at 5 a.m. (!) Alaska time.

I asked Rosita Worl, an Alaska Federation of Natives board member and president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute what Sealaska & AFN hope to talk about in D.C.

Here's what she wrote:

I just came from the Alaska Caucus, and I also attended the meeting with USDA where subsistence was the major issue raised by Alaska Natives. I believe that Alaska Natives were effective and successful in putting subsistence on the USDA radar and advocating that it was a legitimate focus of USDA and also raising the issue of equity in funding. Subsistence was also a major issue in the caucus with tribal and village representatives and tribal shareholders speaking about the interrelationship of subsistence with other issues such as lack of economic opportunities in villages, which made protection of SBA 8 opportunities important. Also global warming was discussed in terms of its impact on subsistence resources and activities and riverine and coastal erosion and its impact on village. It was also noted that funding for Native programs remained frozen during the last 8 years.

Meantime, I'm hoping to hear from the state about how their latest rural subcabinet meeting went earlier this week. They were scheduled to hit Tanana, Ruby and Galena.