From the Editors: Spring 2020

We’re completing the finishing touches on this, our fourth issue as publishers, and the magazine’s 15th, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we gathered with the owners and staff of over 50 other Edible publications from around North America.

We will head home deeply inspired and full of new ideas. And honored, too! The magazine won a Best of Edible Award Honorable Mention for Bethany Sonsini Goodrich’s story, “Our Way of Life” about the Keex’ Kwaan Culture Camp in Kake, published in our Fall 2019 issue. Congratulations, Bethany! If you haven’t read it and enjoyed the stunning photos, find both in the Fall 2019 issue, or on ediblealaska.com.

The publisher’s annual meeting was followed by Edible Institute, a gathering open to the public that brought journalists, ranchers, tribal leaders, writers, farmers, and chefs together to envision a sustainable food future.

Regenerative agriculture was a major focus of this year’s Edible Institute. A leap beyond mere sustainability, regenerative farming seeks to restore the damage done to soil and watersheds by what some call “conventional” industrial agriculture. Much of the shared wisdom called on producers and farmers to indigenize their regard for and use of the land. “Scientifically and socially, it’s the most exciting thing I’ve seen in my career,” Urvashi Rangan said about regenerative agriculture—a bringing back of old ways of thinking that are rooted in paying attention to the specific nature of a farmer’s place. We were thrilled that an entire day of the conversation was led by Native Americans from Pueblo country. Roger Fragua of the Jemez Pueblo and Flower Hill Institute said, “We are corn. It’s our customs, traditions, ceremony. It’s us. Same in buffalo country, salmon country, rice country. We are corn nation.”

That relationship between local, indigenous foodways and identity rang true. We were energized by chef, author, and teacher Lois Ellen Frank who urged attendees to recognize and respect indigenous knowledge, science, and intellectual authority. She echoed similar calls we hear and work to honor and amplify in our state. Fragua, as he concluded the day, offered a few kernels of dried New Mexico corn to each attendee and as he and others urged the spreading of their stories, he said, “We planted the seeds of corn in you.”

While our vulnerabilities and challenges as Alaskans are many, we are lucky to live in a place of abundant fisheries, wild lands, and growing agriculture and aquaculture. The gathering in New Mexico allowed us to look outward for a few days and connect with our larger international community of storytellers. Edible Communities has a cumulative audience of 18 million readers with whom Edible Alaska can share stories of resilience, stories of tradition and innovation, stories of foraging and commercial fishing, stories told by Alaska Natives, stories of immigrants, stories of the urban and rural, hyperlocal and universal.

We range from Nome to Juneau, Kodiak to Sitka, Anchorage to Fairbanks, and McCarthy to Chukotka, Russia just in this issue you hold in your hands. Our writers document social and natural changes across the state and introduce us to fascinating Alaskans who deepen our collective sense of place and community.

Those corn kernels will sit on our desks this spring, reminding us of what we learned and all we have to discover as the earth warms, and stories sprout for future issues. Thank you for being part of our Edible Community. Happy Spring, and thanks for reading!