I'm your College of Rural Alaska contact in Nome, Alaska.   I will hopefully help you meet all the people you'll need to while here. CRA's campus in Nome is called Northwest Campus, our website,  anvil.nome.alaska.edu might be of interest. Our service area is generally referred to as the Bering Straits region, much of the region is located on the Seward Peninsula which has the Norton Sound to its south. Nome's population is about 3,500 people, while the region total is 8,500 or so. The City of Nome's website is: www.alaska.net/~nome .

I have made contact with all major organizations in our region, most of whom are based here. The only one that isn't is the school district that services all communities outside of Nome, Bering Straits School District (BSSD). They offices are in Unalakleet. A community on the coast halfway between Nome and the mouth of the Yukon River. They have schools in all the communities and have just this past year made basic internet connections in most of their schools. They will be available for a telephone call while you're here, hopefully the first afternoon youre here, Wednesday, the 17th.

The two organizations most involved in pushing the telecommunications envelope is Kawerak, Inc., www.kawerak.org   and Norton Sound Health Corporation, www.nshcorp.org . Kawerak is the tribal compacting organization for this region. Norton Sound Health Corporation (NSHC) operates the IHS health care services for the region. Their work routinely and directly involves our village communities. I arranging meetings with those two organizations for you during that same afternoon, Wednesday, the 17th.

There are other organizations interested in meeting with you, Nome Public Schools, Sitnasuak Native Corporation, www.snc.org , Bering Straits Native Corporation, nome.net, www.nome.net . I have suggested a general meet-ing Thursday morning at 9am with all interest organizations, it would include local GTE, AT&T, and GCI represen-tatives along with the others. The remainder of Thursday could be used to visit the other organizations, and whatever else you thought necessary to do.

Northwest Campus joined with Kawerak, NSHC, BSSD, and sometimes the Alaska National Guard (there is a com-pany of the Alaska Scout Battalion in each village), to share news of upgrades and to cooperate on some grant appli-cations. We labeled ourselves a consortium, had memorandums of agreement, etc., but never accomplished too much more than keeping lines of communication open between the organization's technical people.

The Northwestern College campus is in Nome, AK. Bob Metcalf met me at the Alaska Airlines airport. We checked in at Betty's Igloo and had lunch at the new Java Hut. The Java Hut is a coop that employs students who want to learn about food services.

Afterwards, we went to Kawerak, Inc. to meet with Loretta and Thomas Bohn. Kawerak provides human resources and services to the 15 Native villages in the Bearing Strait Region. They have been working on a comprehensive plan to connect up the villages. I collected plans for TCP over Satellite, TCP/IP in the Bering Strait Region, an internal proposal for a traveling Computer Lab, system documents, and a 5-Year Technical Plan.

Next we visited the North Sound Health Corporation. They provide health services to the 15 Native villages. They provided us with copies of proposals used for infrastructure development to the USDF. They too want to connect up the villages so that medical records and health training can be used over the net. Next we toured the coastline and saw the many gold miners on the beaches running sloughs. We also went inland along the Nome River and looked for moose, reindeer and musk oxen. We didn't see any, but I did get a good short history of the region. We next went to watch Bob & Vera's son play softball. The game started at 8:00 p.m. and ended around 10:00 p.m. It was very bright and near 60 degrees out that evening. I retired at Betty's Igloo around 11:00.

The next day I met Bob Metcalf at the Northwest College Campus and met with a group of community representatives that the College had arranged. I introduced myself and asked the group 3 questions:

1. Name & address for contact information.
2. What takes up the longest amount of time during your daily duties?
3. Tell me what your community/school looks like in 10 years.

I got varying answers from each rep. They described their contact info, (some had e-mail) duties (with the longest/hardest/time consuming first), then gave me their vision of their community in the future. As expected, communications was a main subject, from inter-building in the community, to inter-village in the region, to inter-campus as a statewide issue. I got answers describing ‘self-sustaining’ to ‘worldwide interconnectedness.’

Next I got quick tours of the local ISP’s, Nome.net & AT&T Alascom, and ate a Japanese lunch at an Italian restaurant. (It was that or a Chinese lunch at a Mexican restaurant!)

Next we went to Sitnasuak Native Corporation and shopped at the craft store that sold only Native crafts directly bought from the Native villagers. Boy, did I go wild! I bought some Ivory carvings (earrings and pendants), a Reindeer Antler carved doll, Native yo-yos, and a walrus carved out of whole bone. They were very nice and gave me a substantial discount, being a Native buying Native crafts.
Thank you Sonya.

We next met with Paul and Bob Fagerstrom of the Sitnasuak Native Corporation. This is a Native Corporation representing the Nome Metro area. They too want to be connected to the Native villages, since they are their only customers. They asked me for help in getting their corporation with a global presence, since I have already owned my own Native American Internet company (ATIIN, Inc.) and have already experienced going through the process of putting Natives on the Net.