Meet the Modern Farming Consultant Sharing Ancient Culture and Traditions in Alaska

Gifting your first catch, whether a moose, a deer or berries, is a Tlingit tradition. 

“As a child, you learn that giving away the first catch is part of the respect for the animal, culture, and people, so I had my grandson go with me to pick berries,” says Naomi Michalsen. 

“When you pick little lingonberries, it’s like picking up marbles off the ground—it’s a lot of work. He picked up the small berries, and when we were done, I told him we were going to give them away to an elder. At first, he was confused and unsure; he felt like it was so much work he should get to keep the berries. When I explained the reasoning to him, he was happy with that.

“We took them to the elder’s house and placed them on the doorknob in a bag and walked away. It was a powerful lesson for my grandson.”

Michalsen, whose Tlingit name is Kaasei, lives in Ketchikan, AK, the traditional home of the Tlingit people. Food has always been an important part of Michalsen’s life, both personally and within her community. Within the Tlingit culture, the connection to food was once seen as subsistence farming and foraging. But tribe elders didn’t like the connotations of the term subsistence, feeling that it meant “less than.” 

“They felt our food was so abundant, and we had so much bounty, and it was so integral to our survival, they renamed the term ‘subsistence to a translated version meaning ‘Tlingit food is a way of life,’” says Michalsen. 

The Tlingit hunter/gatherers have inhabited the Alaska territory for thousands of years. They relied on available resources such as seafood, plants and berries for survival, nurturing and harvesting what was indigenous to the area.

Still, many Tlingit members were disconnected from the land because of physical