Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2024 Young Providers Award and Youth Culture Bearer Award. Amanda Davison of Elim will receive the Young Providers Award in honor of the late Ida “Taiitwiq” Nakarak. BSNC descendant Jessie Outwater of Anchorage will receive the Youth Culture Bearer Award in honor of the late Aġunaat Atqaq Esther Bourdon. These awards annually recognize young people who contribute daily to the health and well-being of their families, communities and culture.
Amanda Davison enjoys a subsistence lifestyle year-round. She hunts seals, belugas, caribou, beavers, lynx and geese. Davison also enjoys fishing and gathering. Her favorite time of year is spring beluga hunting. She picks berries and gathers greens. To improve Elim’s food security, she started a community garden to provide fresh produce for the community. She shares her bounty with her family and the Elders in her community.
Davison is a gifted artist and craftsperson. Many of the animals she hunts provide the materials for her sewing, including mukluks, mittens, hats, parkas, kuspuks, and bags. In addition to her sewing, she is also a talented painter. Her artwork often portrays the landscape of Elim and the people of her village, incorporating the flora and fauna of the Bering Strait region.
In 2022, Davison was invited to speak at the Inuit Art Society’s conference in Canada, where she discussed her paintings and how she represents Alaska Native culture in her art. She has sold her paintings at Nome’s annual Iditarod Craft Show and the Nome Berry Festival.
Davison will be recognized in honor of BSNC shareholder Ida “Taiitwiq” Nakarak. Taiitwiq was born on November 7, 1928, to Carl and Agnes Takak in Shaktoolik, Alaska. She attended grade school and furthered her education by attending Unalakleet Bible School. Taiitwiq worked as an election judge for many years. Subsistence was a way of life for her, and she would go on squirrel-hunting trips with her mom and muskrat-trapping with both her parents. She taught her children the subsistence way of life and to enjoy our Native food. Season to season, she picked greens, berries, and fished. She loved camping. As an Elder, she loved receiving her Native food.
BSNC descendant Jessie Outwater embodies her Native culture. She has learned Native dance and taught herself how to skin sew and sew mukluks and learned to crimp the soles. She actively passes her knowledge on to the youth, teaching them to bead and craft.
Outwater embodies the Native value of honoring Elders by caring for her grandmother. She fishes to provide fish for her grandmother. In addition, she takes her to her medical appointments and shops and assists in other ways.
Outwater will be recognized in honor of Aġunaat Atqaq Esther Bourdon. Aġunaat Atqaq was born on April 12, 1929, in the Tupqabruk (Teller), raised in Kifigan (Wales). Aġunaat Atqaq was the daughter of Kimasuk (Josephine) and Kauwailak (Michael) Koweluk. She lived a robust, traditional life in Kifigan before moving to Siqnasuak (Nome) in the early 1950s. She embraced the subsistence lifestyle. Hunting, gathering, and Native food preparation and preservation were important focal points and essences of her life. Aġunaat Atqaq enjoyed sharing her rich Inupiaq language and culture, often recounting tales of hunting, fishing and gathering from Wales, Mary’s Igloo and the Nome area. She enjoyed sewing parkas, ubijhaat (kuspuks), sealskin slippers, mukluks, knitting gloves and socks, beading and embroidery. She won multiple awards for her kuspuk sewing skills. She received the Alaska Federation of Native’s Cultural Bearer Award, and in 2019, the Alaska State Legislature recognized her with a heart-felt proclamation on her 90th birthday.