Crude Conversations

2021 Recap: EP 088 King of the Hill Part 3 with Dan Coffey, one of the youngest competitors

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 4 on the list is with Dan Coffey, one of the youngest competitors at King of the Hill. Coffey’s experience and recollection of King of the Hill is unique, in that he was just a teenager when he went. He was a senior in high school when he first competed in the event. He says it was surreal, he was up there in the Chugach Mountains, competing with and riding the same lines as many of the snowboarders he looked up to. So, for him, the abundance of drugs and alcohol weren’t as front-and-center as they were for others. Sure, he participated in the festivities, but he rarely overindulged. He was there to snowboard.
Coffey says that there was a sense of camaraderie and community at King of the Hill. That it was such an undertaking it took the whole town to do the event, so everybody had to be part of it. But between alcohol, illicit substances and young bravado, there was a lot of room for error. A number of times in this conversation, he makes a point of mentioning that nobody was ever seriously injured. Which, I think, could be a testament to skill and preparation or it could be a testament to luck. In a separate conversation we had—when talking about the equalizing quality of the Chugach Mountains—Coffey told me, “Those mountains will bring the skiers and snowboarders with the biggest egos down to earth.”

2021 Recap: EP 087 The past, present and future of snowboard media with Brooke Geery

This week, Crude will be revisiting the top 5 most popular episodes of 2021. Number 5 on the list is with Brooke Geery. In 1997, Brooke started an online snowboard publication called YoBeat. It began on an AOL message board with 2 megabytes of free space and grew into an internationally recognized website. She says that it was a satirical site that gave a voice to people who snowboarded rather than a mouthpiece for the industry. Brooke and the content YoBeat hosted were children of the Internet, conveying unfiltered opinions and candid ideas. Many of which garnered love and hate in the comment sections that often drew just as much attention as the articles. And this all started back when there were only a few online snowboard publications.
Brooke says that YoBeat needed to die so that she could run a more mature snowboard publication. She was 15 years old when she started the site, and that voice persisted throughout the lifespan of the publication. Now, with her new online publication, Blower Media, a more mature Brooke is re-entering the conversation surrounding the culture of snowboarding during a time when so many legacy publications have died out. There are only a few people left in the industry with the same knowledge and first-hand experience as Brooke. So, her perspective on the past, present and future of snowboard media is one to listen to.
This is the first episode in an ongoing series between Crude and Blower Media—where I’ll be talking with influential women in snowboarding—I talk to Brooke Geery, a longtime snowboard journalist and publisher of snowboard media. 

Chatter Marks EP 028 Teen Climate Communicators on talking about climate change

The Teen Climate Communicators program is hosted by the Anchorage Museum and offers activities and conversations around the past, present and future relationships between people and the land. Those involved, learn about how climate change is affecting Alaska’s diverse landscapes by hearing from Museum and community experts. Climate change is an ongoing conversation—one that is constantly evolving. So, to talk about it responsibly and thoughtfully, requires an ongoing education. That includes citing credible sources and learning about new ways to convey the effects of climate change. 
In the following conversation, Cody is joined by four Teen Climate Communicators. Sofie Chisholm, Eleanor Poe, Emma Ellison and Emma Haas.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."

EP 100 Writing about a life spent living off the land with Seth Kantner

In this episode, Cody talks to Alaskan author Seth Kantner. Seth was born and raised in Alaska, among the animals and the wilderness, and his writing reflects that. It draws from personal experience, often dealing with themes that involve animals, the environment and living off the land. He says that when he was a kid, his family was entirely attached to the seasons and food from the land. Both decided what they would do every day, be it hunting, fishing, picking berries or chopping wood. Seth continues to live this way of life. In the winter, he hunts for caribou and chops wood for the fire that heats his cabin, and in the summer he works as a commercial fisherman. Writing, he says, is what he does after he’s done working for the day.
 
Seth says that he’s meticulous with his writing, that keeping the messiness and the irreverence and the beauty all mixed together is important to expressing an authentic image of remote Alaska. One that shows the reality of living in harsh, inhospitable environments, not just the beauty of things like the Northern Lights and flawless wilderness. Having grown up on the land, and remaining so close to it today, he’s watched how much everything has changed as a result of human encroachment and climate change. His writing details these observations and what it’s like to have, as he says, modernity bumping up against his life.
 
Photo by Kiliii Yuyan

EP 099 The reality of doing stand-up comedy in Alaska

In this episode, Cody talks with three Alaskan comedians: Matt Collins, Kass Smiley and Dayman Wright. Dayman is still pretty fresh, with three years in the Alaska stand-up scene, while Matt and Kass have been doing it for over a decade. Doing anything for that long, you gain knowledge and experience. Like knowing that comedy in Alaska—and live entertainment in general—mimics the city’s economy. It ebbs and flows based on the community’s ability and willingness to spend money. Kass says that the first thing to be neglected during an economic downturn is live entertainment, and because of the Covid-19 pandemic, shutdowns and hesitancy about attending live events deepened. It’s starting to bounce back though, with more people attending shows. But that’s just one piece of doing comedy in Alaska, it says nothing of the long hours of joke writing and the process of joke-telling.
With help from Kass and Daymen, Matt is about to release a documentary about comedy in Alaska. It’s called “Why Not: A Year in the Life of The AK Comics” and in it Alaskan comedians talk about their hopes, struggles and their lives within a small, but intimate scene. One that’s easy to enter, but difficult to rise to fame because there are fewer opportunities in Alaska than in other places with an infrastructure that supports comedy. So, you have to create your own opportunities, and many times that means promoting yourself, filling the audience with friends and family or even creating a comedy festival, like Kass did with the Alaska B4UDie Comedy Fest. Matt says that Alaska has big city problems with small town attitudes, but that in a small town you can build your own thing. And that’s what they’ve done with comedy in Alaska.

Chatter Marks EP 027 How mapping affects our perspective and understanding of land and our place in the world

Joining this conversation are artists Stuart Hyatt, Dan Mills and Christina Seely. Stuart uses sound to understand our relationship with the natural world. Dan uses maps in paintings and collages as a way to explore ideas of historic and current events, including issues like colonialism. Christina uses photography to address the complexities of both built and natural global systems. All of their work—Stuart, Dan and Christina—is featured in the Anchorage Museum’s exhibition “Counter Cartographies: Living the Land,” which challenges our traditional understanding of what a map is.
Often, maps are viewed as objective and above reproach, but maps—just like any piece of art—come with the bias of their makers. They can be made with the intent of acquiring land and resources, as has historically been the case. So, it’s important to consider how they affect our perspective and understanding of land and our place in the world. It’s also important to consider ways we can re-imagine the traditional idea of mapping because an image can’t always document or express the reality of a place.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."
Artwork by Dan Mills

Chatter Marks EP 026 How Alaska is contributing to the global conversation surrounding climate change with Brian Brettschneider

Brian Brettschneider is a climatologist and a research scientist. He collects data and analyzes it. And within that mountain of data, he believes many of the secrets of the world exist. But extracting meaning from all that information is a big challenge. It takes time, education and technology. 
With its many research institutions located in arctic environments—including universities and weather stations—Alaska is important in the global conversation surrounding climate change. Brian says that, in a lot of ways, the state is a research laboratory with a collection of intellectual firepower located in close proximity to locations that are experiencing quick and dramatic changes. Changes that affect our ways of life, societal infrastructure, transportation and cultural identity.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."

EP 098 Veterinary medicine in the wild with Dr. Michelle Oakley

In this one, I talk to veterinarian Dr. Michelle Oakley, who stars in the National Geographic reality television show “Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet.” The show follows her and her family around as they administer veterinary care to domestic and wild animals. Many of Dr. Oakley’s most memorable moments have involved her family. From close encounters with a massive Kodiak brown bear to a rotting rumen in a reindeer, close calls, gross-outs and heartfelt moments are typical when you surround yourself with the ones you love in a place that’s constantly challenging you.
Dr. Oakley says that when she’s working, she has to adapt veterinary medicine so that it can be applied in the field in Alaska. And, oftentimes, that means being a jack-of-all-trades. When she’s outside of a sterile clinic, in remote areas and it’s 20 below and her hands are freezing, she’s just trying to give the best care possible with the tools and the medicine she has. In some cases it might not look great, but she’s doing the best she can.
Dr. Oakley’s daughter Maya also joins the conversation. Maya was 14 when they started filming “Dr. Oakley, Yukon Vet,” so she’s been there through all of the change and growth of the show.

Chatter Marks EP 25 The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act shapes Alaska’s past and future with Aaron Leggett

In this episode of Chatter Marks, Aaron Leggett explains the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA. ANCSA was established on December 18, 1971, and is a landmark policy for many reasons. As a result of the act, Alaska Natives retained 44 million acres of land and about 1 billion dollars to settle Indigenous land claims in Alaska. It also divided the state into 12 regional corporations and almost 200 village corporations that split the money and the land. Before ANCSA, ​the traditional way the United States ​had negotiated land settlements and compensation with Native tribes ​was in the form of reservations ​and treaties​. ANCSA changed the fundamental existence of Alaska as a state as well as the way we think about ​Indigenous land settlements, and this December marks its 50th Anniversary. 
Aaron is the president of the Native Village of Eklutna and the Anchorage Museum’s ​Senior Curator. He’s a shareholder in Cook Inlet Region, Incorporated, or CIRI, one of the​ regional Alaska Native corporations set up by ANCSA​. ​He’s also a shareholder and has served on the board of Eklutna, Inc., one of the village corporations set up by ANCSA.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."

Chatter Marks EP 024 What food tells us about love, identity and culture with Julia O’Malley

Journalism has been part of Julia O’Malley’s life since elementary school, where she remembers carrying around a notebook to keep track of what her classmates were doing. Then, in high school, she wrote for her school newspaper. But her love for cooking goes back even further. In fact, one of her first memories is of being 2 or 3 years old and mixing blueberries and milk in her toy kitchen.
The dinner table was a sacred place in Julia’s household. Sitting down and sharing a meal was important and everyone had a role, be it cooking the meal, setting the table or clearing the table. That affection for food also extended outside of home cooked meals. Growing up in Anchorage in the 1980s, there wasn’t a big variety of restaurants and what was cooked in homes. Ingredients were scarce then. So, when they were available, new meals were an experience that Julia cherished. When she thinks about food today, she says that it’s more than just sustenance, it expresses love, culture, care, identity and nostalgia.
Chatter Marks is a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, and is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Podcasts. Just search "Chatter Marks."