The value of education and its importance for their future endeavors both in life and in their occupations is impressed upon their children from day one. Higher education is promoted as well. Despite all the attempts to “civilize” them, somehow they have managed to come through with most of their culture intact. Their strength, determination, and tenacity are unparalleled. However, to this day their language struggles to remain in active use. This is so important…as was stated so eloquently in the 1994 Final Report of the Alaska Natives Commission: "At the core of many problems in the Alaska Native community are unhealed psychological and spiritual wounds and unresolved grief brought on by a century-long history of deaths by epidemics and cultural and political deprivation at others' hands; some of the more tragic consequences include the erosion of Native languages in which are couched the full cultural understanding, and the erosion of cultural
The value of education and its importance for their future endeavors both in life and in their occupations is impressed upon their children from day one. Higher education is promoted as well. Despite all the attempts to “civilize” them, somehow they have managed to come through with most of their culture intact. Their strength, determination, and tenacity are unparalleled. However, to this day their language struggles to remain in active use. This is so important…as was stated so eloquently in the 1994 Final Report of the Alaska Natives Commission: "At the core of many problems in the Alaska Native community are unhealed psychological and spiritual wounds and unresolved grief brought on by a century-long history of deaths by epidemics and cultural and political deprivation at others' hands; some of the more tragic consequences include the erosion of Native languages in which are couched the full cultural understanding, and the erosion of cultural