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Eskimos Go To Nome Not To Drink, But To Get Drunk

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By RACHEL D'ORO, The Associated Press

Published: September 9, 2007

NOME, Alaska - Villagers from far-flung Eskimo communities where alcohol is banned regularly pour into this old Gold Rush town and its many bars and liquor stores - not just to drink, but to get plastered.

Day and night, drunks can be seen staggering along Front Street, slumped against buildings, and passed out near the tourist shops or along the seawall on the Bering Sea. Police cart off the worst of them to dry out at the hospital, where the emergency room often has as many as eight drunks at a time vying for beds.

Some never make it out of Nome alive. They drink themselves to death or pass out in the below-zero cold, where they can count themselves lucky if they merely lose some fingers or a limb to frostbite. Many simply vanish, presumably swallowed by the icy waters of Norton Sound.

'The level of alcoholism is intense,' said Greg Smith, who runs the Norton Sound Health Corp.'s outpatient substance abuse program. 'The most dangerous pattern of drinking is binge drinking and it is firmly entrenched here.'

The United States has more than 500 dry communities, and it is not unusual for residents to flock to another town to do their drinking. Some of the worst binge drinking, however, is associated with a few regional hubs like Nome that draw people from Native and American Indian communities across vast expanses of countryside.

One big reason is this: Many Indian reservations and Eskimo villages are in extremely remote areas and ban not only the sale of alcohol, but possession, too. In other parts of the country, many dry communities allow alcohol possession, and a bar is usually just a short drive away.

Myth Perpetuated

Experts and activists say the heavy drinking involves only a fraction of the nation's Native population but perpetuates one of the oldest and ugliest stereotypes.

'The most common perception among the general population is the firewater myth, that Indians physically can't hold alcohol. It's just not true,' said Fred Beauvais, a researcher at Colorado State University at Fort Collins who has studied the issue for three decades. 'A lot of genetic research has been done on that and there's no evidence for a specific genetic factor for Native populations.'

Instead, experts link alcohol abuse among Natives to poverty, hopelessness, loss of culture, and perhaps habits learned generations ago from hard-drinking settlers, trappers, traders and miners.

American Indians and Alaska Natives have a 550 percent higher rate of alcohol-related deaths than nonnative Americans, a disparity blamed in part on inadequate health care.

$5.5 Million In Alcohol Sales

Nome, population 4,000, is best known as the finish line of the 1,100-mile Iditarod sled dog race and is situated in a region the size of Louisiana, with 15 mostly dry Inupiat and Yupik villages, some as much as 200 miles away.

It has six bars, four liquor stores and two private clubs that sell booze, and annual alcohol sales total $5.5 million, which is equal to more than half of the city's annual budget.

The drinking crowd swells dramatically during the Iditarod and when Alaska's oil-royalty checks - last year's windfall was about $1,100 - are distributed to nearly every man, woman and child in the state each fall. But even on the slowest nights, it's not unusual to encounter someone who has passed out.

Newman Savetilik comes to Nome to quench his thirst for whiskey. Savetilik, 50, lives in the village of Shaktoolik, 130 miles from Nome.

'When I come to Nome I got alcohol problems,' he said with eyes half-shut. 'I'm not like that in Shaktoolik.'

Some mental health experts say there will be no real progress until Nome gets an inpatient rehab center - one that incorporates Native sweat lodges, talking circles and songs and dances. Nome's only residential rehab center closed eight years ago. The nearest facility is almost 200 miles away in Kotzebue.

Meanwhile, the regional Native corporation has launched an education program for high school students to discourage drinking and restore appreciation of their culture.

'I want them to be inspired and empowered and feel their self-worth, that they can accomplish something,' said program coordinator Kirbi Fullwood.

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