Former ICC president Caleb Pungowiyi dies of cancer

This photo shows Caleb Pungowiyi, who led the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (now Council) from 1992 to 1995, ice fishing in Alaska. Pungowiyi died July 25 at 69. (PHOTO/ OCEANA)

Caleb Pungowiyi of Alaska, a former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, then called the Inuit Circumpolar Council, died of cancer July 25 at the age of 69.

Pungowiyi, who chaired the ICC from 1992 to 1995, and also served on its executive, grew up on the St. Lawrence Island village of Savoonga.

“I was born in 1941, and I lived there the majority of my life. Back in ‘50s we had no electricity in the village, we had no telephones, no tv, we had no runway so the mail came in from another village about 40 miles away. We lived strictly off the sea because the island had no land mammals. We lived off walruses, whales, and other food that we got from the sea,” he said in an online interview on the website of Oceana, an environmental organization he worked with as a rural liaison.

“A lot of the native organizations have a lot of reservations on working with environmental organizations that go back to some of the anti-hunting efforts made by some of the environmental groups that hurt the native community,” he said.

“Therefore they have some reluctance in terms of working with or cooperating with environmental organizations. That in itself is a challenge, but by showing them that we recognize the importance of the subsistence lifestyle of the native community, and that we are working on the issues that might harm the subsistence resources, that we are making headway with organizations that are willing to work with us, and some communities are now seeking our help in addressing some of the policy issues or development issues that may impact them.”

Pungowiyi worked with many other Alaskan native organizations. He served as president and CEO of the the Robert Aqqaluk Newlin Sr. Memorial Trust of Kotzebue and on a long list of organizations and panels, inclduing the Bering Straits Regional Commission, the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Advisory Committee, the Alaska Native Science Commission, the Polar Research Board Committee on Bering Sea Ecosystems and the Advisory Panel on Arctic Impacts from Soviet Nuclear Contamination.

Pungowiyi was also the federal Marine Mammal Commission’s special adviser on native affairs.

The NANA Regional Corp., a native-owned corporation in northwest Alaska, said in a statement that “Caleb was a humble man who worked quietly, but tirelessly, to make a positive difference in the lives of the Iñupiat. His leadership and friendship will be greatly missed in our region and in indigenous communities around the Arctic.”