text: I don't mean to say that the author's feelings have no basis in reality because they do. There can be no doubt that Native Alaskans face racial discrimination in their own land just like my ancestors faced the same in Ireland. The view too many people have of Alaska Natives is a view of a people whose culture has been all but destroyed, and any people whose culture *is* destroyed are a lost people. It's helpful to remember that for millennia before Northern Europe could be populated, Native Alaskans were making a living and prospering all over Alaska.