Alaska's high suicide rate hits natives

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- When Robert Tokeinna was a teenager and got depressed, his mind turned to thoughts of suicide.

It is not an unfamiliar notion in Brevig Mission, an isolated Inupiat Eskimo village of around 300 people on the Bering Strait, about 75 miles from the Russian border. Several of Tokeinna's relatives committed suicide. The most recent was his uncle, who shot himself last year.

But now, at 21, Tokeinna tries traditional Eskimo dance when he gets down. And he is teaching other young people in his village to use dance to get them through the tough times too.

The state wishes it had a thousand Robert Tokeinnas.

Alaska has one of the highest suicide rates in America -- in large part because of the large number of Alaska Natives who take their lives.

Several factors are said to put Alaska Natives at risk, including the availability of guns; the gloomy isolation imposed by Alaska's pitiless climate and geography; poverty; boredom; alcohol and drug abuse; and the erosion of traditional values and culture.

Alaska had the highest suicide rate in the nation in 2000, when 135 people took their own lives. Alaska's rate that year was about twice the national average, at 21.1 suicides per 100,000 population.

Alaska dropped to sixth in 2001. Figures for 2002 have not been released.

In 2000, the suicide rate among Alaska Natives was roughly four times the national average, at 42.9 suicides per 100,000 people. For Alaska Native males, it was more than six times the national average, or 68.5 per 100,000 people.

Jeannine Sparks, a guidance counselor at Wasilla High School north of Anchorage and interim chair of a state council on preventing suicide, said every suicide, whether it was the suicide of her twin sister's husband in 1992 or the student who shot himself in 2001, affects people the same way.

"They deal with shame," Sparks said. "In villages where this has happened, there is a sense of loss and hopelessness. They need time to heal, and before they have time to heal, another one happens."

Two years ago, the state assigned a 15-member Suicide Prevention Council to develop a plan to prevent suicides. But the council's first coordinator resigned, several seats are vacant and the final plan is overdue. The task force is only now getting on track.

Also, the state health department recently got $248,000 in federal money to develop a curriculum to teach divorce attorneys, clergy and even bartenders how to recognize suicide warning signs.

And the Community Based Suicide Prevention Program -- a program around since the late 1980s -- received $845,000 this year. Fifty-seven communities will receive grants.

"I think we are pretty close to not feeling hopeless. We know what to do and now let's do it," said the council's new coordinator, Susan Soule, suicide prevention program manager in the state health department.

Tokeinna learned traditional dance mostly from videotapes because dance had died out in the village. He also attended a conference this fall on preventing suicide and is using what he learned to form a dance group for young people in his village.

"They lost their identity and their culture. They don't know who they are anymore," he said. "I went through rough times and I relied on dancing to keep me happy and healthy."

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On the Net:

www.hss.state.ak.us/suicideprevention